Okay, you've tried it but you just can't abide Ubuntu's Unity interface. Not a problem, this is Linux. You can change practically everything!

But before you ditch it completely, you might be interested in an addition that allows you to make some quite extensive changes to the interface. It's called MyUnity and can be installed with the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:myunity/ppa sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install myunity

Run it from Dash and it will allow you to;

• resize the Unity Launcher
• show devices on the Unity Launcher
• adjust the transparency of the Unity Launcher
• change behavior of the Unity Launcher
• change the display method of the Unity Launcher
• change the Backlight settings of the Unity Launcher
• change the Unity Dash blur
• adjust the transparency of the Unity Panel
• show "Home" folder on the desktop
• show "Networking" folder on the desktop
• show devices on the desktop
• show "Trash" folder on the desktop
• change the system font
• change the document font
• change the Monospace font
• change font's antialiasing settings
• change font's hinting settings
• reset all settings to default

Still hate Unity? Okay, let's move on.

Technically, Unity is known as a window manager, which is simply a system for placing and arranging windows on a graphical interface. You can add a number of window managers to Ubuntu, and they'll all happily co-exist side-by-side. All you'll need is a bit of disk space and broadband connection.

To install Ububtu's former interface -- Gnome -- just type the following command:

sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

It'll download around 40MB of data.

To use it, click the gear in the top right-hand corner and choose Log Out.



Then simply log back in again, but before you do so, click the gear on the login panel and choose "Gnome Classic".



Done. A whole new inteface to explore!



When you reboot, Linux will remember whatever window manager you selected last and treat it as the default so there's no need to repeat the above if you log out and log back in again.

It's technically possible to install other Ubuntu-based window managers such as Lubuntu or Kubuntu in the same way, simply doing sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop or sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop, but this is not something I'd recommend if you're just starting out with Linux. Not only do they each require downloading an extra 300-400MB of applications and data, but they should really be run from different display managers too -- which can all get a bit confusing. Let's stick with what we've got for now!