Change Unity (?) desktop environment to older Gnome?

[mahesh]

Hi Forum Folks,

I tried Ubuntu quite some time ago and liked it a great deal, but I was heavily into gaming at the time and I couldn't play many of my then-favorite games, so I went back to Windows. Two "upgrade" iterations of Windows later, I've finally had enough of Microsoft's nonsense, and switched to Linux ONLY.

The other reason I dropped Ubuntu was the switch to the "Unity" (?) desktop... I absolutely hated it... and I still do. I felt I didn't really give it a fair trial when I first ran into it, but I determined to give a fair trial this time.

Nope... can't do it. I dislike it intensely, and I'm wondering if there's any way to "roll back" to the older desktop paradigm, GNOME I believe? I've been using the old 'standard' layout for far too long to adapt to something as radically different as what's currently in use here.

I'd *rather* run Ubuntu, since it's the "parent" OS that all the variants derive from, and it has Canonical behind it. Plus, it's already installed and loaded with my files from Windows. I'd rather just change environments than do a total re-install again, if that's possible.

If it isn't, which distro would you recommend as most like the traditional way of managing a desktop... I guess "Windows-like" is what I'm trying to say without actually having to say it!

Thanks for your suggestions!