Thunderbird into your user directory and just install them from there without going through Ubuntu. The only downside with all of this is you'll not be getting the Ubuntu security updates, etc., etc. I'm giving Mint 13 a try, the Cinnamon one.

I gave cinnamon with ubuntu 12.04 a try but I didn't like it either so I went back to 10.04. I'm surprised at how fast 10.04 boots. I remember when they were building it they were trying to get a 20 second boot time and I'm not sure but if it doesn't boot in 20 seconds its not much longer than that.

I'm hoping that the powers to be will pull their collective heads out of their behinds concerning Unity sometime in the near future.

My neighbor has mint with Cinnamon and he loves it but for some reason it doesn't seem to work as fluid with Ubuntu as it does with mint. If Mint would get rid of that gawd awful green theme for the icons and such I'd switch to mint and be happy with it but I can't warm up to the green they use. Green is my favorite color but not the green they use.
I'm mighty picky for someone who is using a freebie, eh

Between you and I I think I can live without the security updates for a while when 10.04 is no longer supported. At least long enough to hope that they give us an option between unity and gnome3. Mate shows some real promise but its not quite ready for the big time yet, still work to be done on it.

my system now so it's hard for me to tell I'm not running Ubuntu 10.04. It also has the long-term support, I think until 2016??? Now with release 13 it seems you can change those green icons. I left them, they seem to be growing on me! I also figured out how to get the up/down arrows back on the scroll bar for Firefox and Thunderbird.

I have some parts on order for the main system here then next week I'm switching over to cinnamon 13 permanently (I think).

Anyway, just wanted to give you a progress report on how it's going here so far!

Last edited Wed Aug 29, 2012, 09:16 PM - Edit history (1)

When I was playing with Mate on Ubuntu 12.04 I had it looking like 10.04 pretty much but there were some issues, can't remember exactly what at the moment but anyway thanks for the progress report. For the most part I've liked the default programs that come with Mint better than Ubuntu so when they let me change the icon colors I'll probably be a Mint user. Is this release 13 you're referring to Mint or Cinnamon?
Yesterday and last night I downloaded Xubuntu and Kubuntu and I really liked Xubuntu as I could see with some work I could get it looking like my fav, Gnome2. Kubuntu not so much.
kinda' off topic but I'm amazed at the toughness of this 11 year old computer as I've removed and installed Operating Systems at least a couple hundred times, many times back when I was still using XP and using Nlite to change it, then when RoyBGiv got me interested in Linux I've had so many different installs and configurations that I can't count and it just keeps on coming back for more. I think a lot of it is due to the ease with which Linux installs that has contributed to that plus technical advances made in hardware. I remember my first computer back in '89 when the biggest hard drive I could get was a big format 20 mb and I went through a couple of them as they were sensitive to say the least, had to park the read/write heads before shutdown etc it you wanted to protect the disc and heads. Comparing to the days of DOS 3.1 and giant floppy drives, what a world of difference 23 years has made.

As I trek off to the store this morning I think I'll download Ubuntu 12.04.1 and see how Mate and Cinnamon works with it

I love Linux and can't imagine ever going back to a windows machine for any reason. I truly believe that having a computer has helped me to maintain my sanity all these years.
Peace

Where is Roy now? I sure miss him.

and she chose 11.10 immediately. She isn't a sophisticated user and just wants to browse, email and skype with friends. She loved Unity because the icons for Firefox and Skype were big and easily available. I had tried 11.10 a while back, but went back to 10.04.

Maybe people like my partner are the target market for Unity?

I wish the ubuntu team would give those of us an option rather than try to ram this unity down our throats.
Either way I'm happy I went back to 10.04 as it is lightning fast as compared to the newest ubuntu. 23 seconds from when I hit the on button and I'm up ready to go, 23 seconds thats pretty fast and that quickness is apparent with the other programs when I open them as well.
At any rate I'm sticking with my 10.04 until ubuntu does wake up to the fact there is some of us who don't like the unity interface.

I'm hoping that you've made a new convert to Linux with your partner.

Started with 9.04 too.

haven't tried mate though. awhile back i switched to mint debian with xfce4 and loved the spartan rolling distro and lightweight desktop so much i tried installing arch with xfce4.

i haven't gone back. theres just something about the arch way that feels so right once you get used to it. i love me some deb-based distros dont get me wrong but just try arch linux or archbang one time and feel the thrill of making it your own piece by piece and suddenly linux seems like a different beast altogether. the 'distributions' are mere illusion. linux is linux.

Welcome to DU Phillip
Peace

the incredibly detailed and always up-to-date arch wiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/ is an invaluable resource and not just for arch linux users. its up there with the debian and gentoo wikis as exceptionally useful resources for noobs and gurus alike

on edit: thanks for the welcome!