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(Important for readers and AskUbuntu editors: I know my 12.04 has reached its EOL, but I'm asking for an upgrade, so please do not set my question as off-topic.)

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS Precise Pangolin as dual-boot with Windows 7. I know that my installation has reached its End Of Life and I was wondering if I could upgrade from 12.04.5 LTS to 14.04.5 LTS, but with some modifications. My graphics card is not fully supported for the Unity 3D Interface, so I was wondering if I could upgrade to Trusty Tahr, remove Unity somehow and add GNOME (3.x or 2.x, whatever it installs) and use it as my main desktop environment. I have also tried GNOME 3 (using a Debian 8 live DVD) and my PC can handle that. With GNOME 2 (Classic/Fallback Session), no problems at all.

So, can I do so? Can I upgrade to 14.04 and use GNOME as my main desktop environment?

My computer specifications:

Dell Optiplex GX270 SFF (Small-Form-Factor)

  • Operating Systems: Windows 7 & Ubutnu 12.04.5 LTS Precise Pangolin
  • Partitioning: Windows 7 (/dev/sda2, NTFS, 5.80/40.80 GB free) dev/sda3 -> Extended Partition (Ubuntu + Swap) Ubuntu (/dev/sda5, ext4, 5.02/14.00 GB free) Swap Partition (/dev/sda6, linux-swap, 1020.00 MB)
  • Motherboard: Dell Corp. 0YF936
  • RAM: 1024 MB (1GB)
  • CPU: Intel Corporation Pentium 4 @ 2.40 GHz
  • Graphics Card: Intel HD Graphics 82865G, 1280x1024
  • Hard Disk: Western Digital WD600BB-00CA

Thanks in advance,

Bajiru

na-no.
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2 Answers2

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I installed 14.04 and it's working fine (with GNOME Flashback)

I deleted my previous 12.04.5 LTS installation (because upgrading is as slow as hxxl and I backed up my files), I installed 14.04.5 LTS this morning, logged in, installed GNOME, and it was working! I am using now GNOME Flashback (Metacity) because the others are slow (GNOME 3 Normal is the slowest of all GNOME desktop environments on my PC, Unity is the slowest of all) and I am OK. I found the answer to my own question!

Bajiru

(P.S.: Sorry for the h- word above)

na-no.
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  • The "h word" is not a swear word, there is no need to censor it. It is just a name for an imaginary location mentioned in the books of some religions. – Andrea Lazzarotto Jun 14 '17 at 17:43
  • @AndreaLazzarotto I know that this word is the name of Satan's "home", but I thought it was a swear word, so that's why I censored it. :) – na-no. Jun 14 '17 at 17:46
  • Yeah it's all good. :) I was just letting you know that you need not worry about it. Thanks for caring about the language used here, it helps to keep the quality high. – Andrea Lazzarotto Jun 14 '17 at 21:09
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I don't understand why you can't just upgrade to 16.04.

I'm running 16.04 on an older machine with Xfce desktop (which I highly recommend, but that's beside the point). The xwindoing environment really doesn't have much to do with the actual system, meaning you can purge or install it like a program. Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get into a tty session (you want to be out of Unity) and run the following: 

sudo apt-get purge unity-desktop

Once it finishes:

sudo apt-get install gnome-desktop

Then restart:

sudo reboot

Now you may not be able to install gnome before you upgrade, so I would upgrade first:

sudo do-release-upgrade

And then once the machine boots into 16.04, enter the tty session when you get the login prompt and run those commands.

Zanna
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Nikolai Van Kley
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  • I cannot upgrade to newer versions from 14.04 because my system even freezes sometimes when I'm running Windows 7 and it takes more than 4 minutes sometimes to recover (especially with Internet Explorer). I'm also afraid of my system hanging up with distributions newer than 14.04. – na-no. Jun 02 '17 at 17:03
  • You can also use Ctrl+K to format your text as code. – na-no. Jun 02 '17 at 17:03