So, following on from my previous post where I wanted a flexible GUI Linux install, I installed Ubuntu 12 LTS.<p>Coming from Windows 7 I am both impressed and slightly disappointed...but Linux and especially Ubuntu seems to have grown and matured alot since I last toyed with it.<p>I love the option to encrypt your home folder without having to install TrueCrypt! But I hate that I cannot press backspace to go back a page in Firefox, or even run 2 seperate instances of Firefox (with multiple tabs).<p>I hate that the stupid toolbar on the left actually sits on the left, and is so wide I have to auto hide it (used to this) but what I am not quite used to is having to drag my cursor straight off the screen to get it to show up.<p>I love how everything you need is up in the top right, and I love how everything worked straight off the bat...even Bluetooth works!<p>Ubuntu seems very quick indeed, which I also love but it will be interesting to see how it performs over time.
> But I hate that I cannot press backspace to go back a page in Firefox<p>A bit of google'fu would have turned up plenty of these: "Make Backspace Go Back in Firefox for Linux": <a href="http://www.explodingpenguin.tv/2011/05/24/make-backspace-go-back-in-firefox-for-linux/" rel="nofollow">http://www.explodingpenguin.tv/2011/05/24/make-backspace-go-...</a><p>> or even run 2 seperate [sic] instances of Firefox (with multiple tabs)<p>What do you consider to be "2 separate instances"? Is hitting ctrl+n (or picking File->New Window) not what you mean?
Most of your issues seem to be about Unity. I don't like it either. You should try KDE. It comes built into Kubuntu if you'd like to run it live before you commit. If you like the feel of older Ubuntu, I would recommend xfce, which is what I use. It has come a long way and seem to be what Gnome would be had it not made such a huge shift with Gnome 3. I think it comes built into Xubuntu but I just install it on whatever Linux I am running at the time.
as others have pointed out, seems like a lot of unity issues, a "hot topic" new switch in the ubuntu world that has a lot of ditractors. But because its linux you can pretty much install whatever want on top, KDE or gnome and switch your GUI. Also about the shortcuts, an alternative is alt + left-arrow-key (which I like cause my hands always around the alt/ctrl keys - maybe its an emacs guy thing) see here for a complete list of firefox shortcuts (<a href="http://www.mouserunner.com/FF_Shortcuts1Printable.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.mouserunner.com/FF_Shortcuts1Printable.html</a>)<p>for firfox, if you wanted to have multiple instances, which I'm interpreting as multiple firefox processes running, just start it from different terminals.
Hmm, I found the default Ubuntu interface somewhat lacking. Out of curiosity, I tried KUbuntu (12.04 LTS), and it seems to be just what I was looking for (flexible, highly configurable GUI interface; very stable and performant).