Cool. I also started with Gentoo, then used Win for half a decade but turned back to Linux by using Ubuntu, the Unity desktop environment. Eventually, I am a KD

Cool. I also started with Gentoo, then used Win for half a decade but turned back to Linux by using Ubuntu, the Unity desktop environment. Eventually, I am a KDE guy, but GNOME3 is surprisingly hackable with CSS and JavaScript, IIRC. I don't like tiling window managers, but if you seek for minimalism and geekyness, you should try i3m and friends. In any way, I also had a powerful X1 for three years and it's a breeze. It is so fast that even big (don't want to say bloat...) software such as KDE starts quickly.