I end up with the default Gnome desktop every time I install a new Fedora Linux instance. Sometimes I even use it for a while. It looks pretty, and performanc

I end up with the default Gnome desktop every time I install a new Fedora Linux instance. Sometimes I even use it for a while. It looks pretty, and performance issues seem to be a thing of the past, even on 10 year old machines. But given time, on a machine I really plan to use, I switch to Mate. The older desktop paradigm is just more efficient. You can put frequently used apps right on your toolbar and launch them with one mouse movement and one click. Icons cluttering your desktop can get out of hand, but they are practical. And minimize/unminimize, while no longer cool, is just about as practical as the "reveal" cloud of miniaturized thumbnail windows even if sometimes you end up opening the wrong one briefly. On Gnome, even if I have an app pinned to the launcher, I have to mouse to the top left corner, click, mouse to the dock, click. That's twice the work of launching something pinned to the toolbar in Mate (though there's probabably a keybinding for the first part). Linux on the desktop has arrived, despite all the articles saying it never will. It is the easiest OS for my mom these days, because Mate works the way she's used to desktop environments working.