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The most productive environment I've ever used is Gnome 2 using Compiz. It was incredibly easy to flip between windows. Compiz has since been abandoned and only

The most productive environment I've ever used is Gnome 2 using Compiz. It was incredibly easy to flip between windows. Compiz has since been abandoned and only the most die-hard fans try to fudge it into working on modern systems. I gave up after Debian Squeeze and just started using tmux instead. I felt that Linux was losing it's way after that. Eventually I stumbled across Cinnamon (and/or Mate) with hotcorners and tmux. It doesn't have the previous configurability but it's still pretty good. The reason people held onto XP for so long was that it just worked well and it was consistent. Many of the Linux GUI people should take that to heart. Instead they always seem to try to be in catchup or trying to surpass Windows. Gnome 3 and KDE 3+ have been so very unwieldy, resource hungry, or lacking in features. They've been the Windows 8 equivalent of the Linux desktop. Even to this day, most people don't like the Metro style interface (unless they are playing with it on a phone). I'm blown away by how difficult it is becoming to use Windows. I will go into the Metro style settings and see that a configuration option is not present and then have to go into the good ol' control panel. Or vice versa. I'm getting increasingly drawn towards using Powershell by default so I don't have to backtrack. Windows has been trying to force new "UI paradigms" to sell more copies of Windows. Linux should realize it doesn't need to adopt the new and flashy... unless it really is an improvement.

kefka 12y ago
Peculiar. I'm running Compiz on a 14.04 XUbuntu setup. It was a bit weird to set up, but after changing the window manager, I was able to get up Compiz running with most of the bells and whistles. I did notice the 3d windows does make some horrid tearing artifacts on rotate. Turning that off; it gives me the nice 8 desktops I'm used to. (Have Thinkpad T61, bound rotate cube keys as above the arrow keys)
brusch64 12y ago
I think KDE is as XP-y as it gets. No big frill, but you can configure nearly everything you wish. Ever tried KDE ?
- Zardoz84 12y ago
  The only problem of KDE is the default configuration. Every time that I install it on an machine, must hurry to change mouse to double click. Everything else is enough good to use it without changing/tweaking it.
marcosdumay 12y ago
If by "abandoned" you mean "adopted to most DEs and inserted at their core code", then yes, it was. The less used visual effects were striped from it in the process, but you can still install them.

kefka 12y ago

Peculiar. I'm running Compiz on a 14.04 XUbuntu setup. It was a bit weird to set up, but after changing the window manager, I was able to get up Compiz running with most of the bells and whistles. I did notice the 3d windows does make some horrid tearing artifacts on rotate. Turning that off; it gives me the nice 8 desktops I'm used to. (Have Thinkpad T61, bound rotate cube keys as above the arrow keys)

brusch64 12y ago

I think KDE is as XP-y as it gets. No big frill, but you can configure nearly everything you wish. Ever tried KDE ?

Zardoz84 12y ago
The only problem of KDE is the default configuration. Every time that I install it on an machine, must hurry to change mouse to double click. Everything else is enough good to use it without changing/tweaking it.

marcosdumay 12y ago

If by "abandoned" you mean "adopted to most DEs and inserted at their core code", then yes, it was. The less used visual effects were striped from it in the process, but you can still install them.