Bill Hn <[log in to unmask]> writes:

> My question is : what desktop actually IS good now-a-days ?

this is, of course, very subjective.  

I've used Gnome 2 with Sawfish since forever but took a few months to
switch to Gnome 3, first with Gnome Shell and then with Unity.  I
learned to appreciate things about both, especially on fast hardware,
but eventually, as the luster wore off, the little things they lacked or
were done dumbly became big things.  In particular, having to redo all
the little setup details manually in each of my accounts, having
different "tweak" tools fight over resetting my key bindings or mouse
settings, having the damn Unity HUD get in my face once to many times,
get sea sick from the workspace switching animations and most of all
lacking the deep and wide programmatic configuration control I want.

So, now I'm back with the old shoes using MATE + Sawfish.  That comfort
of familiarity is hard to displace.

Objectively, I think it's safe to say if you liked Gnome 2 you'll like
MATE.

-Brett.