I’ve dabbled with Linux over the years, first with Ubuntu in the early 2010s, then Elementary OS when that dropped, and a few years ago I really enjoyed how customizable the gui was with Xubuntu. I was able to make it look just like WIndows 2000 which was really cool.
Which current distro has the best GUI, in your opinion? I find modern Ubuntu to feel a little basic and cheap. I guess I don’t really like modern Gnome. I’m currently using Windows 10 LTSC which is probably the best possible version of Windows, but I’d jump to linux if I could find a distro with a gui that feels at least as polished and feature rich as Windows 10 LTSC.
This is subjective. For me, anything with Mate as desktop environment. Currently using Ubuntu with it.
I’m a conservative user. I don’t really care about whistles and bells, nor appeal to novelty. I want something that works and that I’m used to.
Is mate being ported to Wayland? I will die on the hill that gnome 2 was peak gnome.
Initial Wayland support started around 2021. I’m not sure on its current state as I’m still using X, but it’s worth trying.
That is great. After some unpleasantness with Ubuntu, I ended up switching my dad to Mint + KDE because of multimonitor support in wayland. Unfortunately, KDE + mint has been a bit janky. Now that mate has been ported, I’ll ask him to try that.
MATE is my pick. It’s got all the modern features with a relatively simple baseline that is easy to customize, that also come with several presets.
Two or more start menus? You got it. A Plank dock plus taskbars filled with shortcuts and info covering every other edge of the desktop? Hell yeah! A simple Windows, macOS, or old Ubuntu like interface. Yep. Hide it all away leaving a minimalist and clean space to work? Sure can do!
Plus it feels to me more feature rich than even GNOME 3.x (where x≤14; I stopped bothering with its releases later on, so I’m not sure on its current state). And it’s easier to get it pretty than Xfce IMO.