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Linux Mint has my vote for your first distro. It's got a sane Desktop Environment, lots of packages, and plenty of forum posts related to it. And, (huge bonus here), the devs don't seem to be actively trying to screw people over (I'm looking at YOU, Ubuntu and GNOME).

You mentioned you were interested in hard work and challenges and all that good stuff. You could give the Linux Mint Debian Edition a shot. It was updated just a few days ago, I think. But I wouldn't recommend it. I'd say go for the Linux Mint 14 edition. The Debian people on here might not like me saying it, but there's a reason Ubuntu was very successful.

LMDE
Based on Debian Testing, so rolling release (once installed, never strictly have to reinstall)
However, be prepared for things to break. It's not as user friendly as the Ubuntu-based versions.

Mint 14
Not rolling release, so you will have to upgrade someday. I don't think this is such a big deal, since I broke most of my early installs messing with stuff. In other words, they didn't last long enough for me to upgrade. But that's because I didn't know what I was doing at the time. It was a learning experience ;)

I'd also recommend you download the Cinnamon version. Cinnamon is a pretty nifty DE that takes GNOME 3 and actually makes it usable. MATE is pretty much GNOME 2, but I don't think it's going to be around for too long, so you might as well get used to the new stuff.

Once you've got the basics down though, I strongly recommend Arch or Slackware. Slack is what I run, since it's so stable. Arch is a great distro to tinker with and try new things on, though. Maybe once you've got Mint 14 installed, fire up a virtual machine and play around with the 'harder' distros. In my experience, Arch is a lot of fun, but Slackware has easily been the most educational.

And now, a parting joke that will get me fussed at. You could try Debian, too. You can pick which repo branch you'd like to use with it: Stable, Testing, or Unstable. So, as I see it, Debian has two choices: Ancient or Broken.

Linux Mint has my vote for your first distro. It's got a sane Desktop Environment, lots of packages, and plenty of forum posts related to it. And, (huge bonus here), the devs don't seem to be actively trying to screw people over (I'm looking at YOU, Ubuntu and GNOME).

You mentioned you were interested in hard work and challenges and all that good stuff. You could give the Linux Mint Debian Edition a shot. It was updated just a few days ago, I think. But I wouldn't recommend it. I'd say go for the Linux Mint 14 edition. The Debian people on here might not like me saying it, but there's a reason Ubuntu was very successful.

LMDE
Based on Debian Testing, so rolling release (once installed, never strictly have to reinstall)
However, be prepared for things to break. It's not as user friendly as the Ubuntu-based versions.

Mint 14
Not rolling release, so you will have to upgrade someday. I don't think this is such a big deal, since I broke most of my early installs messing with stuff. In other words, they didn't last long enough for me to upgrade. But that's because I didn't know what I was doing at the time. It was a learning experience ;)

I'd also recommend you download the Cinnamon version. Cinnamon is a pretty nifty DE that takes GNOME 3 and actually makes it usable. MATE is pretty much GNOME 2, but I don't think it's going to be around for too long, so you might as well get used to the new stuff.

Once you've got the basics down though, I strongly recommend Arch or Slackware. Slack is what I run, since it's so stable. Arch is a great distro to tinker with and try new things on, though. Maybe once you've got Mint 14 installed, fire up a virtual machine and play around with the 'harder' distros. In my experience, Arch is a lot of fun, but Slackware has easily been the most educational.

And now, a parting joke that will get me fussed at. You could try Debian, too. You can pick which repo branch you'd like to use with it: Stable, Testing, or Unstable. So, as I see it, Debian has two choices: Ancient or Broken.

SuSE has the best installation and configuration utility

Not to be a dick, but SuSE is the last distro any Linux enthusiast should be suggesting. Their microsoft pact f#cked the rest of the community[0]

Everyone who was using Ubuntu switched to Linux Mint[1] after Shuttleworth decided Amazon needed to know what you do online.

[0] - http://arstechnica.com/business/2006/11/8141/
[1] - http://linuxmint.com/

For most Debian derivatives, that's the case. But for Linux Mint, the recommended upgrade path is a fresh install: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2 From that page: "In a 'fresh' upgrade you use the liveCD of the new release to perform a new installation and to overwrite your existing partitions. ... This is the recommended way to upgrade Linux Mint". You can do apt-get dist-upgrade, but it's not supported.

I wrote this elsewhere in the discussion, but I think Mint is an excellent choice for tech tinkerers and open source enthusiasts, but not a good choice for people who are willing to try Linux but don't want to play around much. The problem is that for Mint, the recommended upgrade method is to back up your data and do a fresh install: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2 If you don't mind running Linux Mint 12 or 14 forever, that's not a problem. But if you want the newest versions of Firefox and Chromium and your music player and so forth, you'll need to upgrade and outside us nerds most people find the idea of doing a complete reinstall at least once a year to be a burden.

I am not against choice or freedom in the free software community. I think those are wonderful things. But I would like to see one distribution get widespread adoption. I believe OpenSUSE, Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu, and Mageia, PCLinuxOS, and dozens of other distributions are excellent, but for a newbie it's probably more helpful if the great majority of Linux users are using one particular version (provided that version doesn't suck). Then it's easier for the newbie to decide which version to try, easier to find documentation, easier to find other people in the local community and their social circles that also use it, etc... I really think Ubuntu did a great job filling that flagship role while GNOME 2 was their primary desktop.

Unity, despite its nice features, has a few UI features I find awkward to use and it especially hurt Ubuntu by being very buggy in its first two releases. Now instead of being the flagship Linux distribution for people new to Linux, I think Ubuntu is merely one choice among many. The ability to choose is good, but having one clear leader would - again, in my opinion - spur wider adoption.

We should give the Mint Debian Edition a try?

I've been meaning to.

It sounds like somebody needs to try linux mint. It's silly to judge the entire linux ecosystem by the follies of one or two distros.

Have you considered Cinnamon? It's a fork of GNOME 3 that ended up being what I was hoping GNOME 3 would become. You can customize it to become a very similar experience to GNOME 2 (By default it's more Windows >= 7-like), it uses GTK3, it has a usage paradigm that most people are used to, and the things that are different are changeable.

It's also really pretty.

I've been running LMDE for the past 12 months and find that Cinnamon is usable. Stability has definitely improved with Update 5 & 6. I wouldn't say it is perfect, but having previously used Gnome 2, it lets me get work done.

Also if you can still read this there's quite a good topic about Mint on PAE there.
You're not complelety left in the cold you have Mint 13 for a start (the Xfce version is excellent and not ugly), you're good to go for years with it ; then you have Mint LMDE which doesn't suffer of Ubuntu decisions and doesn't even require i686 to run.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=117368

Mint has a Debian edition.

The other huge thing waiting to be noticed is that there are Linux distros out there (e.g. LinuxMint) that take less "getting used to" for a WinXp user than Win8. The only thing saving MSFT is that Linux has no advertising budget. And we'd never agree on which distro to recommend.

The other huge thing waiting to be noticed is that there is not very much "to get used to" going from winxp to windows 8 that all these people that have never used windows 8 seem to think exist, other then a different Start Menu interface. the other parts of the OS are about 99% the same as 98/xp/vista/7 just a few things reworded and some graphic updates. windows explorer is still there, control panel, device manager, blah blah everything is there, and it's even in the SAME place. it's just that now it works better, and faster than winxp. Though you would have to actually use it to know this, and not on 12 year old hardware.

Does MSFT still think they're a monopoly? Really? They want users to get used to a phone/tablet interface, where they have a 2% share (? less?), so they put it on their desktop where people keep buying Macs these days every time they pull these boneheaded stunts.

The other huge thing waiting to be noticed is that there are Linux distros out there (e.g. LinuxMint) that take less "getting used to" for a WinXp user than Win8. The only thing saving MSFT is that Linux has no advertising budget. And we'd never agree on which distro to recommend.

Actually, my discontent with recent Ubuntu releases has driven me not to Debian, but to Mint.

Eh. I have a serious moral problems with mint, starting with their stance that search engines should "share the revenue Linux Mint users generate for them" with Mint, and stunts like editing code to make them amazon affiliates in banshee's music store instead of the original developers or the ubuntu packagers, ie, the people who actually did all the hard work.

Granted, this shopping lens bullshit from Ubuntu is making me having severe moral problems with them as well, but that's definitely a reason to switch back to Debian, not Mint.

Been extremely happy except one big issue. Mate uses GTK 2 but newer apps use GTK 3, so you get stuck in this world of mixed themes that looks bad.

According to the site:

Special attention was given to Mint-X and its support for GTK3.6 to make GTK3 applications look native and integrate well with the rest of the desktop.

So perhaps Mint 14 will solve this problem for you?

Read here!

yes, you can update using apt. but it not recommended.
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/62 (note you want to change "maya" -> "nadia" and "precise" -> "quantal")

Except this one: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/344

Not directly, since the upgrade tool packaged is for Ubuntu, and well create a horrible mix of Ubuntu Quantal and Mint 13 if used (if it even worked at all). There are alternate instructions provided at http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2

Good thing Cinnamon helps bypass their stupidity.

Um, what? Their about page:

"Based on Debian and Ubuntu"

Not to mention that their other distro, that is based directly off Debian rather than Ubuntu, is called LMDE - Linux Mint Debian Edition.

Why not just run the real thing?

Because you want things to just work immediately out of the box, without having to install drivers, X, some DE etc. If you don't, then you need not bother, you're not the target audience here.

Do you have a link to the reports that suggest that the howto hack is broken? Alternatively do you know whether it's still possible to do it manually as described here: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=49162&start=0?

Unity ==== http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(user_interface)

Cinnamon ======= http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/

Look at the pictures. One comes with a menu panel...the other a full screen of applications icons similar to a smartphone.

It's only a full screen if your screen is really small. The Wikipedia screenshot is pretty misleading in that regard - this would probably more representative for normal display sizes.

But more importantly, the similarity with smartphones is mostly visual - the icons are larger than Cinnamon's and placed above rather than next to the program name, which makes it look loosely like a touchscreen interface or a Windows desktop with application links. However, the Unity start menu (aka "Dash") is actually keyboard centric. It prominently features a search bar which also has focus when you open the Dash and is the most efficient method of using it. In that regard, it has more to do with program launchers like Launchy or the search field in the Windows 7 start menu than with smartphones.

The traditional hierarchical menu is indeed superior in one use case: Accessing rarely used applications using only the mouse or a touchscreen (no keyboard). But at least for me, it turns out that I'm almost never doing that anyway. ymmv.

In fact so many people prefer cinnamon over unity mint has become the most popular download on distrowatch.

That doesn't actually tell us how many people use a distribution, though - the Distrowatch numbers are based on a relatively small subset of Linux users that is probably not representative. For example, a user who is happy with their distribution and does not intend to switch to anything else would be less likely to even visit a distribution comparison site.

It could be interesting to look at the traffic of major websites instead. Unfortunately, most of them do not differentiate between distributions. One exception I know of is the Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report, where Ubuntu clearly accounts for the largest share of traffic among Linux distributions except Android. As we know, statistics like that have their own set of problems, and in this case there is also a huge number of "Other" in there that could easily skew the results. However, it still seems like a better approach for measuring actual usage. (Do browsers on Mint usually include the distribution in the user agent string?)

The "About" tabs of most websites often have this kind of information. This one here seems to describe its purpose pretty well: http://www.linuxmint.com/about.php

Wikipedia says:
"Linux Mint is a computer operating system based on the Linux distribution Ubuntu. Linux Mint adds many features that baseline Ubuntu does not have, one of which is providing a more complete out of the box experience by including proprietary and patented software[1] including Java and the Adobe Flash web browser plugin, which are features that are needed to play certain online games, watch YouTube, and certain applications..."

Here you go... all you might want to know and more:
http://linuxmint.com/

Not much need to copy and paste stuff about the distro when you can just follow the link there and read all about its philsophy, advantages, etc.

Cheers.

I am skeptic about how valid Distrowatch's score is.....It's like that commenter above that asked about what made Mint good and didn't get a single answer other than "it's not Ubuntu".

You should read through the comments. People on the whole love Debian, and love Ubuntu's spin on Debian. Most mint users also *love* Ubuntu. What they don't love is "Unity" They love "Cinnomon". In fact thats what they talk about in the summary.

Unity
====
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(user_interface)

Cinnamon
=======
http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/

Look at the pictures. One comes with a menu panel...the other a full screen of applications icons similar to a smartphone.

People are not zealots, they are exercising choice on a platform that allows it. In fact Mint is basically Ubuntu with Unity replace with Cinnamon. In fact so many people prefer cinnamon over unity mint has become the most popular download on distrowatch.

There is still no FDE in Mint 14. Even worse, the reports I've read suggest that Mint 14 broke the popular howoto hack. The feature voting board was recently updated to say this feature was "selected" though. Hopefully that means it will be coming in Mint 15. Linux distributions are useless to me without encryption; you're basically saying "this is not meant for real work" to every business user who might consider it. It's a shame that Mint isn't ready to fill in yet for companies who are pushed away from Microsoft OSes by the mess around Windows 8.

There is still no FDE in Mint 14. Even worse, the reports I've read suggest that Mint 14 broke the popular howoto hack. The feature voting board was recently updated to say this feature was "selected" though. Hopefully that means it will be coming in Mint 15. Linux distributions are useless to me without encryption; you're basically saying "this is not meant for real work" to every business user who might consider it. It's a shame that Mint isn't ready to fill in yet for companies who are pushed away from Microsoft OSes by the mess around Windows 8.

Linux Mint is a distribution of Linux that is based off of Ubuntu. Like Ubuntu, it uses Debian packages.

When Ubuntu made the decision to make a new desktop environment ("Unity") and the GNOME project made the decision to make a new desktop environment ("GNOME Shell"), Linux Mint in turn made the decision to support those of us who loved GNOME 2. We have two options: MATE and Cinnamon. Both are well-supported by Linux Mint (and in fact primary development on both is by Linux Mint guys).

MATE is simply a fork of GNOME 2. For reasons that are not clear to me, GNOME 2 and GNOME 3 cannot co-exist on the same system... something about library conflicts. (Doesn't Linux have library versioning that should make it possible to avoid these conflicts? Eh, moving on.) The MATE project did a mass rename on everything in GNOME ("libgnome" -> "libmate", etc.) so MATE can co-exist on the same system with GNOME 3. So, those of us who loved the smooth polish that came from man-decades of development in GNOME can still use it.

But MATE isn't the future. From what I have heard, the library underpinnings of GNOME 3 really have improved over GNOME 2, and the new technology is a step up. Who wants to be locked into a frozen clone of GNOME 2 forever? Thus, Cinnamon. Cinnamon is a project to build on top of GNOME 3 and provide a user experience similar to GNOME 2. New plugins, new themes, etc. all go together to make a very usable desktop; but GNOME 3 apps will work seamlessly with it.

Many disgruntled Ubuntu users have abandoned Ubuntu for Linux Mint. Mint is now the top Linux distribution on distrowatch.com; I'm not sure it was even in the top ten before the whole Unity/GNOME Shell fiasco, but now it's number one.

A comment I have seen multiple times on Slashdot from different people: the Linux Mint guys are focused on making their users happy, rather than making something new. Where the GNOME Shell guys promise a "consistent and recognisable visual identity", and Mark Shuttleworth (the head Ubuntu guy) said "This is not a democracy. [...] we are not voting on design decisions.", the Linux Mint guys promise that you will "Love your Linux, Feel at Home, Get things Done!"

Linux Mint has always focused on making a beautiful system that is out-of-the-box usable. Now they are one of the top choices for people who have rejected Unity and GNOME Shell.

For me, the most important part of the announcement is that they have the password keeper working right now. I'm using Linux Mint on a laptop at work, and I can't connect to Windows shares; I'm hoping the new updates will sort that out for me.

Since this is based on Debian packages, I can probably just update in place without needing to do a full re-install.

P.S. One of my biggest complaints about GNOME 3 is that I can no longer take sit a Windows user down and just say "it works pretty much like what you are used to". You may like GNOME Shell and you may think it is better, but you cannot argue that it is very different, and it would take a bit of training before a guest could use it. Linux Mint, on the other hand, works a lot like pre-Windows 8 versions of Windows; with a little customization and theming I'll bet you could fool people into thinking it was actually Windows XP.

Likewise with Unity, it is pretty different from Windows. But it's very similar to the Mac, so maybe users familiar with the Mac can use it?

>

KDE is one of the only environments left that doesn't treat its users like morons. It isn't a perfect piece of software, but it's one of the only remaining things that isn't after the "dumb everything down!!" mantra. The others: Windows, Gnome, Unity, OSX, IOS, Android, all seem to be chasing the other roads.

For that reason alone, I've found it worth giving them money, which you can do here: http://www.kde.org/community/donations/ - I've given them about euros 100 over the last year.

FWIW two others that don't treat users like morons are Cinnamon and MATE. I prefer Cinnamon, but if you're running from Gnome either would probably be an easier adjustment than KDE. I just wanted to point out donation options for people who'd like to keep a Gnome 2-like UI.

>

KDE is one of the only environments left that doesn't treat its users like morons. It isn't a perfect piece of software, but it's one of the only remaining things that isn't after the "dumb everything down!!" mantra. The others: Windows, Gnome, Unity, OSX, IOS, Android, all seem to be chasing the other roads.

For that reason alone, I've found it worth giving them money, which you can do here: http://www.kde.org/community/donations/ - I've given them about euros 100 over the last year.

FWIW two others that don't treat users like morons are Cinnamon and MATE. I prefer Cinnamon, but if you're running from Gnome either would probably be an easier adjustment than KDE. I just wanted to point out donation options for people who'd like to keep a Gnome 2-like UI.

Apologies, You may have noticed that my link for Mint Linux in my first posting doesn't work. Its http://linuxmint.com/ (not .org). Apologies again for confusion.

All jokes aside, this could damage Ubuntu's reputation. It basically tells the Linux and potential MS converts that Ubuntu is no better than Apple (and to a lessor extent Microsoft). Including tools that directly guide your usage to the benefit of a commercial interest may be considered intrusive by some. Also the Unity Desktop has suffered from usability and stability issues that have kept more informed people from using it,; some sticking to Ubuntu 11 or others going to alternative distros. Which leads to the the subject that not enough people talking about: alternative user friendly distros to Ubuntu. I myself don't find Ubuntu to be wonderfully user friendly and have had stability problems creep in. Linux Mint http://www.linuxmint.com/ I find more user friendly and stable so I recommend it to friends and clients. SolusOS http://www.solusos.com/ is new but look VERY promising based on Debian. I've used pure Debian in office environments with no learning curve complaints by the employees. Of course Fedora is loved by many although more bleeding edge. Linux Mint in particular is gaining more press among Linux users and potential converts whereas Ubuntu has gotten some not so positive press with the new Unity usability/speed/drivers/integration problems and now this rather close partnership with Amazon on the OS level. Ubuntu and Linux in general does not have a market share near big enough that people will forgive annoyances like this. At least with laptops preinstalled junk is relatively easy if annoying to remove. Perhaps that is so with Ubuntu 12 as well, but why should bother a more user friendly distros is available that doesn't play these games?

Linux Minx uses default search engines of those who contribute money to the OS to generate revenue and I find that perfectly acceptable. You can also add the bigger search engines with ease and its no more intrusive than MS IE 7/8's default search engine.

I feel as if Ubuntu is pushing the limits of including "features" in a similar way Microsoft did in stages: first with WGA in XP, then with the Protected Media Path and its "dial home" feature under the pretense of telling you "you are online" with the "Network Connectivity Status Indicator" (which dials to www.msftncsi.com and can only be disabled with a registry hack as there is no admin interface to change this behavior). MS is playing similar games with MS Office: WGA-like "features", the "ribbon" interface everyone HATES (pushing many to Libre/Open Office), and dramatic price increases to push home/SMB users to buy the cloud subscription model via Office 360. These "features" are of no benefit to the user, are often a detriment (especially to privacy) and/or consume excessive resources at a minimum. The WGA with XP was enough to drive me to Linux and I've been very happy with my move.

The Unity issues are piling up and this new one may hurt Linux advancement in general. I'm certain it will hurt Ubuntu acceptance with the informed Linux community. there are alternatives. Its starting to look as though Ubuntu's previous popularity has made it a bit arrogant and complacent with its user base, similar to Microsoft and Apple. While some may correctly argue that fragmentation can hurt Linux, in some ways its also its strength, so long as core standards aren't broken. This could be a clear example.

There's LinuxMint. Not precisely a fork because it's based on Debian itself, but there's the fairly recent SolusOS which is a real beauty. It actually has up-to-date versions of the kernel and major software. (I know. Whoever heard of such a thing, right?)

So the countdown went through 0 and has been in positive numbers for years already.

Even more users to Mint Linux: http://linuxmint.com/ Om om om...

...but I would also go for MateBuntu.

http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/

http://mate-desktop.org/

Does Windows 8 have an opt-out feature?

Yes, they do

For now.

Does Windows 8 have an opt-out feature?

Yes, they do.

But even if you use those opt outs on your new computer you still pay the Microsoft tax.

Not necessarily. I got a euro100 rebate on each of the PCs I bought a couple of years ago, as compensation for getting them without Windows. Actually, they came without any OS, just blank disks on which Ubuntu was promptly installed (later converted to Xubuntu to avoid Unity).

For laptops, it's trickier, but supposedly still possible. I'll cross that bridge also, when my 8-year-old laptop no longer runs adequately with Xubuntu.

Does Windows 8 have an opt-out feature?

Yes, they do.

But even if you use those opt outs on your new computer you still pay the Microsoft tax.

Does Windows 8 have an opt-out feature?

Yes, they do.

I feel like gnome 3 finally hit the nail on the head for what users want and need

Some users. Not, for example, me.

And even if you are correct, it's a happy accident. The GNOME 3 team didn't do a lot of user research; for example, the removal of the minimize button happened because one developer thought about it for a while and decided that nobody really needs a minimize button. Users were not asked, they were told. Consider this quote:

In the end, I think with GNOME 3 we need to emphasize design coherency and slickness - what is different and better, and that actually is more important than being 100% sure we perfectly meet everybody's workflow.

That's stunning... "design coherency and slickness" is more important than a good workflow!

A while back, Sun Microsystems paid for a bunch of usability research on GNOME and the results were incorporated into GNOME 2.x. It might not be a coincidence that many users (like me) have a strong preference for the way GNOME 2.x works.

GNOME 3 is, from all I have heard, well-architected. The plumbing is better than the legacy plumbing inside GNOME 2. When Cinnamon gets all the little details right, it may become the desktop environment of the future. For now, I'm using MATE.

steveha

10s of millions? Where? I doubt that System 76 or other Linux PC vendors sell that many. Mint in the meantime has the Mintbox, which they may start selling.

I do hope Mate moves to GTK3 though, as I like the toolkit.

Perhaps you should try the Cinnamon desktop alternative for GNOME3/GTK3.

I've been using Linux Mint Debian Edition lately, since it's a simpler installer than Debian proper's. You can go with either XFCE (or MINT/Cinnamon). Tends to be a shorter path to a working desktop.

I agree with Linux Mint, and I'd specifically go for the KDE variety -- Despite all the hate that was generated for it, KDE4 is now a very good desktop, plus makes for a good transition experience for a Windows user.

I can sort of second that. I put my 65 year old step dad on my Ubuntu 12.04 with KDE installed*, and he grabbed the mouse and took right off. No issues whatsoever. He didn't need to ask any questions and just did his work.

* Not Kubuntu. I haven't tried that yet. I'll probably go with that next or "pure" Debian. I've had issues with Mint not booting the last time I ran it. Every time the system rebooted, I would get the busybox prompt. After four or five reboots, it would finally come up. No other distro had those problems on that system. Don't know if they ever got that ironed out or if I'd have the same issue on my new system, but the fact that it happened keeps me from trying Mint again. Well, that and I want to be as close to "real" Linux as possible. Mint has too many customizations for my taste. Not configuration costomizations, but actual binary replacements of applications. Oh, and the browser search hijacking bothers me as well.

So... I'd say NO to Mint.

Linux Mint with Cinnamon would be one of your best bets. "Everything" button in the lower left, system tray in the lower right, just like Windows, and yet you're still running (a fork of) Gnome 3, so you get all the latest bells and whistles.

I think Microsoft might use Apple's success as a legal foil to avert anymore monopolistic trouble. Apple's market cap is bigger than theirs and Apple is left alone by the DOJ. Also, MS wants to start a Microsoft store, just like Apple's iTunes store. I'll also be there are a few Microsoft branded mobile phone prototypes sitting in a dark research cave somewhere. Why else would they be working so hard on a port of Win8 to ARM? Windows for Mobile phones has been an irrelevant disaster. Branding their own phones might finally give them a better chance......maybe. Besides, Linux has become the alternative to Windows that never existed when all the legal troubles really started getting hot. I can't wait to try Steam on my Linux Mint 13 KDE installation. If this isn't a viable alternative to Windows, I don't know what ever will be. Then again, Valve could just be using as a threat to extract some concessions from MS. I hope this is not true. Now then, you can't play arcade games too well on a tablet PC either. It really is ergonomically superior to use a keyboard. So MS could just put Win8 on the Xbox and voila! Their own branded PC. Do yourself a favor, folks. Check out Linux Mint 13 KDE. I installed it in an empty partition on my laptop and desktop with Win7 as a primary OS. Grub will let you choose which to boot. I'm using it right now. If it weren't for the fact that work is using Exchange and another vertical application, I wouldn't even need Windows. http://linuxmint.com/ Oh, and regarding the spelling Nazi, I turned on spell check. :-)

Apparently it saves screen space. At least for the morons that can't maximize their app, and like methodically looking for disjoint UI elements. Personally I think it's the non-idea of a brain-dead mac user.

Anyway, try this, if you must use Ubuntu, and not, for example, Linux Mint.

A little help from your friends at Linux Mint

KDE tries to be too much like Windows and actually does it. There are soooo many services, extensions, config files, dot directories (aka crap strewn all over the place) that it's simply become a bloated buggy mess. Gnome/Unity did some really strange and confusing things but in the end ended up being railroaded into the Mark Shuttleworth Agenda and is pretty much a tablet UI on a PC desktop now.

This is the evolution of FOSS. Things which start to suck tend to get replaced by things which suck less. The open source desktop isn't losing, it's just KDE has jumped the shark and Gnome (Unity) has gone insane. Two of the earliest game changers of the FOSS Desktop. Luckily, people with more time than I have saddled themselves with the task of changing what sucks (Thanks guys/gals) about these two Desktops and we've got some alternatives. You can't do that with Windows or Apple. You get only one and if it sucks, too bad. Buy the next version and hope.

PS: have a look at LXDE or Cinnamon for something similar, yet different.