Linux Mint 13 xfce (will be upgraded to v14 in December some time). I found this the only modern OS that will run sweetly on my ASUS Eeepc 1101HA (other than XP which was installed) which has a rather slow ATOM z520 processor and GMA500 graphics which is not well supported in Linux but works well with xfce. Nice clean, easy to personalise interface.
Gnome 3 w/gnome-shell and nautilus as the file manager. Arch linux as the distro. Cutting (sometimes bleeding) edge, rolling release, customisable - it's all good.
EDIT: and good WAF. You guys who use Windows because of its supposed WAF need to upgrade your wives*
* as in showing/educating them to the benefits of FOSS, not as in swapping them ;)
I use Fedora 16 with Gnome 3, I used to use Debian based distros, but I tried Linux Mint just as Unity was released and it was incredibly buggy and pretty much unusable with dual monitors so I needed something else, I tried Fedora 16 and I love Gnome 3, my desktop environment by far - Until I found Gnome 3, I found any Linux desktop inferior to Windows, Gnome 3 changed all that, to the stage that I get annoyed using Windows these days, I pretty much only use Windows for TortiseSVN and Web Surfing these days which is a huge shift for me
I'm one of the few that doesn't mind Unity, I find Gnome 3 much better though
Faced with the terrifying prospect of Windows 8, I decided to give linux one final serious shot... found xubuntu and lovin it!!! first linux distro for me that just works straight out of the box :)
Still learning about xfce and tempted to try cinnamon... but yeah I tried Unity too and didnt get that at all...
Doing your best is much more important than being the best.
I changed my wifes laptop from Ubuntu (unity, tried it, really didnt like it). Xubuntu is not only faster but looks really good out of the box now. Best of all you can switch across to xubuntu if you have an existing ubuntu install by following a few guides on the net without reinstalling.
Bee: Faced with the terrifying prospect of Windows 8, I decided to give linux one final serious shot... found xubuntu and lovin it!!! first linux distro for me that just works straight out of the box :)
Still learning about xfce and tempted to try cinnamon... but yeah I tried Unity too and didnt get that at all...
Windows 8 isnt too bad really, and fairly easy to make it like windows 7 you can get rid of the silly metro interface, and install classicshell which gives you the start menu back. After that get a windows 7 skin so the start menu looks exactly like it did in windows 7.
Theres a few quirks but 8 does really seem to start way faster than 7 so for the most part its not that big of a deal.
Just started using Bodhi Linux with the Enlightenment Desktop about 2 months ago & so far im loving it. Bodhi Linux is based on the long term support versions of Ubuntu, so you get all the ubuntu goodness without having to put up with the unity desktop.
I don't mind unity as an idea but it has some 'features' which break it, like not having custom icons (PS3 Media Server, Steam) in the notification area and the distinct lack of a task bar.
Currently I use Linux Mint 13 with Cinnamon, but am thinking about switching to Ubuntu 12.10 with Cinnamon due to the update methods in Mint. Having to do a clean install every 6 months uses a lot of bandwidth and takes a lot of time to download the games I have via Steam and gog.com. Also I like (despite the non-free nature of it) the ease of 3rd party software installation via the software centre.
edit - Actually I've just seen that Mint 14 'Nadia' has been released so I'll give that a crack first given its better support of Cinnamon. Also I just noticed a thread about a NZ based distro in these forums so I'll look at that too
This new Ubuntu bizz really put me off. (Actually constant NVidia grief with recent versions has put me off too.)
But I'm currently running Mint 14 Xfce on my older lappy. I also have Vista on there as a dual boot but avoid it if I can. It's just for plodding around on the coffee table and I like tinkering with it because I like learning new geeky things.
Kde 4.9 on Fedora 17, Loved KDE since the 2.x days, the early 4.0 releases weren't ready for use but were pushed out by many distros so it got a bit of a bad rap but after a couple of point releases it has really improved.
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