Sure, there are a lot of distributions and desktop environments that focus on getting stuff done and let the user customize the look to their needs, but that is hardly the only choice.
For anyone wanting to try out a cohesive setup try one of the following:
- GNOME on Fedora (or Korora if you want binary repos).
- Unity on Ubuntu
- KDE on OpenSUSE
I'm the definition of UnixPorn junkie and customize my linux box to the hilt but even I have to admit when there is a benefit of standardization and the work the elementary people are doing.
Looked great at the first view.
Months after using it became a living hell to work with it.
The delay between app switches is a shit.
Swiched to GNOME/Debian. Never looked back.
Because otherwise I can just proclaim that GNOME, Unity and KDE are polished and then we're at opinion vs. opinion.
I mean, I don't even really think that Unity is terribly polished, but someone else might (e.g. the commenter you replied to), and then your opinion is not any better than their opinion.
Gnome/kde/unity all looks and feels good in one area and bad in another. People disagree about what's right with them on a very fundamental level. Juggling between the user experience and maintain the tech behind is has clearly taken a large toll on these desktop environments.
On the other hand (I guess from an average user's perspective) Elementary feels very cohesive. It feels like the one destro has a much nicer balance between the tech and usability.
But it also has its caveats. If I recall correctly, you can't minimize apps on Elementary, you can only close them...
1: https://askubuntu.com/questions/125765/how-do-i-add-minimize...
I see that the project is continued as BunsenLabs Linux. I'll give that a try as I just wiped my laptop last week.
they loved their conky ;p
i use openbox and wonder why anyone else would use anything else when using a windowed wm
Oh and you forgot to mention Cinnamon on Mint. It's very polished too.
Same goes for Mandriva (KDE edition).