Do you remember the zoomy-outy thing they had at first for switching activities... and/or managing desktops? Hard to remember exactly what it was, in part because it was so buggy. It inevitably brought my PC to its knees and never got me the same combination of left/right desktops twice on a dual screen setup. And since they had different resolutions I'd get weird incomplete slices of desktops all the time. Augh. So much saner now.

One of my favourite bands is called Download. Argh! Almost as bad as the new GNOME browser... Web.

Actually, I find it easier to distinguish between a "dapper drake", a "warty warthog", and an "intrepid ibex" than between a growing number of big cats. If anything, the (mostly) alphabetic order of the Ubuntu codenames lets me know if something's much older than something else. But then I've never used OS X (I don't even leave the house that much) so I don't associate "Puma" or "Cheetah" or "Panther" with anything at all.

I'm not sure it caters to the novice user either. People who like to explore their options with the mouse, who may not even know what they're looking for yet, are presented with a number of additional clicks (some of them less than intuitive) before they end up with something resembling a categorised applications menu. Similarly the applications' menus are kinda hidden until you mouse over them. Unity is fastest when you know what you want and have your fingers on the keyboard ready to search Dash/HUD for it. But even (or especially?) then I prefer seeing what I've got open/running at a glance, and a text-less column of app icons (with "UI helpers" like a desktop grid or main menu mixed in) isn't really ideal for that. Shrug. Haven't used it that much because it always ended up frustrating me. It and Nautilus.

I'm not sure what to recommend if somebody asks me for a newbie-friendly Linux distro.

Kubuntu, because KDE is supar awesome once you've right-clicked everything and sight and dug through about 30 control panels to find the exact feature, effect & theme subset you want? Sounds a tad bewildering, I suppose.

Ubuntu, but you kinda have to ignore the default UI, sudo apt-get install gnome-shell & download roughly 15 extensions to make it spiffy? Again... a tad intimidating.

Mint? I guess that'd work. Codecs and drivers and all. But then you'd get something that acts like a sleeker Gnome 2 with a few more kinks... always found Gnome 2 boring. And that Nautilus thing... granted, newbie probably won't be looking for the ability to open a .desktop file with gedit. (Seems a bit basic. Wasn't there when I needed it.)

Something not based on Ubuntu, possibly not even based on Debian? Then I'll be far less useful for troubleshooting. And I appreciate the momentum Ubuntu has. People package their stuff for it, or there's a PPA, etc....

Of course, that's a purely hypothetical question. Because noboby ever asks me about migrating to Linux. :p Ah, vanity...

I should think so. Provided you consider AmigaOne "Amiga enough"...

The list on the right? But I mean without additional keypresses/mousework. Just a simple, grouped-by-category list of everything popping up all by itself.

* In Windows I feel like the Start menu is hard to navigate properly. Applications are sometimes grouped into folders and some aren't. There are no categories whatsoever. In GNOME 3 I not only get the same, handy "search" function that Windows 7 has, but I also get a much more intelligent application list which groups them by category and sorts them alphabetically without them being shoved into pointless folders.

I just wish the initial Applications view already grouped applications by category. Then I'd not feel so tempted to install the Mint menu. As it is, I get a huge confusing blob of unsorted icons, dominated (in my case) by a zillion start menu entries installed by a game via WINE.

I like seeing everything at once by default without manually drilling into categories, but it'd be so much more usable if there were a "paragraph" each for Graphics, Office, Development, etc.

Otherwise I'm quite fond of Gnome 3/Shell. I switch between flexibility and immediacy of KDE and the minimalist elegance of GNOME 3 about evenly.

No. I just "flattened" my music collection from "vinyl rips", "cd rips", "purchases", etc. to a simple artist/album hierarchy -- now Audacious is working okay for me. I do love the simplicity and the near-instantaneous startup. But I find I'm not listening to music I've "forgotten about" any more as it's not as visible as with a constantly displayed library. So I suspect I'll be keeping Clementine around, too.

KDE does have a lot of options I don't need or that don't quite satisfy. But it also has more of those I do need (or want) than any other desktop I've tried...