desktop

I've been using Linux for a long time, and I learned to use it by installing it and using it as my primary operating system — as far as I'm concerned, the year of the Linux desktop was in 1994 or so. Since then I've actually bounced around to a variety of operating systems and even single-booted my primary machine into Windows XP by choice, using Cygwin as a crutch. I've been running Linux solidly since Ubuntu Dapper, using Windows only on inferior (and seldom-activated) computers or in virtual machines to close corner cases like my mobile phone. Throughout that time, I have basically never been satisfied with the default appearance of the system.