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I miss simple Windows-like experience in Linux. I fondly remember GNOME 2 days. It was the best Linux experience I've ever had. Task bar with open window buttons and workspace switches. Icon tray. Start menu. It just worked. These days it's either GNOME with its weird approach to UI, KDE with infinite number of settings that put me into depression the moment I open their control panel or those weird tiled WMs which I have zero interest in, because I almost never split my screen, all my windows are maximised 99% of time.





This is easy to accomplish.

> I fondly remember GNOME 2 days. It was the best Linux experience I've ever had.

You can just use MATE, which is just GNOME 2 forked and continued.

> KDE with infinite number of settings that put me into depression the moment I open their control panel

Okay, then don't do that. KDE's defaults are fine. The fact that options exist is not harmful to you.

> or those weird tiled WMs which I have zero interest in, because I almost never split my screen, all my windows are maximised 99% of time.

You can use i3/sway with

  workspace_layout tabbed
and have all your windows maximized unless you explicitly force them to do something else.

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Literally all desktop environments other than GNOME provide the experience you are looking for. Even GNOME can be made to act like that with customizations, e.g. https://zorin.com/os/

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I think XFCE works for it, but yeah it seems like everyone is begging for the old Windows, SerenityOS style (or insert whatever else here) experience

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XFCE

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