Linux Mint: The new Ubuntu?

As for the alt+tab functionality.. well, if you are used to OSX and its third rate window management (can't move or resize windows without aiming at a tiny bar or handle?) and broken virtual desktop implementation, then maybe this kind of impoverished behavior is a welcome change. Since I have OSX experience, global menu's aren't a big problem for me, except when they are hidden by default and show up on different screens depending on window location. An interesting compromise for multi-monitor users, but mystery-meat menu decision is mind boggling.

For people who have now had ~16 years of window-centric keyboard navigation, having no good muscle-memory way to switch among 3 windows in 2 different applications is a nightmare. Having alt-tab slide your entire desktop over is just an insult on top of that injury. We use exact same set of tools (vim, chrome, and a terminal), but you must only ever use one window each; I can't imagine how you could tolerate the new app-switcher's behavior otherwise.

Your point about the only change being the font is also interesting, since in Ubuntu 11.10 you cannot change your fonts (or any colors on your theme, or gtk2 themes which a majority of apps will still use) without installing some third party tool with a terrible UI that looks worse than anything has since gnome-2 was released. The terminal is the only program that provides a UI for changing it.

In general, I agree with the posts in this thread that say you can massage the XFCE desktop into a worse version of what gnome-2 was about 3 years ago. After trying very hard to get along in Unity and 11.10 (gvim freezes for 30 seconds on start-up if you have installed foreign language packs, a bug fedora fixed about 9 months ago but persists in ubuntu), I've given up am using XFCE w/ Compiz (which doesn't work that great but is usable) until I find a weekend where I can ditch it for something else.

The part that's sad is that I did not find Gnome3 to be much better than Unity; it still has the same "enhanced" (broken) window/app collection which I find completely unsuitable for doing real work without encountering incredible friction. So for me (and probably others), Gnome3 has joined KDE4 as some unusable tangent, essentially killing off systems I was very happy and productive with. Gnome2 is a temporary fix; it's a dead end. XFCE still feels very spartan; in the past 3 years Gnome2 has got better and better and XFCE has barely moved. Hopefully, someone (maybe Mint, or maybe the ElementaryOS guys) will raid the remnants of Gnome2 come up with a system that has a living development path.

If you're looking for a quotation from your favorite author (assuming Google wasn't helpful), you're not going to nevigate a three-dimensional conceptual space to find it. You're going to first iterate through your list of bookshelves, and find the appropriate shelf (assuming you have lots of books and sort them into shelves e.g. by topic or alphabetically). Then you'll sort through the books on the shelf and find the book you need. Then, you'll go through the chapters of the book, etc.

The mind organizes information into categories, and groups categories within categories. Visual mnemonics are great, but they help us to find the specific item we're looking for at the appropriate level of abstraction, and they work just as well in organized, two-dimensional spaces as well as three.

I agree that there may be a lot of potential for some major breakthrough, but having to remember that your Economics paper is stored in an inventory slot in a chest in the inn in that logging town outside Stormwind isn't it.

Operas has very good mobile market share, i.e. where it matters now. They executed well on that space.

Whatever advantages they have on desktop (questionable IMHO) don't seem to be compelling or strong enough to win users over. And just like everyone else, they now have to fight the Google Chrome advertising juggernaut.