Desktops
When I first decided to flee the worsening mess of MS UI, like many others I went to Ubuntu. I tried the various desktop editions, found Xubuntu and said "this is the one for me". I've long since moved on through many different versions of Linux (and indeed BSD) but I always stick with good old XFCE, because it's the closest thing to the Win9x / XP interface I grew up with. Much respect to those who want the whole "minimal window manager" thing with a million keybindings, whatever works for you, but I want a start menu and shortcuts!