[kinghtown]

Have you looked at KDE Plasma? I personally don’t like it because it looks and acts too much like Windows but it’s probably what you’re looking for.

I use Gnome myself because I like the hot corners, and I like it well enough but I’m currently trying to figure out AwesomeWM. I did borrow some of the shortcut ideas from it for gnome like windows key + enter for a console.

[_a_a_a_]

To be clear, it's not about how it looks or acts - I flip between emacs and visual studio and they are utterly different for example - I need an interface that

a) isn't buggy and

b) is designed by people who understand a GUI isn't an end in itself but a means for someone to get their work done.

I need both and gnome... wasn't it.

[Corazoor]

XFCE ist really nice. It comes with different presets and can be made to cater to ones preferences rather easily.

It is the default of xubuntu, which imho is a good first desktop linux, mostly because of the extensive documentation and tutorials for it.