I look at these screenshots and think to myself, this desktop is feature complete, or awfully close to it. What have we been doing since then? That's a little facetious of course, and we've made desktops more usable in countless ways since then. But still, back in 2000, KDE2 was a perfectly usable desktop that would have enabled me to do my work.
Maybe it's nostalgia though: I first came to Linux in 2001 (SuSE Linux 7.1) on KDE2, Gnome1, Windowmaker, and Blackbox, and I've had fun ever since then. Yes you could make it garish or ungainly, but the very fact that you could customize it any way you want was an instantaneous appeal for me. Sadly, in chasing mainstream users we've gone the route of homogeneity. So now we've got gorgeous, modern desktops like Mint Cinnamon, which is in my opinion every bit as gorgeous as Mac OSX - maybe even more so! But it was Linux's ability to change its GUI interface totally that instantly drew me in. That appeal drives me away from some GUIs to this day, as should be obvious.
Maybe it's nostalgia though: I first came to Linux in 2001 (SuSE Linux 7.1) on KDE2, Gnome1, Windowmaker, and Blackbox, and I've had fun ever since then. Yes you could make it garish or ungainly, but the very fact that you could customize it any way you want was an instantaneous appeal for me. Sadly, in chasing mainstream users we've gone the route of homogeneity. So now we've got gorgeous, modern desktops like Mint Cinnamon, which is in my opinion every bit as gorgeous as Mac OSX - maybe even more so! But it was Linux's ability to change its GUI interface totally that instantly drew me in. That appeal drives me away from some GUIs to this day, as should be obvious.