Now, I wouldn't go quite that far. (I've been a Linux user since 1992-ish 0.99pl12 or 14.) It was pretty competitive with other Unixes, particularly since it didn't cost a million, billion dollars.
I guess it depends on one's definition of "full-blown desktop" - KDE is from '98 and GNOME followed later, even Window Maker is from '97, but if one was happy with fvwm then he'd have been sorted since '93.
