[throwaway123x2]

Still no match for Gnome 2's UI. RIP that old interface, the best of the *nix desktops.

[probably_wrong]

You should give Mate a try then [1]. It's essentially Gnome 2 but actively maintained.

[1] https://mate-desktop.org/

[throwaway123x2]

does it have compiz?

[greatgib]

So far i'm using Linux Mint with Cinnamon for a few years, and it really good.

[29athrowaway]

Gnome 2 and GTK 2 have no support for HiDPI.

It is possible to mitigate some of that inconvenience by using a theme where everything is scaled up (and there are tools to generate them), but there will be still GTK 2 software that looks bad.