[zalew]

One word: Xfce

[mseepgood]

Xfce has more manpower than Gnome? Xfce has achieved the transition to GTK+ 3? (both rhetorical questions)

[tytso]

I don't want XFCE to transition to GTK+3. As near as I can tell it's a nightmare, since it's so tightly tied to GNOME (fair enough, but I switched to Xfce to escape the tyranny of the GNOME UI designers).

[antidoh]

Another word: lxde.

On Ubuntu that's lubuntu.

xfce is cool, but it's gotten too visible for me. lxde/lubuntu is just windows and a panel.

Personal preference, personal choice. Glad you like xfce.

[zalew]

for a more minimal approach, I prefer Openbox (I use it with Crunchbang on my laptop)