[probably_wrong]

I would like to recommend Mate, which is a continuation of Gnome 2.

I like to think of my Desktop Environment as little as possible - if I'm thinking about it it's usually because it's getting in my way. In particular, I switched to Mate when the Gnome 3 team went Steve Jobs on us and implemented menus that couldn't be moved out of the way and a new desktop philosophy that didn't fit my current workflow. Gnome 2 worked just fine for my everyday work so by choosing Mate I know I'm getting a responsive, functional Destop Env. that won't throw random surprises at me.

[pepa65]

To add to that: I keep trying out other new, interesting or high-profile distros, and whenever they use KDE Plasma (esp. on older HW) it is a grating experience, especially because it's slow. And after you log in, you have to wait again with an animation before your desktop shows up. On my son's desktop, I just replaced it with MATE, and now it's instantly available right after login. SO much nicer!