+1 We want an improved W2K... Linux is probably the best way to get it (with many tweaks... start by not using Gnome).

Win2K was great. When I used Win7, I used the Windows Classic theme which made it look like Win2K.

I use Windows Blinds on my Win10 system to make it look like Win98, which is close enough to 2K.

And for extra lulz, my screensaver is the Windows 95 loading screen.

At least GNOME designers apparently are using GNOME and they still let me configure my desktop as I want it to be. I undid some man years of their work and used some others.

Uh, I think GNOME3 suffers from the same authoritarian minimalism design problem.

Indeed but at least they dogfood their work and they like the result (can't understand why.)

Some people like Gnome. I like using gnome on my Lenovo Yoga as it is as efficient being keyboard driven as it is using the desktop as a tablet.

I usually prefer tiling WMs but among the more modern Linux desktops Gnome is my favorite. It does all I need in a polished way. At least since the performance improvements, initially Gnome 3 was just too sluggish.

It wouldn’t conflate the state of Windows 11 with macOS at all really. Just because you dislike macOS doesn’t mean Windows 11 is like macOS because it’s kind of bad.

macOS isn’t perfect but Apple hasn’t mangled core features like the task bar and start menu for something that is superficially prettier but lacks a bunch of actually useful features that used to exist.

Awful compared to what, if I may ask?

All versions of Windows it has competed against except Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.

to any sane desktop environment so basically windows (except the 11 abomination) and KDE