Instead of telling Karmi how wrong he is in his assessment of the importance of Desktop Environments, I rather add a point: Unity was Canonical’s own homebrew spin of the early Gnome 3 DE, which was stupid and evil. But Unity was not much better so no other Linux distro ever used it as their own DE. So in the end Canonical ditched Unity and decided on Gnome 3 but in their typically wibbly wobbly mental state they saw Gnome 3 is – although slowly getting better – still shit, so now they switched back to Unity. 
The Circle of Life? I think it’s rather a circle of desperation and just one more station on Ubuntu’s way into oblivion. Everybody still on Ubuntu for fun (which means outside the office) is on Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Mate and even Ubuntu Cinnamon or any of the many other *buntus rather than on Unity.
One word about Karmi’s assessment: DEs are not about cheap thrills, they are our first contact, our user surface and experience. They are the way we operate our computers. I find that to be the most important part of computing. And when I sit on my machine for hours, writing blog posts, editing photos or organizing my music library, I rather use a tool that fits me like a glove than a plonker like Gnome3/Gnome Shell.
And for me personally, nobody can ever say that my Mate DE is thrilly in any way. It’s based on the old discontinued Gnome 2 and as sober, unappealing and down to earth as a modern desktop can be. But careful! Many (young male) Linux users died – of boredom – when they tried using Mate. 😮
Thar She Blows! 
Sitting back waiting for you both to exchange views xxx
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thing is, we’re both right. That’s the beauty of Linux, mere users like myself are happy if everything is going smooth and nothing wants our attention, geeks like Karmi want bells and whistles and stuff. In Linux we get both.
LikeLike
😉 If the young male is a tinkerer like myself, he is not going to die of boredom using MATE.
Always remember, that Linux users have the option of customizing their desktop environment to their liking.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes. But if I were a tinkerer I’d not deal with the most boring and outdated graphics of Mate, I’d opt for KDE Plasma. That’s the most kneadable DE, right?
LikeLike
🤔 As a tinkerer, MATE is more of a challenge; it requires a whole lot of work for it to look modern.
KDE Plasma is beautiful out of the box. Therefore less tinkering is needed.
The truth is that any person who is highly knowledgeable is capable of making any Linux desktop environment look the way that they want. For example, Xfce is an ugly duckling; yet, there are tinkerers who know to make it look as though it belonged in the 21st Century.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, Xfce is kinda shit isn’t it? But Mate, out of the box is much more uglierer. With the 2 panels and the 3-tier menu, almost unusable. But by now I only need 5 minutes to make it bespoke for me. Or, when I install Manjaro Mate it’s kinda great from the get-go. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person