I'm running Gnome 3 on Debian and I like it a lot. I am on Windows 7 and Mac OSX all day at work as well as some SUSE and RedHat desktops with KDE desktop and I like Gnome 3 best out of the bunch. Cinnamon desktop is also nice in my opinion (have used it with Linux Mint in the past). Also as mentioned already in this thread, ElementaryOS looks really nice and is basically an OSX clone.

Personally, as I've dabbled in different distros over the years of using Linux as a desktop I have realized that the most important thing to me is a distro that is stable, has a lot of native apps supported in the repositories, a large community of users and most importantly a distro that is a large project that isn't going to go away. That's what has eventually led me to Debian.

Also keep in mind that a lot of distros can run different desktop enviornments

You need to separate in your mind the look and feel of the desktop versus the distro you're using. They are not the same thing, they're barely even related.

Linux is the kernel
Linux distributions package the kernel with a default set of applications, configuration utilities, and a package manager
The desktop environment sits on top and gives you the graphical prettiness

You can install just about any desktop environment on just about any Linux distribution. You don't need to change distros to change the look and feel of the OS, all you need to change is the DE, and for that all you need to do is look in the package manager.

Personally, I like the streamlined simplicity of xfce. No matter what distro I install, I install xfce and it always looks basically the same. xfce is xfce, whether it's on OpenSUSE, Fedora, CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, or any other distro. So if you want to experiment with the look and feel of your system, there is absolutely no need or reason to go around installing a bunch of different distros. Just install one distro with a large package selection, and install as many DEs on top of it as you want. When you want to switch between them, just log out, pick a new DE, and log back in.

It is possible to do that with any GNU/Linux out there.

It takes time and a tad of skill/research to get things how you like. Want eye candy you can do it. Want simple you can do it, want bare you can do it.

Difference between Windows/Mac is you are locked in the world they create. Linux you are locked in the world you create. It's your choice.

Too much clean is ugly....

Thanks. You have cleared a Big doubt/Misconception in my Mind.

For that one needs to learn the linux basics then. Where to start ? Any good books ?

The way I do things is when I need help simply search the web.

Things are not that tough. Just start and if you get stumped search. There is much in the form of books online as well.

http://www.linuxtopia.org/

Just one example

Most of all have fun! Some of my most memorable and fun moments came when I knew nothing.

This is a contender.

And "best looking" is very much a matter of opinion. I personally think that Crunchbang's desktop is both unusually cool-looking and unusually functional.

I say Arch. It's as custom as you make it.

Think of the Desktop Environment as a cover on a book.
Distro's are made of the pages of the book, every distro has it's own set. Some books are the same inside, but have different covers that look different.

You can find Mint good looking and still you don't need to use it's "cover", you can customize it entirely.

Two good Desktop Environments are XFCE and KDE, both have a lot of additional Themes that you can easily install. The difference rely on openGL support, KDE has it, thus reducing CPU usage. XFCE doesn't. But according to Phoronix both have pretty much the same performance.

@Master: you have to understand that Linux has many window managers, so most distributions will simply pick one and model it how it wants.. But that doesn't mean you can't model it how you want.. That's the main difference between Windows and Linux.. It's all about what you want..

So, pick from Ubuntu (with Unity), Fedora (with Gnome), Mint (with either Cinnamone or Mate), Elementery Os (I'm not even sure what WM it uses), OpenSuse (with KDE)

They are all easy for beginners and have eye-candy by default, and allow you to modify them how you want...

Here is, for example, a thread with desktop screenshoots of customized Slackware desktops: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...4/page151.html (not for beginners, but some of them are not that hard to do)

This is a masterpiece of the "I created my own from the ground up" category: A simple window manager with the tint2 bar at the top, a dock at the bottom (I would guess AWN or Cairo-Dock), a well configured Conky at the right and a calendar widget at the left. You won't get something like this out of the box with any distro, but it is not so hard to learn how to create similar setups, if you are willing to do so.

Maybe Ubuntu the best choice for you, it's simple Linux, here http://allhitech.blogspot.ru/2014/04...inux-easy.html you will find easy instruction for installing Linux on your computer.

Sadly, Ubuntu's Unity is one of the least configurable desktops.

^ This. You can create whatever you want your Linux to look like, but you have to learn to use the tools at your disposal. Every individual Linux user has a more-or-less custom environment, tailored to their particular needs. I look at most desktops environments as unnecessary bloat, bling, icons, etc., so I stick with fast, efficient window managers such as cwm, larswm, and euclid. So, your question in and of itself is subjective, to your needs. For the noob coming from Windows or Mac OS, Ubuntu w/Unity or Linux Mint w/Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce, or KDE is a good match. For the experienced *nixer that needs to get stuff done, rather than play with resource-hogging widgets, icons, GUI configurators, etc., there are different needs.

This is what one of my Slackware w/cwm setups looks like:

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