> What do you find lacking in a CentOS/EPEL install that Ubuntu gives you?
The most recent version of software. I've found CentOS, in particular, to have ancient versions of software in the repos. EPEL helps, but it only goes so far.
> I find KDE with a few adjustments fine for most things and Gnome Shell seemed fairly intuitive after a year on dwm
I tried out KDE recently. Maybe it was an old version. It reminded me a lot of oldschool classic Mac OS. Easy to find things, but things don't have a lot of features or options. Gnome Shell... it's okay and there's a ton of under the hood options. But there's practically zero way to access them without either insider knowledge of what to configure and where, or else having to go install even more software.
Fedora then. The Korora Project provide a 'batteries included' Fedora with codecs &c.
I've sort of arrived at the same place as Rob Pike[1] but with Linux instead of Mac OS. Default Debian Stable with KDE + restore and I'm away. Or default (kitchen sink) install of Slackware.
PS: KDE is almost a Windows clone in my perception and quite a long way from MacOS!
The most recent version of software. I've found CentOS, in particular, to have ancient versions of software in the repos. EPEL helps, but it only goes so far.
> I find KDE with a few adjustments fine for most things and Gnome Shell seemed fairly intuitive after a year on dwm
I tried out KDE recently. Maybe it was an old version. It reminded me a lot of oldschool classic Mac OS. Easy to find things, but things don't have a lot of features or options. Gnome Shell... it's okay and there's a ton of under the hood options. But there's practically zero way to access them without either insider knowledge of what to configure and where, or else having to go install even more software.