I’ve dabbled with Linux over the years, first with Ubuntu in the early 2010s, then Elementary OS when that dropped, and a few years ago I really enjoyed how customizable the gui was with Xubuntu. I was able to make it look just like WIndows 2000 which was really cool.
Which current distro has the best GUI, in your opinion? I find modern Ubuntu to feel a little basic and cheap. I guess I don’t really like modern Gnome. I’m currently using Windows 10 LTSC which is probably the best possible version of Windows, but I’d jump to linux if I could find a distro with a gui that feels at least as polished and feature rich as Windows 10 LTSC.
If you like Xubuntu then you like XFCE, which in my opinion is an excellent DE and WM, light on resources while being highly customisable.
What I run is MX Linux, which is Debian based with a few tweaks, like not relying on SystemD, has both APT and flatpak, and has a few custom tools that honestly makes using linux soooo much easier. The repository manager and gui package mabager is very good.
MX customizes XFCE with simple theming and most importantly puts the panel to the left side, maximizing vertical space. It really gets out of your way.