I’ve tried just about every flavor of Linux available. Not a desktop interface has gone by that hasn’t, in some way, touched down before me. So when I set out to start kicking the tires of Elementary OS Freya, I assumed it was going to be just another take on the same old desktop metaphors. A variation of GNOME, a tweak of Xfce, a dash of OSX or some form of Windows, and the slightest hint of Chrome OS. What I wound up seeing didn’t disappoint on that level—it was a mixed bag of those very things. However, that mixed bag turned out to be something kind of special … something every Linux user should take notice of.
Why? Because Elementary OS Freya gets a lot of things right, including some things that other distributions have failed to bring to light. True user-friendliness.
Elementary OS Freya takes all of the known elements of a good UI, blends them together, and doesn’t toss in anything extraneous that might throw the user for a loop. The end result is a desktop interface that anyone (and I do mean anyone) can use without hiccup.
Before I dive any further into this, I must say that Freya is still in beta (and has been for quite some time). That being said, the beta release of Freya is rock solid. You can download the beta here and install it alongside your current OS or as a virtual guest in VirtualBox.
With that said, let’s examine what it is about Elementary OS Freya that makes it, quite possibly, the most ideal Linux desktop distribution (and maybe what it could use to draw it nearer to perfection).