The Ubuntu 12.10 Linux distribution has been on my computer for a short while and I have tried out the KDE 4.9.2 desktop and Gnome Shell. The KDE desktop works pretty well in this distribution; but I prefer Gnome Shell right now. Just type sudo apt-get install gnome-shell to install the Gnome desktop. I have had a lot of problems with screen recording software with Ubuntu 12.10; the recordmydesktop program will record for a short time and then it will segfault. That is not very useful when you are wanting to create a nice screen recording for Youtube. But hopefully this will be fixed soon and I can get my screen recording done. The Gnome Shell 3.6.1 desktop with Ubuntu 12.10 is very reliable and fast; they have done a good job speeding up the code to make this a very useful and attractive desktop for your Linux computer. And it does not have the window buttons on the left like the Unity interface does. Installation of extensions from the extensions.gnome.org website works a treat; there are so many useful extensions on that website and the frippery extensions are the best. Not all are compatible with the Gnome Shell 3.6.1 release yet; but that is a matter of time.
The me-tv software works on Ubuntu 12.10; as well as every other package I tried except the screen recording software; but that will be fixed. Hopefully the Ubuntu 13.04 release will be just as good as the successful 12.10 release was. Using Linux with a good desktop is better than the Windows 8 Surface tablet that is advertised constantly on television. Even the NCIS LA television show featured this tablet. It was S04E05, the young NCIS agent whipped one out and proceeded to do his work on it. He made a good show of all the features of the Windows 8 operating system and the workings of the Surface tablet. But I would not buy one; they are hyped to heck; but can you actually do real work on a tablet versus a desktop PC? The desktops are still the best for gaming; I know that playing Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament requires a lot of skill in multi player and this means that a desktop PC with a good keyboard and mouse is essential for skilled gaming online. It is the only way to get good railgun and sniper rifle kills that I know of. Getting back to Linux; the one things that I like about the Gnome Shell desktop above all others is that the notifications appear at the bottom of the screen and not the top right; that makes a huge difference when you do not have a pop-up over the window you are doing work in.
That is what usability is all about. Making a good looking and usable desktop environment that the users will want to keep as their desktop environment. The MATE and KDE desktops are very popular due to the fact that the Windows styled KDE 4.9.2 desktop and the Gnome 2.32.2 styled MATE desktop appeal to different users. I like using the MATE desktop on Linux Mint 13; but the Unity and Gnome Shell desktops on Ubuntu 12.10. That is what Linux is all about; having the freedom of choice to have any desktop you want and not to be forced to use one single desktop environment as Windows and Macintosh does. Although there is a port of the Xorg display server that will run on a Macintosh system; this would allow you to install and run different window managers on the Macintosh system. The page is here: http://xquartz.macosforge.org/landing/. This is an interesting project; building a Xorg display server on top of a free and open source UNIX operating system that normally runs the proprietary Mac OSX display manager.