Linux is not Windows. http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm
This is a very good web page that explains the fundamental differences between Windows and Linux. There are many fundamental changes you need to make when making the switch from Windows to a Linux machine, the major changes difference is that Linux is not as susceptible to viruses as Windows is. and that it is by design more secure and very reliable. Something like Debian Stable is one of the most secure and stable operating systems you can install.
http://rjy.org.uk/ Very good blog website and a fellow Linux user.
http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Main/ The OpenSolaris UNIX distribution. A free distribution of the Solaris UNIX operating system. Downloads here.
http://www.freebsd.org/ Another free UNIX distribution. The Gentoo portage system was copied from the FreeBSD ports system.
http://www.securitronlinux.com/linux/lc/ My Linux PDF repository.
We have moved on a long way since Windows `95 and `98. This screen will be very familiar to those that have used this very old and decrepit operating system. I used this a long time ago, then I tried Redhat Linux 6.2 and I was blown away by the quality of the operating system compared to Windows `98. The Gnome 1.0 and Sawfish desktop was something else. The screenshot below is of the Redhat Linux 6.2 Gnome 1.0 desktop with the Netscape 4.72 browser open and showing the Redhat 6.2 documentation welcome page. A long time before Firefox and even before Mozilla, there was the Netscape Communicator browser, which was a good alternative to Internet Explorer. The release of Internet Explorer 4 brought the Active Desktop and other new features, but it was a bug prone and insecure load piece of software that brought a new version of IE, and brought many more variants of malware than ever before, although Windows `98 did that too. Getting back to Redhat 6.2, the screenshot below shows a very different Gnome desktop than we are used to seeing today. The LCD look for the clock is very nice indeed, I wish you could get this style of Gnome desktop today as well as the Unity interface.
http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=133624 A very good icon set that includes older styled icons for Gnome.
But the Unity/Gnome 3 interface is here to stay whether we want it or not, sure someone could fork the Gnome 2.32 code and maintain their own version to deploy to various Linux distributions but will that ever actually happen?