At first I thought that Compiz would be just a heap of processor hungry eye candy, but actually the kind of tactile, sensory, stimulus that it provides has really added a level of psychological transference and proficiency to the whole desktop metaphor/interface/experience, and I now find myself pining for it on other desktops I use that don't have it and now seem so geometric, linear, and rigid.
It occured to me that kids would absolutely love this desktop! When you drag windows they kind of wobble as if they're elastic, they spring into place when maximised, and corners can be peeled back to reveal what's behind them. While this all just sounds like a bit of fun, it's organicism blurs the mathematical rigidity that we've become used to and makes the experience just a little softer, a lot more tactile, and to be quite honest less 'computer' like.
Switching between multiple desktops(haven't experienced multiple desktops? you're missing out!)
Bending back a maximized window to see what's behind.
I want to stick with this idea of "kids" for a second. The one thing that was formerly lacking on Linux machines and that was the 'kid-killer' was games. There were few games ported to Linux. There are more games now, but the thing is that I don't think kids are playing all that many games on the computer anymore. A PS3, Wii, or X-box will do games far better than a pc will, so game playing is moving to specialised hardware platforms with graphics exceleration up the wazoo and controllers that are designed for the actions.
A computer that's not being used for games, but that is being used by kids for homework, communication/socialising/networking etc, has Linux written all over it. Not only is the interface now more customizable, more tactile, more usable, and more impressive than the more expensive competitors, but as John "Maddog" Hall expressed in last years LinuxConf2006 - Linux teaches you twice (if nor more). Linux has many lessons. It encourages experimentation and lifting the lid, it's built on benevolent principles like sharing and openness, it provides support in the form of real people of whom you can ask real questions and almost always get a response (unlike waiting in a hold queus), and it's always trying to innovative in some aspect. It moves man! I'm on my 5th significant upgrade of Fedora since the introduction of Windows XP - and things happen, things get better every release. The idea of waiting (and saving $) for a release every 5 years is just out of step with how technology moves - with how kids move.
If you've never given it a try I think now's the time.
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