Surely it doesn't matter what the DE is then? My mum adjusted from Windows XP (when that was current) to Ubuntu 14-ish fairly easily, by simply remembering "switch it on and then click on the big swirly fox thing".
> Surely it doesn't matter what the DE is then?
It matters a lot if you deviate from the ones that (are set to) behave in a similar way.
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Ubuntu comes with a dock which is close enough to Windows.
The comment chain you're replying to is arguing that vanilla GNOME is too different, and they're right.