I've got a Debian linux box at work, but my preferred machine at home is a Mac. On my Mac, I tend to have a gazillion windows open at any given moment, because I can rely on Exposé to help me find the one I want when it's time to shift focus. The problem is, it's habit forming; I was getting increasingly frustrated with constantly reaching for F9, F10 and F11 on my work machine, to no good effect.
So, I went out and found Skippy, a poor man's Exposé for linux. A quick apt-get install and a one-line config file change later, and I'm very happy with the results. Sure, it doesn't do the swishy animation that Exposé does, but I don't really care; I just wanted something that would show me all my open windows at once, let me pick one, and get on with my day. And sure, there's also Compiz/Beryl/whatever they're calling it now, but I don't have the required 3D graphics acceleration hardware mojo on my work machine. And really, I can live without the swishy animation.
Now, I'm going to put on my ranty hat for just a second here: to clarify, I'm pretty sure the Compiz/Beryl swishiness just wouldn't be as nice as Apple's. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure I'm offending any Compiz/Beryl fans out there, but I've been downright annoyed with linux attempts at desktop cleverness too often, feeling like whatever I'm using is just a cheap Apple knock-off (or worse yet, a cheap Windows knock-off)—I tried to like KDE and Gnome, I really did. But I've learned my lesson: I actively avoid linux attempts at swishiness. Instead, I try to go for the simple, bare bones solution that Just Works, because that's what linux is good at. I generally trust Apple to do the Right Thing with regard to UI (reviews of Leopard nothwithstanding—it looks like I may have to forego my customary trust of the folks at 1 Infinite Loop to deliver great UI, but that's another story). I've become so used to my Mac by now that anything else just... isn't the Mac, frankly. Bless the hearts of the folks trying to accomplish the same thing in free software, but they just haven't got it, whatever "it" is—talent, money, a bit of both... And if I can't have the Mac experience I do so enjoy, then give me the ability to be totally in control of my environment and the tools I'm using. Fluxbox, Vim, XClock, XCalendar, Remind/Wyrd, and good ol' Xterm are my constant companions at work, and I adore them. They're good at what they do in their own way, and Skippy complements that set quite nicely; linux just isn't Mac OS, and I'm happy to have it be good at what it does.
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