I use Debian Stable + Gnome as my main PC. I use a handful of native apps which are all available on Linux, and most other apps are web-based. I never used to like the Gnome desktop, but modern Gnome is fast, unbloated, and it gets out of your way.
The author spoke of migrating Windows users, so I suggested what would be familiar to them.
The Cinnamon desktop will use a lot of that Gnome stuff, but things like a start menu and task bar will be more familiar than the corresponding elements of the default Gnome desktop.
