Choosing a Linux distro with LT support, a stable and lean 2D UI: Linux Mint 13 Xfce

Summary: The xfce 4 desktop does what I need and Linux Mint 13 Xfce is my distro of choice.

My priorities were

1. Long term support, so that I continue to get updates and security patches over the next 3+ years.   I've moved to Ubuntu and so the distro choice would likely be their 12.04 LTS release or a derivative there of.
2. A stable 2D UI.  I cut my teeth on X11 (before Linux) and very early Linux distros (Slackware).  I don't need a fancy GUI environment.  The 3D effects are a waste on me.   In the past, I eventually got used to Gnome2 based environments due to Ubuntu 9.x and 10.x releases, but the recent switch to Unity was not acceptable to me.

I decided to try Xfce which many distros support as their lean, but modern UI option. Since many lean GUIs have been around for years, the fact that many distros have chosen Xfce as their lean UI is encouraging for its long term support.

I compared Ubuntu LTS 12.04 Xfce versus Linux Mint 13 "Maya" Xfce, which is based on the ubuntu release.  Mint came with a newer version of Xfce (4.10 versus 4.08) and just looked better.  And the Mint default system menu was nicely filled out opposed to the more spartan Ubuntu menus.  Easy choice.