Gnome 3...does not work. You will get a blank screen and a cursor. You can call up terminal, you can run some things...but no.
Cinnamon...Cinnamon is.............., this is like having a Windows XP install go horribly wrong. When it works. It does not work on 3.4 or 3.5 as far as I know.
3.5 is really for KDE
- KDE-Feel The Vibe :)
, what it is, is a fully packed KDE. On it's own merit, if this was just a KDE distro, it would be pretty amazing. KDE however, when this Distro was released, was at version 4.8 in the 12.04 Ubuntu repos, with 4.9 in backports at the time, but did not quite make the cut. Timing....I think if there were 4.9 under the hood here, it would run much smoother. The 3.5 I am responding with is at 4.10.3, and my 13.10 Ubuntu KDE is at 4.10.4. KDE is a lot to learn....so
XFCE is not set up. This is not hard. XFCE is very flexible, so really, you can go wherever you want with this.
LXDE is kind of like XFCE in this regard.
Gnome Classic. This works pretty well, make sure you do not have the unity checked on Compiz. I usually remove Unity.
Unity..I usually remove Unity. It works, but when I am working with Unity, I am very specific with it, as far as set-up, I remove lots and lots of things, it is easier for me to drop here.
XBMC...XBMC is pretty sweet, I don't really think of it as a desktop, more as an advanced multi-hardware media player. It's cool, check it out.