I was reading a pretty interesting article here:

http://www.techreview.com/magazine/dec01/tristram.asp

about the desktop metaphor and the alternatives (and there are a couple of interesting pics IMHO) and I was wondering, has anyone on the linux side of things developped anything along these lines? It would be interesting to play with...

Although in my mind, a good way to get away from the desktop metaphor is called "the command line" ;D