I also have a Thinkpad R61!
Last night I tried having the panel (Gnome 2.3) be on the left-hand side of
the screen instead of the bottom, but it doesn't work very well.
I have always thought, since starting to use GNU/Linux many years ago, that
having the panel on the left (or right, but left is probably better) side
would make it distinguishable in the same way Windows (bottom) and Mac (top)
are. Gnome 2 does a good job having top and bottom but I think most people
just confuse that with Mac (and KDE with Windows). Just my two cents.
Anyway I am not too sold on the global menu. I just don't see the point. And
from what I've heard it's actually quite confusing in certain situations.
