I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 11.04 and have been using the Unity desktop environment for about a month now. After doing so I'm just horribly disastisfied as it appears so many other users are as well. Each roll out of an Ubuntu distro has been an exciting ritual for me.
Impatiently wait for the day of the release...
Go ahead and upgrade 2 days before the release and just let the update manager handle the rest when the actual release occurs...
Start fixing bugs of my particular hardware and swear I'll wait on the next release at least 2 weeks before upgrading (knowing that won't happen).
Then most importanly after release + 1 week, check out all the blogs of all the folks that have tweaked their release and made theirs uber-awesome.
....the last item has not happened with 11.04. No one seems excited about Unity. It's not that customizable, so you can't "hot rod" your computer like before. Gnome 2.x desktop is done and in the next release of Ubuntu it will bring Gnome 3. Well from what I see of Gnome 3 it's just a big hot messier version of Unity.
Don't get me wrong it looks cool. But just like Unity it looks like it's intended for a tablet and not the PC desktop.
There is one reason I have stuck with Ubuntu (Gnome) for the past 7 years or so. It has a perfectly clean desktop. No clutter, no NOTHING. You look at at Gnome 3 and it looks like you are trying to land aircraft when you're not doing anything. It's sort of a ritual I guess, when my work is done and I close the windows down I like to see the tranquilty of 'nothing' on my desktop. It means I'm done. When I reopen the computer, there it is clean as whistle and then I control the chaos as I choose to bring it on. (and it's a lot..)
I just don't understand the need or want for a "universal" desktop with a tablet to a PC. I have no delimma in my knowing the difference between how to use a desktop computer to a phone to a tablet. I can do each VERY well. It seems almost inhumane to push Linux users down this path when the whole mantra is "You have choice."
Well my hat is off to you KDE developers, you are one of the last left with common sense. I know they are developing for mobile devices as well but hopefully they don't push massive changes down their loyal followers throats. I write to you now from a very sleek Kubuntu KDE4 desktop Plasma workspace.. Hooowaaaah!
Well that's my oppinon as of today. Perhaps in a few months I'll change my mind as I often do. In fact, in every release of Ubuntu I've kept Gnome and KDE desktops installed just because I'm just that damn indecisive on such cool things...
Michael D.