I agree with Shawn Powers that Unity has offended all that is good in this world by aggressively grabbing so much of my screen real estate much like Hitler grabbed the Rhineland.
Well, OK, S.P. is not so Godwinesque in his language, but still.... Unity = Microsoft-like marketing oriented philosophy in a FOSS world. I predict Unity will die the death of misuse except in all those commercially marketed end-user systems that force Linux on the owners at places like Best Buy.
Here's Shawn Powers on Unity:
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You can change the size of the dock. I've got mine set at 24 pixels. I do agree that the menu interface is crap. I think they tried to mimic Gnome-Do, which I use anyway. You can also change the menus on the top bar. It's an efficient use of space, only if you use full-screen for every application.
When is Unity going to be the default? Just so I can brush up on xfce in time to retrain my wife. I do not like what I just saw at all.
I use KDE4. I have my desktop set up just like his. You can fit more icons on a narrow panel than you can with a wide one. I think it has something to do with the square of something and surface area.
Or, you could use the Mac desktop, and place your launcher in the dark on the bottom, or anywhere.
Seems simple to me.
Tried out Gnome 3 on my desktop, but to get it to work without mangling my install, I had to switch to Ubuntu 11.10 alpha. It's less aggravating than Unity, though it still needs work. Luckily, Gnome 2 is still available. And Unity is an Ubuntu-only thing, so you can always choose another distro.
I'm now using Unity on a netbook - for this it is really nice; it uses the small screen much more efficiently. My desktop is still Gnome, however. I believe the goal of Unity is (as the name suggests) a desktop that works on all devices: pads, netbooks, desktops, etc. Also, I suspect the emphasis on icons over text is an attempt to achieve a "no language" desktop, or as I like to call it, a desktop for illiterates.
Frankly, Unity is clearly unfinished (as I believe the developers would admit). The applications menu looks like it was cobbled together at the last minute, customization is still too difficult for the average user, and there are numerous options available in Gnome not yet available for Unity.
Still, Unity is coming along nicely - in another year or so, it will probably be ready for my desktop (or I may jump the gun and go with now, warts and all, just to get on the learning curve). My experience with my netbook shows that it is like a lot of other such things - you have to live with it for a while to get a feel for, learn how it works, and un-learn some things that no longer work (or work differently).
Or, you could use the Mac desktop, and place your launcher in the dark on the bottom, or anywhere.
Seems simple to me.