I've had it installed on my main machine since late December. There were some rough patches as things were landing during the beta period, but right now this is easily the best desktop I've ever used.
My workflow adapted to some of the additions in Unity so quickly that it was absurd. At this point I could never go back to something without Super+#, Super+w, Super+s and the other keybindings found here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/28086/unity-keyboard-mouse-sh...
Just be sure to install compizconfigSettingsManager from the software center and you can tweak Unity to some degree.
Just an FYI, what I tend to dev on is Ruby/Rails, Python, Javascript (Node/etc), some Erlang (not as much anymore) and Android dev. This system is so freakin' fantastic for all of those...really quite happy.
My workflow adapted to some of the additions in Unity so quickly that it was absurd. At this point I could never go back to something without Super+#, Super+w, Super+s and the other keybindings found here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/28086/unity-keyboard-mouse-sh...
There go my hopes that someone would enshrine a sensible scheme for keyboard shortcuts. On new GNOME installs, I remap shortcut modifiers to
Super for actions that operate on the window. This is actually pretty straightforward since most of the default shortcuts can just be adjusted so replace Alt with Super, e.g., Super+Space to invoke the window menu, Super+F4 to close the window, Super+click-and-drag to move the window from anywhere on the window, Super+Tab to tab through windows. It also helps to dealing with this mentally when you realize that Super maps to the Windows key for most keyboards.
To pull the perspective back, Super+Alt is used for actions with a scope wider than one concerned with the current window, like desktop stuff. Super+Alt+Left/+Right for switching desktops, Super+Alt+F2 for bringing up the Run dialog, Super+Alt+T for opening a terminal, Super+Alt+F1 for GNOME menu, etc.
This has the added benefit of freeing up any combination of Ctrl and Alt to be used by applications. This can actually be a big problem, otherwise; I've run across many applications that assume Alt+Function key shortcuts, which cannot be used since they're bound to some global action in default Ubuntu (GNOME?) installs.
>Just be sure to install compizconfigSettingsManager from the software center
That's great to hear, I had just assumed Compiz wouldn't be available on Unity. I don't think I could live without Compiz Grid and Compiz Negative.
Edit: I see Unity is actually built with Compiz. Somehow I missed that on the Ubuntu Unity website way back when I started reading about it to evaluate it.
Unity is built using Compiz and requires 3D acceleration; a lot of people have issues running it in a VM. There's a Unity2D project built using Qt, but I don't know if it was mature enough at the time of release to make it in as a fallback.
I've just tried it within the latest VirtualBox today and it works wondefully well. The install was simple and efficient, and it integrated nicely from the get go (with being able to use mouse and keyboard seamlessly).
I only had to install the guest extensions to get 3D acceleration and Unity to work.
You can install Unity alongside Gnome, and choose between them using the menu at the bottom of the login screen.
To do this, open Synaptic, go to Settings -> Repositories, and in the Other Software tab click Add and paste this line:
ppa:canonical-dx-team/une
Save your changes, then click the Reload button in Synaptic. When the new package lists are loaded, install the package called Unity. When you log out, you should be able to choose "Ubuntu Unity Netbook Edition" from the menu on the login screen.
Sure, it might be if GnomeDo was installed by default and tweaked to do the same thing. But since it isn't, I would hardly call it "pointless", but rather, awesome.
It seems like that's a big theme with the latest Unity changes. Huge improvements over the default desktop, but nobody I know was using the default desktop; they all heavily modified it with devilspie, xmonad, and friends, which are far beyond what Unity offers.
So while it seems like a good development in the abstract, it's hard for me to get excited about it personally.
One reason I used wmii instead of the default is because the default stunk. Unity is raising the bar on the default desktop now; I'll definitely give it another look.
I second this. I read some information on Unity and it all sounded so common to me that I thought WMII and the likes actually had an impact on how people making window manager think about window managers.
I'll stick with WMII though as it never gets in my way.
Soooooo cool that they realized that every keyboard has a windows key!!! Instead of adapting the ms shortcuts, they find different shortcuts which do the same, how great is that?!
My workflow adapted to some of the additions in Unity so quickly that it was absurd. At this point I could never go back to something without Super+#, Super+w, Super+s and the other keybindings found here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/28086/unity-keyboard-mouse-sh...
Just be sure to install compizconfigSettingsManager from the software center and you can tweak Unity to some degree.
Just an FYI, what I tend to dev on is Ruby/Rails, Python, Javascript (Node/etc), some Erlang (not as much anymore) and Android dev. This system is so freakin' fantastic for all of those...really quite happy.