I've never been more disgusted with a linux distro as I was when I logged into Ubuntu 11.10 ... my last experiences having been with Debian and Gnome2.

The concept of Unity is great ... what *isn't* great about it is the distance for selection ... top left, get active ... then move more than 10 % of the screen diagonally out just to get to the first icon ... and after switching to Applications view ... then having to go to the far right to select the common grouping that you would normally have had under the menuing system which was centered around the upper left side of the screen only (unless you customized).. Then add into this if you selected say System ... on the right ... ran the app tile .. then came back in .. and went into applications again.. the last menu used was not the one that was active now ... it went back to the default of *all*.

Worse than this, in Ubuntu, was the File-Help menu structure being removed from the application window to the top panel ... if you're running full screen with all your apps, maybe then that would make sense ... but if you're windowed .. it leaves you traveling from where ever your mouse is now .. all the way up to the top to activate the file menu .. granted you can use keyboard shortcuts, but you shouldn't have to force users to learn them simply because the interface separated the controls from the window .. the whole point of HAVING the controls with the window is because its clear their association ... if you have a FILE menu on the edge of the windowed program you're dragging around or typing text into .. etc.. then you *know* that FILE menu is for *that* program .. while the NAME of the program shown in the top panel bar as soon as the "file" menus were active (mouse in the area) your program name was partially obscured, thus if you were alt tabbing to different windows you might mistake which window is active when trying to do File ~ Help menu items!

Worse evan than Menu/Window relationship, and worse still than this huge travel for your mouse hand ... is the incomplete thought and nature to some of the default tools .. this goes directly to heart of Gnome3 .... Bring up System Settings ... go into Screen .. or Background or Displays ... all of these separated functions.. SOME OF WHICH BELONG together .. like Display, Background, and Screen ... you go into ONE of these functions.. and the TITLE BAR changes to that function .. Screen's title is "Screen" right below that .. what do we have? A button that says ALL SETTINGS ... WHO IN THEIR RIGHT F**KING MIND LOOKS AT THAT BUTTON, ITS POSITION IN THE APPLET, UNDER THE TITLE BAR of "Screen" THINKS "ALL SETTINGS" SHOULD TAKE YOU BACK TO SYSTEM SETTINGS??!?!?!

Most people.. see that button and their first reaction seeing a minimalist set of options or "Settings" in a window like Screen or Display .. etc. will think you hit the "ALL SETTINGS" button and it will show you ALL SETTINGS OF SCREEN! or of DISPLAY etc etc etc..

THAT SINGLE CONCEPT proved to to me instantly that both Unity and Gnome3 is stuffed with a bunch of f*ing morons. If you cant associate how things SHOULD BE grouped together... then you have really lost your way.

The LAST point of issue .. is making it easier FIRST TIME as well as later, access to a switcher INSIDE your login, that helps you customize features without having to resort to bringing up DConf or a browser to search for how to do things simply because they aren't logically thought out.

Lets take for example.. the bottom bar in standard Gnome3 ... great running applications show up there... much like the start bar in windows .. but to start another application you have to go back up top, and you have a bar up there... so now you have 3/4ths of an inch of screen space lost to these two bars. No simple way to "combine them" because.. oh yeah.. the File-Help menu structure goes up into that mostly barren top bar ... add to this under Unity & Gnome that the side launcher bar isn't an auto hide .. its there if you move up to the corner in Gnome3 and there all the time in Unity .. loss of screen realestate again.

and why don't you have simple but complete tools to fix this? Oh.. System Settings.. yup.. again.. NONE of those options are there.. not even to fix the absurdly thin side walls that make it damned near impossible to stretch top bottom or side.. sure.. the BOTTOM RIGHT corner has been "enlarged" to make it easier to grab from *THERE* but what about where my mouse is now? so again.. the user is penalized by making them move their mouse over all hell and creation..

And last of all of this.. the simple fact that the design is Tablet and TOUCH centric .. it is *NOT* for a standard desktop system ... key in that is mouse movement .. you've designed the interface for fat fingers on the computer screen to make selection and action easy ... FOR A TABLET ... but not everyone is ON a tablet .. and in contrast .. as above and elsewhere people have said they don't have tablets running this OS yet.. So why is the default presentation to a user ... as a TABLET -centric interface without an easy and clear way to change it from the beginner and novice point of view? Sure.. if you are super geek .. you know to uninstall X and reinstall with KDE or something else.. but you're not even presenting THOSE options to the user because they are competitors.. well why not make your interface something easily customizable out of the box so that the user doesn't have to resort to (or out of frustration of) dumping Gnome for someone else?

Its that arrogance of thinking that is also killing linux on the desktop .. make the tools, make them easy to use, make them easy to modify or to switch without users having to resort to google searches and you'll finally start making inroads to the average (or lower) computer user that can USE the pc but not build one.