I recently ran the Ubuntu upgrade to 11.04 and I find the user-interface to be a big step backwards. I have also read many negative reviews on the Unity UI. It seems to me as if they've copied the worst ideas from Windows 7 and Mac OSX.

Even logging into Ubuntu Classic doesn't really help - yes it's Gnome again, but compared to 10.10 there are just too many rough edges - there are some rendering problems, minor, but enough to make it look decidedly amateur.

Anyway, if Ubuntu insists on pushing Unity then I will switch. I wonder how many others will do the same? Also, I wonder what to switch to - I'm considering Mint in the hope that it doesn't go the same way.

Any others ideas/opinions?

........................................slackware

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Ideas/opinions on what might suit you need more information about you and what you want from a computer. Presumably this is a personal use computer, not a server ... ? What is you experience level -- beginner, intermediate or expert? Are you comfortable at the command line or are you GUI orientated? Do you like/dislike eye candy? Do you want the latest software or is stability more important to you? Do you want strictly open source software or are you OK with some proprietary licenses? Are you happy to pay for your OS or do you want it free? Do you want to run any applications that put special demands on the system such as video editing and playback? Is there anything special about your computer such as being more than 3 years old or very recent?

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+1 to catkin, a good set of questions to think about.

IMO if you dont want unity, then move distros. I'd consider moving DEs as well, gnome 2.X is dead in the water now.

If you are using to ubuntu, then debian or debian based distros would be easiest to change over to. As long as you dont have any linux-unfriendly hardware then debian would be easy, but it might not be quiet what you are after. Depending on what you want, how much work you want to do to get there, etc..

Canonical is going to push unity as hard as possible. They whole system is setup so that canonical can sell closed versions of unity (check the canonical contributor agreement if you dont believe me). Shuttleworth has made recent comments about 'changing the rules' that are interesting. Basicly, canonical wants to leverage the amount of unbuntu users for their own ends. The canonical fanboys have been saying 'you cant say anything bad about unity until you have used it for a few months' and similar nonsense for a while now.....

Mint will probably end up with a unity version. That doesnt mean you will have to use unity, there will still be xfce, lxde, etc. versions of mint. Where things might get 'fun' is when ubuntu removes gnome 2.X from the repos, and/or makes unity a hard dependency.

BTW, canonical/unbuntu has been very cold as far as mint goes for a while now. Sure, you wont get any offical canonical announcements saying 'mint sucks' but the subtle signs are around that this is the attitude that canonical is taking to mint these days.

Thanks to catkin and cascade9 for their replies.

The fact I have been using Ubuntu may explain what I want in an operating system. I don't think Slackware and Gentoo are for me!
What I want out of Linux is a usable OS - I am a software engineer but not a Linux hacker. I do not want to delve deeply into the workings of the OS, I want a nice, user-friendly environment. I do use the command line interface sometimes, but I'm no expert. Mostly my CLI use is limited to file manipulation and running Maven. The rest of the time I want a nice GUI. Stability is important. I prefer open source but sometimes proprietary is necessary (my wireless requires a propriety driver - Ubuntu made it very easy to install it - will any other distros make it that easy?)
Mostly what I do is web development with database backend, so stuff like Java, Eclipse, Apache Tomcat, Maven, MySQL and a browser gets used a lot. Nothing very cpu intensive.

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One thing's for sure, Fedora 15's gnome distribution is just as "bad" as unity.

Fedora has several spins that you may be interested in (kde, ldxe, xfce). Look in
http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-options

I'll be trying live cds of fedora 15 xfce myself

I'm using Unity on Ubuntu 10.10 (netbook edition), and I like it quite a lot. For years I clucked my tongue at the Ubuntu "concept" and implementation, but - perhaps because I'm getting older and more impatient - I find myself doing previously taboo things like running an OSX desktop and Ubuntu netbook. I digress.

All that to say: I need for my desktop systems to just work (TM) without a lot of effort on my part. Then I get to focus my energies on things like complex Linux server configurations, and the Cisco switch I just borked. For me, Unity is usable and aesthetically pleasing on a netbook. Unlike a lot of folks (apparently), I think Ubuntu is moving in the correct direction - at least in that particular context.

I would recommend Debian Squeeze. There is nothing out there more stable than Debian.

If that is too tough try PCLOS, made to be noob friendly and based on Mandriva, a very solid OS.

So far I'm liking Unity ... though not completely.

I was already used to having a panel on the left with my most used shortcuts in Lucid ... so in that regard the Launcher in Unity suits me. But I'm still struggling with the loss of the normal start menu. Quite often I want to run infrequently used apps that I can't quite remember the name of ... that's when it's a hassle. Also, I had many panel apps that I haven't figured out how to replace in Unity or find alternatives for yet. Given time ... I'll either reject Unity completely or embrace it.

If you want stable and want to stay with debian distros, then I'll 2nd widgets "Debian Squeeze" recommendation.

Gnome, KDE, Xfce, etc should all be pretty much the same for all distros as far as basic functionality goes. Unless you demand desktop effects to be preinstalled then debian should be just fine.

Debian might be a more difficult to get the wireless drivers than ubuntu, if you dont have linux friendly hardware. How much harder it would be will depend on the wireless chip you are using- some of them are as simple as 'apt-get install foo-bar', some of them take a bit more tweaking to get going.

By 'going in the right direction' do you mean UI design (I'd disagree there, but thats just opinion) or licencing?

I still wonder about the relationship between gnome 3.X and unity, and even the point of having 2 different projects that at least on initial look are farily similar. IMO the divisive fighting between canonical and some gnome devs means that we will never really know exactly how this whole mess started.....

I used Ubuntu for three years, since 8.04. It was my first Linux system and I loved it. It was easy to use and with a few tips about programmes like nautilus, the system worked perfectly. I was a big fan of Ubuntu. Then along came Unity. I shall not list too many details, because that would make this post as long as a journal article.
Suffice it to say, Unity has three problems: ugly, labourious user unfriendly process for opening applications, and slow operation. Debian, Fedora and Mandriva open applications in a quarter or a fifth of the time as the new Ubuntu. The full-screen menus are only partial listings of installed applications, so opening a programme requires several mouse clicks. The launch bar appears every time the left mouse button is clicked and every time one drags and drops. It is not only annoying, but when using office nothing can be dropped on or dragged from the left side of the screen. Unity icons are huge, but the launch bar cannot be cutomised, including not being able to add launch icons to the launch bar.
In short, to answer mericet's question, people have already left. I have seen many posts in Debian, Fedora and Mandriva fora from people who have abandoned Ubuntu and are searching for an alternative. The change will not kill Ubuntu, but Ubuntu will probably shrink to a small distribution kept alive by a small number of Ubunuphiles.

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I hate to defend Unity as I agree with most of what you are saying.

To add things to the launch bar, pull up your app and its icon appears in the launch bar. Right click on the icon and you should get an option to leave it there. You can move them on the launch bar by dragging them out and up or down the bar and back in where you want them.

I see what they're trying to do.

Thing is, it's trying to do too many things in one go without options. Think of it this way - the leadership is good even if the results aren't.

For me I chose Ubuntu because I wanted something easy. I was tired of playing to get things working. Before I enjoyed playing to learn things like Gentoo but nowadays I just want a basic system working so I can then play with new things coming out.

To that end Ubuntu has helped with many things in it's history. In some respects Ubuntu has brought things along. But due to hardware changing, cloud apps and all sorts of changes the situation as a whole is really about the same as we had back 10 years ago.

It's stuff like having no refresh button to scan for new wifi networks in NetworkManager; glossing over for ease of use instead of educating. Glossing over is fine actually, but that means we then lack the real deal.

For example,
I upgraded Ubuntu a couple of months ago. When it rebooted after the upgrade I had no X, and I'm trying to figure out why now. It could be because of Unity. Thing is, I wasn't even told that this was going on when I hit upgrade. That's just one example - what I'm getting at is there's a pattern to all this.

For innovation, the usability team need to be looking at /etc config files, man pages and visual diagrams not playing Google, M$, Symbian and all the rest at thier own game by creating new GUIs.

OK this is lame. Changing distro because you don't prefer new DE? You can always install&use other DE later. Ubuntu still has Gnome 2 as "Ubuntu classic" in session menu + Gnome 2 isn't dead in other distributions yet. Same can be said with new Fedora. Also if you rant about Unity then why noone rants that other distribuitions by default also installs only one DE from install media? If you still like way Ubuntu works you don't need get rid of it - just get used to Unity or use other DE or use previous Ubuntu releases. That simple.
Wrong. Yes it is stable..very stable..but not best in stability from all. Besides it depends on hardware fit - for some reason even Debian crashed for me some time ago but few mainstream didn't and Slackware never crashed for me yet.

Actually I quite like Unity, it has me considering switching back to Ubuntu on at least a part-time basis. I particularly like its use of the keyboard, it is much easier to use Unity mouse-free than Gnome 2.x in my experience.