... Or, how I fixed my issues by shutting up and reinstalling.

Yes, you heard right.

I reinstalled Ubuntu the other day (not bad; I was back on my feet in less than 3 hours, updates and everything included).

I have figured out what is causing my sudo GLib error: my fingerprint reader software.  It's interfering with the way sudo works in the terminal.  Or something.  I'm not sure how to fix this, but it might be fixed in the next update from the Fingerprint GUI folks.  For awhile, sudo worked, but it wasn't til I added the Fingerpring GUI PPA and installed it that my issues started.

My graphics card is still kind of acting up, but I think that's a problem with the drivers, and not anything related to my setup.  I've installed and enabled the nouveau drivers, so that's a temperary fix right now.

I do an audit of the software I'm running/using every time I reinstall, and I usually find that I don't need half of it.  It's something that should be done every couple of months.  It's nice to get rid of programs that I'm not using, as well as PPAs.

Anyway, it's working much better now.

I'm not sure why things always work better with a fresh install (even using the same /home, which is what I do), but they do.  I guess for every upgrade, I should do a fresh install.

So, I recommend you download the .iso, burn a CD or make a bootable USB drive, and give this a spin if you haven't upgraded or installed yet.  See how it works, try out Unity, and find out of you like Uinty or not.  Me?  I've established that I like it.  It's different, and I think I like that.  I used a dock/launcher anyway, so it wasn't that hard for me to get used to the new way of doing things.

I still would like some more flexability to change the theme and move the launcher around, but that might be coming in the next version of Unity.

For some reason, I was having massive spikes of my CPU which rendered my computer almost completely unusable.

Well, I filed Bug #751477 on Launchpad, and got a response that I didn't like; basically saying that it wasn't Xorg's problem.  I fumed and grumbled for a few minutes, then decided to actually investigate the problem.

I went to their wiki, which wasn't much help, but then I decided to look into my nVidia card.  Well, it turns out that using the binary drivers can cause the exact same problem.  So, I installed the nouveau drivers (after accidentally uninstalling the nVidia ones, and some other issues), enabled them, and rebooted.

Well, that actually took care of the problem.

Steps:

1. Install Nouveau drivers (through Synaptic or Software Center)
2. Open the "Additional Drivers" dialogue
3. Enable the "Experimental 3D support for NVIDIA cards" option (see picture below)
4. Reboot.

Additional Drivers dialogue.

It's now working; hopefully the binary drivers will be working when Natty releases.

I just read this article from The Register.

The author brings up some important points about Unity, but he has to realize that this is a beta.  If it was full release, then harsh criticism would be warrented, but I don't think it is right now.

I've run into some bugs.  Specifically; xorg seems to (randomly) take up 20 to 60 percent of my CPU, compiz likes to crash, and Empathy likes to crash (though it hasn't today, knock on wood).  I'm not sure if these crashes are caused by issues with the actual programs, or if they are issues relating to the way the OS is working with those programs.

No, Unity is not completely polished, but I can hardly compare it to the KDE4 debacle.  KDE4 was beta software released as stable.  I tried it, and was wholly unimpressed, partly because Plasma crashed.  All the time.  I can actually use Unity; I could not use KDE4 when it came out.

I haven't completely tested all of my software yet, but from what I've seen, things seem to work really well.  I like having everything from each workspace accessible from the launcher; I can click on that program and go right to it.

I wasn't sure how I'd deal with searching for programs I want, but I've found that it's faster than going to a menu and looking for something.  For instance, gpodder is in the "media" category in the menu system, but I tend to search for it in the "web" category, because it makes sense for me there.  I got tired of this, so I added gpodder to web, so it appears in both categories, but the user shouldn't have to do that.  With Unity, I just search for "gpodder", click on it, and I've launched the program.  Much faster than clicking on the menu, going to the right category, and then moving the mouse to where the program is that I want, then clicking.

This idea could also help with tech support.  Linux, by nature, allows you to customize your desktop.  This can make it difficult for someone to give tech support.  It's easier to tell someone to "click on the Ubuntu logo in the left corner of your screen, then click in the search box and search for 'x'".

The author brings up adding programs to the launcher as difficult; if you're using the program anyway, you can easily add the program with a right click.  I usually don't add a bunch of stuff to the launcher without running it first anyway, but that's just my use case.  

Regarding applets; I love them, so I'm not particularly unbiased.  I think I get more information from them, and there's a lot of drive to make new ones that fit the new way the panel works.  Please see OMG!Ubuntu for evidence of this.

I was skeptical when I saw what Maverick offered as Unity, but I can safely say that the Maverick and Natty experiences are completely different.  I still would like to be able to move the launcher to the bottom and keep it's auto-hiding goodness.