Well I installed a trial copy of Ubuntu 11.10 with Unity.

God it really is shit. It's like a moron's interpretation of iOS on a
PC, crippling the hardware with all the ergonomics of a fridge being
used as a car.

It's slow, the interface doesn't seem to actually work properly, there
are no maximise/minimise/close buttons at all, and the launcher is a
pale nod towards the Mac dock.

I tried it at work and the PC just seized up, it is an old P4, but on my
4Gb Duo Core 2.66 at home, it's just about slow, on a good run.

Urgh.

I suppose I had better install Gnome Shell and see if Gnome 3 is any better or I'm going to have to seriously reconsider.

Maybe I'll just go Mac wholly, at least that works, and yes I know it drives Richard mad but as a non coder it's fine.

Xubuntu is still good (that's what I went to on the work PC), and Thunar is almost Nautilus.. just need to fix Dropbox issues.

What a crappy end to a once great friendship.