With a bit of effort, Unity could look much better.
With a bit of effort, Unity could look much better.
It's a matter of personal taste, but does anyone honestly look at the default Ubuntu desktop and think "Well, that's just the pretties desktop I've ever seen".
Logically it shouldn't matter, the look has little influence on the functionality, but I really think the orange, black, and purple look has turned people away from, if not Linux, then certainly from Ubuntu.
Data point of one, but yes, I have — I genuinely think that Unity (>=12.04) looks better than any of Windows 7, Windows XP, and KDE4 (all of which I had used extensively), MacOS and Gnome-3 (which I had used sporadically) and Windows 8 and 10, (which I've only seen but not used). IMO it's also at least as functional as any of the above.
I particularly liked the fact that they "got" the fact that one can have limited vertical screen space and for example the menus of a maximized window merge with the top status bar.
Tastes obviously differ widely.
Yes, in fact that dull gray is the only ugly thing. The launcher bar on the left is very good looking by itself.