I finally made it and switched from Xubuntu/XFCE to plain Ubuntu/Unity after I bought a new laptop for my parents, which forced me to finally choose a desktop environment that I want to support for my family and friends in the next years. I have to say that after using Unity a couple of hours, it turns out to be not as bad as I always thought. So basically it’s like every time there is something new that feels like it just wants to break your habits: first you hate it, then you accept it and at some point you begin to love it. Now, after switching my own laptop, my workstation at work and my parents desktop PC to Ubuntu/Unity, I am getting closer to “lovin’ it”.

All that does not mean that I was unhappy with Xubuntu/XFCE ever, but in the last years its main purpose was to provide me a way to stick with a Gnome 2ish desktop environment, just because I did not want to change my own, maybe bad habits. Unity without additional tweaking is great for the normal user and with its lightweight menus and highly integrated apps, it just does its job. With some minor adjustments it works perfectly well for advanced users like me. Compiz Settings Manager and  Unity Teak Tool (PPA version) are very helpful if you want to improve your Unity experience and I highly recommend to have a look at them, even if you think that the defaults already provide a decent user experience.

BTW: There is no need to re-install you system. If you want to switch from any Ubuntu flavor back to pure Ubuntu, check out Psychocats’ Pure Ubuntu 14.04 post