I know exactly what you mean. I dual-boot 11.10 and M$7 on my netbook and in both environments, my screen space is precious! I use lots of Greasemonkey scripts to optimize space, like in my e-mail page. As much as I disliked Unity, the dashboard does make things easier for netbook use. Of course, it all depends on your needs, I guess. I use mine exclusively for school, so I just need decent browser capabilities and Basket for note-taking. less