Dell has gone on and off with their Linux support during previous releases. But, I am not particularly concerned because in the Linux community, if there are drivers for your hardware today, they will likely exist forever. As for Unity, I can't agree anymore with your observation that it requires many mouse clicks to get something done. Compared to OSX and even to Windows, Unity has wasted tons of screen estate and made it much harder to get things done. GNOME2 is definitely legendary especially because of it's simplicity and versatility.