The 'hit windows key and type' in Unity reminds me of the dmenu system in a dwm based desktop. There are links around with Unity2d (the QT based version of Unit

The 'hit windows key and type' in Unity reminds me of the dmenu system in a dwm based desktop. There are links around with Unity2d (the QT based version of Unity supported up to and including 12.04) and xmonad. I've not tried those. Unity 3d is basically a compiz plug-in, and so compiz is the window manager. On my bog standard cheap 1080p monitor, I quite like the dwm main left and right stack tiling behaviour. Focus follows mouse with keyboard shortcuts for cycling focus. Mod-m brings the currently focussed window into 'monacle' mode, i.e. full screen. Mod-t sends the window back to its original tiled position. Warning: trying out the dwm/dmenu repo package on 12.04 with Unity lead to problems with incompatible .desktop files, so odd behaviour in a dwm session with no obvious way back to log-in window. I had to stop X, use a tty to uninstall dwm and then got back to Unity. I've not fiddled around to find what the problem was. May have been sorted now. Nice to have all this choice isn't it?