Maybe you misunderstood or I did your last post. Unity (VM) / E17 I never tried under Ubuntu. Unity (VM) / Unity (Ubuntu) works.
I'm using Unity (VM) since it was first release with WS6.5. Back then I was running standard Ubuntu with Gnome2. Only until about a year ago, when Ubuntu released the first buggy version of its unity DE as the default I always used the most current Ubuntu release usually running Compiz for the fancy effects! Never had any issues with Unity (VM) in that environment.
Recently, I tried the following distros which were all Gnome based, where Unity (VM) would just integrate perfectly into the Linux DE:
Ubuntu 12.04 Standard, kernel 3.2
Ubuntu 12.10 Standard, kernel 3.5
Ubuntu 12.10 with gnome-shell 3.6, kernel 3.5
Mint 13, gnome-shell 3.4 and kernel 3.5.0 (based on Ubuntu 12.04)
Mint 14, gnome-shell 3.6 and kernel 3.5 (based on Ubuntu 12.10)
Unity (VM) also integrates into the Mint Cinnamon desktop (v1.4 and 1.6). However, after short usage of unity windows, screen articfacts show up
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=208&t=115603
which makes it useless under Cinnamon. But since on the same distro, I don't see any problems when running gnome-shell it must be a Cinnamon problem.
Where I did not manage to get Unity (VM) integrated so far is in the two Enlightment installations I tried
Bodhi 2.1.0 with enlightenment 0.16.999x and kernel 3.5
Bodhi 2.2.0 with Enlightenment 0.17 stable and kernel 3.7
Mint 13 with Enlightenment 0.17 and kernel 3.5 (e17 I installed via ppa:efl/trunk, so also the last stable release)
My machine is currently a dual boot with the last 2 mentioned distros. Mint I run with gnome-shell instead of cinnamon. As I mentioned earlier I'm still on WS8
Cheers, Riko