Preview of Ubuntu's Unity Interface

itwbennett writes "In late October we learned that starting with the next release (11.04), Ubuntu would use Unity instead of GNOME as its default desktop interface. Now we know a bit more about what that will (and won't) mean for users. The move to Unity doesn't mean that Ubuntu is abandoning GNOME. It also doesn't mean that users will be forced to use Unity; they'll still be able to revert to the old GNOME interface. What it does mean, mainly, is that users will be presented with a simple interface — probably too simple for nuts and bolts types. The more 'radical shift' will be switching Ubuntu's base graphics system from the X Window System to Wayland. There users can expect that it will take some time before things are in working order. 'In other words,' says Steven Vaughan-Nichols who reviewed Unity for ITworld, 'Wayland will be an option, and one that only people who don't mind having their desktops blow up on a regular basis should fool with, in Ubuntu 11.04. By Ubuntu 11.10, it will be workable, and come the spring release two years from now, Ubuntu 12.04, we should, if all goes well, see a stable Wayland-based Unity desktop.'"

Comments

No screenshots?

[Anonymous Coward]

Text is useless. I want screenshots!

"Preview" but no screenshots?

[iONiUM]

I'm sorry, how is this possibly a "preview" when there is not one screen shot? One link goes to an older /. article, the other goes to an all text article.

Can you please stop naming things that don't have photos like they do have photos?

Unity Namespace Collision!

[fpgaprogrammer]

The Unity namespace is already occupied by http://www.unity3d.com/ a great game engine for iOS and android and support multitouch and so on. Canonical is just going to make it a PITA for one or both sets of developers searching for "unity opengl" "unity GUI" "unity multitouch" "unity android."

Re:It's the Apps stupid.

[MBGMorden]

Apps usually don't talk directly to X11. The GUI toolkit does. If Ubuntu can get QT and GTK+ ported to Wayland (which has already been underway for a while) then most apps are merely a recompile (plus some minor tweaking) away from being native Wayland apps. Kinda like how many GTK+ or QT apps have fully functional windows versions because those toolkits were ported to Windows.