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Canonical Ubuntu parts from GNOME, Natty Narwhal (11.04) will have a Unity shell
Canonical has decided to change the interface of the next release of Ubuntu (Natty Narwhal 11.04) from GNOME to Unity. Unity is an open source project that focuses on simplified interface and three dimensional displays.
Canonical has to make this decision because the views of developers at Canonical were starting to diverge from the views of the GNOME team. Canonical had different ideas about how a desktop interface should look and operate, according to Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth.
"We were part of the GNOME shell design discussion, we put forward our views and they were not embraced by designers," Shuttleworth said during a press briefing. "We took a divergent view from the GNOME shell folks on key design issues, for example how application menus should appear on the system, how one should search to find applications, [and] how one's favorite applications should be presented."
Ubuntu's next release Natty Narwhal (11.04) is set to be launched in April 2011. Natty Narwhal (11.04) will have Unity shell that will support three dimensional interface. Shuttleworth announced on Monday, at the company's Ubuntu Developer Summit, being held this week in Orlando, Florida. For previous desktop versions of the software, Gnome was the default shell.
Canonical and the developers of GNOME, an open source project led by the GNOME Foundation, have had an increasingly disharmonious relationship over the past year due, in part, to these design issues.
Because Canonical was already developing Unity for netbooks for OEM (original equipment manufacturer) customers, "We went ahead and did the engineering" for a general desktop interface for the next release, Shuttleworth said. "Essentially, it is a very different product from the GNOME shell, and has a very different way of organizing things," he said.
Even though Canonical will switch from GNOME in the next release of Ubuntu, but according to Mr. Shuttleworth users will have little problem. Shuttleworth has also promised that all GNOME application will run without any modifications.
"We have no plans for proprietary extensions to Unity whatsoever," Shuttleworth said.
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