Canonical Ubuntu splits from Gnome over design issues

[Anthony Papillion]

So what happens to older hardware that *doesn't* meet the hardware
requirements for Unity? Will it install Gnome by default or are those
users just out of luck?

Anthony

On 10/26/10, Basil Chupin <blchupin at iinet.net.au> wrote:
> Canonical is changing the default interface on the next release of
> Ubuntu from Gnome to Unity, a new open source project that focuses on
> simplified interface and three dimensional displays.
>
> Canonical made the switch for the next release of its Ubuntu desktop
> Linux distribution, because of increasingly divergent views of 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."
>
> The next release of Natty Narwhal (11.04), due to be released in April
> 2011, will install a Unity shell, for those systems that meet the
> hardware requirements to run the interface, in either two-dimensional or
> three-dimensional modes, Shuttleworth announced
> <http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/ubuntu-moves-away-gnome> 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
> <http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/517> over the past year due,
> in part, to these design issues
> <https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/packageselection-desktop-n-specialized-unity-form-factor>.
>
> 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.
>
>
> http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source/canonical-ubuntu-splits-gnome-over-design-issues-846
>
> --
> "My sister's expecting a baby, and I don't know if I am going to be an uncle
> or an aunt."
>           Chuck Nevitt
>
>

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Anthony Papillion
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