Ubuntu 18.04 to ship with Gnome Desktop, not Unity

[patrick3027]

In what is probably the most shocking news in the Linux community for the past three years, Ubuntu has announced it will ditch it's mobile efforts, its convergence shell and Unity 8.

 

Quote

 

I’m writing to let you know that we will end our investment in Unity8, the phone and convergence shell. We will shift our default Ubuntu desktop back to GNOME for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

[...]

We will continue to produce the most usable open source desktop in the world, to maintain the existing LTS releases, to work with our commercial partners to distribute that desktop, to support our corporate customers who rely on it, and to delight the millions of IoT and cloud developers who innovate on top of it.

 

So it turns out that Unity 8, which was announced something like 5 years ago, is vaporware. Pretty disappointed.

 

Source: https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-cloud-and-iot-rather-than-phone-and-convergence/

Via: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/04/ubuntu-18-04-ship-gnome-desktop-not-unity

[matrix07012]

But I like Unity...

[SpaceGhostC2C]

Good. If I wanted a mobile UI by default, I'd be using Windows 8 or 10.

 

It's not like you are locked into a particular GUI, though, so the question is whether you can easily switch to Unity, and whether someone will develop Unity any further (same as whiners like me could swap out Unity before )

[Satisfoxy]

I've been using Ubuntu with Unity for a while now and still prefer GNOME, is 18.04 going to be LTS?

[patrick3027]

Just now, Satisfoxy said:

I've been using Ubuntu with Unity for a while now and still prefer GNOME, is 18.04 going to be LTS?

Yes.

[Humbug]

pretty shocking news

 

well unity is going the way of windows 8 metro interface... PC users have spoken they do not want a mobile-esque touch first interface while using a mouse and keyboard.

 

meanwhile I am using fedora 25 with gnome and it's awesome.

[Satisfoxy]

I'll update when it comes out.

[SCHISCHKA]

i find this hard to believe. I actually like unity now that its mature, and i was looking forward to convergence. It wont bother me to go back to gnome but what does this mean for ubuntu phone?

[Nowak]

1 minute ago, SCHISCHKA said:

what does this mean for ubuntu phone?

It means it's dead.

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, Daring said:

It means it's dead.

[SCHISCHKA]

2 minutes ago, Daring said:

It means it's dead.

apt remove ubuntu-sdk

[Nowak]

Just now, Zando Bob said:

It's not like many people adopted it anyway. It generated less interest than Windows on phones, which is honestly an achievement.

[SCHISCHKA]

Just now, Daring said:

It's not like many people adopted it anyway. It generated less interest than Windows on phones, which is honestly an achievement.

i dont know i think their phones and tablets sold well but got terrible reviews

[Zando_]

Just now, Daring said:

It's not like many people adopted it anyway. It generated less interest than Windows on phones, which is honestly an achievement.

I was planning on getting my hands on an android compatible with it at some point. It looked cool, and would open up tinkering possibilities.

[VicBar]

Wow this is very suprising! I feel it's Huge, I've always known Ubuntu with Unity... Isn't my distro of choice but DAMN... Sad IMHO, It was the only real shot any GNU/Linux distro had of a solid OSX like ecosystem. Though it has been dead for a while.. I just hurts to see them put the final nail on the coffin. I never hated Unity really... But it isn't my desktop environment of choice either..

[Sauron]

Halleluja.

2 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

i find this hard to believe. I actually like unity now that its mature, and i was looking forward to convergence. It wont bother me to go back to gnome but what does this mean for ubuntu phone?

Ubuntu phone is dead and frankly it was barely ever alive. Everything we've seen up to this point was slow, clunky and buggy all for the sake of forcing in desktop mode and having one interface for both the desktop and mobile versions. If the concept is to ever make a resurgence it must be with an ad-hoc interface and dedicated apps like android.

 

Besides there was never a real point in the effort of merging the two experiences, switching desktop environment is pretty easy in linux distros - all it takes is to log out and back in with the right de. In fact there were already perfectly functional arm ports of multiple distributions, all they needed to do was create a simple touch oriented de which mimicked the basic functionality of android. Hell I'm pretty sure there are KDE themes that are sufficiently touch friendly for this purpose. And then write apps for it.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, VicBar said:

Wow this is very suprising! I feel it's Huge, I've always known Ubuntu with Unity... Isn't my distro of choice but DAMN... Sad IMHO, It was the only real shot any GNU/Linux distro had of a solid OSX like ecosystem. Though it has been dead for a while.. I just hurts to see them put the final nail on the coffin. I never hated Unity really... But it isn't my desktop environment of choice either..

Ubuntu was pretty solid back when it ran gnome 2, it just got worse and worse ever since they made the switch. Ubuntu MATE (which uses a gnome 2 fork) is considered significantly better in many ways. I too found unity to be all right, but that's not enough when there is so much choice in the linux world.

[mynameisjuan]

"Compiz has crashed"

[Misanthrope]

I'll be the first one to say it flat out: Fuck Unity, I am glad it's dead. This will help Ubuntu out quite a bit.

[Okjoek]

Can someone explain because I only used Ubuntu for my first time within the past few months. What exactly is Gnome and what's the difference going to be from what Ubuntu has now?

[Granular]

RIP last slim hope for a good phone OS.

I was really looking forward to getting 16.04 on my Meizu 5 PRO.

[tlink]

9 minutes ago, Okjoek said:

Can someone explain because I only used Ubuntu for my first time within the past few months. What exactly is Gnome and what's the difference going to be from what Ubuntu has now?

gnome is a different desktop enviroment from unity. short (and kinda inaccurate) said: its the GUI.
 

unity basically is everything on this website: https://unity.ubuntu.com/

gnome is basically everything on this website: https://www.gnome.org/

[patrick3027]

9 minutes ago, Okjoek said:

Can someone explain because I only used Ubuntu for my first time within the past few months. What exactly is Gnome and what's the difference going to be from what Ubuntu has now?

https://www.lifewire.com/ubuntu-unity-vs-gnome-2201173

 

Ubuntu will looks different. Think going from Windows 7 to Windows 8.

[Okjoek]

1 minute ago, tlink said:

gnome is a different desktop enviroment from unity. short said: its the GUI.
 

unity basically is everything on this website: https://unity.ubuntu.com/

gnome is basically everything on this website: https://www.gnome.org/

Oh. I hope it's not going to be some kind of big re-learning experience for remembering where everything is.

[tlink]

Just now, Okjoek said:

Oh. I hope it's not going to be some kind of big re-learning experience for remembering where everything is.

i find that gnome is really intuitive if you have some experience with tech. settings are in logical places imo.