14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical has set its sights on the netbook market. Ubuntu Netbook Edition is pretty mature with the Ubuntu 10.04 release, but things aren’t stopping here. In fact, major improvements are expected in the upcoming Ubuntu 10.10 Maverik Meerkat. Canonical has unveiled two new products, Unity – a brand-new, lighweight desktop UI aimed at netbooks – and Ubuntu Light – a custom build for OEMs. Ubuntu Light is designed for dual-boot machines enabling manufacturers to ship desktops, notebooks and netbooks with Windows alongside Ubuntu. Both Unity and Ubuntu Light are available now, at least in preview form.
Unity will be ready for Ubuntu 10.10 Maverik Meerkat
Unity is a new interface designed for netbooks that aims to maximize the use of the small screens present on these machines. Vertical screen space is at a premium in netbooks, so Canonical is moving things to the side. The striking, new feature in Unity is the left-side panel, which replaces the bottom one. It will be used for launching apps and switching between them.
The idea is to develop Unity in order to have it ready for Ubuntu 10.10. If everything goes according to plan, the top Gnome panel will also be removed, or rather transformed, and replaced by a unified titlebar/panel that will feature the window controls and title with the right notification area in the current Ubuntu panel.
“We focused on maximising screen real estate for content. In particular, we focused on maximising the available vertical pixels for web browsing. Netbooks have screens which are wide, but shallow. Notebooks in general are moving to wide screen formats. So vertical space is more precious than horizontal space,” Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu creator, explained in a blog post. “Those constraints and values lead us to a new shape for the desktop, which we will adopt in Ubuntu’s Netbook Edition for 10.10 and beyond.”
Ubuntu Light is designed for dual-boot environments
The idea behind Ubuntu Light is simple. A lot of people prefer Windows on their computers and getting them to switch or even try out Ubuntu or any Linux distro is nearly impossible. Ubuntu Light will sit alongside Windows on OEM-built PCs offering an instant-on option for browsing the web, listening to music or any other task that doesn’t require a full desktop.
“In those cases, Ubuntu Netbook Light, or Ubuntu Desktop Light, will give OEM’s the ability to differentiate themselves with fast-booting Linux offerings that are familiar to Ubuntu users and easy to use for new users, safe for web browsing in unprotected environments like airports and hotels, focused on doing that job very well, but upgradeable with a huge list of applications, on demand,” Shuttleworth explained.
It will boot up and be ready for use within seconds, Canonical says it takes seven seconds to boot into Ubuntu Light on a Dell Mini 10v. Ubuntu Netbook Light is available for OEMs today. Each image is custom-built for the machine it will be running on, so there won’t be any downloads available to the general public. An Ubuntu Desktop Light version will be offered later on.
