14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical's sudden decision of killing its Unity user interface after seven years affected many Ubuntu users, and it looks like someone now tries to bring it back from the dead as an unofficial spin.
Long-time Ubuntu member Dale Beaudoin ran a poll last week on the official Ubuntu forums to take the pulse of the community and see if they are interested in an Ubuntu Unity Remix that would be released alongside Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) next year and be supported for nine months or five years.
Thirty people voted in the poll, with 67 percent of them opting for an LTS (Long Term Support) release of the so-called Ubuntu Unity Remix, while 33 percent voted for the 9-month supported release. It also looks like this upcoming Ubuntu Unity Spin looks to become an official flavor, yet this means commitment from those developing it.
"A recent poll voted 2/3rds in favor of Ubuntu Unity to become an LTS distribution. We should try to work this cycle assuming that it will be LTS and an official flavor," said Dale Beaudoin. "We will try and release an updated ISO once every week or 10 days using the current 18.04 daily builds of default Ubuntu Bionic Beaver as a platform."
Is Ubuntu Unity making a comeback?
The last Ubuntu version to ship with Unity by default was Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus), which will reach end of life on January 2018. Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Artful), the current stable release of the popular operating system, is the first to use the GNOME desktop environment by default for the main Desktop edition as Canonical CEO announced earlier this year that Unity would no longer be developed.
However, Canonical is still offering the Unity desktop environment from the official software repositories, so if someone wants to install it, it's one click away. But the bad news is that they'll be supported up until the release of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) in April 2018, so the developers of the Ubuntu Unity Remix would have to continue to keep in on life support on their a separate repository.
On the other hand, we don't believe Canonical will change their mind and accept this Ubuntu Unity Spin to become an official flavor, which would mean they failed to continue development of Unity, and now a handful of people can do it. Most probably, if interest in this Ubuntu Unity Remix won't fade away soon, it will be an unofficial spin supported by the nostalgic community.
Question is, would you be interested in an Ubuntu Unity spin, official or not?