Ubuntu Unity 20.10 “Groovy Gorilla” Enters Development, First Alpha Is Ready for Testers

Ubuntu Unity 20.10

The upcoming Ubuntu Unity Remix 20.10 distribution has entered development as part of Ubuntu 20.10 “Groovy Gorilla” with a first Alpha build now ready for public testing.

Last month, I wrote about a new, unofficial Ubuntu flavor called Ubuntu Unity Remix, which had its first ever release based on the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) operating system, but featuring the good old Unity 7 user interface as default desktop environment.

You remember Unity, right? Well, Ubuntu Unity Remix brought back good old memories for me, back when Unity was a thing and promised to be the future of the Linux desktop. But it didn’t happen, at least not on the Linux desktop, as Canonical decided to terminate the project.

However, Unity is still a thing on mobile devices, thanks to UBports which continue the development of Unity 8 under the Lomiri umbrella. But one should not confuse Unity 7 with Unity 8.

Unity 7 was a beautiful and modern interface for the Linux desktop, and if you still want to use in 2020, you can try the Ubuntu Unity Remix 20.04 distribution, which you can download right now from the official website.

The development team lead by Rudra Saraswat are already working on the next version, Ubuntu Unity 20.10, which will be released later this fall as part of the upcoming Ubuntu 20.10 “Groovy Gorilla” operating system, slated for release on October 22nd.

A first Alpha version of Ubuntu Unity 20.10 is now ready for public testing. Curious to see what’s new, I took it for a test drive, and, to my surprise, everything works a lot faster than version 20.04.

Besides being based on Ubuntu 20.10, the upcoming Ubuntu Unity 20.10 release promises improved HUD and Global Menu that now work with Mozilla Firefox, improved power settings by giving users the option to lock, suspend, restart or shutdown the system when pressing the power button.

Moreover, users will now be able to display their username on the Menu, something that can be configured in Settings. Ubuntu Unity 20.10 also comes with a beautiful new icon theme and artwork, making it more modern and enjoyable than the previous release.

All in all, Ubuntu Unity 20.10 looks like a very promising release and it comes with many of my favorite app. It also looks like the developers have dropped the “Remix” from its name, which could mean that they want it to become an official Ubuntu flavor.

If you want to take the Ubuntu Unity 20.10 Alpha for a test drive, you can download the ISO image right now from here. If not, you can see it in action in the screenshot gallery below. I will keep you guys updated with its development in the coming months.

Last updated 4 years ago

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