Ubuntu Natty Narwhal came out last week. I must say that despite the fact I have been a software developer, so a little more geek than a common OS user, I am just an Ubuntu user, not so nerdy: I just found in Ubuntu OS all of the things I need not to be constrained to use a commercial OS such as Winzoz or MrJobsOS. Consider I have been using Ubuntu starting from 9.0.4 release, so not that much time. The the new release came out with some major changes: kernel 2.6.38-8 generic, new bootloader version, revised Ubuntu One Client (always powered by Funambol Inc. , of course 🙂 ), LibreOffice Suite in place of OpenOffice…
The very big change that everybody will notice after the update is that Ubuntu deprecated Gnome GUI in place of Unity (the same that was used for Netbooks versions). It is true that Gnome is always available to be selected from the login screen (choosing the “Classic” interface), but it is also true that this choice made by Canonical – system integrator around the Ubuntu OS – definitely divided the Ubuntu community on the WEB: someone is very angry about the new GUI adoption because after many years of Gnome usage they went to a totally new GUI; on the other hand it seems that KDE users (Kubuntu users in general) are not affected by this frustration and also other kind of users, let me say, like me, that are quite new to this OS (just a few months usage), see the choice to use Unity as a very good one.
The Unity approach is really interesting for the very early users of this OS (let me say like me 🙂 ) as they will see a very user friendly interface and they will be able to really “USE” the OS finding their things in a easier way and discovering applications faster. Unity is very good choice also to migrate from a Widnows PC or Netbook (very similar to the Windows 7 starter edition GUI). In a few words Unity can better resolve the complexity of the migration for all kind of users from the concept of standalone PC top the paradigm of connected device and finally to the meaning of cloud interface so that each user is able to play around with its data, application and PIM without the need to have a real understanding of where its stuff are.