This Thursday, Canonical released the first alpha of the upcoming Ubuntu 11.04 release, ‘Natty Narwhal’. This was a big moment because, for the first time, the new Compiz-based Unity was switched on by default. After downloading the ISO, I fired up Virtual Box and installed the OS. As soon as I fired it up- BOOM! Unity won’t work in a virtual machine and instead defaulted back to the traditional GNOME panels. I tried installing it to a USB Key, but after no luck (from screw-ups on my end), I decided to burn it to a CD. Turns out, the ISO was over 700 MB, so I had to burn it to DVD.
Finally, after waiting forever and a day for it to load my desktop, I got a chance to play with Unity. The Compiz-based version is very snappy. Programs load quickly, and mouseovers are instantaneous and effective. A video from OMG!Ubuntu! shows how it works, and showcases the auto-hide functionality, but it doesn’t show how to switch it on, and I couldn’t figure it out from the few minutes I spent using it.
Apparently it has a “float” mode, but I don’t like the way it looks dangling down from the top panel. I hope you can center it in the future.
It certainly feels like they’re heading in the right direction, but at this point it could go either way. Mark Shuttleworth announced that you cannot move the launcher to another side, which is, as far as I’m concerned, a big mistake. That being said, the guys at Canonical are doing a great job with the port to Compiz and making this release shine. Coming in the next release will be the “Places” section of Unity, with many other updates. I’ll be sure to keep you posted.