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+Canonical recently released Ubuntu 17.10, a major update with some significant changes coming to the popular Ubuntu Linux operating system.
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+If you've been following the Linux world at all you know that Canonical ceased to develop its homegrown Unity desktop, Mir display server and the dream of "convergence", a unified interface of Ubuntu for phones, tablets, and desktops. The change comes almost exactly six years after Ubuntu first switched from GNOME 2 to the Unity desktop. Contrary to what quite a few reviews have said, this is not the first release of Ubuntu to use the GNOME desktop, which makes this release more of a homecoming than an entirely new voyage.
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+That said, Ubuntu 17.10, does very much feel like the start of a new voyage for Ubuntu. The last few Ubuntu desktop releases have been about as exciting as OpenSSH releases -- you know you need to update, but beyond that, no one really cares. Sure there'd be a few feature updates with each new numeric increment, perhaps some slightly more up-to-date GNOME and GTK components under the hood, but by and large the Ubuntu's Unity 7 desktop was in maintenance mode for several years.
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+That period of stagnation turned Ubuntu from one of the more interesting operating systems around into just another Linux distro barely worthy of mention.
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+That changes with 17.10. There are big changes yes -- an entirely new default desktop in fact -- but that's not what makes this release different. This release feels different, not because the desktop has changed, but because Ubuntu feels like it once again has a sense of focus and direction. 
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+Ununtu feels like it's turned a corner. Even Canonical's letter-based naming scheme has arrived that the starting over point, A -- "Artful Aardvark" is 17.10's nickname. 
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+Desktop users paying close attention to Ubuntu may not like the renewed sense of focus and direction since much of the chatter, features and tools coming out of Canonical right now are geared toward the server, container and what the kids call the internet of things (IoT) releases. While it's true that that's where Canonical's bottom line lies, and without giving some attention to its paying customers there won't be a Canonical, that ignores the fact that Canonical put tremendous effort into transitioning away from Unity and building a replacement desktop out of GNOME. If Canonical really didn't care about the desktop it wouldn't have put in any effort at all. It would have been much easier to just get rid of the desktop entirely, but that's not what happened.
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+In a blog post announcing 17.10 Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth encourages users to "pick a desktop". "we're using GNOME", he writes, "but we’re the space where KDE and GNOME and MATE and many others come together to give users real and easy choice of desktops. And if you’re feeling boned by the lack of Unity in open source, you might want to hop onto the channel and join those who are updating Unity7 for the newest X and kernel graphics in 18.04".
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+The last bit hints at the future of desktop Ubuntu. So does a recent call for community input on a new Ubuntu desktop theme. These hints point to a new Ubuntu desktop, one that's much more community-centric. Canonical got rid of most of its design team so in one sense it has no choice but to farm these things out to the community, but that's not the entire story here. This is pure conjecture on my part, but I think that Canonical's course reversal on "convergence" goes much deeper than just abandoning Unity. Canonical shows signs of also abandoning its sometimes rather rigid belief system as well. Gone are the days when feature requests were dismissed as "wont fix" simply because they conflicted with some designers vision of how the desktop should work.
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+Instead I believe that Ubuntu realized its mistake wasn't just pursuing convergence, but that convergence wasn't what its users wanted. I believe that the new Canonical, the new Ubuntu, is going to listen more closely to its community. Will the actual paying customers' needs set the ship's course so to speak? Probably, but that doesn't mean the desktop community will be abandoned. After all more than a few developers started using Ubuntu on the server because they were already using it on the desktop.
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+Ubuntu 17.10 is a preview of what will be arriving in the next Long Term Support release  -- Ubuntu 18.04, coming April 2018 -- Ubuntu 17.10 is packed full of big changes and makes use of many new technologies.
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+Read on for our full Ubuntu 17.10