A Look Back At The Desktop & X.Org/Wayland/Mir Milestones Of Ubuntu

October 2010: Ubuntu 10.10 started the roll out of the Unity desktop. It was marketed as the Unity shell to GNOME.

Those wanting to see more original screenshots can read my 2010 May article Testing Out Ubuntu's Unity Desktop. Also talked up at that time was "Ubuntu Light" as a new initiative for PC OEMs to dual-load Windows and Ubuntu Light on the same system.

November 2010: Mark Shuttleworth tells Phoronix they are planning to deploy Unity with Wayland in place of the X.Org Server. However, they expect the transition to Unity-over-Wayland to take some time...

April 2011: Unity rolled out as the default on the Ubuntu desktop in Ubuntu 11.04.

For more of Unity from that time, see The Desktop Faces Of Ubuntu 11.04 Alpha 1. There was also the short-lived Unity 2D desktop from 2011 to 2012 for systems lacking working OpenGL acceleration to deal with Compiz. Unity 2D was basically the stripped-down version of Unity until they decided to drop it thanks to LLVMpipe and open-source Linux GPU drivers getting better.

It was also in early 2011, Canonical was sounding like Unity on Wayland may be ready for 2012.

Late 2011: It was in late 2011 when Ubuntu developers began talking about Ubuntu on smartphones.

April 2012: Unity was quick to advance in its early days... Here's a look at Unity from Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:

2012: 2012 is also when Canonical decided to pursue the short-lived Ubuntu TV initiative and their goal to put Unity on TVs. I checked it out at CES and the project ended up being canned not long after.

May 2012: Developers at UDS discussed plans for Ubuntu 12.10 with Wayland support while still talking up Ubuntu TV possibilities.

October 2012: With Ubuntu 12.10 is also when they began utilizing affiliate store search results as part of searches in Unity to try to generate additional revenue. Wayland wasn't ready for Ubuntu 12.10 and the X.Org Server remained the default.