Unity is a fine desktop environment, but many users of Ubuntu hate it. In fact, due to how much negativity there is towards the DE, Linux Mint has experienced popularity thanks to Cinnamon and Mate. Quite frankly, maintaining Unity has been somewhat foolish for Canonical — a waste of resources and money when there are plenty of wonderful existing environments.
Today, the company admits that it is throwing in the towel on Unity, as well as its vision for convergence with devices like phones and tablets. Starting with Ubuntu 18.04, the wonderful GNOME will once again become the default desktop environment.
“We are wrapping up an excellent quarter and an excellent year for the company, with performance in many teams and products that we can be proud of. We will shift our default Ubuntu desktop back to GNOME for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS,” says Mark Shuttleworth, Founder of Ubuntu and Canonical.”
This new focus on the desktop and IoT by Canonical is wonderful news for the community overall.
[Source]
