Unity 8 for the Ubuntu desktop is still pretty far from being ready for day-to-day use, but the devs have been making some great progress and it looks like the desktop experience is shaping up.

Ubuntu is in the midst of a major upgrade for the desktop environment, which will switch from Unity 7 to 8. This piece of software made by Canonical has been evolving constantly since its release in 2011 and some of the updates made for it have been very important, yet none of them can really match the kind of upgrade now being prepared.

From a design point of view, the Unity 8 experience won't be all that different from the current Unity 7. Sure enough, there will be some visual differences, but the devs and even Mark Shuttleworth said that it wouldn't change too much. On the other hand, it will be a real upgrade for its underpinnings, which are being rewritten.

Unity 8 is not ready, but it's getting there

The Ubuntu devs had a separate version called Next that was running Unity 8 for quite some time, but until a few months ago the desktop still looked like an oversized tablet screen from the Ubuntu Touch counterpart. Now, that's changing and it's happening fast.

In fact, the last few weeks have been very busy for the devs and they have a lot to show. Things started to move in this direction soon after the new Desktop Team manager at Canonical, Will Cooke, outlined the direction of the project.

Ubuntu's makers have been working on the phone version for quite some time and Unity 8 is already implemented on that platform. It will take some time until the desktop counterpart is modified enough for regular use, but Canonical hasn't been idle. They have already planned what the desktop is supposed to look and act like, and now they have started to make the changes.

"All the work which is going in to the phone will be directly applicable to the desktop as well, since they will use the same code. All the apps, the UI tweaks, everything which makes applications secure and stable will all directly apply to the desktop as well. The plan is to have the single converged operating system ready for use on the desktop by 16.04," Will Cooke said a while back.

It would be hard to quantify all of these changes, but Ubuntu user Popescu Sorin has been documenting some of these modifications and he made a number of videos showcasing them, which he shared on Google+. You can also download Ubuntu Next and give it a try. Enjoy!