Ubuntu already has a well-deserved reputation among computer users for being a small, quick-booting flavor of Linux, as the the most recent LTS release, proved. But that's not enough for its developers at Canonical.

According to a blog post Monday from founder Mark Shuttleworth, future versions of the OS will be faster than ever thanks to a new netbook-oriented "desktop experience codebase" called Unity and a range of new "Light" versions that are optimized for "instant-on" dual-booting.

The philosophy behind Unity is the maximizing of display real estate for widescreen netbooks. The bottom panel, which currently houses the Trash bin and the Show Desktop button, will be moved to the left side of the screen, and be used exclusively for launching and switching between applications. The launcher panel will also be extended to be larger and easier to use with touch screens. more touch-friendly. The top menu bar will contain only one menu, from which all the other actions can be accessed. The net effect of all this is to reduce wasted horizontal space and make more vertical pixels available for Web browsing.

Ubuntu Light versions are being developed as an easy way to "put a free software foot forward," even where the use of Windows is predominant. Ubuntu Netbook Light and Ubuntu Desktop Light will boot almost instantly into a Web-ready environment that will protect keep any other data on the computer even if you're connected to an unprotected network. It does this by lacking support for traditional local file management, which keeps data safe but may force the user partly (if not entirely) into the cloud to do it.

The new Unity Design will be implemented beginning with . Ubuntu Light is available to OEMs as of today.