Canonical is ditching the GNOME desktop environment for a custom user interface, called Unity, currently only available in the netbook edition of Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat). According to Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth, the next release of its Linux distro, Ubuntu 11.04 “Natty Narwhal,” will ship with the Unity shell as its default user interface.

The decision was taken following a rift between Canonical and GNOME over certain design issues.  "We were part of the GNOME shell design discussion, we put forward our views and they were not embraced by designers," Shuttleworth said at the ongoing Ubuntu Developer Summit.

"We took a divergent view from the GNOME shell folks on key design issues, for example how application menus should appear on the system, how one should search to find applications, [and] how one's favorite applications should be presented."

However, users will be allowed to install GNOME through Ubuntu’s software installation program. Natty Narwhal is scheduled to be released in April, 2011.

The next iteration of Ubuntu will accommodate Canonical's UTouch framework, making it the first version of the world's most popular linux distro to feature multitouch support. Codenamed Maverick Meerkat, Ubuntu version 10.10 is scheduled for release on October 10, 2010. According to a post on Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth's official blog, at least a four-finger touch device is needed “to get the most out of it.”

He also revealed that Canonical is developing the new feature using the Dell Latitude XT2 as its development platform. “The design team has lead the way, developing a “touch language” which goes beyond the work that we’ve seen elsewhere. Rather than single, magic gestures, we’re making it possible for basic gestures to be chained, or composed, into more sophisticated 'sentences,'” the South African entrepreneur wrote in a blog post Monday.

“The basic gestures, or primitives, are like individual verbs, and stringing them together allows for richer interactions. It’s not quite the difference between banging rocks together and conducting a symphony orchestra, but it feels like a good step in the right direction.”

But this should not be seen as a harbinger of a tablet-only version of Ubuntu. Shuttleworth made this very clear in an interview with ComputerWorld's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.