One of the design goals of Unity is to reduce the clutter of the desktop, another is to use space more efficiently.

Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal alpha 2 has just been released and as usual, we'll do a recap of all the new features since alpha 1.

"Does Natty's Unity require proprietary graphics card drivers?" was a question posted on AskUbuntu and who better to answer this question then Mark Suttleworth himself (who apparently is quite an active AskUbuntu user)?

Great news for those who want to try out the latest Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal with the Unity interface without booting a CD or Live USB - Unity now works in the latest VirtualBox 4.0. All you have to do to get Ubuntu 11.04 with Unity to work in VirtualBox 4.0 is to enable 3D Acceleration and obviously, install the VirtualBox Guest Additions. Read on!

As you probably know, the Ubuntu 11.04 panel doesn't let you add applets - it's not that panel is locked like it was in Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Edition, it simply doesn't support applets (it doesn't have such a feature) as the top Unity panel is not a Gnome panel.

Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal Alpha 1 has been released today.  Since Unity received an update a couple of days ago, I though you might want to see a new video with Unity in action:

Unity has finally been made default in Ubuntu (desktop) 11.04 Natty Narwhal yesterday, as you can see in the Ubuntu meta changelog. That means that if you download the latest Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal daily build and boot from it, you should get Unity without having to install / enable anything. The same changelog mentions that Screen has been removed from the desktop version.

Today is the last UDS-N day and a session about the default application selection in the upcoming Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal is ongoing. Here's what is being discussed:

- Banshee might be included by default in Ubuntu 11.04 (and thus replace Rhythmbox) if it can be slimmed down to fit on the CD

- Oneconf will be included by default in Ubuntu 11.04.

Now that Unity will be used by default in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, it's been getting a lot of attention and there are discussions going on about if and how the Global Menu (AppMenu) will behave on the desktop, a better way of managing multiple desktops and many other subjects. One such discussion drew my attention and I though I'd share it with you.

Video: UDS Natty 11.04 - Mark Shuttleworth's Keynote

The UDS-N (Ubuntu Developer Summit - Natty Narwhal) started today and Mark Shuttleworth already announced that Unity w

The updated Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" release schedule is available on the Ubuntu Wiki.