From PC World

Hard on the heels of Canonical's controversial decision to use the 3D-enabled Unity interface in its desktop Ubuntu operating system came word late last week that it will also adopt a new graphics system.

Rather than the venerable X Server and X Window system, open source Ubuntu Linux will include instead Wayland, a lean, OpenGL-based display management system, Mark Shuttleworth said in a Thursday post on his blog.

"We don't believe X is set up to deliver the user experience we want, with super-smooth graphics and effects," Shuttleworth explained. "I understand that it's *possible* to get amazing results with X, but it's extremely hard, and isn't going to get easier."

Progress on the two-year-old Wayland project, meanwhile, "is sufficient for me to be confident that no other initiative could outrun it, especially if we deliver things like Unity and uTouch with it," he added. The change will probably show up in about a year, though it could take as long as four or more years "to really move the ecosystem," Shuttleworth predicted.

Ubuntu 11.04, or Natty Narwhal, is due in April, with a first alpha release now scheduled to arrive early next month, according to recent changes on the project's wiki.

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