Canonical Creates New Setup Wizard Design

The design team behind Canonical’s Linux distribution Ubuntu has unveiled a new setup wizard. The design is based on the smallest screen, namely that of the smartphone, in order to obtain a uniform ‘experience’ on all devices.

In Canonical’s words, it says that Ubuntu’s ‘out-of-the-box’ experience has been adapted and not just for phone or tablet. Canonical is in the process of bringing all the different incarnations of Ubuntu together more and more, with the image for the user being more or less the same everywhere. In this way, the company wants to achieve a ‘seamless convergent platform’.

It is not surprising that the change comes from the design of a smartphone or tablet. Canonical has been trying to gain a place in the smartphone market with Ubuntu for some time and it believes that more and more people will come into contact with Ubuntu as an operating system ‘for the first time’. Or, as the design team points out in its blog post, if someone buys a ‘completely new product with unknown software’, ‘first impressions count’.

Ubiquity installer and the new, still unnamed installer

That first impression may in the near future consist of an off-white screen with a purple bar and the only question which language the user wants. Then the other settings follow in a similar screen without further frills.

Ubuntu came out with the still-used Ubiquity installer in 2010. The starting point was that there should be no ambiguity for the person who first took up the operating system. The Ubiquity design specs replaced those for the 2005 UbuntuExpress installer. It’s not yet known when the new installer will make its way to Ubuntu.