Hello Linux Geeksters. As a reminder, Canonical has been working a lot at Mir, their own display server, which is intended to be an alternative to the good old X.org server. While it is implemented by default on Ubuntu Touch, Mir will land in the desktop versions of Ubuntu, starting with Ubuntu 14.10.
Canonical has updated Mir again, Mir 0.1.2 coming with over 52 bugfixes and enhancements. Among others, it comes with support for ARM Mali T604 the GPU used by Google Nexus 10, some performance regression fixes, Android driver support improvements, support for resizable windows, better documentation for the ubuntu-desktop-mir package, and many others. For more information, see the changelog.
The initial plan was to integrate Mir and Unity 8 in Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, but for performance reasons, the idea has been postponed. Mark Shuttlerworth’s big dream is to reach a full mobile-desktop convergence, in order to enable the users to connect a screen and a keyboard to their Ubuntu-based smartphone and get all the features of a computer.
To my mind, Canonical wants to get the first step in the convergence process, with the arrival of Ubuntu 14.10. They already intend to port some Ubuntu Touch apps for the Ubuntu desktop and include them in Ubuntu 14.10.