Hello Linux Geeksters. As you may already know, Canonical has been working at lot at Mir, their own display server, which is intended to be an alternative to the good old X.org server. Initially the Ubuntu developers planed to use it as default on Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, but the idea was postponed due to some performance reasons.
The Mir system compositor has received a lot of changes lately, the last enhancement making Mir available to share surfaces in VNC-like setups. Also, a compositor report option and support for screen rotatian via OpenGL have been recently implemented.
For those who don’t know, Canonical has been working a lot at Ubuntu Touch, the mobile version of Ubuntu. While the initial plan was to make it available for all the Google Nexus smartphones and tablets, the developers have dropped the support for Galaxy Nexus, Google Nexus 7 2012 and Google Nexus 10, Ubuntu Touch being available only for the Google Nexus 4 smartphone and the Google Nexus 7 2013 tablet.
Despite the fact that the first stable version of Ubuntu Touch was based on Ubuntu 13.10, the development has switched to Ubuntu 14.04 and the latest Ubuntu Touch images are quite stable.
Mark’s Shuttleworth big dream is to reach full desktop-mobile convergence somewhere between the releases of Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 15.04 (between October 2014 and April 2015). Also worth mentioning: most likely the first smartphone with Ubuntu Touch pre-installed will be released in 2015 and will not be manufactured by Meizu, despite what was rumored.