But it looks like work on this massive switch from Unity to GNOME will start soon, as part of the development cycle of the next release of the Linux-based operating system, Ubuntu 17.10, which hits the streets sometime in October 2017. On April 18, the Ubuntu desktop team held a first meeting to discuss the move to GNOME. While the release schedule of Ubuntu 17.10 is yet to be decided and published on the Ubuntu Wiki, Canonical’s Michal Hall revealed the fact that the second Alpha is the target for Ubuntu to ship with the GNOME desktop environment as default session, which will be the first public “Call for testing” for the Ubuntu community.