Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:21 PM, NoOp wrote: > On 04/07/2011 06:38 PM, Rick Spencer wrote: >> Hello all, >> >> Back at UDS for 11.04 in Orlando, Mark set the goal of using Unity by >> default on the Ubutu desktop. Given the current course of development, >> it appears that we are going to achieve this goal, and Unity will stay >> the default for 11.04. > > Please reconsider. Despite the gush of greatness posts, I'd like to post > a usability comment as a user. > > For example (the same applies to most applications): > > I open SeaMonkey in G2 and keep multiple mail/news/browser windows open, > see: > > http://img840.imageshack.us/f/screenshot9sw.png/ > [click to enlarge & scroll to the bottom] > > I can easily click on any of those, or use Alt-Tab to change. > > In Unity if I attempt to do the same, I have to use the SeaMonkey menu > to select the window. I can of course use Alt-Tab, but afterwards I have > no immediate idea about which/how many windows I actually have open. > See: > > http://img820.imageshack.us/i/screenshot4wz.png/ > [again, click to enlarge] > > The inability to have that bar with windows that I can use is, for me, a > complete show stopper. As a long time Gnome2 user (and prior to that Windows), I agree that not having the Windows-style "taskbar" is rather jarring for someone used to having it. Changing between windows in Unity is a mystery, and if you are running more than 2 applications it becomes unmanageable and takes way too much time for multi-taskers. Surely the programmers of Unity would have realized this while running Unity and developing it at the same time; all the different windows you have to have open to develop software would surely expose the problem... e.g. terminal emulator; documentation sites / Devhelp; IDE / text editor; IRC for collaborative development; bug tracker... The fact is that Unity just doesn't scale for this kind of use case. But after using the "present" feature of Gnome 3 (just hit the Windows key on most keyboards), I don't miss the window list in the taskbar that much anymore. On my small screen laptop (1024x768), Gnome 3 + gnome-shell effectively eliminates the vertical real estate consumed by Gnome2's bottom panel. But the window decorations are still there (this is good, since I'm used to them), and the top panel is still there (which is good, since I'm used to it). So on Gnome 3 + GS we have *some* real estate savings, but we still have a lot of the goodies that we're used to from Gnome 2. I'm running Gnome 3 + GS on Fedora 15 Alpha right now, and I absolutely love it. It's got some of the space savings + nice effects + "cool factor" of Unity, without the usability trainwreck. Having used current builds of Unity and Gnome3+GS quite a bit in recent weeks, my conclusion is that I think Gnome3 has out-Unitied Unity! It seems to accomplish many of the same design goals as Unity, but it has stability, performance, wider free desktop community acceptance, and a more familiar interface for users of Gnome2 on its side. Unity seems to me like it has gone "too far" in adopting slick screenspace-saving UX idioms; the result is that it's nearly impossible to multitask efficiently. Gnome3 does not suffer from the same kinds of limitations, even though at first it would seem that Gnome3 has many of the same problems for old hands that Unity does. My pipe dream would be to drop Unity (or just ship it as an optional installable) and ship Gnome3+GS by default, falling back to Gnome2 if hardware 3d rendering isn't available. But I know that (1) this would be a very tall order to "turn the boat" so dramatically inside the space of a month for the 11.04 release; (2) it is almost guaranteed not to happen if only due to the immense pride of the developers behind Unity, and their proportional level of influence in the Ubuntu development process; and (3) breaking the time-based release schedule in order to give us sufficient time to switch out a major desktop component is even less likely to happen, simply because the whole point of a time-based release is to be, well, timely. This point applies equally to shipping Gnome2 by default as well, I guess (although it's less valid there because the Gnome2 environment of Ubuntu has been tested and refined extensively for years already). >Also, note that the lack of a top tool bar where > I can dock an application for monitoring cpu, temps, etc., with a single > glance is as well. Not to mention being able to launch an docked > application with out losing focus on the application that I am currently > using. I miss these things too, but for what it's worth, a top panel remains in Gnome 3, so there is hope that we can develop Gnome-Shell plugins to do these things in the future, if such features aren't already available. So not to belabor my point again, but if you like the fancy effects of Unity but want the usability of Gnome 2, take a look at Gnome 3. It'd be worth your time. > For example; if I want to launch Libre
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
I have to agree. Unity has potential but I don't understand why it can't just be an option for DE. BB -Original Message- From: NoOp Sender: ubuntu-desktop-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2011 20:21:54 To: Cc: Subject: Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04 On 04/07/2011 06:38 PM, Rick Spencer wrote: > Hello all, > > Back at UDS for 11.04 in Orlando, Mark set the goal of using Unity by > default on the Ubutu desktop. Given the current course of development, > it appears that we are going to achieve this goal, and Unity will stay > the default for 11.04. Please reconsider. Despite the gush of greatness posts, I'd like to post a usability comment as a user. For example (the same applies to most applications): I open SeaMonkey in G2 and keep multiple mail/news/browser windows open, see: http://img840.imageshack.us/f/screenshot9sw.png/ [click to enlarge & scroll to the bottom] I can easily click on any of those, or use Alt-Tab to change. In Unity if I attempt to do the same, I have to use the SeaMonkey menu to select the window. I can of course use Alt-Tab, but afterwards I have no immediate idea about which/how many windows I actually have open. See: http://img820.imageshack.us/i/screenshot4wz.png/ [again, click to enlarge] The inability to have that bar with windows that I can use is, for me, a complete show stopper. Also, note that the lack of a top tool bar where I can dock an application for monitoring cpu, temps, etc., with a single glance is as well. Not to mention being able to launch an docked application with out losing focus on the application that I am currently using. For example; if I want to launch LibreOffice while viewing a SeaMonkey (or Firefux page) in Unity, I first must move the mouse to the upper left corner, let it hover for a second or two, figure out if I actually have LO 'docked' as I can't see otherwise, and if so then click it. On G2, I see that it's there move the mouse & click. Note: I can also hide/unhide my G2 panels with a single click as well, so I already have the option to maximize viewable real estate. How do you propose to resolve that simple work environment example? Do you think that users will accept using Alt-Tab to go from one window to another (mail/browser)? How would one keep a System Monitor going to monitor cpu/temps, printer status, etc? I have tried Unity (and continue to try Unity) and find that it is a DE that reminds me of an ipodTouch without the being able to use a touch screen or lacking fingers. The insessant screen space to advertise available application downloads (Apps Available for Download) is unnecessary and irritating (particularly when you can't even easily find your regular G2 installed application), and overall lack of usability is, again IMO, unacceptable. As a longtime Ubuntu user, I highly recommend that Unity *not* be the default, and instead be an alternate to the standard G2 DE. Unity is an 'experimental' DE at best and should not be forces on 11.04 users as a default anything. -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
On 04/07/2011 06:38 PM, Rick Spencer wrote: > Hello all, > > Back at UDS for 11.04 in Orlando, Mark set the goal of using Unity by > default on the Ubutu desktop. Given the current course of development, > it appears that we are going to achieve this goal, and Unity will stay > the default for 11.04. Please reconsider. Despite the gush of greatness posts, I'd like to post a usability comment as a user. For example (the same applies to most applications): I open SeaMonkey in G2 and keep multiple mail/news/browser windows open, see: http://img840.imageshack.us/f/screenshot9sw.png/ [click to enlarge & scroll to the bottom] I can easily click on any of those, or use Alt-Tab to change. In Unity if I attempt to do the same, I have to use the SeaMonkey menu to select the window. I can of course use Alt-Tab, but afterwards I have no immediate idea about which/how many windows I actually have open. See: http://img820.imageshack.us/i/screenshot4wz.png/ [again, click to enlarge] The inability to have that bar with windows that I can use is, for me, a complete show stopper. Also, note that the lack of a top tool bar where I can dock an application for monitoring cpu, temps, etc., with a single glance is as well. Not to mention being able to launch an docked application with out losing focus on the application that I am currently using. For example; if I want to launch LibreOffice while viewing a SeaMonkey (or Firefux page) in Unity, I first must move the mouse to the upper left corner, let it hover for a second or two, figure out if I actually have LO 'docked' as I can't see otherwise, and if so then click it. On G2, I see that it's there move the mouse & click. Note: I can also hide/unhide my G2 panels with a single click as well, so I already have the option to maximize viewable real estate. How do you propose to resolve that simple work environment example? Do you think that users will accept using Alt-Tab to go from one window to another (mail/browser)? How would one keep a System Monitor going to monitor cpu/temps, printer status, etc? I have tried Unity (and continue to try Unity) and find that it is a DE that reminds me of an ipodTouch without the being able to use a touch screen or lacking fingers. The insessant screen space to advertise available application downloads (Apps Available for Download) is unnecessary and irritating (particularly when you can't even easily find your regular G2 installed application), and overall lack of usability is, again IMO, unacceptable. As a longtime Ubuntu user, I highly recommend that Unity *not* be the default, and instead be an alternate to the standard G2 DE. Unity is an 'experimental' DE at best and should not be forces on 11.04 users as a default anything. -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: OpenShot instead of PiTiVi
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:44 AM, Jonathan Thomas wrote: > Any update on whether the Featured Applications list will be dynamic for > 11.04? >From chatting with mvo and the USC folks over the week this feature won't be in 11.04 unfortunately, but we should have something for 11.10. I'll follow up at UDS. I think when it is dynamically generated we should just drop the strict requirements of the Featured Apps and just have it generated by the rating data we collect from users; there's no sense in restricting a great app if people love it just because it duplicates functionality of something we ship by default. -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
Sebastien Bacher [2011-04-08 19:03 +0200]: > Who is upstream? I mean "GNOME" here, as most of the patches we carry for appindicator are against GNOME applications. But it really applies to all other upstreams, starting from hplip, mumble, etc. Martin -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
Le vendredi 08 avril 2011 à 18:38 +0200, Martin Pitt a écrit : > Well, we can always break things harder, but IMHO this is a battle > which we aren't going to win until/unless we actually get indicators > landed upstream... Who is upstream? libappindicator is a free software project not tied to unity and any project is free to use it, some are doing it. GNOME said they would not but for the things we patch there like the keyboard layout we would be better to write system indicators like we did for others Cheers, Sebastien Bacher -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: [Oneiric-Topic] Default e-mail client
Le vendredi 08 avril 2011 à 16:08 +0100, Chris Coulson a écrit : > - I'm not convinced that Evolutions additional features are that > important to our target users Hi, There seem to be some disagreement on how useful the calendar is, it seems that with free gcalendar accounts and smart phones allowing to use those easily quite some people use calendering out of work nowadays Cheers, Sebastien Bacher -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: [Oneiric-Topic] Default e-mail client
Chris Coulson [2011-04-08 16:08 +0100]: > - Calendaring functionality by default, and integrated with the desktop > - Support for syncing contacts with U1 > - Contacts sync with GMail For the record, I have used GMail calendaring support in Evo for several years, that's also working really well. In fact I don't use Evo for email, but it's really useful for calendar (and contacts) for me, mostly because I get notifications for events, it synchronizes with my phone, and I can use GMail calendars from other teams. Martin -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
Jorge O. Castro [2011-04-07 22:00 -0400]: > We've been transitioning since 10.04 now so I don't think this should > be attributed to Unity entirely, we could have easily run into this by > not shipping the notification area in classic mode. Well, we can always break things harder, but IMHO this is a battle which we aren't going to win until/unless we actually get indicators landed upstream... Martin -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: [Oneiric-Topic] Appindicators for xfce4-panel, lxpanel and others?
Hi, Le Thursday 07 April 2011 à 10:43 +0200, Jo-Erlend Schinstad a écrit : > It would be good for both developers and users > if they were working equally well on Unity, Gnome-panel, Xfce4-panel > and Lxpanel. It's already available for lxpanel / LXDE / Lubuntu, just not enable by default due to the additional memory usage. There is also a xfce panel applet which implement appindicators. Regards, Julien Lavergne -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: OpenShot instead of PiTiVi
Any update on whether the Featured Applications list will be dynamic for 11.04? If not, I would like to suggest that OpenShot Video Editor be added to the list of featured applications, as I think it offers Ubuntu users the top rated video editor on Linux. I think the rule of featured applications not duplicating the functionality of any default applications is already being violated: multiple featured image editors, multiple video games, etc Also, hopefully video editing can be discussed at UDS-O this year, although I'm still waiting to hear if I'm getting sponsored by Canonical. =) Thanks! -Jonathan On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 12:14 PM, Jorge O. Castro wrote: > On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 1:24 AM, Robert Ancell > wrote: > > Except one of the requirements of the featured applications at the > > time was they couldn't be a duplicate of application already > > installed. (Perhaps this is worth changing?). My personal feel is now > > we have ratings and reviews the best video editor will naturally float > > to the top with a 4/5 star rating. > > I can't find the spec right now but I believe the idea was once we had > Ratings and Reviews to just let Featured Applications be built > dynamically from that data instead of us having to pick applications > by hand. > > -- > ubuntu-desktop mailing list > ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop > -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: [Oneiric-Topic] Reducing number of patches in our packages
On Fri, 2011-04-08 at 10:12 -0400, Jorge O. Castro wrote: > On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 4:36 AM, Rodrigo Moya > wrote: > >> How would this affect application authors, would they need to go update > >> again? > >> > > what do you mean? > > Basically do we have to go from app to app adjusting them again or is > this a change we can do in one place? > well, the proposal I've made is to patch gtk_status_icon_* API in GTK, so that we don't have to patch any app at all, as they would be already be using the GTK API. So this means no more indicator patches. So yes, it would be a change in one place + the removal of all the appindicator patches in our packages -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
[Oneiric-Topic] Default e-mail client
Priority: e? At UDS for Natty we had a session to discuss the default e-mail client in Ubuntu. Whilst we agreed that we would continue to ship Evolution for 11.04 (with developer effort mostly focused on Unity), we did discuss alternatives. In particular, we looked at Thunderbird as a possible replacement for Evolution in the future, and we discussed some pro's and con's between the 2 clients as they are today. Also, David Ascher, Bryan Clark and Andreas Nilsson attended UDS and gave an interesting demonstration of the work that is happening on Thunderbird (I think this session got recorded, so there might still be a video of this somewhere if people are interested). I will summarize briefly the outcome of that session. Evolution pro's: - Good integration with the desktop already (eg, messaging menu and appmenu) - Integrated with existing translation infrastructure - Calendaring functionality by default, and integrated with the desktop - Support for syncing contacts with U1 - Contacts sync with GMail - GNOME release process is better aligned with our 6 month cycle - Exchange support (no idea how well this works, but it exists) Evolution con's: - Outdated and confusing UI - Historically has been fairly slow and unstable (although it is better now) - UI is pretty bad on netbooks and other small form-factor devices - I'm not convinced that Evolutions additional features are that important to our target users Thunderbird pro's: - Responsive and more active upstream - Familiar brand for users moving from other operating systems, which has the same benefits as shipping Firefox - Lots and lots of extensions, and a very rich extension framework - Initial account setup is so much more intuitive - I like the tabbed interface ;) Thunderbird con's: - Translations not integrated with Launchpad (we have the same issue with Firefox though) - Integration with the desktop lacking (no messaging menu or appmenu) - No exchange support - Calendaring support is only available via an addon (Lightning), and is not integrated with the panel clock - No GMail or U1 contact sync (although GMail contact support is available via an addon) That is a brief summary of where we were at the last UDS. Since then, the following work has happened: - I have written an extension to add appmenu support to Thunderbird (and Firefox), which will be merged upstream at some point. - Mike Conley has been working on integrating Thunderbird with the messaging menu and the launcher in Unity. There's pretty good progress on this already, with extensions already available to test. - Mike has also started working on U1 contact sync. However, there have also been changes to the release schedule for Firefox. It's currently unclear how these affect Thunderbird. So, as of today, these are the things that I think we would miss if we switched the default client to Thunderbird: - GMail contact support - I think this one is fairly important, and I'll offer to help get this fixed if I can. - Calendaring support - Whilst I agree that the existing calendar integration in Evolution is nice, I'm not convinced that it's a deal-breaker for our target audience. I use the calendaring in Evolution for work, but I don't miss it at all on my home desktop (where I use Thunderbird). - Exchange support - again, whilst Exchange support may be important in a corporate environment, I don't think this is particularly important to most users we are targetting. This seemed to be the consensus amongst the people who attended the session at the last UDS too. - Translation support in Launchpad - I'm already planning to work on this anyway (see [1]). So, we should discuss the default mail client again at UDS in Budapest. Also, note that this is the last cycle before the next LTS, which means that if we are going to change our default e-mail client, we need to do it this cycle (else we probably won't have another opportunity until 12.10). Hopefully I didn't miss anything off there. Regards Chris [1] - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-desktop/2011-April/002856.html signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
Neil Jagdish Patel [2011-04-08 11:38 +0100]: > I'll be looking into this, I believe it's because we needlessly > initialise the place-daemons during log-in. Does that include zeitgeist? As a Python program, it has a pretty heavy impact on the login sequence. In previous releases we tried to keep it out of the critical path, by delaying sytem-config-printer by 30 seconds (and we didn't have any other Python stuff during boot). Martin -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: [Oneiric-Topic] Reducing number of patches in our packages
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 4:36 AM, Rodrigo Moya wrote: >> How would this affect application authors, would they need to go update >> again? >> > what do you mean? Basically do we have to go from app to app adjusting them again or is this a change we can do in one place? -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
2011/4/8 Neil Jagdish Patel : > 3.8.4 should be much, much more stable, especially if you're on a 64-bit > system. The entire team is concentrated on crashers and I think we'll > have a very stable Unity by hard-freeze. Sounds good, and yes I've 64-bit which explains a bit. > F10 - Opens first available menu in Panel and then left/right arrows let > you move between all the menus on the panel > Alt+F1 - Focuses the launcher and allows you to keyboard-navigate the > icons and also navigate the Quicklists. > Super - Opens the Dash Yippee! Super and Alt+F2 I had realized (and Alt+F2 was great to have when it appeared and I noticed it from changelog), F10 and Alt+F1 were news to me and they seem to work great at the first sight (except when in calendar, where it seems there is zero way of getting out with keyboard only - I will check if there is a bug for that). The keyboard usability just got a huge boost for me. This illustrates though somewhat the problem of finding these out and the lack of any built-in Help. -Timo -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: [Oneiric-Topic] LightDM for display management
Le vendredi 08 avril 2011 à 19:04 +0930, Jason Warner a écrit : > Thanks for proposing this. I'm particularly interested in any and all > speed improvements that could come from this...and if we have less > overhead in general, great! If you're using GNOME, loading a whole GNOME session when starting GDM won't induce much overhead, since you'll need to load all of those apps and libraries anyway in the login phase. It might even be better to read those files early since it makes sure ureadahead will catch them. And it ensures that once you've typed your password, the login is fast (less disk reads): since at that point we know you're sitting in front of your keyboard, better spend less time in that phase, and more in the boot per se. Of course only testing can decide which one is faster, but (for GNOME users) I don't think that's a priori so obvious. Regards -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: [Oneiric-Topic] LightDM for display management
Hi Robert - Thanks for proposing this. I'm particularly interested in any and all speed improvements that could come from this...and if we have less overhead in general, great! I look forward to the discussion. -Jason On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 6:32 PM, Robert Ancell wrote: > Last cycle I proposed using LightDM to replace GDM [1]. It was deferred > due to the Unity work, so time to repropose! > > The main reasons for switching are: > - Simpler code to maintain (GDM is a huge ~50,000 line C program and we > carry 36 patches. LightDM is nearer 10,000 lines of C). > - More flexible greeter development - greeters are as easy as X > applications to write, which means we can have an Ubuntu specific > greeter that without branching the rest of the code > - Speed improvements - we can run a greeter without running a full GNOME > session > - Display manager can be shared with Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu etc but > still allow each distro to have their own greeter. > > The current state of LightDM is "80% done" I would say. The core > architecture is all there, and it just needs a few weeks of solid work > to make it shine. > > [1] > > https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/packageselection-desktop-n-display-manager > > -- > ubuntu-desktop mailing list > ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop > -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
[Oneiric-Topic] LightDM for display management
Last cycle I proposed using LightDM to replace GDM [1]. It was deferred due to the Unity work, so time to repropose! The main reasons for switching are: - Simpler code to maintain (GDM is a huge ~50,000 line C program and we carry 36 patches. LightDM is nearer 10,000 lines of C). - More flexible greeter development - greeters are as easy as X applications to write, which means we can have an Ubuntu specific greeter that without branching the rest of the code - Speed improvements - we can run a greeter without running a full GNOME session - Display manager can be shared with Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu etc but still allow each distro to have their own greeter. The current state of LightDM is "80% done" I would say. The core architecture is all there, and it just needs a few weeks of solid work to make it shine. [1] https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/packageselection-desktop-n-display-manager -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
On Fri, 2011-04-08 at 11:13 +0300, Timo Jyrinki wrote: > For 11.10, probably something should be done about the logging in > time, with is terrible at least with a traditional spinning, encrypted > disk, compared to normal Gnome. Weirdly sometimes I saw a pretty fast > logging in even after reboot, but normally it's 30s+ from gdm to > desktop. Something is seriously churning the hard disk with seeks, > possibly something that only occurs with specific conditions. > > -Timo > Yeah, we desperately need to reign this in next cycle. Startup time (particularly the time taken for the desktop to load from GDM) has more than doubled on my laptop since Maverick. It's now pretty much back to the days where I can switch on my laptop and go and make myself a coffee during the time it takes to boot. Regards Chris signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: [Oneiric-Topic] Reducing number of patches in our packages
On Thu, 2011-04-07 at 20:26 -0400, Jorge O. Castro wrote: > >> Also, some Ubuntu-specific patches, like the appindicators ones are > >> duplicated in lots of packages, so it would be good if we could find a > >> better way to make upstream apps use them, like, for instance, patching > >> gtk_status_icon_* in GTK itself to use the indicators when available, > >> instead of having to patch dozens of apps (and keep those patches > >> up-to-date and working for every major version upgrade). > > How would this affect application authors, would they need to go update again? > what do you mean? > >> Another candidate for that could be the launchpad integration patches, > >> which are present in many more packages than the appindicators ones. I'm > >> sure we can find a way to have that in GTK itself, so that whenever a > >> Help menu is created, and given we have the name of the app, it could > >> just create the LPI entries. > > This would be great, do you think GTK upstream would be keen on this? > maybe, but if not, we would just need to carry 1 distro patch, not dozens of them > > +100 for this topic. The amount of patches we carry is a huge but > > mostly silent overhead. I'd like to make a website like versions [1] > > that shows our diff against vanilla GNOME to make this more visible. > > I would like to also +100 even though I'm not on the desktop team. :p > > The 3.x transition this is the time to get this out of the way before > we find ourselves in LTS-crunch with too large a delta. When we're > ready I'd like to see us approach d-d-l as soon as possible and start > talking to module maintainers and start working on this. Even if we > don't get them all if we could at least do a frontloaded approach for > O and catch the remainder in P that would be great. > right, that's why those patch upstreaming/cleaning days would be useful -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
2011/4/8 Martin Pitt : > I couldn't have believed it even two months ago still, but today I > feel the same. When I switch back to classic GNOME it feels inferior > now; I'm particularly missing the super-fast keyboard > shortcuts/search/navigation and bigger screen real estate. I have started to like Unity a lot, at least on a though level and also seeing in practice that it's really improving. The biggest issues have been that unity has been crashing for me all the time. Today is actually the first day that unity/compiz didn't crash within a minute of logging in when alt-tabbing or something similar (then it usually took longer time before it crashed the next time). Fingers crossed that unity 3.8.4 is now actually more stable in real use - same was said about 3.8.2. If it stays for a day of work without crashing, that's a really good accomplishment compared to before. Besides fixing crashers I really would see need for more accessibility support and help. I don't know how to access eg. indicators or system menu from keyboard, which is quite essential for me even without disabilities, but for people with disabilities I believe the accessibility in general is relatively poor at the moment. gnome-shell already has a lot of a11y stuff integrated in 3.0 (considering it's the first stable release), and Ubuntu with accessibility as one of the core Ubuntu philosophy items should have as well. Of course, by 12.04 LTS at least. There are a lot of bugs and lack of features (and many have been fixed already as well) and the performance is quite bad in parts, but those are not as serious as a) crashers and potentially b) accessibility and lack of any help. For 11.10, probably something should be done about the logging in time, with is terrible at least with a traditional spinning, encrypted disk, compared to normal Gnome. Weirdly sometimes I saw a pretty fast logging in even after reboot, but normally it's 30s+ from gdm to desktop. Something is seriously churning the hard disk with seeks, possibly something that only occurs with specific conditions. -Timo -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Default Desktop Experience for 11.04
On 04/08/2011 03:38 AM, Rick Spencer wrote: > Representing the desktop team, Jason Warner believes that Unity will > deliver the superior experience for most users in 11.04. I agree with > this position and support staying the course. When I look at the current state, I find that statement hard to agree. For me, Unity is not working at all. Even the most common apps like Firefox and Thunderbird don't open (they show what used to be the window title menu, but no main GUI appears). There are situations in which I cannot access the launcher panel (only half of it appears and it is not clickable). Sometimes apps seem to appear minimized to only a thin line. Currently I've given up on Unity and reverted to Gnome classic (without effects). (This is all on a Lenovo T410s, Intel graphics) Regards, Andreas -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
