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Ubuntu Dev Summit Lays Out Plans For Hardy Heron
Opurt writes "On the first day of the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Boston this week, a roundtable session focused on the vision for the upcoming Hardy Heron Ubuntu release. Unlike Gutsy Gibbon, which brought a handful of experimental features along with some new functionality, the focus with Heron will be on robustness as it will be supported on the desktop for 3 years. 'The Compiz window manager, which adds sophisticated visual effects to the Ubuntu user interface, will be a big target for usability improvements. Keyboard bindings and session management were noted as two areas where Compiz still needs some work.' PolicyKit and Tracker will also be significantly tweaked, while Heron is also likely to see a complete visual refresh."
"hairy hardon"
Here's a better summary of things to come in Hardy, linked from an OS News posting.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
You know, you could just buy OSX
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
Other stuff I'd like to see:
My blog
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If I was asked what things annoyed me most about Feisty (Offtopic?!), I would have said two things: Printers and all that stuff you needed Automatix for. Everything else was pretty much fine.
Along comes Gutsy and... Printers, wow! - doesn't get easier, and Automatix? I've been using Gutsy for about 2 months now and I still haven't downloaded Automatix (Sorry guys, great tool - but don't need it anymore)
Gutsy brings Ubuntu to a level where it can really stand up against the likes of Windows (even coming out better in a lot of surveys than Vista). Compiz is incredible - and anyone I know with Windows stands open-mouthed when they see it.
Heron really needs to up the level way beyond what it is at now, and become the Windows Slayer. I have no idea how they would do that though.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
There's one problem with this: Patches. One of the truly lovely things about a package manager is that it becomes your one-stop place for patches to all applications on the system. Once you leave the package manager, and have users dumping .app files randomly onto their system, you have no good way of getting patches for those apps. This dramatically weakens the security of your system.
/Application directory is a really bad idea.
I can see wanting a way for little userland apps (that are unlikely to ever get patches anyway) to install in for just one user. But for big, system-wide things (like a browser, or OOo) a free-for-all
Hear hear. I'd particularly like the regressions addressed - the latest upgrade broke my installation of Eclipse so I can't run Ant inside it
Yes, the workaround is to either download/install Eclipse manually or run Ant from the command-line, but it is annoying to see a basic feature still broken for weeks when it worked perfectly fine before.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
* switch binaries to PE executables with
* change directory delimiter from / to \
* identify partitions with a single-letter name followed by a colon, before the file path
* change "home" to "Documents and Settings"
* move applications to "Program Files" folder
* replace symlinks with "shortcuts" with a
* ignore bugs
</sarcasm>
The numbering system in Ubuntu is based on year, month of release (e.g 7.10) Obviously in development no-one knows if they are going to meet the deadline or miss it like they did with 6.06. This is the reason that the code names are used.
To make it clearer, development has just started on Hardy Heron, or what is likely to be known as 8.04. To start development the Ubuntu devs create repositories named after the codename (e.g. Hardy). If they used 8.04 and the deadline was missed and the release was actually 8.06 they wouldn't easily be able to change the repositories and other stuff.
The names are just code names, after release the number is the identifier that is used by Ubuntu (see if you can see 'Gutsy' on the Ubuntu.com front page, it's not there) its just usually the the code-names stick it peoples' minds.
So to sum up, the code names are there for a perfectly logical reason, and the animal thing is just a consistent naming theme that was chosen.
Gutsy broke my vmware. Not expected and from what I hear there's no vmware in gutsy still. We who have technical know-how can still fix it, but it does seem that the QA-dept slipped a bit on Gutsy.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
But I have to ask the obvious question here: In just what way does Linux NOT have a clean filesystem?
/etc/y13f4, and assuming for a moment that there is nothing on your system even remotely called "y13f4", would you know what it is for or who put it there? If every application was well-behaved and stored that file in $appdir/etc/ it would be utterly clear to everyone that it was part of that specific application. And then there is security: access to files in /etc and other directories could be far more limited than it is today, since no applications would have any business sticking their files there.
/etc, /var, /lib, /usr, /usr/lib, /var/log, and whereever you stick manfiles these days. Instead he would like to store ALL THAT SHIT in one directory (per application, of course). Wouldn't that be neat? Moreover, I support that position: it would be extremely neat.
In the way that files that belong to applications are spread over a dozen directories. To name just one example: why is it considered a good idea to have a single directory with all the help files for everything that is installed? Just put them in the application directory already. It reduces the chances of having naming clashes with files that are already there, and it would allow installation and de-installation using nothing more than drag and drop instead of the elaborate scripting systems now in place. It would also make it far easier to understand what specific files do: if you now find a file, let's say
And let's have a look how Windows does it: every application writes a bunch of crap into the registry, and everyone is moaning about it. Yet when it is UNIX doing it it is fine? That really doesn't make ANY sense.
Yes, the idea that we want full control over our OS, rather than it having full control of us, is a bad thing.
I cannot image where that came from. Are you sure you were even replying to my post?
Also, the idea that we should not strive too hard to copy the ideas of someone else is a bad thing. I can definitely see the point in not avoiding lawsuits or stale, cheap imitations or accusations that we're just copying off of somebody else.
There are really only two models for storing applications: store everything related to the application together in one folder (the model used by Commodore and Apple), or to store everything all over the filesystem (the model used by UNIX and Windows). So you get to be like Windows, or you get to be like Apple. On that basis I would strongly prefer to be more like Apple - even when discounting the advantages of that model.
I completely understand now that the first Model T was the penultimate in cars because it was made by professionals, and we should never have made cars which were different.
But you do believe we should stick with the original UNIX model of storing files all over the place? I guess you must: you are violently attacking me when I support a proposed change to the original model.
My alternative theory is that you urgently need to take some more medication.
Okay, rant over. I guess I'm just not sure what you mean by keeping a clean filesystem. Please to elaborate, so that I may investigate its feasability. No seriously, I need something to do.
Oh, NOW I see: you are the person in charge of development over at Ubuntu! Sorry, I had no idea! Well, it is really simple. The original poster would like to see a system whereby applications don't write crap all over the
Of course, I realize this represents a Change From The Way Things Were. I understand the fear and uncertainty ANY change causes. Really! But rather than simply be an uber-arrogant asshole and say "rejected" without ANY consideration or discussion of the merits of the stated idea, we could and should have had a civilized discussion why this is good or bad.
Your baseless flaming of me, mostly based on statements that I did not actually make but only occurred in your head, unfortunately rules out that possibility. Too bad, but maybe we can try again in three years or so...
That's because the Linux filesystem layout comes from Unix, and that was made to be optimal for system administration. Meaning, having part of the filesystem be shared through NFS.
The different locations for binaries, settings, etc, makes it very easy to share data between a hundred boxes, but not the configuration, or the configuration as well if you want it.
Even if you don't need a network, this is still nice for system administration. For example my general layout is root FS on plain RAID-1, then
The thing is that you don't understand the original model. You seem to think that the layout is the way it is because people just threw stuff into the first place they could think of. Learn why it's the way it is, then come up with a good reason why the original reasons are no longer good, and only then there can be a sensible discussion of the subject.
If I wanted OS X, I'd use OS X. Your idea isn't new, and has been discussed hundreds of times before. That Ubuntu still keeps the old layout should be a hint.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
Ubuntu 7.10 didn't "break" your copy of VMware server. Every time you change your kernel, you need to recompile the kernel modules for VMware. VMware provided kernel modules for Ubuntu 7.04's updates. Currently they do not provide kernel modules for 7.10. They will probably begin providing these updates within a few weeks.
In the meantime, you just have to compile your own modules. It's very simple--it's a matter of running vmware-config.pl every time you upgrade the kernel, which will automatically take care of everything for you as long as you have build-essential installed.
As annoying as this is (and I find it mildly annoying, at least), it is the price of using a proprietary solution like VMware instead of similar Free solutions (like QEMU or VirtualBox).
Right now the biggest fault with Ubuntu is Gnome. I've been using Ubuntu since the day Gutsy was released (previously a Gentoo user) and I love so many aspects of it. I even like the simplicity of Gnome compared to KDE. But, why does Gnome lack so many customization options. I mean, seriously, with so many developers it cannot be very difficult to create some small programs that modify GConf. That should be Gnome's priority and because Ubuntu relies so heavily on Gnome it needs to be one of Ubuntu's priorities to get the ball rolling.
I want to add different folders to my Places bar at the top of the screen, I want to add different buttons (like the Home folder, seriously, it was difficult) to the desktop. I want to be able to edit my Network servers in the Places bar.
I've figured out how to do all of this with gconf but there is absolutely no reason for me to not to be able to go into my System tab and figure out how to do this with a nice, pretty graphical program.
This post may be a little off topic and I know that Ubuntu comes in different flavors (Kubuntu, Xubuntu) but when the majority of users are going to be using Gnome with Ubuntu, then Gnome needs to improve to the point where it does not detract from the Ubuntu experience.
Of all major operating systems, UNIX is the only one originally meant for gaming.
Why? Given a decent package manager (and Ubuntu has an excellent one), what does it matter?
Here's a data point for you -- my wife's iBook is off for repairs (and Apple appears to have lost it since it's been gone for two weeks) -- so she's using Gutsy on a Thinkpad I had lying around. She quite likes OS X and is very comfortable with the drag'n'drop installation approach, but she was very impressed by Ubuntu's Add/Remove Software app, and commented that Apple should do something like it.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
This is why I love Linux. Gnome fills my needs perfectly, but I'm not every user. KDE fills your needs perfectly, but again, you're not every user. Rather than getting into ugly pissing matches about who'd desktop is better, we can coexist and each have something we like.
I think the reasons for KUbuntu being less polished are pretty easily guessable. Ubuntu tends to be for newer Linux users (although I fall into the PowerUser/wannabe dev category). Gnome is a good DE for the underlying philosophy of Ubuntu (usable out of the box with little to no configuration, but able to be tweaked to your level). KDE tends to be for those that just need things exactly their way. KDE is not the default, so it falls to the downstream Kubuntu dev team to put the polish into the releases, and their a minority. Their working hard (I would imagine) on finishing KDE4's integration.
Anyhow, less of a point, more of a "this is why Linux gets my vote" post.
My Babylon
That's because the Linux filesystem layout comes from Unix, and that was made to be optimal for system administration.
Meanwhile, the OS X filesystem layout which also comes from Unix, has been adapted to be optimal for users.
Apple has made some changes in their EULA recently (or, possibly, I've recently noticed some features) that make them no longer an acceptable choice. They've added that obnoxious(paraphrase) "we have the right to add, remove, copy, or delete any files from your system". That makes them an unacceptable choice.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.