What we’ll get in feisty
This post is a sequel to my “What I want in edgy+1″ post, which was written when the developer summit was first announced. Now that the summit (and the following company All Hands meeting) is over, and we’re all back home, this seems as good a time as any to review what was discussed and get a good idea of what feisty might look like.
I’ve touched on the problem of predicting time-based releases before. It’s both the gift and the curse of a time-based release schedule that work not completed in time can be deferred to a later release. So take the following with a pinch of salt, some of this may still not make it.
General Themes
The general theme of dapper was to be a release that could be supported for a long term, conservatism was the goal. We did do some quite exciting work under the hood, such as the switch away from hotplug to a fully udev based system, but in general it wasn’t innovative or ground-breaking.
Edgy was intended to be more ground-breaking, but the practical matter of having only a few months to develop it and our own pride in shipping something that still worked meant that it turned out as a shinier, improved dapper.
So what’s feisty going to be like? Judging from the discussions at UDS, and the specifications that have been written, the general theme of feisty is to lead the way again with new technologies.
The Desktop
For the users, perhaps the most obvious change will be the active use of 3D acceleration to draw the desktop where hardware can support it (the issue of binary drivers has not yet been resolved).
Windows are more visually distinct from each other through shadows behind them, and transparency for the non-active windows. The relationship between different workspaces/viewports is much clearer as the transition is animated on a cube or sliding pane.
And for the bling crowd, window s can wobble, burn, explode or dissolve.
There are two different compositors being considered at this point, compiz and beryl; we’re likely to decide which to use at Feature Freeze based on how well they’ve been fixed, developed and supported until that point.
Underneath the hood, the configuration of the X server will be simpler and more robust; so even the worst case will not leave you confined to a console without any help.
Networking
Networking in feisty should be a much more pleasurable experience. The Network Manager project, which has been waiting on the side lines for a couple of releases, may finally get a shot at being in the default installation. For the average user, this makes switching between wired and wireless networks, including setting up WEP and WPA much, much easier.
And what if there’s no network infrastructure around? Out of the box support for RFC 3927 link-local networks, and multi-cast DNS resolution (aka. Zeroconf), means that you just need to agree on a network name with others around you to be able to communicate.
Of course, once you’re on a network, you still need to be able to share files and access local services. The integration of the Avahi project gives you one-click access to other people’s shared music or files; and lets you share your own, should you choose to do so.
Customisations
One of the most encountered problems with edgy was it being difficult to install various common packages that aren’t part of the default installation, especially codecs. Projects such as Automatix attempt to tackle this, but can cause problems with upgrading to later releases.
Some effort will be going into feisty to make performing these common customisations much simpler, including being able to install codecs or viewers by just trying to open the file.
Boot Sequence
A long-running project within Ubuntu has been to get the boot and shutdown sequences as fast and efficient as possible. At the time we started, it was common for a Linux distribution to boot in a mere two or three minutes.
If you thought edgy booted fast, wait until you see feisty.
Feisty is the release where we take full advantage of Upstart, not only bringing the system up as fast as possible but also more robustly than we can do today.
And if that weren’t enough, it should look slicker too; without some of the nasty flickering and mode changes that happen today.
anonim:
I’m waiting to see a clear message on what will ubuntu do with binary drivers.
23 November 2006, 10:36 ammichele:
Rock on!
23 November 2006, 10:51 amBut just choose compiz please…
Stoffe:
I don’t think Beryl is really suitable for inclusion in a GNOME desktop, it’s billions upon billions of obscure settings that you don’t really know what they do. Compiz seems more sane and more polish, just with less bling.
But the important part is that the default setup is sane, of course. Let people turn up the bling themselves, if needs be.
On another note, I think the binary Nvidias and whatnot is the wrong way to go purely for practical reasons, it will cement the old way pretty hard and also detroy for other distros trying to make a stand.
23 November 2006, 5:25 pmfelipe:
Great news!
I also think Beryl is not on par with Ubuntu standards. Compiz would be much more in line with the rest of the Desktop, not to mention that it can now do everything Beryl does, but in a saner way.
As for the proprietary drivers… I was hoping Ubuntu would invest on project nouveau… Won’t Hardware vendors just ignore us if we agree on including their half-baked drivers inside the most popular distro?
Thanks for the post, very interesting!
23 November 2006, 5:46 pmDon:
Woo! All looks really exciting.
As everyone else is commenting on beryl vs. compiz, I’ll throw my 2 $MONETARY_UNITS in. I’m behind compiz for 1 reason: It doesn’t add an icon to the notification area (last time I used beryl, it does). Notification area should only be for important messages, not for things that sit there all the time (without a VERY good reason).
Anyway, its all academic to me for now as neither work with dual-head setups (yet), which rule them out for me.
24 November 2006, 12:20 pmion:
Scott,
You mentioned the X configuration will become simpler. Will the x-input-hotplug functionality (which has already been committed to the xorg 7.3 development branch AFAIK) be backported to whatever version of xorg feisty will contain? That would be great.
Don,
25 November 2006, 7:27 amBeryl’s svn version works incredibly well on my dualscreen setup, but even the older versions have handled it better than e.g. Metacity. I’m using the proprietary nvidia driver, though.
Marco:
I am really looking forward to feisty.
26 November 2006, 2:02 pmLimulus:
Regadring Beryl vs Compiz, it should also be considered that Beryl is a community-led project, while Compiz is controlled by Novell, which has that not-so-nice patent deal with MS. My vote is thus for Beryl
27 November 2006, 12:16 amMike:
Yesterday I was talking to a friend comparing Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. One major thing we noted is that Linux doesn’t have the same polished appearance as either OS X or Windows. Feisty seems like it will be a step in the right direction.
We need to have professional designers like Apple & Microsoft use to design the user interface. There also needs to be UI standards for developers so applications will be more consistent (yes, I know having two major desktop environments doesn’t help in that area).
Also, font rendering needs to be improved. Look at text on OS X and compare it with Windows & Linux.
5 December 2006, 7:52 pmJustin:
What would be great is if Network Manager also had the pam_keyring module also install if you are using a WPA secure network. It’s very disturbing having to enter the Gnome Keyring password every first log in.
As far as the Beryl vs. Compiz: I vote Beryl, because:
A) you can alway turn that notification icon off.
B) It’s a community run project.
C) Has bigger potential (they’ve got a lot of sub projects to go with Beryl on the table)
So that’s what I think about that.
5 December 2006, 10:58 pmNilesh:
No binary drivers by default, please. Have it optional.
6 December 2006, 3:19 pmMJ:
Cool stuff!! After a few weeks with Edgy I can’t wait to get my hands on Feisty… Feels like a deja gnu, I had the same thing with dapper/Edgy …
As far as beryl/compiz concerned, Personally I haven’t tried either, so I have no preference, but AFAIK Compiz is GPL, so community initiative or not, let’s look at what’s best for Ubuntu and not be as paranoid as some folks are at Novell.
As for fonts, I found them at least in Dapper _much_ better than in XP (I think at the time of SP2) and at par at OSX’s.
7 December 2006, 8:40 amVincent:
I think Beryll’s a great idea, especially since it allows you to easily export and import settings, so we e.g. could have the default settings to only use the real accessibility features and one that enables Burn, Wobbly Windows and whatnot in a comfortable way.
Also, is Feisty really going to boot up that much faster? Edgy was a huge increase, reducing it from about 1 minute to 30 seconds, so Feisty would then have to boot in about 10 seconds!
9 December 2006, 10:45 amRyan:
Go Feisty! I can’t wait. Beryl seems bloated, but maybe the better choice as long as they can make it a little more compact and predictable (usability-wise).
14 December 2006, 8:11 pmUbuntu Tutorials:
I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have one of my machines on a developmental release. 6 month release cycles are nice but some of us are in perpetual bug-mode.
Just downloaded my copy of Feisty Herd 1. I suggest anyone with a spare machine help by installing & testing these releases.
14 December 2006, 11:08 pmThatsme.2:
just a few words about “beryl versus compiz”:
i´d prefer beryl!
Why?
I am using edgy/gnome and Nvidia binary driver (i´m not happy with) and i was not at all able to get Xgl/compiz working - Beryl instead was working “out-of-the-box”!
I´m not happy with xgl and compiz because developement of them is very close related to Novell - what will happen if Novell quits supporting GPL´d xgl/compiz?
18 December 2006, 7:40 pmbernstein:
beryl vs. compiz : please chose the more robust solution!
18 December 2006, 8:46 pmthat patent deal is just not worth fiddling with… we’ll see which one takes of and which one gets sacked by devs soon enough
hope you guy’s can improve suspend/hibernate and wacom tablet default config as well
Arceliar:
I’m excited to see what happens with feisty. Biggest thing for me is actually going to be the lack of flickering in the midst of the boot/shutdown processes–yes, I realize that’s probably low down on most people’s lists, but it annoys me and down right frightens most non-linux users I know.
As for the 3d desktop, all I can say is this. I’ve tried Xgl + compiz, and AIGLX + Beryl. AIGLX + Beryl is better by far IMHO, but I’ve never tried AIGLX + compiz. In my opinion, a community lead project (Beryl) would be the better choice of managers to use. Beryl is less stable, from what I hear, but in the long run a community project seems more important and more likely to grow in the direction we want it than one controlled by Novell or any other company.
18 December 2006, 11:44 pmrandall (randall1876@yahoo.com):
the feisty seems to be really a promising version of Ubuntu and its taking the Linux computing to a new height. i salute the Ubuntu team for that and Canonical.
I just hope that the future of Linux computing in Ubuntu will always be to the heart of the open source community.
well done.
19 December 2006, 4:24 amrandall (randall1876@yahoo.com):
simply a great work of the Ubuntu Team and Canonical.
on my personal note, i would be willing to help, in anyway i can. Just let me know.
19 December 2006, 4:26 amdaniele:
I would like to see new cairo (1.4) in Feisty … or 1.3 now.
Some info about possible update of cairo graphics?
20 December 2006, 2:22 pmSam Arthur Allen:
Excellent work. If Edgy can boot on this system in 30 seconds (which includes RAM tests, drive seeks and the usual boot tests) I’d like to see how fast Feisty starts.
I’ve only got Windows98 to boot in 12 seconds, although that’s using 98Lite to get rid of IE integration.
As for the Beryl/Compiz debate, I’m in for Beryl since I have been able to get it working on a lot more systems, when Intel’s 900 series chips built in to most motherboards run at a workable 15ftp. Strangely though, some people have gotten water and blur effects to work on Intel, while others don’t.
Sure Beryl is a lot more technical than Compiz, I just hope the Beryl team come up with a Simple/Advanced interface switch and a search facility to quickly find that right setting.
31 December 2006, 2:14 amHernan Gatta:
Concerning 3D Acceleration, I’d seriously consider Beryl because it runs way better on AIGLX than Compiz does, out of my experience (AIGLX is built into the latest versions of the X Server. XGL is the X Server itself with some more stuff in it. Is like Ubuntu and Debian, XGL derives from the original X Server and is buggier). I also think that Binary Drivers are a must; they have to be included by default once for all. It will be way easier for users to utilize their hardware without having to find untrusted repositories or even compiling them themselves (or at the very least, add an option during installation asking the user whether they want these Drivers to be installed or not).
Also, there were a few people talking about font rendering and I do agree with them. It’s true that the default font rendering scheme is ugly (on LCD Screens at least). My configuration has led me to the best font rendering I’ve ever seen: I have Grayscale Antialias and Slight Font Hinting. Subpixel Antialias should be looked at and fixed. It doesn’t work properly (1280×1024).
The Novell SLAB menu should be included and set by default. The old-style menu should be included as well as there are people out there that don’t like Novell’s approach.
And… What about Prefetching???
Thanks, Hernan.
3 January 2007, 3:55 amthemacmeister:
My vote for 3D desktop goes to Beryl.
I am using ATI Radeon9800SE, and Beryl + AIGLX has been the only 3D desktop that has worked “Out of the box”. I have also had performance and reliability problems with XGL + Compiz on FC6.
9 January 2007, 11:31 pmLeoMeloPimentel@hotmail.com:
I basic problems must be solved first.I have the Intel motherboard D945GTP with two sata hd.Intel has no drivers for Ubuntu.Ubuntu does not detect or recognizes the two sata hd.And after searching and searching how to connect my two computers,each one running Ubuntu,i still do not know how to connect them.There are also a lot of bugs to be solved.
22 January 2007, 5:58 amzolodon:
While my experience as a recent Linux convert doesn’t go back as far as many others here, I can say that I was able to easily get Beryl working (the SVN version even) with my ATI 9800 video card. Compiz, however, gave me some trouble on two machines I attempted to load it on.
Regardless whether or not these two systems have equal options once they are set up properly, I cannot imagine the Linux community as easily supporting a controlled development system (Compiz). Isn’t that why Beryl was created in the first place (originally as an offshoot of Compiz so that they could get better faster with more community led development)?
Even though I favor Beryl’s community-led approach I will agree, however, that better descriptions need added to all their configuration options. They are simply too difficult to understand for someone like me trying to not only learn Linux, but also enjoy some bling while I’m at it.
Whatever happens… I’m excited to learn more and to enjoy Feisty!
17 February 2007, 2:22 pmJoseph Frantz:
Like most here I vote for Beryl. It is running out of the box with no issues. Looking forward to Fawn. Good work so far yall!
19 March 2007, 3:53 pmBonita:
Great work was made by the Ubuntu Team and Canonical. Thanks a lot, you are great
30 May 2007, 8:51 pm