Visual Design Assets

Hello,

We were talking about project management today and how to get work items
on the list for needing visual design.  Previously we have assigned
tasks and bugs to design, or individual designers, but in talking with
Nick what he'd prefer is that we assign those tasks and bugs to him --
and he'll ensure that they stay up-to-date with their internal list of
tasks.

He claims his e-mail inbox can handle the task 

So, in the future, if you could please do that hopefully it'll result in
better coordination of work items.

		--Ted

[Desktop UDS topic] Regional/national applications

As I understand it, several countries have "special apps", that are very 
useful to that country.

As an example, for Sweden, we have BankID, which is used to log on to 
several government sites, declaring taxes etc.

Other countries have other favorites which are local to that country but 
still very important to have. I've heard Brazil has something similar 
but different, for example.

The degree of Linux support of these are of course varying, but in the 
BankID case there is a Linux version, but it could be easier to install, 
if we could get it into either Ubuntu Software Center as an app, or 
maybe into the partner repository. That would also bring the advantage 
of automatic updates, which would be attractive to the app developer (in 
the case of security related applications, even more so).

So, how do we
  - Identify what applications are important for a particular country?
  - Reach out to the developers of that application?
  - Help them out with integrating their apps into Ubuntu?
  - Get them into Ubuntu Software Center, the partner archive, or 
something similar?

The LoCo teams could be a valuable resource here, I assume.

--

-- 
David Henningsson, Canonical Ltd.
https://launchpad.net/~diwic

(unknown)

[Desktop 12.10 Topic] Application startup time (AKA "Please use my RAM!")

Application startup time is unnecessarily slow in a large number of
instances. Can we see some improvement in that area in the Q cycle? The
price of RAM has dropped dramatically, and usage has not increased all
that much. Can't we use it for something when it's available?

We now have Zeitgeist. This means we can know what users will do after
login. It's possible to tell not only what applications will be started,
but also what files will be used. In many cases, there's only a single
human user in the system. I would really like it if I could set my work
desktop to boot automatically in the morning, and it'd load my stuff
into RAM while waiting for me to log in. There's also a few websites I
always check first thing while I have my first cup of coffee. Load them
too so I don't have to wait for it. I'm the only human user on my
desktop, so why not log me in automatically, but in the background,
keeping the login screen as it is?

To my mind, these are all attainable goals:

* Sub-second login
* Instant loading of frequently used applications
* Zero-delay access to most frequently used websites.

Everyone is telling me to go buy a fast SSD. But that's expensive and in
my case, it doesn't provide any benefits that can't be achieved by
software. RAM is extremely cheap, and much faster than any SSD on the
market. What currently happens is that the login screen sits there
idling, waiting for me to pay attention to the computer before it starts
doing work it knows I'm going to want it to do. That's rude, isn't it?

In networked environments of diskless desktops, such as schools and
offices, the effects can be even greater. It might not be possible to do
background logins for the user, but a lot of things can still be loaded
in advance, providing a significantly improved experience. And of
course, the older the computers are, the greater the effect will be.

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

[Desktop 12.10 Topic] System compositor

Hi,

A change I'd like to make for 12.10 is to use a compositor to control
video from boot to shutdown.

This gives us the following benefits:
- We can have smooth transitions from the splash screen to the greeter
to the session and back again
- We don't use VT switching anymore which has been shown to be problematic
- We use one consistent monitor layout for all stages of the boot
- We can use the greeter as the lock screen (couldn't get it to work
this cycle for the above reasons)
- We can ensure that you can never accidentally switch to a locked session
- We can show the greeter while the session loads

The technology used will probably be Wayland, and in some ways this
change is to implement the Wayland Tech Preview that was proposed for
Precise [1].

Note that not all video drivers will support this, and we will continue
to support the current system for those that do not support it
(primarily the nvidia driver).

--Robert

[1]
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-q-wayland-tech-preview

[Desktop 12.10 Topic] Replace system-config-printer by the GNOME printing panel

Hey,

That's somewhat a "leftover" from this cycle, I know Lars has been 
working on getting the GNOME tools at feature parity, or at least to be 
useful enough to be able to use it instead of the system-config-printer 
gui, he was close of having it ready this cycle so I guess it should be 
fine for next cycle. Not so much desktop work there I guess since Lars 
and Till should have that under control...

Sebastien Bacher

[Desktop 12.10 Topic] GNOME plans review

Hey,

Not sure how much we need to discuss but it's always good to have a 
GNOME checkpoint session.

It's likely that this cycle we will not "hold back" on things we kept 
behind until now, which means we need to bring clutter on the CD and see 
how we do that and what it means (do we need extra testing on some 
platforms during the cycle, how will it work for people not having 3d 
working, etc).

Some other desktopish topics I would like to discuss, not sure if that's 
the right session but since we will probably have time in that one:

- our delta with upstream and Debian and how we could lower it? mpt 
suggested that "launchpad-integration" items are quite "geeky", they 
also create most of our diff over Debian and extra work and don't really 
"scale" since they require sources patching, maybe it's time to 
discussion dropping that?

- tools, though UDD didn't change a lot so I don't think the consensus 
will be any different from what it was other cycles

- whatever other topics you guys come with 

Sebastien Bacher

{Desktop 12.10 Topic] Holistic approach to Ubuntu documentation

I think it's necessary for Ubuntu to take documentation to another level.

When I first started with Ubuntu, I really wanted to learn how it all
fit together. I have used computers most of my life so I'm accustomed to
reading documentation and I was perfectly willing to dive right in. But
it just wasn't that easy, not necessarily because of the information
itself, but because of how it was organized and presented. There were no
clear starting point and no trails to follow. There were broken links on
wikis, and outdated information lying around. Much of the documentation
would only use version numbers, and have no easy way to see when it was
last updated, or if it had been superseeded. Confusion reduces peoples
ability to learn.

To me, this is The Issue with Ubuntu. If we're really going to succeed
in taking Ubuntu «across the chasm», then we must make it easy for the
curious to become users and for the enthusiasts to become power-users.
For this to happen, we need to do something drastic about the way
documentation is presented. I think Ubuntu Documentation must:

* Have an obvious starting point
* Lead to the next step
* Be instantly recognizable as valid or invalid
* Be grouped when applicable
* Primarily focused on LTS
* Reviewed for each release (hence the point above)
* Easy to contribute to by reporting issues
* Be not only API docs, but contain readable text.

developer.u-c and help.u-c has improved a lot in this regard, but not
enough. Look at this page first:
http://developer.ubuntu.com/resources/platform/api/12-04/. As a reader,
I can come across issues that I'm not able to read, but will help
improve the documentation. I should have a very easy way to report it.
There's no way at all on that site, though at the very bottom, I can
submit a tutorial.

Another example, look at this page:
http://developer.ubuntu.com/api/ubuntu-12.04/python/Unity-5.0.html.
Right, but that's Ubuntu 5.0. I was looking for 5.10. Is this still
valid? There's no way to know. We shouldn't rely on people to trust that
if not stated otherwise, it is valid. This is the web. There are
millions of old and unmaintained documents out there. It must be obvious
that it is valid. This also helps anyone recognize invalid
documentation, enabling them to report it or fix it.

And what if my primary focus is developing an application for LXDE and I
want to use only an indicator? In this specific case, I'd use a separate
version for the API docs and call it Unity Specification 1.0 for 12.04.
Then if there are any changes between now and 14.04, I'd call that 2.0.
For versions in between I'd add 1, 2 or 3. So, if there are API changes
i 13.04, I'd expect to find a Unity Specification 1.2 and that it would
clearly show the differences between 1.2 and 1.0, considering the newest
LTS the 

In the case of Unity-5.0 for Python above, I'm not sure I'd call that
Documentation. That is the convention, but I'm not sure that's what
people expects. I'd call that document a Specification. For
Documentation, I would expect more readable text, explaining what it's
for and how it is used.

Enum: Unity.FilterRenderer
CHECK_OPTIONS_COMPACT 4

Right. How do I use it? .)

Jo-Erlend Schinstad

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[Desktop 12.10 Topic] Quality,testability for the desktop components

Hey,

The Canonical upstream teams did some good progresses on testing and 
quality this cycle, that's a good step for the Ubuntu Desktop quality, 
we still rely on quite some components from other upstreams though that 
didn't engage into a such process yet though (those who looked at 
gnome-settings-daemon, nautilus, gvfs, etc bugs on launchpad probably 
know what I mean there). I would like to see if we can work on our side 
and with upstream to get those automated tested in some ways.

It would be also nice to see regular run and report of the testsuits for 
other components which already have one (i.e glib, gtk) and some testing 
of their rdepends before upload.

Cheers,
Sebastien Bacher

[Desktop 12.10 Topic] Login speed improvements

Hey,

Yet another leftover from precise, not much to discuss as well, rather a 
"just do it". We did a bit of work this cycle but didn't go far, there 
is still room for improvement especially with nautilus, compiz.

Cheers,
Sebastien Bacher

[Desktop 12.10 Topic] Old libraries cleaning

Hey,

Not so much a discussion topic that a just do it, but I think we might 
get close of dropping pygtk, gtk2 and gconf from the CD so maybe let's 
see how much progress we can do this cycle with that?

Cheers,
Sebastien Bacher