• Created: 2005-12-13 by JaniMonoses

• Priority: NeedsPriority

• People: JaniMonoses, NeedsSecond

• Contributors: JaniMonoses

• https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/xubuntu-roadmap-dapper

This is mostly obsolte now, as xubuntu 6.06 is released

Summary

Xubuntu Roadmap for Dapper

Scope

This page covers the xubuntu-dapper tasks to accomplish in order to meet our main goal - getting ubuntu-express/install CDs out for Dapper. (DONE)

Implementation

Artwork

• DONE: we have nice usplash, proposed wallpapers and gdm theme
• TODO: somebody qualified volunteering to oversee artwork direction
• TODO: upload/integrate all current work and get more proposals

June 1st: artwotk is pretty consistent, but need to get more organized for edgy

Documentation

• DONE: Julio has written a nice about-xubuntu ff start page which is packaged in xubuntu-docs
• TODO: somebody qualified volunteering to oversee xubuntu doc writing
• TODO: get doc people to use ubuntu-docs svn and go on freely with writing xubuntu docs.

June 1st: Luzi and the Ubuntu doc team have done a nice job, will plan and do even better for edgy

Internationalization

• TODO: collect feedback from people from various locales and see what xfce/xubuntu lacks in this respect
• TODO: check out the ubuntu langpacks and how they are relevant to us.(Feb 28: xfce packages translations could
  • be in the base langpacks since they only add around ~200 per language)
• DONE: people working on SCIM and related issues so support for asian languages becomes as good as possible

June 1st: a lot of language packs and support pack are on the CDs and the apps are mostly translated. Again more coordination and attention to i10n is needed for edgy

Sync with debian unstable (ongoing task)

Current status: we already have reduced the diffs between us and debian with the 4.2.3.2 sync, but there are still packages which diverge. Most of it is noise though, not real diffs. http://utnubu.alioth.debian.org/scottish/by_maint/pkg-xfce-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org/

• DONE: sync newer exo and thunar when they are uploaded to debian.
• TODO: push upstream our packages which they don't have (notably some xfce-goodies) (some done, some more to go)
• DONE: diverged from debian a lot since uploading xfce 4.3 svn packages.

I am a pkg-xfce member on alioth now, so I can help out in their svn.

June 1st: Our packages track xfce svn, diverged and are more uptodate than debian's

Promoting packages to main (ongoing task)

Xubuntu packages need to be in main so the CD build infrastructure works with them and so they can be supported in ubuntu-updates and ubuntu-security.

• DONE: most packages have been approved but not yet been actually promoted to main (Feb 28)

App selection

The key apps we need to be usable are listed here. For more details go to XubuntuProposedPackages

Display manager

• gdm seems like the best choice as it is used by ubuntu, has lots of features, looks ok and is actively maintained upstream. Xdm/Wdm/Slim/qingy were considered but dropped for various reasons - ugliness, lack of features, immaturity, lack of ubuntu integration and not least nobody advocating them actively enough. This is a task still open for experimenters who can convincingly argue for one of the alternative DMs. The main point against gdm is it not being lightweight enough but that seems to be changing

*DONE: uploaded without gnome deps, we have a xubuntu theme.

Volume manager

Feb 28: Most likely thunar's inbuilt volume manager, we will have ivman but not started by default,

• the following items are historical:
  • most likely ivman. It is already in main as it was used by kubuntu until 5.10.
• DONE: wait for new upstream version which includes specifying alternate config dir so we do not mess up current setting in /etc. Upstream promised this week.
• DONE: ivman config files uploaded as part of xubuntu-default-settings.
• DONE: wait for my main upload privileges to take effect and I can upload new ivman itself.
• TODO: Daniele proposed a python script to replace/complement ivman, need to discuss this.

Default file manager

• thunar.
• DONE: wait for it to come in through debian

• TODO:keep up with packaging upstream

Miscellaneous hacks

• TODO: evaluate writing printer/network config apps for xfce using gtk and system-tools-backend
• DONE: xubuntu-system-tools based on gnome-system-tools and system-tools-backend is going to be uploaded soon (22 March)
• TODO: integrate with laptop hotkey-setup
• TODO: fix logout dialog to not require password, and to work with power-manager (suspend/hibernate buttons)
  • Feb 28: shutdown done through hal directly, g-p-m depends on gnome libs so unfortunately not for us. hibernate/suspend pending on finding a sane layout for the logout dialog.(look at gnome) (March 22: suspend/hibernate buttons added, will tweak the looks as soon as gnome logout dialog reaches consensus)
• TODO: integrate hwdb-client, update-manager, update-notifier (these all have various gnome deps so may be tricky)
  • (Feb28: update manager now only depends on gconf2, so it will be in xubuntu by default)(March 22: but gconf2
    • brings in most gnome python so another fallback method is submitted to use when there's no gconf)
• DONE: language-chooser made part of default install

Only packages without gnome dependencies in xubuntu-desktop

A contentious subject, but lacking more scientfic data to be able to differentiate between heavy and light apps one guideline is 'no gnome dependencies'. Obviously also no kde/mono/java deps either. Actually I have used exmap, so there is some scientific data but on the machine I am developing on (1,73GHz, 512M) using an additional 4-5 Meg or loading 29 additional .so objects does not seem to make a visible difference. It probably does on lesser hardware.

• TODO: gdm w/o gnome.

gdm uses very few gnome functions calls. I built a gdm w/o gnome deps and sent part of the changes upstream a week ago. No response yet, I will follow up shortly with the rest of the changes. (Dec 13 update: upstream took the patches and released them as part of 2.13.0.3, and seems to go in the same de-gnomifying direction, so luckily we won't have to have a forked gdm in xubuntu)(Jan 6: as of 2.13.0.4 only gdmsetup uses gnome libs but this still means the gdm package installs them)(Jan 17: 2.13.0.5 is totally gnome-free, waiting for it to be packaged) Feb 28: DONE for a while now. Still brings in liborbit, gconf, gksu, gnome-keyring though.

• TODO: evince w/o gnome.

Built and runs fine, needs packaging and upload. Waiting for upstream 0.5.0 to be released to do this. Feb 28: upstream release 0.5.1 no need to wait more as they do not seem to want to integrate the gtk-patch.

• (March 22: done)

• TODO: gnumeric w/o gnome

both libgoffice and gnumeric have --without-gnome config options (they have a win32 port) upstream debian packager said he would accept clean patches to make gnumeric-gtk binary debs too.

• (March 22: given the extra 6 weeks we'll tackle this again)

June 1st: all above except hwdb-client were done by release

Xfce version to use

DONE: using 4.3 svn packages now, keep them up to date as upstream progresses.

Colaboration with Xfce upstream

Need to investigate whether ubuntu can offer anything besides user feedback to Xfce. Maybe rosetta could be pitched to their i18n team but I don't know much about rosetta's maturity.(Feb 28: unless it is free software they will not unanimously agree on using it) They use bugzilla and svn so LP is probably not tempting either, especially not at this stage. Once bzr is default we'll import their svn anyway for testing purposes.

Other specifications relevant to Xubuntu

Espresso, specifically the gnome ui https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/ue-gnome-ui

Desktop specification https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/dapper-desktop-plan (particularly regarding what to have in the menus, logout dialog icons instead of radio buttons)

Edubuntu - for a lighter version

June 1st: xubuntu has a LTSP install option for lighter deployments

Other things

Contact UbuntuLite and see if we can colaborate better than we do now. They have done some good research on lightweight apps. We could have icewm in xubuntu too as an option, as it is small, so a nice default install of ubuntu + icewm may cover at least part of ubuntulite goals. Must see how to incorporate their more intrusive changes without diverging from ubuntu core, but probably this will come with the price that the system won't be as lightweight as theirs. Maybe we could have a set of utilities which turn a xubuntu into an ubuntu lite (i.e boot directly into X w/o a DM, remove some uneeded services)

• (Jan 6): A few UbuntuLite people contacted and seemed interested so far , let's see if something comes out of this. (Jan 17): nothing on this front so far.

* Other option is TDE window manager. TDE (Techisa Desktop Environment) is a lightweight alternative desktop environment developed using Qt. The project's goal is to provide users with a comfortable environment using as few resources as possible. This WM is really very customizable. Oficial homepage: http://tde.codigolivre.org.br (only brazilian portuguese). Other homepage: http://freshmeat.net/projects/tde