Eye On Ubuntu 10.10
As you may have heard, Mark Shuttleworth announced his vision for Ubuntu 10.10 a few days ago. Without prejudicing the more pressing release of Ubuntu 10.04 in a couple weeks, here are some thoughts on what Shuttleworth said, and what we can expect from Ubuntu 10.10 in October 2010.
To begin with, it’s worth noting that Shuttleworth made the announcement at all, since he’s no longer CEO at Canonical–he was replaced in that role by Jane Silber, in order for Shuttleworth to focus on usability and design.
So the fact that Shuttleworth has continued his tradition of announcing design goals for new releases–even though he made the announcement this time on his personal blog, rather than on the Ubuntu developers’ mailing list–is significant.
Make of this what you will. But from my perspective, it looks like Shuttleworth may not be as ready to relinquish his public role as leader of the Ubuntu project as his resignation from the CEO position last December suggested.
Maverick Meerkat
In keeping with another tradition, the new Ubuntu release will bear the name “Maverick Meerkat.” Personally, I would have preferred that the honor go to the mandrill, but at least we were spared the mule or monkey.
Development Goals
Shuttleworth’s post emphasized “light” as one of the chief goals for the new development cycle, which means a focus on netbooks and mobility (apparently it doesn’t mean light colors, because Ubuntu’s new theme remains pretty dark). Towards this end, the Ubuntu Netbook Edition’s interface will be revamped.
I don’t think anyone’s opposed to a focus on lightness. On the other hand, given the fact that Ubuntu already works quite well on my netbook (without the special netbook interface, which I disliked a lot when I tried it), and that netbook sales are apparently in decline, Ubuntu developers should be cautious not to give too much attention to a limited niche if it comes at the expense of others.
Shuttleworth also promised a continued focus on social networking with a “Social from the Start” initiative. This trend began with Ubuntu 10.04, which included the Gwibber microblogging client by default, as well as easy access to instant messaging and email. The specifics of how Maverick Meerkat will be made more social remain absent, of course, but I’ll look forward to seeing them develop over the spring and summer.
The final point of note from Shuttleworth’s post is Ubuntu 10.10’s devotion to the cloud. This isn’t new–Canonical has been pushing Ubuntu’s role in cloud computing since the Jaunty release a year ago–but Shuttleworth’s announcement made it clear that we can expect to see continuing aggressive pursuit of the server and enterprise market.
Gnome 3?
The big question that remains for me, and which has been raised in some of the comments on Shuttleworth’s blog, is whether Ubuntu 10.10 will adopt GNOME 3 as its default desktop environment.
Realistically, it’s probably too early for Ubuntu developers to make a decision on that point, because it’s impossible to know at this early date whether GNOME 3, which is not scheduled to appear until early next fall, will be truly ready in time for the Maverick release.
All the same, GNOME 3 has been the subject of intense discussion lately on this blog and elsewhere, and we’ll be looking forward to learning when we can expect to see it in Ubuntu (and at all, since it has yet to be released, of course).
My wife has a netbook. I put Ubuntu netbook on it and love it. Very easy to see the icons and to move around the OS. Unlike her XP on the netbook which is difficult to read icons on the desktop.
I hope you get used to it since the mock ups of GNOME3 look like Ubuntu Netbook anyways 🙂
It’s not really surprising that Mr. Shuttleworth made the announcement as he is still SABDFL of ubuntu. Given that, I think it should remain that way, as ubuntu is ultimately his brainchild (as I understand ubuntu’s history).
10.10 will be a very interesting release, I would love to see what tweaks Ubuntu brings to Gnome Shell’s panel (since Gnome is bringing lots of Ubuntu features to the panel). I think that 10.10 will use the new Shell since normal Ubuntu releases are very risky. Good thing the LTS release is looking so good, if people don’t like the Shell they have 10.04 LTS.
I believe Gnome 3 will be similar to KDE 4.0’s release, first very controversial but then as time goes on it turns out very kick-ass.
“…and that netbook sales are apparently in decline…”
No, no, no – go back and read your own reference. Netbook sales *grew* 33.6% in the most recent quarter. It’s the *rate* of growth that declined – down from 872% a year ago. Did we really think netbook sales would continue to grow at 872% a quarter?
Netbook sales are very robust, and Linux is taking a big share of that market. Let’s not promote competitors’ “netbooks are just a fad” excuse for them, for heaven’s sake.
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Netbooks are about to be replaced by another short lived tablet fad. Don’t get me wrong I would love a decent Linux tablet. But thus far all the tablets on offer are rich content deliver platforms and not actual proper interactive computing devices. All the same though. Canonical might want to pay some attention to that market. And that will need a special interface.
Ubuntu One will need to seriously get so much better before it becomes viable as a cloud client. In my experience when I first tried it, the 32-bit version couldn’t synchronise with the 64-bit version. Major fail!
What I’m looking forward to and also dreading at the same time is the default application stack. A few unpopular changes have been made for 10.4. Canonical has already flipped back to Google with no explanation why. Was it something to do with a community backlash? Did Google offer more money than Bihoo? Who knows? Will we see similar flipping with regard to Mono? Will Ubuntu become even more Mono reliant? That’ll be an interesting day when we find out.
10.10 I think will be a major cross roads for a lot of anti-Microsoft users. Personally I’m already looking around for a possible new distro. One of the reasons I use Ubuntu is to get away from Microsoft. If Ubuntu becomes reliant on Microsoft technology then Ubuntu by default is no longer delivering what I’m looking for.
I am not sure what he meant by light but if my predictions from years ago are right, Ubuntu will have fewer large applications in order to rationalize the space available on the live-cd. Size was a fundamental factor for Mozilla firefox, because large download also means a lower rate of adoption.
Ummm…Gnome 3 looks embarrassing. The screenshots are unfinished but has anyone really considered that user interface design should be the absolute kingpin of ubuntu and gnome? Having a good design affects: thousands of man-hours of work,bad design destroys productivity, time spent developing, money invested, morale and user patience and loyalty. IT IS FUNDAMENTAL. Yet it’s still not taken seriously and you have “managers” and “programmers” deciding things. Even artists aren’t necessarily any good. DESIGNERS ARE LIKE GOD. You know I was a big fan of Ubuntu, but when I saw all those ‘Brainstorm’ and the EXCELLENT IDEAS evident in it, we are talking 100s of great ideas, many small, some large, when you see them ignored time and again, and the actual developers keep turning a blind eye to them and scorning them openly with their design decision you basically end up saying, “Fuck it. Fuck Ubuntu.” It’s an unfolding tragedy. THERE ARE FUNDAMENTAL FLAWS WITH THE BASIC USER INTERFACE THAT REMAIN UNCORRECTED FOR YEARS. SERIOUS crap that is incrediblly irritating. No brainer obvious improvements not being put into Ubuntu cycles.
And then you see some “big shot”, “respected” manager or developer in a position of power seem to know nothing about anything and you scratch your head….well let’s see all the articles saying “10 Great Features of 10.10” etc, when the substance is probably a SINGLE FEATURE in the release that is truly fixing a problem in Brainstorm, and even then sometimes nothing at all. That is not a feature set. That is (and I acknowledge the constraints of the hard-working developers), pathetic. PEOPLE SHOULD BE COMBING THE INTERFACE FOR IMPROVEMENT AT ALL TIMES AND HAVING THEM IMMEDIATELY RAIL-SHOD ONTO THE IMPROVEMENT TEAM. Whatever.