What's Coming Up For Ubuntu 11.10 & The Summit

While Ubuntu 11.04 was just released, there's many (including us) already looking towards Ubuntu 11.10 as by then the new Unity desktop interface will hopefully be more polished and usable, there's many pending kernel and open-source Mesa / Gallium3D improvements to hopefully land by then, Wayland may see some experimental adoption, etc. Also, in just over one week, the Ubuntu Developers' Summit for 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot.

On Launchpad there are already the initial Ubuntu Developer Summit Blueprints for this next Ubuntu release. In looking over the list of 196 blue-prints for UDS-O, below is a list of some of the items that caught my interest.

- The Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail client may replace Evolution as the default e-mail program in Ubuntu 11.10.
- Potentially replacing GDM with LightDM.
- A discussion about the new rapid release process of Mozilla Firefox and how to handle that along with packages depending upon it and XULRunner.
- Bringing more packages up to GTK3/GNOME3. This includes porting their PyGTK2 applications to PyGI with GTK3.
- Improving Compiz for EGL and OpenGL ES 2.0 as part of better supporting Unity in Linaro 11.11.
- A decision whether to use X.Org Server 1.10 or X.Org Server 1.11. Their concern with upgrading the X Server is over potential ABI breaks and the proprietary graphics drivers lagging behind.
- What release of Mesa and the X.Org DDX drivers to target.
- Will Nouveau Gallium3D be enabled by default?
- Better OpenGL ES 2.0 support for the Cairo library.
- Networking enhancements in Ubuntu 11.10 thanks to the latest Networkmanager with support for WiMax, IPv6 in NetworkManager by default for Oneiric, etc.
- What they're trying to do for hardware testing/certification off the lines of PTS: OEM Certification Testing, Server Test Suite, Desktop Certification Scope, Community Hardware Testing.
- Shipping Unity2D and Qt as part of the default package-set. But because of this, it may mean there's no longer room for shipping Ubuntu ISOs for CDs. The target may have to become a 1GB USB image or DVD ISO going forward.
- The default web-browser for Ubuntu 11.10 will be evaluated between Firefox and Chromium.
- Xen host support for Ubuntu 11.10 Server.
- Better diagnostics for open-source graphics drivers.