Ubuntu 14.04 sounds like it will be pretty fresh

[MrColin]

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MirSpec

Replacing X?!
There will be pain, but there always is on the bleeding edge.

 

[lxskllr]

I'm not sure what to think of that. I don't know very little about display tech, but my worry is it will create a separate system, where something created for Ubuntu won't work anywhere else. For high level userland, changes aren't as big a deal, and are easily fixed by the community. I'd liken the display server to the kernel, where things are difficult, and complex for an individual/small company to change.

Wayland was the proposed replacement for X, and Canonical says it won't work for their uses. Reading other's comments, they say Canonical misunderstands Wayland, and it would work fine for their use. I'm not qualified to say, but a distro should have a very good reason for bucking the trend with core technologies.

Maybe it isn't as complicated as I think, and it'll all be good, but for many Ubuntu is the face of GNU/Linux, and it might lock the a lot of us out when things are coded for Ubuntu.

 

[Jodell88]

Canonical has lost it's marbles.

Mir is supposed to be used for their phones and tablets. If they decide to use it on the desktop, Ubuntu will be seen in the Linux world as no different from Windows or Mac OSX.

The fools should have gone with wayland.

 

[LumbergTech]

I wouldn't rush to pre-judgement myself...This could be a very good thing for Linux popularity in general. There are trade offs. I used to hate linux and now I love it, but I don't dislike windows either. I don't use Linux because it gives me some kind of street cred, I like its amazing command line functionality for getting work done.

 

[RossMAN]

This or Linux Mint for a laptop? No gaming, need WiFi, bluetooth, flash/java, basically browsing web and I want it to work out of the box with very little tinkering.

What say you AT?

 

[lxskllr]

This or Linux Mint for a laptop? No gaming, need WiFi, bluetooth, flash/java, basically browsing web and I want it to work out of the box with very little tinkering.

What say you AT?

Try both to see which you like best. They're pretty much the same thing, and it comes down to interface for choice. I'd try Ubuntu, Xubuntu, and Mint Cinnamon edition. Use the live sessions to get a feel for each.

 

[ControlD]

This or Linux Mint for a laptop? No gaming, need WiFi, bluetooth, flash/java, basically browsing web and I want it to work out of the box with very little tinkering.

What say you AT?

I would go with Mint Mate or XFCE on an older laptop, but I can't stand Unity or really Gnome 3 in general (including Mint Cinnamon). If you have a newer laptop give Mint KDE a shot. I have been running the KDE desktop on Mint 14 for about a week now and it is hands down the best looking desktop I have used, and that includes Windows 7 and OSX.

You should probably at least give Ubuntu a shot though. If you can live with the interface (default version) you probably won't find a bigger support community anywhere when you need help.

 

[Jodell88]

I wouldn't rush to pre-judgement myself...This could be a very good thing for Linux popularity in general. There are trade offs. I used to hate linux and now I love it, but I don't dislike windows either. I don't use Linux because it gives me some kind of street cred, I like its amazing command line functionality for getting work done.

I don't think it's good at all. Most likely Ubuntu will be the only Linux distro that will use Mir. Since Ubuntu is the most likely target developers from the Windows and Mac worlds would use, it could create problems for the rest (majority) of us.

The reason they're creating their own display server is because they didn't realize Wayland could give them exactly what they want. This came to light on the wiki where they posted their reasons for not using Wayland with patently false information about Wayland that has since been taken down and corrected.

 

[jae]

When Ubuntu announced it was going Unity, I knew they were going the OS X route. They are creating their own O/S, not just distro.

 

[whiteonline]

I don't see anything wrong with Canonical following their own path. It may benefit everyone, just Ubuntu, or Canonical may crash and burn. Progress always comes with risk.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Does anyone think we should just stay with the X server rather than move to something new?

Sounds like Canonical is doing what everybody else should be thinking about - getting rid of X.

 

[lxskllr]

Does anyone think we should just stay with the X server rather than move to something new?

Sounds like Canonical is doing what everybody else should be thinking about - getting rid of X.

Everyone else is going to Wayland, which works today. Near as I can tell, Canonical doesn't like that because they didn't invent it. There'll be 200 distros running Wayland, and Ubuntu. The problem with that is Ubuntu's the leading desktop distro. If something gets developed for GNU/Linux, odds are it's for Ubuntu. That isn't a big deal if they're using tools similar to everyone else, but in this case, it might as well be Windows.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Everyone else is going to Wayland, which works today. Near as I can tell, Canonical doesn't like that because they didn't invent it. There'll be 200 distros running Wayland, and Ubuntu. The problem with that is Ubuntu's the leading desktop distro. If something gets developed for GNU/Linux, odds are it's for Ubuntu. That isn't a big deal if they're using tools similar to everyone else, but in this case, it might as well be Windows.

I cant find that much on Wayland at the moment. Fedora posted that they were considering adopting it, KDE announced they would look to move to it, and someone released a 3rd party Ubuntu spin running Wayland.

Admittedly Ubuntu's reasons for choosing Mir over Wayland sounded pretty vague. I didnt come away with a clear understanding of why Wayland didnt suit their needs.

 

[Jodell88]

Does anyone think we should just stay with the X server rather than move to something new?

Sounds like Canonical is doing what everybody else should be thinking about - getting rid of X.

That's why wayland is under development as Canonical already knows since they stated their desire to move to it as soon as possible. This was about a year and a half ago.

Also, the thing about Ubuntu development is the amount of patches needed to support it upstream. Unity needed a metric ton of patches to be applied to various packages (On arch linux I heard the number was around 60 ) for it to work. Hence the reason why Unity has not caught on outside of Ubuntu. Mir also faces a similar dilemma in that for Mir to catch on the packages upstream need to accept the patches. If upstream does not accept them (I don't think they will), Ubuntu will be the only distro using it.

Also, since Wayland has been in development for a few years now and still hasn't really been used so far because of missing features, what can Canonical do in a year? :biggrin:

 

[Jodell88]

I cant find that much on Wayland at the moment. Fedora posted that they were considering adopting it, KDE announced they would look to move to it, and someone released a 3rd party Ubuntu spin running Wayland.

Admittedly Ubuntu's reasons for choosing Mir over Wayland sounded pretty vague. I didnt come away with a clear understanding of why Wayland didnt suit their needs.

The reason is because Canonical did not do their homework.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTMxODY