Ubuntu Developer Summit Maverick plenary and keynote: New Ubuntu "instant on", netbook shell, more

Well, here I am at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Brussels, Belgium. Yesterday I got to head into Brussels and have a look around with a couple of Italian friends from the Italy LoCo team. But today, everyone is refreshed and ready to get some work and make Maverick the rocking release it should be.

I’m sitting in the middle of a large auditorium listening to Jono Bacon do the introduction. I will try my best to take photos during the plenary, stick them on my computer and upload them, then post news as I hear it. You’ll hear it first right here. Mark’s keynote is at 10:00am Brussels time (UTC +2).

Mark’s keynote

Read Mark’s post about Unity here: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/383

9:50am – Mark takes the stage and starts talking about Lucid, congratulates everyone.

9:53am – Some things we need to get right: OEMs, first boot experience, media and codec handling. Quality and Continuity – the core values, freedom, collaboration, precision and reliability.

“Let’s go after the WHOLE desktop market.”

We want OEMs to deliver Ubuntu as a dualboot system, research into “instant-on” systems – focus on how fast you can “deliver the web.” This is called “Ubuntu Light.” Audience applauses.

Stripped down UNE and Ubuntu Desktop for the instant-on system, available to OEMs now.

Connected to the web in 7 seconds on SSD
No traditional file management
Small set of default apps: browser, media, mail
Focus on touch

Will be able to change to any version of Ubuntu, easily using apt-get. Initially could be a small set of applications on UNE – focus on the web, huge focus on the touch.

10:00am – “Unity” for Ubuntu Netbook Edition – a new menu, a new launcher, new panel.

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD UNITY:

ppa:canonical-dx-team/une
apt-get install unity
Choose the Unity session at GDM login.

Unity will use Clutter, a panel with ayatana indicator support and a launcher with “QuickMenu” and “Reveal.”

10:05am – “Unity – Canonical’s Netbook Shell.” Unity should be “absolutely nailed down” for 12.04 LTS. Mark hopes that freedesktop.org adopts these as they stabilize.

Gnome-Shell will be packaged in 10.10, but it will not be default for Maverick.

Client-side decoration and RGBA will be landed early in the 10.10 cycle. “We want to make sure that every application has full alpha channel support.”

10.06am – The sound indicator. Focus on consistency. The music player can add features, items to the sound indicator. It’s “extensible.” If the application doesn’t support the new indicators, it will fall back to a different technology.

The keyboard menu, the clock menu, the network menu:

10:13am – Window indicators. The indicators behave “exactly like status indicators” – clicking on them gives you a menu. They’re broadcast over D-Bus, either the window manager or the panel can take control over the rendering of the indicators, also so it works with multiple window managers – client side, Compiz, Metacity etc.

10:14am – The global menu on Ubuntu Netbook Edition. Browsing the web, maximizing vertical space, removing the bottom panel. “Lightweight” browsing experience.

We will have “the best platform for browsing on a netbook.”

The perfect 10.10:

Unity in UNE
Font
Icons
Lots of new desktop technologies…

Font beta program will be open soon. (It’s actually finished, but is undergoing fine tuning – it’s on all the material around the hotel including the slides, booklets and things and also our name tags.)

101010 = 42!

Mark wants Maverick to be launched on the 10th October, 2010. (Which is a Sunday!!)

*Some hilarious jokes about shiny bald track leads*

“A once in a century opportunity.”

10:21am – Mark ends the keynote with “So long, and thanks for all the frite.”

10:22am – Mark shows us Unity actually running on his laptop:

Question from Martin Owens about whether the dual-boot OEM will be for netbook or desktop, or both. Mark responds that they will offer “Ubuntu Light” for the desktop in the future, but emphasis is on the netbook interface for now.

Somebody asks about advertising Ubuntu, looks like there are no plans for the moment to actually advertise Ubuntu across traditional media. Mark uses the Ubuntu Manual as an example of how Ubuntu gets advertised and will reach the mainstream, Mark points out myself and the room applauds the Ubuntu Manual Project! Woohoo!