Will Mir Come On The Ubuntu 14.04 Desktop?

[jan1024188]

I am not saying desktop Linux is bad, I use it myself pretty much exclusively. My point is that very few people are going to spontaneously switch to it, most people are comfortable with what they are using and are only likely to switch if they get exposed to it some other way, probably through their education or their job. That is starting to happen now, but it will probably be years before we see it start filtering down to more widespread home usage.

Well, Linux based OS's have potential to become BETTER than proprietary rivals on EVERY level. Ubuntu is kind of a gamble. Maybe Mir was a correct choice, or maybe they should have let this problem be solved by Wayland, and focus on application stack instead (Unity, software center, custom high-level programs). Also, rather than mobile (which is really, really hard to get into and succeed), they could have become Apple like in a sense, where they would venture with hardware company and make premium (macbook pro level premium) hardware, with very polished Ubuntu experience on top.

Unfortunately, the way Ubuntu is going is kinda sad for the desktop. Only time will tell...

[smitty3268]

Home desktop Linux is a joke. Linux workstations, which are often graphical, are huge business. Educational Linux desktops are also increasing considerably in many countries. There is also a number of companies investing in corporate Linux desktops, especially with recent samba improvements and caldav/cardav making Linux business network servers much more competitive with windows and therefore many companies planning to switch to Linux-based internal networks.

The problem isn't with GUI thingies being a joke, it is that home desktops (where Ubuntu is targeting) are not the place to start. If people are using Linux at work, and/or learn it at school, they are much more likely to be using it at home. But they aren't going to switch to Linux at home unless they have some experience with it elsewhere.

Canonical already gave up on home desktops. Their new focus is on smart phones and tablets - plenty of money there, and it's something they have a lot more experience dealing with than the market that Red Hat already owns. Not that I think they'll succeed any more in phones than they would in servers, but i can see why they made that move.

[jan1024188]

Canonical already gave up on home desktops. Their new focus is on smart phones and tablets - plenty of money there, and it's something they have a lot more experience dealing with than the market that Red Hat already owns. Not that I think they'll succeed any more in phones than they would in servers, but i can see why they made that move.

If thats the case, than Ubuntu is just pointless. It soon (2-3 years) will be just another obsolete/crappy distro, we should encourage people to switch to other, better distros for desktop than.

[JS987]

C++ this will make it 10X harder for the newb developers working on this Mir thingy

Newbies shouldn't contribute to important software because many users will be affected by possibly crappy code.

[JS987]

Newbies shouldn't contribute to important software because many users will be affected by possibly crappy code.

Newbies can be minor contributors if there is proper code review, but major ones should be experienced. Newbies can get experience also with less important software.

[who_me]

People that want to know more about what's happening with Canonical and Ubuntu should probably follow their ubuntu onair channel on YouTube.

In one of the last session Jono Bacon confirmed that 14.04 will ship wit X and Unity 7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UU...2HjJmKI#t=3544

[Krysto]

Won't be in 14.04 LTS, as disappointing as that may be, but putting it in LTS as first ever version would be pretty crazy. Keep it for 14.10, and then make sure it's used by default in 16.04. If Android 5.0 introduces major changes in the driver architecture, that gives them time to adapt, too.

[dee.]

well C would really be avoided at all costs. Not because it is a bad language, but because it doesn't have native support for classes.

Classes are not an essential part of programming. C is the best choice for low-level programming, which is what a display server is.

That said, there's nothing in the Wayland protocol demanding the use of C for compositors. Compositors can be written in any language, including C++, as long as the resulting code is able to call the C functions in libwayland.

you can kinda make your our workarounds around that, but its better just to use a language that supports classes and inheritance.

Nope. Right tool for the right job, there is no one language that is best for all applications. Classes and inheritance are entirely pointless in many of them.

[JS987]

C is the best choice for low-level programming, which is what a display server is.

C is best choice only for developers who aren't smart enough to learn C++. It is also possible to use assembler with C++ and create kernel in C++.

http://www.osdever.net/tutorials/pdf/cpp_kernel.pdf

[uid313]

Wayland

I rather go with Wayland instead.
It seems Wayland will the standard across all Linux distributions to come, with Mir being some Ubuntu-only NIH thing.