Compiz, Merging, Forking - Other UDS-Q Notes

Here's some other interesting notes from the Ubuntu 12.10 Developer Summit this week in Oakland.

- The Compiz compositing window manager will move from using OpenGL 2.x to using OpenGL ES. The porting of Compiz to OpenGL ES (GLES) was originally done by Linaro and will now be used within Ubuntu. While designed for the benefit of mobile users, the Linux desktop graphics drivers -- including those using Mesa/Gallium3D -- do support OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0. This change in moving from GL to GLES for Unity's compositing window manager may initially cause some pain with broken plug-ins, etc. Notes here.

- Unifying / and /usr, similar to what's being done in Fedora and other camps, was talked about in another session. They'll be working towards supporting this directory merging.

- Canonical intends to fork the GNOME 3.x Control Center in order to form the "Ubuntu Control Center."

- They're still looking at ways to reduce the application start-up time for the key desktop applications in 12.10. Notes.