Ubuntu TV Is A Popular Topic This Week

Last year plans began to surface for Ubuntu TV -- a version of the popular Linux distribution intended to be deployed by television manufacturers -- and during the Ubuntu Developer Summit this week there was much talk about the Ubuntu TV plans.

Back in January at CES I checked out the interesting Ubuntu TV prototype, which did use a modified version of Unity and was looking interesting. Ubuntu TV though has yet to ship.

Here's some of the notes from the Ubuntu TV related sessions so far:

- Ubuntu TV is looking to leverage GStreamer. There was an entire session devoted to GStreamer on Ubuntu TV with the notes being available here.

- There was also an entire Ubuntu TV session devoted to controlling the TV over a local network. Those notes are here.

Happening this morning was then a general Ubuntu TV session for getting involved. Those notes are here with some of the highlights below:

- Canonical's looking for help porting Unity 2D TV code to Unity 3D and NUX. Unity 2D is going away.

- They want more Unity lenses / scopes developed for Ubuntu TV.

- Some of the other items desired is an API for controlling the TV over a network, Quickly templates for TV applications, apps for Ubuntu TV needing to be navigatable using arrow keys on a TV remote, integration with an on-screen keyboard, a TV HIG, and some PPAs to show this stuff off.

- They're still trying to define the target screen resolution of Ubuntu TVs.

- There's plans to provide USB images of weekly Ubuntu TV releases.