Features Of A Happy Linux Desktop?

Posted by Michael Larabel on February 25, 2008


During Keith Packard's talk at FOSDEM 2008, he had went in-depth on talking about what he wants to see for a "happy desktop" for Linux users. Most of these issues are commonsense or have been described in earlier talks (such as from Linux.Conf.Au), but below is his list. Of course, all of his issues are X related.

- Fully Composited Desktop
- No Tearing
- Integrated Video, 3D, 2D, APIs
- Flicker-free Boot
- Fast User Switching
- Hot-plug Everywhere
- Lower Power
- Faster. Everywhere.
- Reducing Root Code

Keith had described each of the above topics and then ways that these issues will be addressed. He hopes most of these issues will get worked out this year. For kernel mode-setting, he feels the Linux 2.6.26 kernel is too early for its merge but will come later. You can view the X.Org @ FOSDEM 2008 talks on the RadeonHD.org server.

What would you like to see for a "happy" X.Org or Linux desktop? Tell us in the forums.

Discuss this article in our forums, IRC channel, or email the author. You can also follow our content via RSS and on social networks like Facebook, Identi.ca, and Twitter (@Phoronix and @MichaelLarabel). Subscribe to Phoronix Premium to view our content without advertisements, view entire articles on a single page, and experience other benefits.
Latest Hardware Reviews
  1. Sumo Lounge Emperor
  2. Gallium3D Continues Improving OpenGL For Older Radeon GPUs
  3. 15-Way Open vs. Closed Source NVIDIA/AMD Linux GPU Comparison
  4. Nouveau vs. NVIDIA Linux Comparison Shows Shortcomings
Latest Software Articles
  1. The Cost Of Ubuntu Disk Encryption
  2. Btrfs vs. EXT4 vs. XFS vs. F2FS On Linux 3.10
  3. AMD Radeon R600 GPU LLVM 3.3 Back-End Testing
  4. F2FS File-System Shows Regressions On Linux 3.10
Latest Linux News
  1. Freedreno Gallium3D Now Banging The Adreno A3XX
  2. Jolla Announces Their First Phone
  3. Mageia 3 Released, Still Using Legacy GRUB
  4. NetBSD 6.1 Brings In More Features
  5. Using Six Monitors With AMD's Open-Source Linux Driver
  6. Benchmarking The Intel P-State, CPUfreq Changes
  7. FreeBSD Still Working On Next-Gen Package Manager
  8. DNF Still Advancing As Experimental Yum For Fedora
  9. Logitech Begins Supporting Linux Users
  10. Modern Intel Gallium3D Driver Still Being Toyed With
  11. Linux 3.10 Kernel Benchmarks On A Core i7 Laptop
Latest Forum Talk
  1. Benchmarking The Intel P-State, CPUfreq Changes
  2. Mageia 3 Released, Still Using Legacy GRUB
  3. The Cost Of Ubuntu Disk Encryption
  4. Jolla Announces Their First Phone
  5. Freedreno Gallium3D Now Banging The Adreno A3XX
  6. Using Six Monitors With AMD's Open-Source Linux...
  1. Computers
  2. Display Drivers
  3. Graphics Cards
  4. Motherboards
  5. Peripherals
  6. Processors
  7. Software
  8. Operating Systems
  9. All Articles
  1. Linux Benchmarking
  2. OpenBenchmarking.org
  3. Phoronix Test Suite