The Key Features For Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric

Last week we reported on the key features coming to Ubuntu Server 11.10 that Canonical has put out as part of their features definition list. Now there's a similar list for the Ubuntu desktop edition.

For those that read the Phoronix UDS Budapest notes from the various sessions that week, this feature definition list being published this morning isn't particularly new or exciting. However, for those that didn't, here's the key areas to be worked on during the Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Oncelot" development cycle.

- Integrate GNOME 3.2 / GTK3. Unity will continue to be the default, but GNOME3/GTK3 will be available from the Oneiric universe repository (right now in Ubuntu 11.04, GTK2/GNOME2 is there while the GNOME 3.0 packages are in a separate PPA). This work also includes porting existing GTK2/PyGTK2 applications from Ubuntu to work with GTK3.
- Unity 2D as the default desktop fall-back. The Qt-powered Unity 2D desktop will be used (rather than classic GNOME) in cases where the system's drivers / hardware don't support a 3D-accelerated Unity desktop as introduced in Ubuntu 11.04.
- LightDM will be the default log-in display manager / greeter. It will replace GDM in Ubuntu and also KDM with Kubuntu, etc.
- Simple back-up support via Deja Dup.
- Better tools to create localized versions of Ubuntu for different regions.
- Updating the Gwibber user-interface.
- Further compress the Live CD space as it's approaching the 700MB limit and there's still new packages that need to be squeezed in (e.g. Qt for Unity 2D).
- Mozilla Thunderbird as the default e-mail client. GNOME's Evolution mail client will be ditched.
- Ubuntu Software Center improvements.
- Adapting to the more rapid release cycle of Mozilla Firefox.

The email regarding these defined features for Ubuntu 11.10 can be found on the ubuntu-devel list.

Additionally, there's a separate message concerning the transition to GNOME3/GTK3 in Ubuntu 11.10.