Intel Reverts Plans, Will Not Support Ubuntu's XMir

[Bathroom Humor]

Well, that is very speculative. I am not saying that you are wrong. It is entirely possible that Mir's announcement indeed increased interest in Wayland. It is also possible that the increased interest in Wayland would have occured regardless. Or even think about this: What would Wayland look like now if Canonical took all the time and money they have invested in Mir and invested it in Wayland instead? But that's neither here nor there. I'm not saying you are wrong. I'm just saying we can't really be sure.

If they had taken that time and money to contribute directly upstream or even just fork it off in a way that retains toolkit and application compatibility between the two projects, this whole debacle would have been avoided for the most part. But it's true, we may never know how things would be going if they had been more community based instead of corporate based in their approach. It honestly baffles me, but this is just one of those bad decisions Canonical make from time to time. Unfortunately it's such a BIG decision this time, as well.
I'm honestly sitting here with my fringers crossed hoping that a level of compatibility can be reached between Mir and Wayland before the developer base gets divided completely. Such a careless thing to do, risk damaging the very foundation that made Ubuntu so great to begin with.

[Delgarde]

I don't think there are much devs in the world that need to get permission first for everything they code. Remember, devs are scarce on the job market. If a company requires a dev to ask everything first, chances are high the dev will leave the company soon.

That's nonsense. Doing commercial development, you don't check in *anything* that hasn't been approved, no matter how senior you are. One, because unapproved development probably isn't what they're paying you for, and two, because code changes that management don't know about is a risk they can't plan for. Good developers may be scarce, but if they can't follow the process, they'll be out on the street...

[Gps4l]

Mint is based on Ubuntu.

You people just don't want to admit the importance of Ubuntu in making Linux usable. When somebody wants to try Linux, they go with Ubuntu first and foremost. If Ubuntu dies it's gonna be really bad. Not saying that there isn't any other distro in the world, just saying that there isn't another well publicized easy to use, somewhat idiot proof distro. And the Ubuntu forums are really useful, you get a lot of issues fixed from there.

Although I do not disagree fully, I wonder of you ever looked at openSUSE.

I am using openSUSE for years now, and I still suck at the cli.

Now guess why ?
Because I hardly ever need it.

Because steam came to Linux, I am getting a bit better with the command line, because I wanted to install the amd beta drivers.
For which openSUSE does not have an one click install.

And when I had a problem, with the clock in windows 7 pro, I went to look for support.
Now guess what I had to do ?
I had to open the, what I call, the doss prompt.

[Delgarde]

Like spending three hours in a command line shell to install a wireless driver makes you feel better than everyone else.

And who do you think has done most of the work in trying to address that situation? The kernel developers trying to make the drivers smarter, the Xorg developers who made editing config files unnecessary for the majority of users, the developers who built NetworkManager to likewise eliminate the need to hand-write config files? Not a lot of that is being done by people associated with Canonical...

[bkor]

That's nonsense. Doing commercial development, you don't check in *anything* that hasn't been approved, no matter how senior you are. One, because unapproved development probably isn't what they're paying you for, and two, because code changes that management don't know about is a risk they can't plan for. Good developers may be scarce, but if they can't follow the process, they'll be out on the street...

What do you mean with commercial? I know loads and loads of people who check in without approval. There is sometimes a review process for code quality, sometimes a maintainer might not like things, but approval for every little thing? Nice in some big company, in free software, not appreciated.

[Luke_Wolf]

Could you explain me how exactly Canonical is improving DESKTOP linux? Intel is making linux graphic stack better and when it's done it will attract even more attention. And yes, buying superior computer for entertainment(mostly gaming) and using linux is complete nonsense at least for now, unless you are casual gamer and play some games that have native linux port or work fine with wine, but why even bother eh? That's basically the reason i don't use linux as main OS anymore.
P.S. anyone knows if pulseaudio or oss v4 supports fake surround sound through headphones aka dolby headphone?

Dolby Headphone doesn't work under Linux due to that part of the DSP driver not being implemented, and it's unlikely to be implemented until after the steambox has actually occurred and then by Dolby itself at Valve's behest.

[MartinN]

It's not the 1990s anymore. This excuse held some water in the past, but no longer. You can buy a Dell with Linux. Nobody wants it. There's no market for desktop Linux.

Not yet John, and beyond some of the reasons 'dee' outlined, like M$ strong arming OEMs into using Windows by default on their PCs, the other reason is the uselessness of X as a Linux desktop. We (or at least, I) kept hearing for the last 5+ years, "this is going to be the year of the Linux desktop" over and over, and it never came to pass.

Well, FINALLY things are happening, in part thanks to Hogsberg's commitment and faith, and his plan of easing us off X and onto a display server similar to what OSX has, along with Qt and GTK on its heels which WILL bring about the Linux desktop revolution over the following years.

Now, my question to you is - to what is this kind of cynicism, pessimism owed, on your behalf? Why are you killing the seed before it has a chance to grow? I'm one of the loudest complainers about Mr Shuttleworth's decision to split off Wayland and into Mir, however, that too is progress, if they have the chutzpah and muscle to pull it off - why not?

But I am disappointed and saddened by statements like "There is no market for the Linux desktop." Well 13 years ago, there was no market for a smartphone like iPhone...or Android... guess what - it has taken over the mobile market today.

If anything, I'd expect people on Phoronix, the true geeks at heart, to -create- optimism rather then destroy the future before it's even hatched, or as it is being hatched.

Thank -God- for Intel and their superior instincts of seeing where the market is headed - and let me say it here for the record - the corporate market, where you get a laptop to work with from your employer - is eventually going to be an Intel-based laptop/ultrabook, with a Linux desktop (Wayland+some other compostior, kwin, gnomeshell, whatever...) and a load of apps being either ported, or written natively for the Linux desktop. And Intel will sell more CPU+GPU combos in 1 year than NVidia or AMD can hope to sell combined in 10.

[mrugiero]

What do you mean with commercial? I know loads and loads of people who check in without approval. There is sometimes a review process for code quality, sometimes a maintainer might not like things, but approval for every little thing? Nice in some big company, in free software, not appreciated.

Intel IS a big company.

People don't choose Linux not because it doesn't come preinstalled but because even if it does, they delete it and install Windows since that is what they know and what has the applications that they need.

Now, finally, you make some sense. The only common case where they don't, is if they have to pay it and don't want to. In my country, almost everyone uses a pirated Windows, except in the case it comes with the computer.

Of course no one sells laptops with linux, nothing good will happen from it. If your linux'ised brains can process word "business", then you should understand, that windows or chromeos == money, where as linux is free and its no use for companies, plus its not that good, it cant even handle mac notebooks, loool

How is having a free OS on the notebook you sell something bad for business? Quite the opposite, since you either charge the same (or a bit less, but higher than the price of the actual hardware minus the cost of the Windows license) and win more money per laptop, or you charge less and get able to offer a lower price, which means somewhat better sales.

[TheBlackCat]

I think it's all somewhat moot anyway. The desktop is done. It's finalized: Microsoft has it. That will never change. Ever. Desktop = Windows. Linux had its chance and came up short. Now all the doors are shut.

I think that is far from certain. Certainly consumers are not going to spontaneously start switching to Linux. But businesses are another matter, and consumers will likely follow what they do at work. And although it seemed unlikely just a few years ago, with the weakening of Exchange's stranglehold on business networks and Microsoft's screw-ups with Vista and 8 this is far from impossible.

[bkor]

Intel IS a big company.

You're simplistic way of argumenting is pathetic. I did not claim that in every big company it is different. I said something about free software as well, which you ignored. Intel contributes to free software... hmm.. wtf did I mean?

No, let's not think, let's just say that you're right anyway! That's the spirit!