OStatic

I tend to change desktop environments almost as often as I switch distributions. My newly acquired laptop came with the GNOME desktop environment, configured in a pretty generic manner. It's functional, sure, and its appearance can be altered easily.

Late last weekend, the Avant Window Navigator (Awn) and Avant Extras teams released Avant Window Navigator 0.3.2. I've used other dock applications in Linux, and while I've always liked the idea (and look), they were too rough around the edges for day to day use.

I've been running AWN in lieu of the lower GNOME panel for several days, and I'm really pleased. It's stable in my 64-bit Ubuntu install, and configuring the dock to behave (and look) as desired is simple. That's not to say there aren't quirks, but none have been deal-breakers.

In Friday's OStatic Buffer Overflow, Sam linked to a Phoronix write up on Compiz's uncertain future.

Compiz, the project that brought eye-candy to Linux (with effects ranging from useful to breathtakingly beautiful to why would I want to do that? ), has been in trouble for some time. It's not yet had a stable release, though it has branched (and merged) several times.

If it's confusing for an end-user to figure out what branch of Compiz they're using, think about developing when branches and re-merges fly out of nowhere, like flames behind a mouse pointer, forcing code re-writes (or rendering months of work useless).

Kristian Lyngstol, a Compiz developer, says while the current situation is rather dark, it is not without hope. He doesn't sugarcoat the situation, and proposes what's next for project survival. Maybe not exciting, but his statements are precisely why Compiz still has a fighting chance.

Yesterday the GNOME Foundation announced that Sugar Labs is coming onboard as part of GNOME's Advisory Board. Sugar Labs will be represented on the board by executive director Walter Bender.

The GNOME and KDE projects recently decided that their upcoming developer events -- GUADEC and Akademy, respectively -- will be held simultaneously in the same location. Both projects hope this will foster communication and collaboration between their developer pools, and ultimately strengthen open source desktops.

The joint event, the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit 2009, will be held July 3-11, 2009, in Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain), and will be hosted by Cabildo, Gran Canaria's local government.

In October, I wrote about Camp KDE. This event was planned to complement Akademy, the traditional developer gathering for the KDE team, giving those unable to attend the former event (and specifically developers in the Americas) a better opportunity to gather and discuss projects.

Late last week, the Camp KDE 2009 presentation selections were announced. In addition to the presentations, the meeting will feature the traditional keynote addresses and birds-of-feather meetings.

Last week, I had the pleasure of getting some unique insight into the Ubuntu 8.10 release ( Intrepid Ibex ) from Canonical's marketing manager, Gerry Carr. The finalized server and desktop editions of the 8.10 release will be available for download October 30th, and host a variety of new tools and features.