Linux or Bust, No Mir/Unity 8 this Fall
More news out of the Ubuntu developers summit headlines today's Linux news. OMG!Ubuntu! reported today that "Yakkety Yak will ship the tired and dusty Unity 7 desktop." In other news Michael Larabel posted today of the developers' discussion surrounding FESCo's decision not to rebuild the full codebase for Fedora 25 and The Var Guy listed five reasons Linux is on the rise.
Ubuntu 16.10, due October 8, will not be shipping with Mir and Unity 8 as the default desktop, according to OMG!Ubuntu!. They will be available for those wishing to test the alternative session, but the new display server and desktop are still not ready for everyday. Planners are hoping to bring Unity 8 to the feature level of 7 this cycle including things like multi-monitor support, copy & paste, and Mir apps in hopes of achieving "convergence" next April. Relatedly, Bruce Byfield today wrote that he's starting to like Unity 7 after testing the new Aquaris M10.
Seth Robinson today said, "There are some specific drivers making Linux a bigger deal than it was before. Here are five." Robinson then listed Linux' growing footprint as a key factor. More people than ever are using Linux and not just the geeky types. He credits Ubuntu, Red Hat and Android for some of this. He also lists development needs, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things as reasons why Linux is growing so rapidly. Robinson then concluded that the pieces are coming together and companies can't really ignore it anymore.
A bit of a discussion cropped up around FESCo's decision not to rebuild full codebase for Fedora 25 phoronix.com today reported. Jan Kurik posted to the developers' list reminding folks not to put in for changes that will trigger a full repository rebuild. Time is short and the engineering team would prefer to wait until Fedora 26 to do a full rebuild again. They just rebuilt it all for 24 because of upgrading GCC. One responder said they were sacrificing quality for marketing, but it was explained it wasn't question of quality if nothing that usually triggers the mass rebuild is uploaded despite a glibc upgrade already approved. After all, Debian does it all the time a couple said. There are several derivative projects that count on new Fedora releases twice a year and the engineering team would really like to avoid any more delays to 24 and 25. The discussion drifts a bit into the weeds, like one suggesting this strict release cycle is dictated by Red Hat who wants to be in sync with GNOME. Another expressed concern about releasing after an upcoming glibc update without a mass rebuild just because of a schedule.
In other news:
* The Wreck of the Edmund Kuro5hin