As I sit here and wait for Oneiric to install on this amazingly small Freescale i.MX53 dev board (I won it at UDS! yay!), I though it would be a good time to finish my second report about my time at UDS. I should have plenty of time as the included microsd is not very speedy so it is going to take a very long time to complete.
These notes are mostly from sessions I attended and may be incomplete, so consider this an overview; other blogs hopefully will provide other details and insights.
I have my non-blurry pictures from UDS-P here
At the first Kubuntu session, we got to meet each other and discuss Natty and how that cycle went with Jonathan Riddell away. It actually went fairly well without our favorite Scotsman, and overall we can consider 10.10 a success (once you remove the unfortunately dreadful Kmail2-Akonadi mess) .
With 12.04 being LTS, we won’t introduce a lot of new features, but that does not mean there won’t be new things
On packaging, the focus for Precise will obviously be on KDE 4.8, but some other interesting changes are being looked at:
- Moving from Koffice to Calligra in the repositories
- Switching Libreoffice back to gtk with the oxygen theme as currently there are a number of UI issues with libreoffice-kde
- Replacing the nearly unmaintained Kopete with Telepathy-KDE, which would bring support for many more IM protocols.
- Automating the packaing process to reduce the workload and time required.
The next session involved figuring out which IBus applet to use, so we will be looking at both fixing the problems with kimpanel as well as trying out kimtoy.
On to what Kubuntu may offer in the future, whether in 12.04 or further, some interesting possibilities arise. the kubunt-low-fat-settings concept configurations could be something that is loaded when the system detects lower-spec hardware, much like it detects your screen resolution and turns on the netbook interface. LightDM to replace KDM is a psooibility, but that depends on it working with Qt, providing an on-screen keyboard, language selection, and other things needed for this move to happen. To eliminate Akonadi startup for non-kmail users, we will also look at disabling it in both Krunner and the calendar applet.
On to bug reporting, we will need to update Kubuntu’s wiki page on this to further focus on getting KDE-specific bugs upstream. This would mean a team of Starship Troopers to ferret out those bugs in Launchpad and send things to bko, and encourage those triagers to obtain triage rights on bugs.kde.org. Sign me up for that!
On the documentation front, we have finally been able to get our documentation updated, and work will continue on that front. DarkWing will work on prettying things up, and adding a snazzy online component to the Kubuntu website with some basic info on using the awesome Plasma desktop. An added bonus is that any KDE documentation we do can be pushed upstream, which will benefit KDE users everywhere. Sign me up for this, too 
On the session for jontheechidna’s Muon, work will involve making sure it’s documentation is as well as upstream, looking at integrating codec installation, distribution upgrade notifications, and tweaking the Muon Updater’s ui and adding it as a menu entry. Also planned is investigating the possibility of integrating Ubuntu’s SSO to allow for purchases and reviews from within this package manager.
On the final day, there was a quick lesson on packaging KDE applications, where I realized I know quite a bit more than I thought. Sign me up for Ninja training!
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On a personal note, I was vastly fascinated by the Qt demos, specifically the qml things. It looks to be quite fascinating, and relatively easy to dive into. It will be interesting to watch how Qt factors into Ubuntu’s world as they move into the world of non-pc devices.
I met so many people it is hard for me to remember them all. I was surprised that everyone seemed to value my thoughts on things, even if I am not an expert.
One thing I am NOT surprised at is how much of the discussion takes place outside of the sessions. What I am surprised at is how well UDS is run, in particular the pacing. Nothing was too short or too long, never a rush to get to the next session. no one getting bored or distracted. Amazing.
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So what are my personal plans this cycle?
- Work more on the Kubuntu’s docs, wiki and help pages
- Package some stuff
- Get cracking at kubuntuforums‘ redesign and migration to its new server
- Encourage more of the great people in KFN involved in the community – they make up our bread and butter.
Ok, so Ubuntu is installed is installed now lets see about getting Kubuntu on that puppy!
Go Blue!
