Qin for Oneiric

Blueprint: desktop-o-qin-ubuntu-china

Note: Many of the items in this spec are now being handled through desktop-o-cd-localization. These will be noted below.

Rationale

Given:

• The importance of China to Ubuntu and to free software
• The importance of Ubuntu and of free software to Chinese users
• That Chinese users have particular requirements not perfectly addressed by stock Ubuntu

It makes sense to provide a stock version of Ubuntu that is targeted at Chinese users.

This is called "Qin Ubuntu".

Also, given that Ubuntu is customized by a variety of parties (including Canonical OEM) for distribution, Qin Ubuntu should be produced in a way that facilitates further customization.

General Deliverables

• Platform to build a Qin Ubuntu iso and publish it on cdimages.ubuntu.com and ubuntu.com.cn/download/
• Installer preconfigured for Chinese/Simplified and Shanghai
• Desktop to produce (in main) ubuntu-default-settings-zh-cn pkg per LocalizedCDImageTools that implements all customizations and extra pkgs as noted in this spec
• Issues rectified (see "Issues" section below)

Qin Default Settings Pkg

• Desktop to create ubuntu-default-settings-zh-cn pkg in main per LocalizedCDImageTools spec
• Shall install all customizations as noted in sections below
• Shall install the following extra packages:

  • ibus and its input methods: SunPinYin, WuBi

  • language-pack-zh-hans
  • language-pack-gnome-zh-hans
  • libreoffice-help-zh-cn
  • stardict [needs MIR]
  • gufw (gui for firewall, or best equivalent) [needs MIR]
  • nanny [needs MIR]
  • gwibber sohu and sina plugins [need MIR]

Desktop Experience

Note: These Desktop Experience customizations delivered by ubuntu-default-settings-zh-cn per LocalizedCDImageTools spec.

The desktops:

• Unity
• Unity-2d
• (classic (if still officially support))

Customized launchers (see below):

• Launcher panel icons in unity/unity-2d
• (Desktop files in classic, if still used)

Customized Home Dash Icons (Unity and Unity-2d)

Note: Can unity home dash icons be customized?

Default unity-specific icons, plus these:

• WebQQ

• Baidu

• Hao222

• Mozilla Firefox

Customized Launchers (Unity, Unity-2d, Classic)

Note: in classic mode, these are icons on desktop. In unity/unity-2d modes, these are launcher panel icons, with no desktop icons.

• WebQQ

• Renren

• Youku

• Qiyi

• Feixin

• Preferably launched as some kind of "web apps": chromeless browser windows

Applications

Note: These Application customizations delivered by ubuntu-default-settings-zh-cn per LocalizedCDImageTools spec.

Browser

• Default Firefox homepage: no change from Ubuntu default
• Default Firefox search engine: no change from Ubuntu default

Firewall GUI

• Gufw (or best equivalent)
• 100% GUI and Help translation
• Promote to main if possible, or implement specified universe tanslations in lang packs, to streamline translations

• We are dropping the request to include Gufw, and will wait until the basic config is included in the NetworkManager indicator applet. https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-o-desktop-network-enhancements

Web content filter

• Nanny
• 100% GUI and Help translation
• Promote to main if possible, or implement specified universe tanslations in lang packs, to streamline translations

Ubuntu Help Center

• 100% translation required

Gwibber Sohu and Sina Plugins

• Include plugins for sohu.com and sina.com
• 100% translation
• Currently in a PPA
• Promote to main?
• ppa:gwibber-team/ppa
  • gwibber-service-sina
  • gwibber-service-sohu

Issues

Incomplete support for input methods and search

• Input methods don't work in unity home search

  • bug 663776

• Searching in unity-2d and Software Center in Chinese/S doesn't work properly

  • bug 745243

Wrong country prefix in archives with oem-config

The system should use an apt mirror that is correct for their geographical location. There was discussion at UDS around implementing a dynamic system for doing this automatically instead of writing sources.list file with a country prefix. This would be ideal.

If this is not completed, then the current approach of determining the country prefix needs to be fixed to use the geographical location, not the country part of the user-selected locale. So if someone selectes Chinese/Simplified (zh_CN) as the language and Taiwan as their geographical location, the locale would be zh_CN.UTF-8 and the apt mirror would be tw.archive.ubuntu.com...

There are numerous bugs relating to this issue, for example:

• bug 776804

• bug 744987

LANGUAGE wrongly set based on physical location

When the user selects:

• Chinese/Simplified language (whose code is zh_CN) in the first boot/installer experience Language page
• Then Taiwan in the Timezone page:

The LANGUAGE should NOT change to zh_TW but should remain zh_CN (although user's time zone and other geographic bits should be Taiwan).

• zh_CN indicates Chinese/Simplified (used, for example, in mainland China)
• zh_TW indicates Chinese/Traditional (used, for example, in Taiwan)

These are different Language variants and must not be mixed up.

We need a clear separation between language and physical location to support people using their preferred translation in any country.

• bug 590108

Ubiquity: Configurable pkg list for installation on user checkbox

For ubiquity-frontend-gtk and oem-config-gtk):

A capability to easily configure an arbitrary set of packages to be installed at installation/first user boot time if the user selects a checkbox. It should not be necessary to modify ubiquity for this.

• In ubiquity >= 2.7.0, you can preseed ubiquity/nonfree_package to a whitespace-separated list of package names. The default is frontend-dependent: ubuntu-restricted-addons for the GTK frontend, and kubuntu-restricted-addons for the Qt frontend.