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• Launchpad Entry: mobile-karmic-alt-desktops

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• Packages affected:

Summary

Review light-weight desktop engines for Mobile images on systems that lack openGL support.

Release Note

With the wave of new systems hitting the market soon, not all systems will have drivers released in time to support our standard MID and UNR environments. Reviewing light-weight alternative environments will benefit OEM's and users of systems at release time.

Rationale

Getting drivers in a timely fashion has been troublesome at best. Some drivers (PSB, Intel graphics, Armel) have either been non-existent or unstable at release time, creating more workload for QA testing due to sluggish or non-responsive desktops, and turning off customers from using our images. By having alternative images with light-weight desktop engines available, we can better support the entire spectrum of systems on the market now or coming soon.

User stories

From bug #344443: Slow/slugish UI in netbook-launcher happens both on livecd and when installed. CPU and memory usage were low. I'm attaching a video that shows what I was seeing, and yes it was really that sluggish, not just the video capture.

The system has an Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller.

Assumptions

Design

Implementation

UI Changes

Do we need to design a new desktop interface or are there existing interfaces that will work?

Existing environments to review

• Mer
  • decision made at UDS to work with Mer team at community level towards Karmic integration
• LXFE
• Others?

Code Changes

• Possible checks in UNR to switch off clutter if GL support unavailable.
• If not above, modify gdm startup script to test for GL support and launch appropriate WM

Migration

Test/Demo Plan

• Easiest way to test is to disable dri in /etc/X11/xorg.conf and reboot. Other methods could involve switching to the vesa driver.

Unresolved issues

BoF agenda and discussion

CategorySpec