Mobile

Provide an easy-to-use xrandr interface for MID

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/mid-screen-rotation

Conversation focused on the need for a UI widget to allow for general xrandr services for MID. Alberto Milone is working on a python interface for xrandr, which is probably a sensible basis for this tool. Devices with accellerometers or dedicated hardware screen change buttons may benefit from support for hotkey activation of some services.

Discuss the launcher used for Jaunty on Ubuntu MID

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mobile/+spec/mid-jaunty-launcher

Conversation focused on extending kourou, with identification of specific requirements for implementation in Jaunty. These included finger scrolling, background image support, and various miscellaneous bugfixes.

Applications used in Ubuntu MID

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/mobile-applications

General review of the core application set for MID usage, and a selection of applications to meet that need. Discussion did not complete within the session, and is expected to continue throughout the week at the Mobile roundables. This is likely to be a repeating review, to ensure that the selected applications are the best fit for the use cases of those available within Ubuntu.

Packaging of Hildon in Jaunty

After some review of the requirements, level of effort, and upstream focus, participants agreed that no special effort would be put into updating and coordinating hildon packaging for Jaunty: packages will generally track Debian for merge/sync as normal.

Display Manager for MID

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/mid-display-manager

Early in the discussion it was determined that supporting a separate display manager would be a fairly high overhead. Solutions considered included looking at how the new gdm might fit, although it has an increasing amount of overhead to support Desktop use cases, and to modify startx to work properly, as startx is a common use case in other contexts as well. Conclusion was to look at enabling proper support for consolekit and policykit in startx itself.

Define what goes into the ship seed on the mobile images

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/ship-seed-for-mobile-images

Discussion included review of requirements, and identification of specific packages to be included. Further input from other developers was sought to ensure the results would be useful for the widest range of sensible environments. With high probablility, this will mirror the ship seeds used for the Desktop images.

Moblin Overview and Compliance

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mobile/+spec/moblin-compliance

• Intel provided information as to what Moblin 2.0 Compliance is.
  • Superset of Linux Standard Base (LSB) 4.0 Specification
    • Will require specific versions to meet or exceed of some packages, but the specific versions have as yet not been set:
      • Python
      • Perl
      • Glibc
      • GCC
      • binutils
      • libtool
      • autoconf
      • automake
      • bison
      • rpm
      • Linux Kernel 2.6.28 or greater
      • X-Server tbd
      • Mesa tbd
  • Will provide additional tests to show compliance.

Weighting the benefits of lpia versus i386

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/lpia-versus-i386

Intel offered insight into the benefits of lpia, and future plans for the platform. As the performance-optimised and power-optimised processor trees develop, there is greater divergence expected, with a strong possibility that the two branches may not remain binary compatible in the future. While lpia has little clear benefit today, it remains useful as a platform for experimentation with various optimisations available. Once the processor families diverge sufficiently, lpia will need to be defined as an architecture for autotools, etc. before which time it remains an experimental x86 branch.

Application switcher for MID

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/mid-application-switcher

Wide discussion on use cases and requirements for an application switcher, with many good ideas presented for solutions. Consensus developed on the replacement of the Home plugin with a more advanced tool to select the desired application. For best results, such a tool should be coordinated with adjustments to kourou to better handle single-launch of applications.

Mobile Roundtable

These sessions tended to include short reviews of meetings attended the prior day in other tracks, implications for expected future discussions on the Mobile track, and continued review of application selection. There were no special items of note on any days, and so the description will not be repeated chronologically.

Create ISO images for Ubuntu Mobile and Ubuntu MID

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mobile/+spec/mobile-iso-images

Conversation focused on benefits: while the implementation is fairly trivial, and there are tools that allow one to convert an ISO to a USB key for booting, it was expected that very few users would be able to directly use a CD to install a system. It was determined to open an idea on brainstorm to understand the support behind the use cases for CD images (distribution at events, ease of sharing and archiving, etc.) is sufficient to outweigh that the majority of end-users would need to use special tools to prepare installation media.

Discuss the mobile seed, and related topics

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/mobile-team-seed-management

Fairly quick review of the state of the seeds, and how to manage them. Nobody present used the "mobile-dev" set of packages, so that shall be dropped. Seed management will likely move from ubuntu-core-dev to ubuntu-mobile-dev, pending further insight into the results from ArchiveReorganisation. The "mobile" seed, task, and metapackage will be renamed, as part of the effort to subsume the Netbook Remix into Ubuntu itself.

Discussion of UNR issues for Jaunty

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/unr-handling-jaunty

Conversation focused on defining the requirements related to integrating UNR into Jaunty. UNR packages will be integrated into Jaunty, and Mobile team will produce a UNR image for Jaunty. The UMPC image produced for Intrepid will be dropped going forward as a result. Outstanding issues, tasks, and splitting of work between Mobile and OEM teams was discussed as well and is documented in the specification.

Find the right set of images to build for the ARM architecture

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/selection-of-arm-images

Initial consensus on netbook, live, and alternate images. Some discussion about various bootloaders (uboot, redboot, etc.), and how to handle variance in how ARM hardware boots. Consideration of live images being provided without kernels, so they may be reused for multiple subarchitectures, as kernels take a fair amount of space. Given the wide number of flavours, and initial smaller set will be selected, with flavour-specific teams to focus on other images if desired. Firm decision on Ubuntu Desktop (live), Ubuntu Server (alternate), and a universal netboot image. Kubuntu, Xubuntu, MID, etc. to be deferred for renewed investigation by flavour-specific teams.

Roundtable review of available hardware and device support

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/mobile-hardware-support

Very little discussion on outstanding issues, or specific hardware that needed support. Participants demonstrated multiple devices on which they had or would like to install Ubuntu. Specific devices demonstrated included: Nokia n770, Nokia n800, Nokia n810, Sharp Zaurus 3200, Sharp D4, Beagleboard, NSLU2, Toshiba N80, Compal Jax10, Samsung Q1 Ultra.

Review and clean up mobile-related specs in launchpad

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/mobile-spec-cleanup

Lightning review of 75 specifications in 30 minutes, with many determined obsolete or deferred for review at the next UDS. Most specifications were previously completed, but launchpad had not been updated to reflect the status accurately.

Have a selection menu in the mobile images, similar to the CD bootmenu

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mobile/+spec/gfxboot-like-menu-for-mobile-images

After short discussion it was realised that most of the goals for this effort had already been accomplished by the change in the image building method, and that some others were rendered obsolete by the adsorbtion of Netbook Remix into Ubuntu itself. It was decided not to proceed with a separate effort.

Ubuntu Mobile Setup Wizard

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/mobile-setup-wizard

The expected leader was not present, so after a late start, most of the conversation was related to questions about oem-config, and how it might be used, and whether it would meet the requirements. It was decided to include oem-setup and test it throughly with Jaunty, with possible UI adjustments if required for lower resolution environments.

Recovery partition

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/recovery-partition

Many OEMs ship with machines that have an onboard recovery partition so recovery is possible by tapping a single key and then restoring from that image. As Ubuntu is now being shipped by OEMs, we should have similar functionality incorporated into ubiquity. Casper should be modified to have a restore/recover mode, and update-manager should be able to upgrade the rescue partition.

Create a hildonised ubiquity front-end

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/ubiquity-hildon

Ubiquity has significant UI adjustments planned for the Jaunty cycle. As most of the MID-specific requirements were more closely related to issues with low resolution than with issues with hildonisation, conversation focused on a review of the current UI to discuss which elements did not fit in 480 vertical pixels. The results are expected to feed into the general ubiquity redesign, with no specific work being done on a separate front-end.

Packaging of the Poulsbo drivers

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mobile/+spec/poulsbo-packaging

Discussion of how to repackage the Intel binary driver dump for the Poulsbo graphics cards to allow usage in Intrepid with minimal user effort, including the ability to cleanly uninstall the driver set. Provided data shall be repackaged in a manner consistent with Intrepid, and placed in a PPA for user access.

Provide an offline tool that generates an installed image for physical installation.

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mobile/+spec/offline-installer

Good discussion on the requirements, UI, and features of a tool to generate customised bootable images for a variety of situations, including cross-architecture preparation of images. Primary unresolved issue was handling of maintainer scripts for installed packages in a sane manner when performing cross-architecture images.

Mobile Bugs

Discussion of issues with Malone of interest to participants in the Mobile Track. Some items of note included being able to identify all bugs against all packages included in a specific flavour (or unique to a specific flavour), clean movement of bugs between projects (e.g. ubuntu-mobile) and distributions (e.g. ubuntu), and discussion of general usability issues.

Review the touch screen situation with regard to calibration tools and driver situation

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/general-resolution-for-touchscreen-handling

Initrds in squashfs format instead of a gzipped-cpio stream

Discussion on whether it would make sense to explore using a squashfs-based initrd instead of a (gzipped cpio) initramfs to speed up the boot.

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/squashfs-initrds