It’s been one year and we pay up on the Monkey Suit Mir Bet. We chat with Kevin Gunn Engineering Manager for Display Server & Unity UI at Canonical about how closed drivers will work with Mir, how new devices like the Oculus Rift might work, Wayland, and much more.
Plus: Unreal 4 and GOG.com announce incoming Linux support, AMD could be planning some major video driver changes, Ubuntu Tablet rumors…
AND SO MUCH MORE!
All this week on, The Linux Action Show!
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— Show Notes: —
MIr Chat: Kevin Gunn
Engineering Manager for Display Server & Unity UI at Canonical
Brought to you by: System76
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What is your involvement with the MIR Project?
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DO you like my hair?
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How do you feel that MIR will hold up to time? We’ve seen how initial decisions with X have impacted its ability to preform as our computing needs have changed. Is MIR being designed with as much forward compatibility as possible?
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Does or will MIR have the ability to be expanded/extended upon with regard to future devices/platforms? Is it monolithic in that it will exist as a single unit, or can it be altered easily for different systems with different goals in mind?
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One of the concerns we’ve heard is that ‘;eventually’ applications will need to be written for MIR, Obviously there is the XMir compatibility layer, but are there plans for a wayland compatibility layer to deal with future Wayland/MIR differences which may creep up over time.
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How do you feel MIR will perform as a display server over the next, say, 10 years? Do you believe it will fair better than X has over the past 10 years?
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Can you give me a better picture of how closed source drivers will work with Mir?
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Will I be able to do ssh with x forwarding from a computer running Mir. Will I be able to do something like ssh -X to a computer running Mir from a computer running X? From a computer running Mir?
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And much more!
2013 Followup: our milestones effectively match this line of thought
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Its like a 3 stage rocket for Mir & Unity Next…
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First target is integration of Unity Next & Mir (we’ll be discussing this at the upcoming UDS)….
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second is actually creating our Ubuntu for Phone with Unity Next + Mir sometime in 4Q13. Lastly we should hit full convergence in 2Q 2014.
– Picks –
Runs Linux:
Desktop App Pick
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Viber – Free calls, Free text messages, photo and location sharing
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On February 13, 2014, Rakuten announced they had acquired Viber for $900 million
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Viber founder: ‘People should be concerned about privacy’ | Technology | theguardian.com
Viber’s policy is that if it receives a proper subpoena, it will provide records of who made and received calls, and when, but that no content from those conversations will be shared.
He says Viber does not “have the capability to listen to conversations”. Messages are stored, for two weeks or until they are opened by the recipient, whichever is shorter. Around 80% are deleted in less than a second.
Weekly Spotlight
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If Mir fails within one year from now, I’ll wear this on the show (Matt)
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Matt Makes the Bet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsTQc0ME1eo&feature=youtu.be&t=24m56s
— NEWS —
First Ubuntu Tablets To Launch This Autumn
“[Tablets] will arrive pretty much simultaneously with phones. Q3, middle of this year we’ll see both phones and tablets running Ubuntu on the market.”
GOG.com Soon On More Platforms
No, don’t duck. This is actually good news. We just wanted to announce that, after much deliberation, **we’ve decided that one of the next steps for us is to support Linux.
We’re initially going to be launching our Linux support on GOG.com with the full GOG.com treatment for Ubuntu and Mint.
Getting geared up for a big kick-off in the fall with at least 100 Linux games ready for you to play.
This is, of course, going to include games that we sell which already have Linux clients, but we’ll also be bringing Linux gamers a variety of classics that are, for the first time, officially supported and maintained by a storefront like ours.
Unreal Engine 4 to Support Linux with Monthly Sub for Devs
For $19/month you can have access to everything, including the Unreal Editor in ready-to-run form, and the engine’s complete C++ source code hosted on GitHub for collaborative development.
We’re working to build a company that succeeds when UE4 developers succeed. Anyone can ship a commercial product with UE4 by paying 5% of gross revenue resulting from sales to users. If your game makes $1,000,000, then we make $50,000. We realize that’s a lot to ask, and that it would be a crazy proposition unless UE4 enables you to build way better games way more productively than otherwise!
This first release of Unreal Engine 4 is just the beginning. In the C++ code, you can see many new initiatives underway, for example to support Oculus VR, Linux, Valve’s Steamworks and Steam Box efforts, and deployment of games to web browsers via HTML5.
The All New Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 (DK2) Virtual Reality Headset to Ship with Linux Support
The Oculus Rift and the Oculus SDK currently support Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
Debian Project Leader canidate proposes PPA system
It’s again that time of the year for the Debian Project: the elections of its Project Leader! Starting on March 31st, and during the following two weeks, the Debian Developers will vote to choose the person who will guide the project for one year.
Among this year’s candidates there is the current DPL, Lucas Nussbaum, who admits that “the workload involved in being the DPL is just huge,”
In his platform, Lucas speaks of technical and social steps to improve the project: from reproducible builds for a more secure archive to a renewed effort to run Debian on new platforms (especially smartphone and tablets); from a more welcoming approach to prospective contributors to an easier collaboration with organizations.
Neil McGovern. Neil’s platform focuses mainly on the need to “ensure that we cater to our users, and there’s millions of them. From those running the latest software in unstable, to people who simply want a rock solid core release.”
In his opinion “the size of Debian is increasing, and will reach a point where we’re unable to guarantee basic compatibility with other packages, or the length of time it takes to do so becomes exponentially longer, unless something changes.” To fix this problem, Neil proposes the implementation of PPAs (Personal Package Archives), the modernisation of the current build and infrastructure system as well as generally supporting the various teams.
AMD Is Exploring A Very Interesting, More-Open Linux Driver Strategy .
The short answer of what AMD’s trying to do is seeing about leveraging the existing (with modifications) open-source Radeon (Direct Rendering Manager) kernel driver underneath the closed-source Catalyst driver.
– Feedback: –
Display servers are the component in the display stack that seems to hog a lot of the limelight. I think this is a bit of a mistake, as it’s actually probably the least important component, at least to a user.
Straw Poll: Should LAS Drop “Seasons” post Episode 300?
— Chris’ Stash —
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