Follow up on Default Desktop Experinece for 11.04

[Rick Spencer]

Hello,

I followed up on the @ubuntu-desktop list to let people know that 11.04
was still slated to default to Unity, and to give people a chance to
escalate concerns. I cc’ed the @ubuntu-devel list as well for
completeness. I do not believe any escalations have occurred or that the
Desktop team has changed it's plan to default to Unity.

Positions held about the appropriate default were split in supporting
Unity or Classic as the default.

Objections to defaulting to Unity fell into 2 categories, functional
regressions and instabilities. Points regarding functional regressions
cited lack of panel applets, lack of systray support, and poor Focus
Follows Mouse experience. Instabilities were typically frequent crashes
in Unity/Compiz.

I followed up directly with the Desktop and Dx teams with regard to
these issues. Panel applets and systray icons have been deprecated from
Ubuntu in previous releases. However, they still work in Classic mode,
so users who have not migrated from these technologies will be supported
in that mode. Furthermore, for 11.04, systray support can be added to
Unity via a whitelist.

In terms of the instability of the system, the Desktop and Dx teams
report that most remaining instabilities in Beta 2 are crashers related
to making changes in ccsm. These crashers, and the other known
widespread crashers are either fixed in Beta 2, or are scheduled to be
fixed in the current Dx milestone that ends this week. See the Critical
and High bugs here:
https://launchpad.net/unity/+milestone/3.8.8

The Desktop Team still feels strongly that Unity will provide the better
experience for most users, is stable enough to ship, and will be more
stable by the time final media is spun.

I hope that I have accurately summarized the positions on all sides.
Please let me know if I can answer any more questions or provide more
context.

Cheers, Rick