SFX in future Ubuntu releases

[Étienne Bersac]

Hello,

It seems that some people here need a review of desktop technologies.

Next gen linux desktop will be composed. Two solution stands :

      * Using the Composite extension of Xorg. This solution comes from
        Fedora and is supported by nVidia. This solution know a
        conceptual security hole.
      * Using a brand new Xserver built on top of OpenGL. Called Xgl.
        This xserver has two variant : Xglx which run on top of Xorg
        OpenGL implementation and Xegl which run on top of Egl, a bunch
        of software that use framebuffer, glitz and a bunch of other
        good techno. This solution does not suffer such conceptual
        security hole like current X11 because Xserver does not have
        full root access to card registry.

I guess that Xgl is to X11 what Hurd is to other systems.

On top of that xservers (starting with Xorg 7.1), we can run metacity
composite_manager or compiz. Compiz is by far the most featured
composite manager, but is quite unstable and under development.

A Google Summer of Code project mentored by Ubuntu consists of "Poorman
Xgl" i.e. Xgl over software rendering.

So Ubuntu might explore Xgl, but we can't drop Xorg. Our solutions are :

      * Xorg + metacity
      * Xorg + compiz
      * Xorg + Xgl + compiz

For now we can't know what techno will be used. I may have done
mistakes.

Étienne.
-- 
Verso l'Alto !