[ubuntu-studio-devel] Feature Spec discussion: ubuntustudio-desktop

[Kaj Ailomaa]

# Supporting multiple Desktop Environments

There has long been talk about us possibly supporting multiple desktop
environments. Doing so, we would use existing DE metas, and just add our
own session, menu, and artwork. The desktop environments in question
would be unity, gnome, kde, xfce and lxde.

There are two ways we can do this:
 * base our desktop environments on flavor DE metas such as
 ubuntu-desktop, xubuntu-desktop, etc,
 * or we base on the vanilla DE metas, such as xfce4 (not sure how that
 works with unity though)

So, let's discuss the pros and cons with selecting one over the other.
Perhaps choice one is better for some DEs, and choice two better for
others?

In our installer we will still need a default DE. And our ISO should
only have packages for one DE. With Internet connection one could choose
between several DEs and download the packages during installation. A
ubiquity plugin needs to be created for this.

# Custom Ubuntu Studio Desktop Environment

We could also discuss the possibility of introducing a custom DE for
Ubuntu Studio. We sort of have that now, but what we have is mostly
copied from Xubuntu. Our current desktop is so close to Xubuntu, that we
could just as well base ours entirely on theirs. 

It would only make sense to have a custom DE if our DE is largely
different from existing ones. And, it should be very low maintenance.
I'm thinking something very bare bone and simple. But, perhaps a vanilla
installation of lxde or xfce already has this advantage?