[ubuntu-studio-devel] Feature Spec Discussion: Desktop Agnostic

[Timo Jyrinki]

2015-04-27 3:34 GMT+03:00 Len Ovens <len at ovenwerks.net>:
> The link above gives less info than needed. after doing some more
> research... I think it will depend on the dev. It is still possible to lean
> on the system libs and not include them. I expect packages from debian will
> continue to do so. I think ubuntu is trying to apeal to comercial
> develoment. Make it easy and acceptable for people to release blobs for
> money. I do not know how this works with GPL, with debs, all packages have a
> SRC package... I do not see how someone would DL a src package of this or in
> what form.

I don't think commercial development has anything to do with this,
Ubuntu Software Center already has had commercial apps/games on sale
for years, and the process in there supported everything needed for
such. Snappy is more about for example error-free upgrades (think full
Ubuntu version upgrade without any .deb unpacking, setting up,
configuring, fixing dependencies), smaller downloads, ability to
better offer real application updates to LTS releases like latest
LibreOffice (or Ardour etc for that matter..) since the current model
doesn't really support that. PPA:s also are not needed anymore with
Snappy.

There are some Q&A at:
http://www.webupd8.org/2015/04/ubuntu-desktop-to-eventually-switch-to.html

It's also possible to use normal Ubuntu via .deb based upgrades, even
if the default image would be Snappy based at some point. Since Ubuntu
still actually consists of Debian + Ubuntu's modifications, it's just
whether the .deb:s will be exposed to users or if the .deb:s are only
used by distro developers to build images.

None of the flavors are probably going to even try Snappy before after
16.04 LTS, but maybe afterwards it could be realistic if Ubuntu first
demonstrates what benefits users get from it?

>> don't think anyone is ready to dl 2gig security updates every 2 days,
>
> Further reading says that won't happen, it is more zsync like, just
> replacing the parts of the packages that have changed.

You can basically see Snappy in action on the current Ubuntu phones,
or the former iteration of it (Click) - base image updates that are
pretty small and contain all the latest fixes to all kernel+libraries,
plus applications that don't break since the system image / defined
framework provides the compatibility needed by apps by definition.
This part is a bit like Android, since apps don't break as
uncontrollably.

-Timo