[Ayatana] Unity Weekly Status - 2010-11-03

[Neil Jagdish Patel <neil.patel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I thought it would be good to keep everyone in the loop with the current
status of Unity and it's migration over to using Compiz.

Obviously the main question is "When can I get it?", and we've had a
couple of blockers on that which the team has been working on
frantically to fix up:

- The new code wasn't in-tree to the old Unity, as we need to switch 
  build-systems from automake over to CMake to make building everything
  work correctly. We're currently working on this and making good 
  progress. This ensures we can keep using lp:unity without having to
  lose the history of Unity due to the move to Compiz. It also means
  we build everything in one place, which is what is ideal for packaging
  and getting it into archive (no need for new packages!).

- The code of the new plugin was using bits of the main Unity code so 
  the whole thing was intertwined. With the work mentioned above, this
  is also being resolved.

- We switched to GSettings and GDBus for newer parts of the code and 
  that had interesting side effects on the older code, this has been
  resolved.

- You need to have skills in magic to build it (this is also being 
  resolved for us mere humans). Before, the moons needed to align,
  now, you'll just need to make; make install.

There are some other bits and pieces too, but I think we'll get to them
by the end of the week/early next week. I'll make sure that we have good
build instructions at the same time as landing it in lp:unity, so those
of you who are brave can test it out before packages become available.

Thanks for bearing with us, hopefully it won't be for much longer!

-- 
Neil Jagdish Patel | Technical Lead
Desktop Experience Team
Canonical
27 Floor, Millbank Tower
London SW1P 4QP
Ubuntu - Linux for Human Beings
www.canonical.com