Ubuntu vis' Gnome becoming incompatible ?

[nss000]

Gents:

I currently run Ubuntu_12.04LTS & Gnome-3 on my workstation. They do OKey together. But, with Gnome(RedHat) supporting Wayland and Ubuntu moving to Mir/X graphics foundations (word?) does this imply that at some point the updates will become mutually incompatible. That Gnome will no longer exist on Ubuntu and lusrs must choose one or 'tuther?

If so ... sooner or later ??

 

[randomizer]

Either Canonical will maintain downstream patches to keep it compatible (assuming that it does in fact become incompatible upstream) or they will drop official support for it. Of course there's nothing stopping you from installing Wayland or X along with GNOME since they'll still be in the repositories.

 

[nss000]

If I understand you: a mix of Ubuntu+Gnome+Wayland+Mir ought to be possible even though Ubuntu/Mir is (fundamentally?) incompatible with Gnome/Wayland.

Up-to-now I had assumed IBM quietly backed Ubuntu, and its desktop remained surprisingly robust. But, Canonical stocks Office-Libre not Apache OO in its repository which kills that idea. Who will save Ubuntu when their phone=prank tanks ?

Either Canonical will maintain downstream patches to keep it compatible (assuming that it does in fact become incompatible upstream) or they will drop official support for it. Of course there's nothing stopping you from installing Wayland or X along with GNOME since they'll still be in the repositories.

 

[randomizer]

No, what I meant is that you could, if necessary, run GNOME on Wayland or X but not with Mir. Wayland compatibility with Mir is possible, but I don't think it's on the roadmap. Of course this is all moot until such a time as GNOME is incompatible with Mir.

 

[nss000]

Do you think it likely Canonical would change 12.04.xLTS such that MIR not X or Wayland was the graphics foundation ? That would be a shock !! I'd like to think an Ubuntu LTS version sees **no** major change in components during its lifetime, but Canonical is hell-bent on MIR improving its usage stats.

No, what I meant is that you could, if necessary, run GNOME on Wayland or X but not with Mir. Wayland compatibility with Mir is possible, but I don't think it's on the roadmap. Of course this is all moot until such a time as GNOME is incompatible with Mir.

 

[randomizer]

12.04 will never see Mir. The biggest changes it gets are kernel upgrades to improve compatibility with newer hardware. From memory, 13.10 will see Mir along with an X.Org fallback session if you're missing driver support, and 14.04 LTS will be pure Mir (by default at least).