Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will not use Mir display server by default
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will not include Mir display server by default. The Unity 8 interface will also not be offered, but Unity 7 will continue to serve as the basis. Furthermore, Trusty Tahr will get improved trim support for SSDs and Ubuntu Touch should eventually be able to run Android apps.
In the run-up to the LTS release planned for April, where LTS stands for Long-Term Support, Canonical has made a number of decisions for the further development of the Ubuntu operating system. The main decision is that Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will not feature the Mir display server. The replacement for X.org Server developed by Canonical has still not been found to be sufficiently stable, with the Xmir compatibility layer in particular still causing problems. Mir previously failed to make it to the release of Ubuntu 13.10 for similar reasons.
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS won’t go on Unity 8 either to spin, but on the stable Unity 7 gui. Both choices were made according to the Ubuntu developers to make the upcoming LTS release, which will be supported by Canonical for five years, as stable as possible. Both Mir and Unity 8 will be gradually added to subsequent point releases and will remain the foundation of Ubuntu Touch.
Mark Shuttleworth also announced that Ubuntu Touch should eventually also be able to run Android apps, whether or not via a dual boot construction on a tablet or smartphone, but it will probably take a few releases before this will actually become possible. Canonical’s priority is to find partners to produce the hardware that will run the first Ubuntu Touch releases. Shuttleworth claims that a number of “well-known names” are interested in Ubuntu Touch, but he did not make any concrete announcements.
The arm versions of Ubuntu will be made suitable for 64bit chips. With this, Canonical says it wants to respond to the developments in the arm processor market, with not only Apple opting for 64-bit chips, but also server manufacturers showing a warm interest in such processors.
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, which is codenamed Trusty Tahr, will also enable the trim function by default as soon as it detects installation on an SSD, reports Phoronix. Until now, the necessary discard in the mount setting has not yet been activated, which can make an SSD slower in the long run. Canonical wants to include the trim function in a cron job and not at the file system level for performance reasons. In addition, the trim functionality will be included in both desktop and touch editions of Ubuntu via the fstrim command.