Ubuntu Extra Wallpaper Package

Karmic includes a set of freely licensed high quality desktop backgrounds. A lot of beautiful backgrounds from the "contest" didn't make it onto the CD, but last week Kenneth Wimer pushed the extra wallpapers from the flickr contest to his PPA.

Hi all,
 
I've just pushed the extra wallpapers from the flickr contest to my ppa.

Direct link:
https://launchpad.net/~kwwii/+archive/ppa

Instructions on getting that setup on your machine:
https://launchpad.net/+help/soyuz/ppa-sources-list.html

The package to install is desktop-backgrounds-extra

Ken

You can click here to download the desktop-backgrounds-extra_0.2_all.deb

Although the Ubuntu 10.04 contest haven't yet started, the planning has. For each release, there will be a start and end date where you can submit pictures for the current development release. The pictures won't be considered for more than one release (but you can re-submit). Currently the plan is to have the end date set three months before release day, with a first package in Beta 1.

Let's hope Lucid will see as many beautiful submissions as Karmic did.

PPA For Testing Plymouth In Ubuntu

Plymouth will not be arriving in time for Jaunty, but it is currently planned to replace the Usplash in Karmic Koala (Ubuntu 9.10). However Plymouth is now available for testing in Jaunty though PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~plymouth-dev/+archive/ppa

You'll need kernel 2.6.29 which you can get from here:

http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa...e/v2.6.29-rc6/

There should be a PPA for the kernel you can add to your software sources soon, but for now this should work for testing purposes. Plymouth seems to be more CPU consuming than Usplash however, the boot time is unchanged.

Some people are hoping the Ubuntu Usplash Smooth will make it into Jaunty, but there hasn't been any sources confirming that. With Jaunty in feature-freeze, this now seems highly unlikely.

The New GDM Is Available For Testing

Today Sebastien Bacher made it possible to try the new GDM, currently planed for Jaunty+1, in Intrepid. On the Desktop mailing list Sebastian wrote:

GNOME upstream worked on a GDM code refactoring some cycles ago, the new version is not used in ubuntu yet, but it's being considered for next jaunty+1 and it would be nice to start giving it testing now.

The upgrade plans are described on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Specs/Jaunty/GdmUpgrade and you can get it a first version in the desktop team ppa now.

To try it add "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-desktop/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main" to your sources.list and install gdm-new

There is some known issues:
- the new version conflicts with gdm, fast-user-switch-applet and gdm-guest-session, those and ubuntu-desktop will be removed when you install the new gdm version
- the new gdm has a switch user applet but it didn't get the ubuntu changes which happened during the intrepid cycle
- the new gdm will get started directly after installation, that should close your session but you will be switched to gdm, you can select your current user to resume the session use though
- there is no configuration migration nor graphical tools to do changes to the configuration
- the new version might be lacking some of the options you were using

The new version should be mostly working though and let you log in, switch between users, suspend the computer, reboot, etc.

If you do try the new version and have some comments feel free to reply on the Ubuntu desktop mailing list, if the user feedback is good the new version will be uploaded to universe.

Source: Sebastien Bacher

For more information about the new GDM, visit http://live.gnome.org/GDM/NewDesign