Desktop Team Updates - Monday 21st March 2022

Desktop Team Updates
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Hi everyone, below you will find the updates from the Desktop team from the last week. If you’re interested in discussing a topic please start a thread in the Desktop area of Discourse .

Last week’s notes are here: Desktop Team Updates - Monday 14th March 2022

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WSL

  • livecd-rootfs: separate WSL image builds from cloud images.
  • Finalized WSL whitepaper
  • Tutorial on WSL interoperability
  • “Enable systemd” option added to subiquity TUI
  • Updated WSL branding with new design.
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WSL

  • livecd-rootfs: separate WSL image builds from cloud images.
  • Tutorial on WSL interoperability (start)
  • Updated WSL branding with new design.
  • Reviews/help on nslogin and subiquity
  • Removal of ubuntu-wsl-integration in subiquity
  • Update the API to add systemd in subiquity + TUI
  • Transition Ubuntu application to new application name

Misc:

  • libadwaita1 MIR review
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firefox24 firefox

thunderbird24 thunderbird

  • updated to 91.7.0+build2, tested and handed over to the security team

chromium22 chromium

  • updating stable to 99.0.4844.82
  • updating beta to 100.0.4896.46
  • updated dev to 101.0.4929.5
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  • sponsored gdm cherry pick to set wayland default for the nvidia 510 driver
  • fixed the liblangtag build
  • sponsored libfprint SRU synaptic IDs updates for OEM
  • cherry picked some libusb fixes for recent regressions impacting fprintd
  • reported some WPA/openSSL3 regressions upstream
  • rebuild some snaps for CVE fixed in staged packages
  • fixed the gnome-3-38 sdk snap build
  • updated ubuntu-wallpapers and ubiquity-slideshow-ubuntu for the new wallpapers
  • refresh the humanity-icon-theme distributor-logo icons with the new assets
  • updated the i386 whitelist to add session-migration since that’s a depends of gsettings-desktop-schemas now
  • update brltty with recent Debian changes to fix a build issue but it’s having problems with python3.10 now
  • debugged brltty vs python 3.10 a bit, then Stefano helped with the solution and uploaded a fix, thanks!
  • candidated for DMB
  • did the ubuntu archive changes needed to unblock the firefox update
  • opened a ffe to install snapd-desktop-integration by default for better themes handling which got accepted so did the change now
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This was a big week for the Ubuntu Desktop!

:rocket: GNOME Shell 42 Beta made it out of -proposed
:rocket: Wrote an explanation of how Ubuntu 22.04 LTS will handle the GNOME 42 dark style
:rocket: Made changes in collaboration with GNOME for our dark style handling
:rocket: Used Didier’s dh_migrations tool to handle migrating dark theme preferences from older Ubuntu releases to 22.04. I believe this is my first time using dh_migrations.
:rocket: Worked with Marco to finish landing UI details before the UI Freeze deadline
:rocket: Lots of GNOME 42 updates in Debian and Ubuntu
:rocket: Got Ubuntu feature freeze approval to switch the GNOME Web (Epiphany) browser to use the new webkitgtk API built with libsoup3
:rocket: Did the poppler 22.02 transition for Debian
:rocket: Packaged a git snapshot of the Desktop Icons NG extension
:rocket: Fixed a vala build issue with our gnome-calculator packaging. Thanks Ashton for reporting.
:rocket: Changed gedit’s display name from Text Editor to gedit for its pending 42.0 release so that it would have a different display name than the new gnome-text-editor. I don’t think we will be changing the name in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
:rocket: Received a patch in Debian to enable GNOME Sudoku to show up on mobile devices. Encouraged the submitter to forward to GNOME where it was immediately included in the 42.0 release.

Other News

GNOME 42 will be officially released on Wednesday

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  • Did some Ubuntu docs planning with Ken and Daniele. I’ve mostly filled out some more info about the various audiences the Ubuntu specific documentation will want to reach in this google doc. We are at an early stage on Ubuntu docs rework, right now we’re trying to identify the best strategy for the Ubuntu docs. That means identifying what we need (and who needs it) and then tooling/page locations.
  • Brainstormed with Monica, Ken, Oli on questions for the Mark Indaba (April 22). The status is that we’re gathering questions from middleschoolers to include in our list of questions for Mark to vet… the plan is to send him the questions by EOW.
  • gnome-shell-extension-manager and blueprint-compiler packaging has been finished and I submitted ITPs for them, upstream to debian. Thanks @jbicha for the help and uploading!
  • Interviews
  • looked into how opencl is included in the Libreoffice deb and snap, to assist Sergio in an opencl investigation.
  • Investigated a few gnome-shell crashes I’ve had.
  • Submit talk to LAS on gaming :slight_smile:
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WSL

  • Concluded nslogin C application to be the launcher entrypoint for the systemd experimental feature.
  • Added the experimental systemd option in the Flutter installer GUI.
  • Removed the options related to ubuntu-wsl-integration from the Flutter GUI.
  • Updated the launcher to invoke the entry point application.
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  • CUPS Snap: Waiting for @mvo to release snapd 2.55.0 and also for the releases of the core Snaps with /var/cups/ directories (core18 made it, core20 is in beta, and core only in edge), With this the new cups interface will be live (see also TODO list). As this will probably all land before my April news post on OpenPrinting, I have written up in detail how the new interface works and also how to use it when creating a Snap of an application which prints, in my March news post.
  • cups-filters: This week I have again done more things towards the cups-filters 2.x release: Let generated PPD files for driverless printers only have one *cupsFilter2: "..." line (commit), install the individual filter executables also together with the universal CUPS filter, as PPD files could explicitly call the individual filters (commit), let universal correctly work with *cupsFilter2: "..." lines in the PPD (commit), now the universal CUPS filter works correctly with CUPS, in pdftops() use Poppler instead of Ghostscript for all Apple LaserWriter models, as they seem to have a firmware bug not working with Ghostscript’s PostScript output (commit), removed logging leaks to stderr (all logging in libcupsfilters should go to log functions) (commit, commit), fixes on bannertopdf() (commit).
  • CUPS: About the bug of temporary CUPS queues to local IPP services, like IPP-over-USB or Printer Applications, not working with the GTK print dialog for which I have found a fix last week, I have also found a report to GTK and commented there. Also backported the fix for Issues #340 and #343 (-m everywhere does not work with mDNS URIs as listed by driverless) to the Ubuntu package of CUPS (2.4.1op1-1ubuntu4).
  • Flatpak: Investigated more on how flatpak works and they do as I suggested and tried to get implemented many years ago: The application does not open its own print dialog, but makes a D-Bus call to the desktop environment (GNOME or KDE) and the desktop opens its print dialog (so GNOME always the GTK one, even if the application is a KDE/Qt application). I called that concept “Common Print Dialog” that time and it was to simplify the user’s life by always getting the same print dialog. Here in flatpak they do it (not only for “Print” but also for “Open”, “Save as”, …) as the application itself is in a sandbox and the dialogs (the “Portals”) are on the host system, outside the sandbox. See in my March news post.
  • OpenPrinting web site: The web app changes needed for the move of the server from an old Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (I never imagined that someone uses an LTS to its EOL, and then it was me using such a thing) to a shiny new VM at Oregon State University Open Source Lab got deployed and now everything on the printer/driver lookup part of the site is working again! Thanks to Violet Kurtz from osuosl.org on doing the changes for me (he will also help me on the planned Printer Application look-up service). See also in my news post. Also updated the front page to prominently say that most modern printers are driverless (discussion).
  • OpenPrinting: Monthly video meeting and March news post. Special features this month are: Flatpak and printing, How does the cups interface of snapd work, and for the Snappers under you, how to snap applications with print functionality with the new cups interface
  • Google Summer of Code 2022: Continued mentoring the early starters, especially answered many questions of the contributor working on the Common Print Dialog Backends (CPDB) support for the GTK print dialog.
  • Kudos: Received Kudos about auto-setup of Canon MF720C driverless color laser printer on Kubuntu 20.04 on Twitter.
  • Bugs.
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