Ubuntu Desktop 24.04 LTS roadmap highlights

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I do not see nor understand how you got the torturing idea. A source where anyone can go and get gaming help (No, Ubuntu does not have one, they have pieces everywhere, but not a single place that could be called a gaming source).

And if new linux users are going to get confused, it could be solved as easily as a “Beginner Friendly”, “Intermediate”, “Expert”, “This thing will break your PC” kind of labels for an article, a video, etc… A simple visual UX change would be more than enough to handle that along with guiding them in a proper fashion.

I have also seen the steam snap several months back. I will test it again since you mentioned some things there that I did not verify.

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Next, we want to improve the notification itself by providing users with actions like “Update Now” and make the copy fit. If there’s time we’d even like an update-is-available badge on the dock icon.

If there is no time this time around will this feature be implemented in 24.10?

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Thank you for this article…

  • I see no mention of Accessibility feature fixes or enhancements. My main gripe with Ubuntu is the lack of this type of configuration that used to be available with (dun dun dun… compiz) I need to be able to Zoom in to whatever (multi-monitor) I am on, independently; with no edges, boxes, or pop ups. Just a keyboard shortcut that zooms the entire (current) view by configurable steps.

  • A brightness controller would also be a welcomed integration. For desktop. (I do this multiple times a day depending what I’m watching, working on, or ambient light as the day progresses). There is one out there I find most useful using xrand, but would be swell to integrate these guys into Ubuntu; again with a simple shortcut key, brighter or darker.
    https://github.com/lordamit/Brightness

We spend so much time in front of these screens, and need to think of eye health. <3

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Desktop zoom already exists in the GNOME desktop. The quick way to enable it is Super+Alt+8, and then you can zoom in and out with Super+Alt++/-.

Automatic brightness exists for some (a minority of) laptops, and if so then you get an extra option in the Settings app. For the rest of us though, I’m not aware of any way to do it other than xrandr --brightness in a Xorg session.

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There is an integrated zoom and brightness function in the accessibility area of 22.04 LTS, both of which are controlled from the same location. Unfortunately the monitors cannot be controlled independently. Trying to zoom in full screen on the one that has focus, and leave the other alone. Same with brightness (though there is no brightness shortcut).

The daylight/nightlight changing function based on time is not sufficient with all the work and streaming services we use today, and all the different “brightnesses” that are required depending on what you are looking at.

Again, talking about a desktop computer. But do appreciate your feedback.

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Thanks for that tip!

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Changing monitor brightness (or any other monitor setting) in software, without interfering with night light or colour profiles, used to be possible using I2C commands. But I think if you can do it at all still then it would be specific to the model of monitor.

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On my laptop, I just use the brightness controller in the power menu and I have mine set nicely – along with a blue light filter – Redshift is a bit better than the Gnome filter, but unfortunately, it is no longer in the repositories and may not work on Wayland.

On a desktop, the monitor itself controls the brightness (some also have built in blue light and anti-flicker technology) My Samsung C27F390 has numerous technologies built into the monitor – and many other monitors also have great technologies – some even have adaptive brightness.

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It feels like you are completely ignoring my first post. This is already being done in all versions that can use compiz. The tool I provided for brightness achieves this in Ubuntu versions where brightness is not already integrated. However, brightness is integrated 22.04 (just not independently per output, same as zoom).

  • None of this request has to do with night light or color profiles. It is simply the ability the zoom and change brightness from the keyboard independently on a multi monitor setup using shortcuts. Without going up to the monitor itself to make these changes (as xrandr does, not changing the actual monitor settings). Again for people with disabilities…

This thread is supposed to be about the new 24.04 LTS software system, not about outside solutions (ie: get a new monitor, or manually change your brightness on your monitor).

  • The simplest achievable ask here would be to have a zoom step option, and a brightness keyboard shortcut. (again, both are core features of which are currently available in 22.04)

  • All the replies here are invalidating my original post on the (mostly integrated) accessibility use of the 24.04 LTS software. (i’d like to hear from @tim-hm thank you)

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For brightness there is tool xrandr, but its support and readiness for brightness is very obscure not ready for this times and maybe new interface is needed, but today’s monitors have special needs by their vendor and often not present on linux, only basic settings and monitors are Set :slight_smile: of a huge list of vendors but lack of support by them… and today they probably could also have their own firmware which in the time of xrendr was probably in the babybox by developers…

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No, this thread is about the plans of the ubuntu desktop team for the default desktop that you will get when installing 24.04 from the official ubuntu release iso, not about plans of flavors (i.e. compiz based installs etc) or any other aspects of ubuntu as a whole.

Note that @vanvugt is one of the core developers of this team and that he replied to you in that context, i.e. what is possible in the current GNOME desktop under the default wayland session…

To everyone reading along and posting here, please keep in mind that respectfullness (is that a word ?) towards each other is one of the core principles of the ubuntu community, calling people bots or accusing them of only writing because they like to read their own words is not very respectful… let’s keep this discussion on track and be mindful what you write.

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Torturing was perhaps a little harsh here, but one of the aims of ubuntu since we started was always to make any software usable for everyone out of the box and simply focus our development around this fact…

i.e. when we started in 2004 it was still pretty common to use a calculator to compute a “mode line” for the x11 configuration of your monitor out of the timing data from your monitors handbook and hand-craft your xorg.conf with these modelines to get anything on your screen at all… ubuntu (and others) have invested a lot that you do not need to do this anymore today.

What i personally would expect is that we start to think about fixing issues with games OOTB so that you simply do not need to have such “help” pages …

instead collecting the known drawbacks in a central place together with the teams that can work on integration and slowly implementing the best fixes for these issues as defaults so that in a 26.04 install people will simply not need any hacks and workarounds to have their game perform in the best way their hardware allows.

this seems like a way better approach IMHO, lets get away from the modelines and make it simply rock for everyone :wink:

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Sorry about that. I will curb my responses accordingly. Thank you for responding. Also apologies to @vanvugt.

I am not talking about flavors. I am talking about the default, in GNOME, wayland. From what I have written, it seems I am getting responses for everything but the default. I don’t feel folks are taking the time to read what I am referencing and thinking of how it would apply in 24.04.

Zoom and Brightness are already a part of this correct?

  • (using the default iso/install)

If I Zoom, every monitor zooms, and does so quite drastically.
If I change Brightness, every monitor changes brightness.

  1. Can a step adjustment setting be added to Zoom that affects the kybd shortcut? (smaller increments)

  2. Can Zoom be controlled based on which output the cursor is on?

  3. Can Brightness have a kybd shortcut?

  4. Can Brightness be controlled based on which output the cursor is on?

Thank you.

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I love you. I like that idea a lot.

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Side comment… Figure 2 mentions Figma designs, which is a fairly common design tool, but if you aren’t already aware I’d like to point you (and anyone else reading) towards Penpot which, like Ubuntu, is open source: https://penpot.app/

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Yes. Very true. Backlight adjustment in a display is a function of the display controller board. This is handled differently in different types of pc builds:

  1. in a laptop and in majority of All-in-one PC models, the display controller board is connected to the motherboard for both- power, display signal and operating parameters.
  2. in a generic desktop monitor, all it recieves from the pc unit is display signal and/or audio signal. The other settings such as brightness, contrast etc are taken care ofby direct input from hardware buttons on the monitor itself. There is no way to directly control these settings from the driver because there is no way to instruct the controller board of the monitor.

For type 1, Ubuntu can take care of bright ess directly by adjusting the blacklight.
For type 2, there is a workaround that you already know of i.e. adjusting the greyscale as the Xrandr utility does. This isn’t very visually appealing however but may be useful for some people. The very bright backlight still shines through the black pixels lighting up a dark room. This is the only alternative to directly using the hardware buttons for now though[ unless you find some way to connect to the controller board using a serial port using raspberry pi or something similar :grin:]

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Hiya, apologies for my tardy follow up here – its been a busy start to the year! I’ll do my best to respond to everyone, but do call it out if I’ve overlooked anything.

@luisalvarado Does Ubuntu have a gaming team or gaming optimization roadmap?

We do in theory but in practice it’s understaffed. We are planning on growing the team and when that starts we should be more visible. But yes we need to do a lot more here. @ashtonn posted some details on a new matrix space and gaming team dev channel should anyone want to drop by to see what the team are currently working on (new gaming tab for the app center). We’d like to provide a better ‘getting started’ experience for gaming which I think covers some of your later comments in this post.

@johnandmegh re X11 and wayland It might be helpful, as that assessment takes place, to catalog the results

@vanvugt is there anything you can share on this ^ currently?

@barnesc May I suggest:
sudo snap install M365
sudo snap install GWS

Agreed. My examples above were in haste. I also suspect we’ll need -unofficial or similar to avoid confusion.

@whiskeyPeak Just curious, but how will this change affect the current Linux plugin ecosystem? If the flutter engine is modified upstream to incorporate GTK 4, will only the plugins that have also made the switch work? What about older Linux distros that don’t have any version of GTK 4 installed?

@robert.ancell are you able to answer this one?

@mohan-ram If there is no time this time around will this feature be implemented in 24.10?

Yes :slight_smile: @SergioCostas started on this work a few days ago so :crossed_fingers: we can get it into 24.04!

@SeekTruth I see no mention of Accessibility feature fixes or enhancements.

I assume you’re aware of the funding the GNOME project is managing as part of the Sovereign Tech Fund? Part of that effort is accessibility and we’ll land those improvements in due course. We know there are areas we need to improve here. There are other canonical teams starting to look at this but I don’t know the status of those efforts.

@SeekTruth A brightness controller would also be a welcomed integration.

I personally struggle with multi-monitor setups where I need fractional scaling … and each monitor has a different brightness level so I end up having to tweak them manually which isn’t a great experience. Plus my eyes are getting old so I need a setup thats comfortable for long days in front of the screen. I know that macOS has tools which do allow you to tweak monitor brightness independently.

But I don’t have a good answer for you here and so will have to bank this feedback for the moment but thanks for raising it :pray:

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I didn’t want to make my initial comment just about anecdotes / make broad assumptions based on my own experience…but in my own experience, I have one Nvidia-only desktop and one Nvidia/AMD-hybrid laptop, and both are borderline-unusable in X11 (bizarre graphical glitches, the X server hangs up for ~20 seconds when starting any program), and both work near-perfectly in Wayland (occasional glitches in some apps, but overall crisp and smooth).

So, I was just thinking that consolidation of the known issues would help the broader community (with a broader variety of hardware and software permutations) pin down the specific setups that are causing trouble / creating the perception that Nvidia + Wayland + GNOME isn’t “ready”, and also test whatever potential changes would be needed.

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Thank you for not rushing to remove support for X11. Wayland isn’t ready yet. For some it works pretty good, but for others it can have pretty big issues that may impact productivity. Other distros want to rush Wayland adoption by pushing people towards it, while disregarding that it still has some issues.

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Really appreciate the response. Since both are already integrated into 22.04 LTS, (even though without multi-monitor support) is it at least possible to…

  1. Create an optional step setting for the zoom, so it is not so drastic when using the shortcut?
  2. Create a shortcut option for the brightness setting?

Thank you <3

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