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Nov. 23, 2009

Overall, the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS-L) in Dallas last week actually set the stage for the upcoming Ubuntu LTS version, dubbed Lucid Lynx.

However, one thing will be missing in Ubuntu's new distribution: GIMP.

GIMP is an image manipulator that runs on Linux and that has been very popular for the past many years.

So on Nov. 18, 19 and 20, Ubuntu developers met at UDS-L (the "L" stands for "Lucid") in Dallas, Texas. The UDS usually takes place in the month following the latest Ubuntu release.

In Barcelona, it was held last May.

In order to better cope with the ongoing space problems on the Live CD, Ubuntu developers suggested in the application selection in the default install presentation at the UDS-L to remove Gimp from the CD and replace the fundamental image manipulation program with F-Spot.

Because F-Spot doesn't serve well for image displays, the standard for the task will be the Gnome image viewer, which will in turn call on F-Spot for image manipulation through a context menu.

Apart from the CD space problem, the desktop team found GIMP too complicated to be of interest to the average user. Of course there are some people that won't agree with that. GIMP is a very popular program and has been for some time.

In Ubuntu, a potential release candidate might be Deja Dup, a similar program to GIMP that offers comparable functionality.

Additionally, the desktop team at Ubuntu also wants to rework Lucid's game selection, adding more brain teasers such as G-Brainy.

Also, a simple backup tool along the lines of Back In Time should also help create regular secure copies.

One backup program being discussed right now is Deja Dup as well, which should find some application on Amazon's S3 cloud, for example.

So there's no definite word on the fate of Synaptic, which might be replaced completely by the Software Center in Lucid.

There's also some uncertaintly as it concerns Banshee vs. Rhythm-box as the standard music player.

Some conference attendees suggested expanding the CD with a simple video editor, perhaps OpenShot or PiTiVi.

On average, G-Brainy stands a good chance of becoming one of the standard Lucid brain teaser games.

All these suggested changes are addressed to the Lucid desktop team who has not yet set them in any concrete method so far.

Time will tell what will happen with all this, but for the time being, GIMP seems to be the only exception to the rule.

Will other Linux distributions follow in Ubuntu's shoes? It's still too early to tell for now, but there are some in the Linux community that think the guys at Ubuntu and Canonical might be setting a precedent with the removal of GIMP in this latest distro.

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Source: JLE.

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