| OSDL summits take desktop Linux to the next level |
Apr. 26, 2006
The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) reported April 27 on planned enhancements to Linux printing, wireless networking, and power management that it expects will spur the rapid adoption of Linux on the desktop. The Beaverton, Ore.-based consortium recently hosted summit meetings focused on driving commonality among desktop Linux functions. The summits produced goals and identified areas of concentration for the next stage of development.
"In the spirit of community cooperation, Linux desktop developers at the OSDL technical summits have taken the opportunity to align the community to solve common problems and to establish consistent and standard interfaces for desktop capabilities," said John Cherry, initiative manager for OSDL's Desktop Linux working group.
"The Linux desktop community is focused and making real movement in adding and refining the capabilities Linux needs to 'just work' on the desktop," Cherry added.
Highlights from the summits, according to the OSDL, included:
Printing Summit
Developers, vendors and distributors agreed that to overcome user frustration and to increase printer support for Linux, the installation of printer drivers and print spooler interfaces must be standardized. To achieve a common installation method for printer drivers, a task force is being created to work with the Free Standards Group (FSG) to include these capabilities in a future Linux Standard Base (LSB) release.
Printer vendors have also found it difficult to expose advanced printer capabilities through the current printer definition mechanisms. In order to expose printer-specific functionality more consistently, Linux users from the OSDL Printing Summit are launching a feasibility study on the design of a common extension mechanism for Linux print dialogs, OSDL said.
"The future is bright for print drivers for the Linux desktop, and it's getting better every day. H-P is an important example: We currently support nearly 1,000 H-P printer models with our Linux Printer driver," said John Oleinik of Hewlett-Packard Co.
Wireless Summit
Many of today's wireless chipsets rely on the wireless software stack to implement IEEE 802.11 capabilities. At the OSDL Wireless Summit, developers and chipset vendors agreed to focus efforts on a common software stack, called Devicescape, to drive consistency in wireless device drivers. They agreed to migrate to the single wireless stack within a year while supporting existing stacks in the short term. The end result will be transparent to wireless users, but will result in the rapid support of a full range of wireless chipsets and capabilities, OSDL said.
Power Management Summit
The OSDL Power Management Summit brought together 42 people from 17 companies and 12 open source projects. The group reviewed power-management support on systems ranging from mobile phones to laptops, data centers and telecom infrastructure.
The community concluded that power-management support in Linux has improved at the lowest levels but that there is little commonality between the solutions found on different platforms. This presents a formidable challenge for system integrators, distributions, and desktop developers.
Power management engineers agree that an initial architecture defining a portable and comprehensive power management stack will be pursued. In the next year, users can expect to see power management working on more architectures with better tools to gauge power consumption and set power policies and profiles, according to the OSDL.
Second Linux Desktop Architects Meeting planned
The OSDL, a global consortium dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux and open source software, will next host the second Linux Desktop Architects Meeting, which is expected to address new topics such as sound, multimedia, and standards, May 8-9, 2006 in Mainz, Germany.
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