Ubuntu Wiki

Summary

Hildon Desktop is a Gtk+ based touch screen optimized desktop especially suitable for devices equipped with touch screen.

The aim is to make Hildon Desktop runnable on Ubuntu & provide installable Ubuntu binary and source packages.

Rationale

The Hildon Desktop was originally designed as the user interface for Maemo (and thus Maemo based devices such as Nokia N800 Internet Tablet), but it was designed portability in mind so that it can be used on any device or computer that benefits the UI style it provides. Hildon Desktop is not optimal for 30 inch Cinema Display as all windows are full screen on this UI style (at least currently), but it certainly is very good choice for a small touch screen controlled laptop or Tablet PC or UMPC running e.g. Ubuntu.

Scope

This specification will discuss getting the Hildon Desktop included into the Ubuntu repository along with some libraries it drags along.

Design

The Hildon Desktop has been implemented with C and Gtk+ and is compilable on Ubuntu. The compilation instructions can be found here: http://maemo.org/maemowiki/HildonDesktopPortability

The license of the Hildon Desktop is LGPL version 2. It is a modular plugin architecture which allows running small extensions called plugins on its panels and on the Home-area. The plugins can be developed with C and Python. The LGPL v2 license (used intentionally instead of GPL v2) allows the developers of the plugins to quite freely choose their licensing scheme for the plugins they develop.

Hildon Desktop requires the use of Matchbox Window manager and does not work with e.g. Metacity. On Hildon Desktop environment which was originally designed & developed for Nokia Internet tablets, all windows are full screen.

Outstanding issues

BoF agenda and discussion