Launchpad Entry: instant-on-ubuntu
Created: 2009-01-20
Contributors: David Mandala, Emmet Hikory
Packages affected:
Summary
Create a derivative of Ubuntu with the shortest possible boot time, suitable for use as an instant-on environment for dual-boot solutions. This limited environment must be minimally capable of email, instant messaging, and web browsing.
Release Note
TBD
Rationale
Many current laptops and desktops are shipping with a limited instant-on environment for limited use cases, such as reading email, browing the web, and similar activities. Such an environment ought mirror the primary operating system to reduce user confusion with use of applications.
Use Cases
- Alice is nearly late for a meeting, and has forgotten the map. Without needing to fully boot her laptop, she launches the instant-on environment, and is able to quickly pull the link to the map from her email, and browse the map to find her location.
- Bob has just shut down his computer for the day, but realises he needs to send one more email. He uses the instant-on environment to quickly send the email without the need to start up or shut down his computer again.
- Chris does door-to-door sales. When a customer is interested, the instant-on environment allows further information to be collected from the web or orders to be placed with almost no advance notice, or time spent waiting for the laptop to boot.
Assumptions
- Target 10 - 15 second boot to GUI ready to work.
- Will be based off of Ubuntu Repositories
- Can use additional software not in the repository, that software will come from an Ubuntu PPA.
- Can make use of suspend to disk (hibernate) and resume from disk if that is the fastest way to get to a working prompt.
Design
You can have subsections that better describe specific parts of the issue.
Implementation
This section should describe a plan of action (the "how") to implement the changes discussed. Could include subsections like:
UI Changes
Should cover changes required to the UI, or specific UI that is required to implement this
Code Changes
Code changes should include an overview of what needs to change, and in some cases even the specific details.
Migration
Include:
- data migration, if any
- redirects from old URLs to new ones, if any
- how users will be pointed to the new way of doing things, if necessary.
Test/Demo Plan
It's important that we are able to test new features, and demonstrate them to users. Use this section to describe a short plan that anybody can follow that demonstrates the feature is working. This can then be used during testing, and to show off after release. Please add an entry to http://testcases.qa.ubuntu.com/Coverage/NewFeatures for tracking test coverage.
This need not be added or completed until the specification is nearing beta.
Unresolved issues
This should highlight any issues that should be addressed in further specifications, and not problems with the specification itself; since any specification with problems cannot be approved.
BoF agenda and discussion
Use this section to take notes during the BoF; if you keep it in the approved spec, use it for summarising what was discussed and note any options that were rejected.