14 DAY TRIAL // Ubuntu developers are making some really interesting progress with the upcoming Wily Werewolf release, and they have revealed some of the work that's being done for the desktop. It's not much to look at, but there are a couple of items that should be mentioned.
All of the work done by Ubuntu devs for the operating system is usually transparent to anyone who cares enough to get interested, but it's not exactly in an easy-to-read format. The devs do provide some updates on their progress, and we can get a glimpse of what's coming.
Canonical has a lot on its plate right now. It's working on Ubuntu Touch, the regular Ubuntu desktop, the Ubuntu Next version with Unity 8, the Mir display server, Snappy packages, Ubuntu Core for IoT devices, and a lot more. And this is just the stuff we know about. The company certainly has a few other projects that they are not disclosing, so it's easy to see why they don't seem to make big jumps.
GNOME Keyring's GPG agent is being replaced
One of the most interesting changes made in the past week for Ubuntu 15.10 is the replacement of GNOME Keyring's GPG agent with pinentry (agent passphrase prompter). This has been implemented in Debian already, and developer Iain Lane made the necessary adjustments for the OS.
"In Debian and (gnupg) upstream a new "GNOME 3" pinentry (agent passphrase prompter) program has been developed and packaged. I've just packaged these for Ubuntu and uploaded to a PPA for testing. I'd appreciate some testing and feedback before a potential upload next week. It's in ppa:ubuntu-desktop/gpg for wily. You'll need to restart your session to get the real gpg-agent used instead of gnome-keyring's hijacked agent," wrote Iain.
Also, some bug fixes have also landed in the Gtk Mir backend, Xmir patch preparation for upstream proposal has been made, and latest X.org packages have been updated from upstream. It's not a lot, but Ubuntu 15.10 will most likely be a very interesting release when it lands in October.