Stone: Ubuntu rejoins the GNOME fold

Daniel Stone considersthe future of the Linux desktop in the light of Ubuntu's return toGNOME. "The world in 2017, however, is a very different place. KMSprovides us truly device-independent display control, Vulkan and EGLprovide us GPU acceleration independent of window system, xkbcommonprovides shared keyboard mechanics, and logind lets us do all these thingswithout ever being root. GBM allocates our buffers, and the universalallocator, borne out of discussions with the whole community includingNVIDIA, will soon join the family.Mir leans heavily on all these technologies, so the change is a bit lessseismic than you might think."