Will Cooke

40 posts

Director Of Engineering - Ubuntu Desktop

Will leads the team working on the Ubuntu desktop at Canonical. He has a diverse background originally specialising in data networks and global communications systems and has provided consultancy to clients such as BT, Verizon, Inmarsat and Schlumberger. Will has been using and contributing to Ubuntu since 2005 and in 2015 he was recognised as an Ubuntu Member. He has three kids, plays golf badly and is a member of The Royal Institution of Great Britain.

Will Cooke
11 August 2017

Ubuntu Desktop Weekly Update: August 11, 2017

News Desktop

GUADEC The GNOME conference happened last week with good representation from Ubuntu. The spirit was good and the discussions constructive. Decisions were made, details can be read on https://didrocks.fr/2017/08/03/ubuntu–guadec-2017-and-plans-for-gnome-shell-migration/ GNOME Shell We’re preparing to make the changes...

Will Cooke
11 August 2017

Will Cooke
28 July 2017

Ubuntu Desktop Weekly Update: July 28, 2017

Article Desktop

Here’s the latest in the world of Desktop: GNOME We’ve been looking at ways to port the feature of allowing the sound to go above 100%. This is needed because some computers (e.g. Thinkpad X220) have a fairly low volume at 100% and so adding some software amplification is a useful addition. While this does

Will Cooke
28 July 2017

Will Cooke
24 July 2017

Ubuntu Desktop Weekly Update: July 24, 2017

Article Desktop

GNOME We’re working on adding captive portal detection to Artful. We think it would be good if there were an option in the privacy settings to enable or disable this. We’ve done some initial work as preparation – some patches have been submitted to Network Manager’s upstream to enable an option to be created. They are...

Will Cooke
24 July 2017

Will Cooke
19 July 2017

Ubuntu Artful Desktop July Shakedown – call for testing

Article Desktop

We’re mid-way through the Ubuntu Artful development cycle, with the 17.10 release rapidly approaching on the horizon. Now is a great time to start exercising the new GNOME goodness that’s landed on our recent daily images! Please download the ISO, test it out on your own hardware, and file bugs where appropriate. If...

Will Cooke
19 July 2017

Will Cooke
14 July 2017

Ubuntu Desktop Weekly Update: July 14, 2017

Article Desktop

GNOME GDM has now replaced LightDM. We’re working on the transition between display managers to make sure that users are seamlessly transitioned to the new stack. We’re doing regular automated upgrade tests to make sure everything keeps working, but we’re keen to get your bug reports. We’ve spent time cleaning up the...

Will Cooke
14 July 2017

Will Cooke
7 July 2017

Ubuntu Desktop Weekly Update: July 7, 2017

Article Desktop

GNOME We’ve been working on the migration and transition processes for users going from Unity 7 to GNOME Shell. We’ve worked on migrating favourites, the Amazon launcher, resetting scaling factors and migrating unity-control-center shortcuts to gnome-control-center. You can read more about the changes to the GNOME...

Will Cooke
7 July 2017

Will Cooke
23 June 2017

Ubuntu Desktop Weekly Update: June 23, 2017

News Desktop

GNOME We’ve migrated ubuntu-session to a new unity-session package. This means that the default session is GNOME Shell and people can install Unity 7 and its related packages via unity-session. The migration is working well so far, but we still have some more work to do in order to make sure everything “just works”. LivePatch

Will Cooke
23 June 2017

Will Cooke
16 June 2017

Ubuntu Desktop Weekly Update: June 16, 2017

Article Desktop

GNOME Further theme fixes have been made in Artful to get GNOME Shell and Ambiance looking just right. Network Manager is updated to 1.8. It is currently awaiting the resolution of some test issues before it migrates to the release, but that should take place in the coming days. GNOME Terminal received a small fix

Will Cooke
16 June 2017

Will Cooke
9 June 2017

Ubuntu Desktop Weekly Update: June 9, 2017

Article Desktop

GNOME We’ve made the decision to switch to using GNOME Display Manager (GDM) instead of LightDM. We had planned to try LightDM, and based on our investigations it became apparent that we would need to invest a considerable amount of time making changes to get everything to work correctly, more time than we have. We

Will Cooke
9 June 2017

Will Cooke
13 October 2016

Unity 8 preview session in Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety Yak

Article Desktop

Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety Yak has landed and brings with it the Unity 8 technical preview desktop session. Unity 8 has been the face of the Ubuntu phone and tablet for a few years and has quickly evolved its convergence feature set to allow it to work seamlessly between form factors such as phones, tablets and

Will Cooke
13 October 2016

Will Cooke
19 September 2016

Low Graphics Mode in Unity 7

Article Desktop

Unity 7 has had a low graphics mode for a long time but recently we’ve been making it better. Improvements have been made to reduce the amount of visual effects that are seen while running in low graphics mode. At a high level this includes things like: Reducing the amount of animation in elements such as the window...

Will Cooke
19 September 2016

Will Cooke
28 July 2016

Ubuntu version 16.04 point 1 is out

Article Desktop

Today we have enabled upgrade notifications from 14.04 LTS to the first point-release for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, versioned 16.04.1. The first point release for an LTS comes out 3 months after the initial release and then every 6 months until the next LTS is released. Upgrade notifications happen a short while later after...

Will Cooke
28 July 2016