What's this Edge merge anyway?

UniSuperBox

TL;DR

The revised Unity8 and Mir 1.x are coming in OTA-12
You may wish to switch from the devel to rc release channel on any devices you're using daily.
We might need to rewrite history on some git repositories. If this happens, we will keep a tag named xenial-before-2019-edge-merge to preserve the history.

The rest

We've been talking about "the Edge merge" for a while, and I understand that it is a rather opaque term to many people. I hope I'm able to answer your questions about what "the Edge merge" really is.

In short, what we'll be doing over the next few days is merging code which currently deploys to our Edge channel into branches which deploy to our normal release cycle. That releases daily into devel, which gets promoted to rc, which in turn gets promoted to stable. The next update on our stable channel will be OTA-12.

In order to understand why this is important, first I'll differentiate Edge from the normal release cycle. Ideally, most of our maintenance and feature work gets deployed into our xenial repository. This repository is used, along with the default Ubuntu repositories, to build the Ubuntu Touch images which land in devel. The Edge images are built with the xenial_-_edge repository overlayed on our xenial repository, allowing us to test large migrations before they impact a large number of users. So, at a base level, Edge is just devel with newer or more experimental packages laid over it.

Currently, we are using the Edge repository to test a huge migration away from Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015 - as deployed in Ubuntu Touch up until now - to Mir 1.x and Unity8 from 2017 - the latter had begun to neglect phone users in an attempt to bring it to the desktop faster. That neglect caused a large number of issues which needed to be fixed. Having these changes built into images for every device every day (in Edge) for months has allowed us to iron out most of these issues.

We will also need to rewrite git history on the xenial branch in some cases, as the phone and desktop platforms diverged enough to prevent them from being merged cleanly. In these cases, we will save the old xenial branch in a tag called xenial-before-2019-edge-merge to ensure the history is preserved.

During this time, we will pause updates to the devel channel for all devices. This will prevent you from receiving an update which could be very broken and, possibly, render your device unbootable. If you don't want to come right onto the bleeding edge when we re-enable those updates, now is a good time to switch to rc or stable using the UBports Installer (don't check the option to wipe your device) or by heading to "Settings -> Updates -> Update Settings -> Channels".

Ubuntu Touch will have many fixes after this merge is finished, but it will also be broken in some new and interesting ways. Our goal as we reach OTA-12 is ensuring that the transition from OTA-11 is smooth. This will involve fixing those new and interesting issues.

doniks

@UniSuperBox said in What's this Edge merge anyway?:

the latter of had

I don't understand that sentence

flohack

@doniks It means the latter of the enumeration of Mir and Unity8 in the sentence before - so he sad that Mir 1.x and Unity8 from 2017 had begun to neglect phone users. I can see now too many and´s maybe there

mariogrip

@UniSuperBox you sir, you rock!

andybleaden

Dead helpful and really clear
Thanks

Aury88

so in the stable channel OTA 12 there will be no the upgrade to mir1.0 and unity8 from 2017?

NOW

      edge     (  Mir 1.x and Unity8 from 2017)
        |
      devel    (  Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015)
        |
       rc      (  Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015)   
        |
      stable   (  Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015)

OTA 12

      edge     (  something newer)
        |
      devel    (  Mir 1.x and Unity8 from 2017)
        |
       rc      (  Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015)   
        |
      stable   (  Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015)

???

lduboeuf

@Aury88 OTA12 will land Mir 1.x and Unity8 (2017) on stable after being tested on devel->rc

A Former User

Yes OTA12 is going to be really significant. Another real milestone for the platform.

The Marketing Team need to ensure that all the Linux tech sites understand what has been achieved here.

kugiigi

Yup it will really be a big milestone. So much effort has been done by our great developers.
I think after the that, the next big thing is the multi-monitor support which really looks promising

AppLee

@Aury88 said in What's this Edge merge anyway?:

If I understand properly, it's more :

NOW
edge ( Mir 1.x and Unity8 from 2017)
|
devel ( Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015) OTA11
|
rc ( Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015) OTA11
|
stable ( Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015) OTA11

OTA 12
~~> edge ( something newer)~~ abandoned
|
devel ( Mir 1.x and Unity8 from 2017)
|
rc ( Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015) OTA11
|
stable ( Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015) OTA11

The development cycle is paused until new MIR and Unity8(2017) is release with OTA12 to stable.
As soon as Mir1 and Unity8(2017) will reach RC, new developments will start on Devel.

Winter is coming with great updates

Aury88

thank you all! now it is more clear to me.

Lakotaubp

@3arn0wl We will don't worry on that one.

UniSuperBox

TL;DR: You may update your devel devices, but very carefully check your settings before and after the upgrade.

Actually, that was a lot easier than expected. We were able to get a functional image built today and it's sitting in devel now. We'd appreciate if you could update your testing devices... but make sure you take note of the positions of switches, such as Wi-Fi and power management in the indicators, before you upgrade. We'd like to make sure that these settings carry over properly between versions. Some users have reported app launch issues as well, the browser and settings apps failing after the upgrade to edge... Please test those. If we can confirm those issues, we can get them fixed faster.

arubislander

Just updated my BQ M10 FHD on devel. All my settings switches were preserved. It lfeels smoother too.
Good job on achieving this milestone. This is such an exciting time to be part of this community!

poVoq

Just updated from stable to devel on my Nexus5. Seems to have worked well, all switches the same as before.

mariogrip

@Aury88 said in What's this Edge merge anyway?:

so in the stable channel OTA 12 there will be no the upgrade to mir1.0 and unity8 from 2017?

NOW

      edge     (  Mir 1.x and Unity8 from 2017)
        |
      devel    (  Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015)
        |
       rc      (  Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015)   
        |
      stable   (  Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015)

OTA 12

      edge     (  something newer)
        |
      devel    (  Mir 1.x and Unity8 from 2017)
        |
       rc      (  Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015)   
        |
      stable   (  Mir 0.24 and Unity8 from 2015)

???

I would say unity8 from 2019, there has been so much work put into it from us after canonical dropped it.

Aury88

@mariogrip I know that. I only used the terms/definitions in the first post. I am confident that all those changes will be backported (or forwardported)to the unity8 from edge

Fla

I upgraded from RC to Edge without any trouble. It looks stable. I was just confused by the new behaviour of the top panel, I have to swipe down from an icon now to open it, whereas I was able to open it swiping from anywhere on the bar before.

kugiigi

@Fla Yes, that is an intentional change made by Canonical because they intend to use the left side of the indicators for menus. So far, no one implemented any menu so we can't see it in action yet aside from some experimentation by Dalton, I believe some months ago.