And that’s a wrap: the Ubuntu Developer Summit is over for another 6 months.

Over 40 hours across 5 days (with copious beer, frivolity, and good-natured debates) in Oakland, California, the developers who work on Ubuntu set out plans for the upcoming Ubuntu 12.10 release, which is due for release in October.

Because of the nature of development, not everything devs hope to make happen, will happen.

But if you’re keen to learn what might, read on for a list of the most exciting proposals pencilled in on the Ubuntu to-do list…

Ubuntu 12.10 Desktop Changes

A ‘system compositor’ will be used to generate flicker-free boot and seamless transitions from boot screen to login screen. The login screen will sport a smooth transition to the desktop.

LightDM will be implemented as the lock-screen, thus adding visual and behavioural consistency to the desktop.

Unity 2D is likely to be dropped. Unity 3D will be made capable of running on lower-end hardware via ‘Gallium3D llvmpipe’.

The HUD will sport additional features, including the ability to ‘wrap around dialogs and toolbars’.

GNOME Desktop tweak

Ubuntu GNOME fans will be excited by word of a potential vanilla GNOME Ubuntu spin (i.e. a “GNOME-BUNTU/GNOME-Shell Remix”).

Elsewhere, it’s been confirmed (as expected) that GNOME 3.6 will be the base of Ubuntu 12.10.

Apps, Settings and Installer

Ubuntu’s Ubiquity installer will be ‘beefed up’ to provide all of the features offered by the ‘alternate installer’, resulting in the latter being dropped as a download option.

The installer will also see the Windows settings migration assistant feature removed. The team conclude that it is too untested and buggy to remain in place.

LibreOffice will – finally – ship with AppMenu support out of the box, making it fully HUD accessible.

Jockey, Ubuntu’s existing 3rd-party driver wizard, is to be replaced with a ‘better version integrated with System Settings’.

Foundations

Ubuntu 12.10 will ship with the Linux 3.5 kernel, with a view to supporting the 3.6 version once it arrives.

Python 3 is to ship on the Ubuntu CD image by default, while will entail various default apps and utilities needing to be rewritten or updated to take advantage and retain compatibility.

Beyond that, there is desire to make the Ubuntu boot times and application start-up speeds faster. Precisely how will, of course, vary since no two systems or apps are alike.