Apr
29
I just finished attending the Ubuntu OpenWeek Session: Packaging 101, presented by dholbach, King of the MOTU! ;). It was a great presentation and I learned quite a bit. I have studied packaging before and I always ran into issues. I think his presentation made things very clear and he was great in answering the questions we ran into.
We packaged ed, a standard Unix line editor that nobody (except for one of my co-workers) actually uses, but it was a good practice run. Even with such a simple package we learned how the basic principle works, which should carry over to more real-world packages.
If you’ve been interested in packaging this is a great time to dive in. We’ve got a small window before Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid” starts and there will be help needed in merging everything and getting that release ready. I would *love* to be a part of the actual packaging for that release so you may hear more about my journey toward MOTU during this release cycle. I invite you to attend the remaining packaging related sessions at Ubuntu OpenWeek and pickup what you can. Ubuntu’s success is very much based on the strength of the MOTU and the number of quality packages it offers.
If you haven’t yet, go check out OpenWeek. Drop by #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net and join the fun!
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Mar
28
Plan and Announce Your Release Party!
Filed Under Community, Ubuntu | Leave a Comment
The release of the next Ubuntu LTS (8.04 “Hardy Heron”) is just around the corner and as a community of Ubuntu members its our responsibility–nay, our obligation– to celebrate! What are you planning to do for the greatest release to date?
If you’re part of a LoCo Team (you know who you are!) you need to have a release party. If you’re not party of a LoCo Team you really should be! Fill a room with geeks, add good food and drinks and toss in a reason to celebrate and who knows what might happen!
I want to remind everyone (particularly those in US Teams) to get cracking and post your release party details online here.
“What can we do for a release party?” you might ask. Well, anything! It can be as simple as meeting in a coffee shop with a few of your in-real-life buddies and celebrating Ubuntu’s latest achievement. Perhaps meet up with your LoCo in a pub and have a toast to Ubuntu. Maybe even go all out and have a big install fest in cooperation with your local university or LUG. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you’re celebrating the release and having a good time after six months of hard work!
It would be great if you could take pictures while you’re there and post them on blogs (and subsequent planets), flickr–even use twitter to share the fun. Get the word out about where you’ll be, who can come and what’s involved. Let’s really make it a big day and make sure the whole interweb hears about it!
If you’re looking for a local release party, or wondering if there is already one being planned, see the hardy release party list.
Mar
22
Many of us in the Free Software community have a certain level of “activist” within us, pushing those around us towards the ideals that we cherish. Ideals such as freedom. Freedom of communication, freedom of data, freedom of choice. This March 26th is Document Freedom Day, another occasion where we can band together and help promote Open Document Standards.
DocumentFreedom.org is a site that drives to promote the use of Open Document standards, such as ODF. From the website:
The Document Freedom Day (DFD) is a global day for Document Liberation. It is a day of grassroots effort around the world to promote and build awareness for the relevance of Free Document Formats in particular and Open Standards in general.
To find out how you can participate this year, visit DocumentFreedom.org to find a team (or start a team!) near you. Even if the best you can do is blog about it, do so. One more person reached is one more “Open” mind.
Mar
11
Join Us On The Pulse
Filed Under Community | 6 Comments
As some of you may have read yesterday, Jorge Castro and I put together a twitter-powered Ubuntu Planet of sorts. Our thinking is that we wanted a way to aggregate the army of Ubuntu users within the ‘twitterverse’, and give users a way to see what is going on within the Ubuntu community on a more up-to-the-minute basis than the existing Planet and blog formats.
So far the response has been really good and we’ve got a good collection of Ubuntu users and developers aggregated at the Pulse of Ubuntu. If you’d like to see what is going on within the worldwide Ubuntu community check out the site, or follow the feed. If you’re a twitter user and you’d like to be added drop me a line and you can become part of the Pulse!
If you’re not a Twitter user consider giving it a try, and we’ll plug you in.
Feb
23
My apologies for the lack of updates this week. My poor wife is nine-months pregnant and we’re expecting a baby any day now. We even spent one evening at the Hospital wondering if that was going to be the big day. She’s taking much of my focus this week, but with her fast asleep this afternoon I have a few minutes to catch up.
An update on the project I’ve blogged about recently. I’m really happy to hear from all the people that have shown an interest in the project. I did get a lot of responses and I’m, again, impressed in the great people we have in our Ubuntu community worldwide.
I was also a bit surprised to hear that this team already technically exists, but I found that its been a bit neglected. So, it looks like we’ll be resurrecting a team instead of forming a new one. I’m excited about this. On the bright side there is already a Launchpad page, mailing list, etc. We’ve got the tools (thanks to the initial founders for that work!), we just need to get to work.
If you’re interested in helping out with this project take a minute and subscribe to the ubuntu-classroom mailing list. We’ll also try to have a meeting (again, apologies for the last minute nature) tomorrow in IRC. We’ll try to use #ubuntu-classroom room if we can, at 12:00pm EST. Stay tuned to the mailing list or, at worst case, my twitter page for last minute changes.
Let’s get this team going again and do what we can to make Ubuntu the best distribution on the planet. With more people educated on how to participate we can only improve!
If you’re going to attend the meeting tomorrow you’ll want to be subscribed to the mailing list, join us in IRC and install Gobby for some group collaboration. See you then!
Feb
18
Elaborating On My Latest Project
Filed Under Community | 5 Comments
Based on some of the feedback from yesterday’s post regarding my latest project I thought it deserved a little more detail. I don’t mean to be cryptic about it, I think I’m simply having a hard time describing the team. Something, obviously, that I’ll need to resolve quickly.
The best way I’ve found to describe this project/team is to think Open Week, just much more regularly. One example (not related to this project) is that this week we’re having the Ubuntu Developer Weeek, and something like this fits right into the goals of this project.
Basically this team will plan and organize regular “Open Week” style events to educate Ubuntu users on how they can participate in the community. Topics will range from bug work to documentation, packaging to loco activism, etc. Pretty much every existing team within the Ubuntu community will have a chance to present on what their team does, invite others to participate and educate them on how they can join in.. and this team will be the engine behind making this happen.
The team itself will organize these events, market the events, and also try to follow up with users as they attempt to participate in the existing communities. It has been interesting to follow some of the blogs on the Planet regarding the journey towards MOTU. This team would also help track (and help the user track) their progress toward participation in their respective community projects.
I want to make sure that new users know how they can participate, who they can contact for help and when they can find ubuntu training events which will make their transition toward participation easier.
I will be sending some reply emails soon to those that have contacted me. I will also be planning a meeting for this upcoming Sunday (Feb 24th) in IRC (details pending) for continued discussion and organization.
I hope this helps clarify what I was trying to say in my previous post. I think there is a real place for this type of project. We’ve got the best community in the free software world, let’s really help show that by being part of a project like this. A project which focuses solely on helping everyone learn how they can participate in one of the greatest free software projects in the world!
Feb
17
Looking For a Few Passionate Volunteers - Ubuntu Community Participation Project
Filed Under Community | 4 Comments
Ever since I attended the Ubuntu Developer Summit last October I’ve had an idea on my mind for a new Team within the Ubuntu Community. I think there is a real need for this project and I’ve been cooking up some basic specs for it for the past few months. The reason I’ve been sitting on it is that I want to make sure I do it right, and I want to make sure that it is properly organized. I’ve had a good amount of team involvement over the past two or three years running the Ubuntu Utah LoCo Team and helping put together the US Teams Project, and I think I’ve learned a thing or two about the processes behind community involvement. The focus of this team is #1 community involvement and #2 retention, something that I have some passion about.
At this point in the team development process I’m looking for a few determined, hard working volunteers that can help with the project. I don’t (initially) expect that this will be an open-enrolled team as I want to have very defined roles, but there are a number of positions available. Each of these positions could potentially be held by one or two individuals. If you are interested in helping with a project that focuses solely on helping existing and future users get involved in improving ubuntu please see below:
Scheduling: I am looking for someone that has experience with event scheduling (online events), perhaps with some experience with the Fridge and similar. This project aims to have regular education events, teaching users how to get involved. This position would be primarily focused on scheduling those events, securing presenters, selecting topics, etc. Also making sure these events are properly communicated with the marketing position below.
Marketing: This position is primarily focused on making sure the events and the purpose of the team are properly advertised prior to events. This includes being added to prominent calendars, contacting prominent blogs, news, etc. Be the public-face and get publicity to the events and the team.
Logging: I am also looking for someone that is good with the books. We will want to track the team progress as well as that of those wanting to participate. Experience with keeping logs, minutes, tracking contacts, etc would be great. Helping document goals within the team and on a contributor-basis is critical in measuring success and monitoring improvements.
Sys Admin: We will need someone that can help maintain the facilities end of things. From mailing lists to irc channels, wiki maintenance, etc. This position won’t always be involved in the day-to-day education, but someone that can make sure the wheels of the organization are well oiled is critical. We can’t work without the proper tools.
I will mention that I would like to try and organize this team in a very task-oriented manner. It is important that we mesh as a group, and I want to make sure that things get done. I want to make sure there are regular goals and things get achieved. If you’re interested in working and making a difference please let me know.
I also want to make sure that this team involves the international community that we are. If you have worked much with translations I’m sure we could use your help as well!
I don’t claim to have all of the workings of this project worked out so far, as most development projects it is a work in progress. I would like to get started soon however. I would like this project to be in full gear by the time Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy” is released so that we are ready for the influx of Ubuntu adopters (yes, it will happen!)
Please contact me via my Contact Page if you are interested in this project.
Jan
24
Ubuntu Live : Call For Paper… Suggestions
Filed Under Community | 6 Comments
I attended Ubuntu Live last year and I really enjoyed it! I met a lot of great people there and I decided last year that I’d be back the next, and also that I’d submit a paper for presentation this year. I meant to last year but at the last minute decided against it (which I’ve been kicking myself for since.)
The call for papers will end on February 4th, and I can’t decide what I want to present on. I’ve got a few ideas, but I thought I’d just drop a line out and see what suggestions you all might have.
Ideas I’ve been considering:
- LTS Tutorials - Using Ubuntu in Enterprise
- Community Participation - Building Ubuntu Worldwide
- Moving to Ubuntu - How To Transition From Another Distribution
If you were to attend Ubuntu Live, what type of presentation would you like to see?
Jan
16
Ubuntu Tutorials License Page
Filed Under Community | Leave a Comment
I just realized that I no longer have the blog license published in the footer like I did in my previous theme. For that reason I have created a page outlining the license restrictions for use with these tutorials.
Basically, the contents of this blog are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Exceptions to this license have been given to Ubuntu Community Members for use within the Ubuntu Development Wiki and Ubuntu Community Wiki. Currently no other exceptions apply. If you would like to request other exceptions you can contact me.
Dec
19
XO Laptop Specs.. for those interested
Filed Under Community | 8 Comments
I’ve been tinkering with the XO laptop this morning and I thought I’d share some specs with everyone that is interested. I’m still exploring the machine, but here are some interesting details that I found. I’ve included hardware details from processor, memory and hard disk to software details including running kernel, included software, etc. It’s a really impressive little tool. This is one great representation of what Free Software can do!
Machine Specs
[olpc@xo-10-AC-5E ~]$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 5
model : 10
model name : Geode(TM) Integrated Processor by AMD PCS
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 430.960
cache size : 128 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu de pse tsc msr cx8 sep pge cmov clflush mmx mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow
bogomips : 862.98
clflush size : 32
[olpc@xo-10-AC-5E ~]$ cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 237844 kB
MemFree: 48172 kB
Buffers: 0 kB
Cached: 87496 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 107988 kB
Inactive: 59784 kB
SwapTotal: 0 kB
SwapFree: 0 kB
Dirty: 0 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 80296 kB
Mapped: 24764 kB
Slab: 15088 kB
SReclaimable: 4568 kB
SUnreclaim: 10520 kB
PageTables: 792 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 118920 kB
Committed_AS: 140844 kB
VmallocTotal: 794604 kB
VmallocUsed: 17740 kB
VmallocChunk: 776592 kB
HugePages_Total: 0
HugePages_Free: 0
HugePages_Rsvd: 0
Hugepagesize: 4096 kB[olpc@xo-10-AC-5E ~]$ df -Th
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
mtd0 jffs2 1.0G 333M 692M 33% /
tmpfs tmpfs 35M 0 35M 0% /dev/shm
The machine comes with built-in wireless, three USB ports, headphone and microphone jacks and an SD card reader. A set of built-in speakers, an integrated camera for doing still or video shots. Touchpad and nearly full (very small!) keyboard. Some of the other things I’ve found are that they screen can not only be physically rotated (180 degrees) and laid down for display there is also a software rotate button to rotate the contents of the screen. The rotate button rotates the screen contents through four different directions.
It was very easy to connect the XO to my wireless network (no encryption). Wired connection can be done via a USB-to-ETH0 adaptor if needed. Connecting my USB mouse worked just fine. Attaching a vfat USB device connected fine as well as a an ext3. The vfat was recognized by Sugar and allowed me to “umount” via the Journal activity. The ext3 automounted but I could only seem to find it from the Terminal activity (yes, OLPC prefers to call applications “activities”).
Software Info
[olpc@xo-10-AC-5E ~]$ uname -r
2.6.22-20071121.7.olpc.af3dd731d18bc39
[olpc@xo-10-AC-5E ~]$ cat /etc/*release
Fedora release 7 (Moonshine)
Fedora release 7 (Moonshine)
[olpc@xo-10-AC-5E ~]$ uname -a
Linux xo-10-AC-5E.localdomain 2.6.22-20071121.7.olpc.af3dd731d18bc39 #1 PREEMPT Wed Nov 21 00:39:06 EST 2007 i586 i586 i386 GNU/Linux
The software is really pretty intuitive I think and once you figure out the basics it supports multi-tasking pretty well. You can launch multiple applications “Activities” and then switch back to “Home” to see them on the circular status bar. Some of the applications “Activities” available:
Chat - for use, as far as I can tell, between XO machines over the Mesh networksBrowse - simple web browser, defaults to Google search
Write - document creator complete with fonts and formatting tools
Record - still, video and audio recording tool
Paint - simple graphic editor-type
application“activity”
Pippy - I really like this one, its a Python learning tool. Shows example code that can be edited and teaches basic PythonCalculator - basic and advanced calculator
Measure - measure aucoustic frequencies and visually see the wavelengths
Memorize - a basic memory game matching integrating mathematics
News Reader - RSS reader
Terminal - basic shell, and the first application I found (does that say something about me?)
Analyze - analyze basic interface information
Acoustic Tape Measure - measure a distance (in meters) between two XO machines!
More!
It should be noted that this is not really a “production” laptop. This is an educational tool. Don’t get one of these if you want a small, lightweight machine. Its for kids–even the keyboard is kid-size. Young kids that want an educational teaching tool are a great market for this (and, of course, the educational goals of the 3rd world as the primary goal!). “This is an education project, not a laptop project” - Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC.
There is still time left in the Give One, Get One program if you have children that this would be a good tool for. Also, if you’d like to do development for the project it’d be a good fit. Remember, the Give One, Get One program donates one of these machines to a developing nation and also gives one to you. Now is the season for giving, right? 
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