Saturday, May 28, 2011

UDS-O Wrapup

No, I didn't GO to UDS, but I did attend -- remotely. If you didn't have time to do that, here are some ways to catch up.

Watch: lots of the plenaries and some of the sessions, along with many interviews are here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ubuntudevelopers#p/u/1/4wZd77h6aUg

Listen: http://mirrors.tumbleweed.org.za/uds-o/

Look: Excellent photos of the event: http://www.pixoulphotography.com/2011/05/18/official-uds-o-group-photo-and-personal-photo-set/. And for those who are interested, excellent photos of the setup. http://photos.pixoulphotography.com/Events.

Please add more suggestions in the comments!

KDE Community Working Group Office Hour next Saturday

Add topics for next office hour to http://community.kde.org/CWG.

We're here for you! The Community Working Group is a group of people supporting KDE in all matters community. The charter and list of current members can be found on the KDE e.V. website.

So if you have an issue, a problem, a topic you think needs discussing, please add it to the agenda so we can do our homework before the Office Hour.

All interested people are welcome to attend, on 11th of June at 7pm UTC. See http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=KDE+Community+Working+Group+office+hour&iso=20110611T21&p1=964&ah=1 and scroll down to find a city close to you for your local time.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Going to Switzerland!

Yes, next week I'm headed for the beautiful village of Randa, high in the Alps, for the KDE multi-media sprint! Amarok, Phonon, and so much more!



I'm very excited to finally meet some of the team I've been working with for 18 months or so. And it will be great to see Harald again, too. :-)



This is part of the work and part of the reward of contributing to KDE. Join the game! and travel the world while doing it. See Sprints.kde.org for more information.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Regression Testing, Please!

I've recently written a bit about my difficulties using UbuntuOne in Kubuntu Maverick and now again in Natty. The sad part is that a bit of regression testing, and working with our Kubuntu developer could have solved this situation long ago. APIs are supposed to give application developers access, not make that access more difficult. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntuone-client/+bug/369230

Now a related incident has happened: a Canonical uTouch patch to Qt which breaks Wacom tablets. For more on this, see: http://www.valdyas.org/fading/index.cgi/software/krita/no_pressure_in_krita.html.

Thank you to the Koffice people for blogging about this.

ScottK assures me that a fixed package can be found in his PPA: https://launchpad.net/~kitterman/+archive/ppa/ while we try to get the fix properly sorted: https://bugs.launchpad.net/koffice/+bug/762938.

Canonical developers, please do some regression testing against Kubuntu before committing changes.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

OpenWeek session: Introducing Kubuntu

Just finished a class in #ubuntu-classroom, Introducting Kubuntu for Ubuntu Open Week: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek. What a great experience! Find logs here: http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2011/05/05/%23ubuntu-classroom.html

It runs in the usual Ubuntu way, mostly on wikis and multiple IRC channels. It seems complicated at first, so I'll explain what is involved if you want to speak, and then if you just would like to attend and ask questions.

Speakers: Visit https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek/Prep. Enter your information into the grid, and email Amber (or whomever is listed as the contact person on that page). You'll notice that I didn't do this, which made people scramble a bit to get the necessary info. Make everyone's life easier by filling out this page. Then you'll be listed here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek. Click on the time link, and you'll be taken to TimeAndDate.com, scroll down to the largest city in your time zone, and mark your calendar.

Create some introductory sentences with information links and such, which you can easily copy/paste into IRC. That will keep your talk moving along when you have no questions. Remember, you only have an hour for both your text, and answering questions. So prepare, but not too much.

Before your session, read up on ClassBot here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Classroom/ClassBot. It isn't complicated, but remember to /msg ClassBot before your session starts. Also, join #ubuntu-classroom, #ubuntu-classroom-chat, and #ubuntu-classroom-backstage. Backstage is where you interact with the Classroom folks, who make sure everything is set up for you. #ubuntu-classroom will be moderated, so people can only ask questions in #ubuntu-classroom-chat, and when you query ClassBot and say !yes, the question will appear in #ubuntu-classroom where you can answer it.

The ClassBot will announce your talk, voice you, give you the questions when you are ready for those, and announce when there are 10 minutes left, 5 minutes left, and when your session is done. Also, the log link will be announced, and you'll be de-voiced.

Attendees: Join #ubuntu-classroom and #ubuntu-classroom-chat. When you have a question, ask in -chat, like this: QUESTION: Your question. The speaker may or may not have time to talk to you personally, or address your question in the hour. I was happy to be able to get to all of my questions, although I didn't know all the answers.

In -chat, there were some answers which I wasn't quick enough to get into the main classroom channel, so I'll add them here:

[09:19] <himcesjf> QUESTION: Hi valorie. Great information #ubuntu-classroom! Could you introduce me about graphics which Kubuntu uses? Like the compositing types openGL and XRender, etc ...
[09:22] <ScottK> himcesjf: Defaults to OpenGL, but supports Xrender. GLES support coming soon.

[09:22] <doctormo> QUESTION: Has there been any update on Akonadi and what do you feel about further chaos with the new elementary postler backend? Is the KDE community concerned at all about fragmentation of data standards?
[09:23] <shadeslayer> okay i can answer a part of that ^^
[09:23] <shadeslayer> doctormo: Yes, the new KDE PIM 4.6 oozes of akonadi integration, infact, i'm using it right now! and everything pretty much works for me except IMAP, which i was told has been fixed in a new upstream release
[09:24] <ScottK> doctormo: What standards in particular?
[09:25] <doctormo> ScottK: mail, contacts, calendars, notes, bookmarks, clipboards, file-path-and-io... etc.
[09:25] <doctormo> Everything that makes you want to pull your hair out about gtk ;-)
[09:26] <ScottK> doctormo: I don't think Akonadi is responsible for any fragmentation of these standards.
[09:27] <ScottK> Akonadi was originally proposed to be hosted on FDO, but got refused for reasons that didn't seem to make any sense.
[09:28] <doctormo> ScottK: I don't think it is either, but the situation continues.
[09:28] <apachelogger> shadeslayer: works for me
[09:28] <doctormo> And much the same with new apps being developed that reinvent their own backends too.
[09:31] <ScottK> doctormo: Akonadi is intended to be broadly useful for PIM type data and hopfeully will see broader adoption. A prototype Evolution package that used Akonadi was demonstrated at the combined desktop summit in Gran Canraria.
[09:34] <shadeslayer> ^^ Adding to that, i'll be working on a GUI for a tool called syncevolution which can identify multiple PIM Data sources and do a 3 way sync between your PC/Phone/A Server like Nokia's Ovi Store
[09:34] <shadeslayer> so hopefully that should reduce data fragmentation ....

[09:36] <himcesjf> QUESTION: Would you introduce me on application framework/toolkits Qt/GTK+ with reference to Kubuntu/KDE?
[09:36] <eagles0513875> himcesjf: for QT there is kdevelop for qt based apps
[09:36] <shadeslayer> himcesjf: QtCreator as well
[09:36] <eagles0513875> not sure what programs are available for gtk though

Linuxfest Northwest and Happy Memories

Bellingham again showed us the beauty of the coastal northwest, and the Bellingham Linux User Group topped themselves with LFNW 2011. While it's difficult to gauge attendance to a free conference, it seemed we had roughly the same number stop by our booth this year, although we gave out fewer free CDs. We had no large pile of packaged free CDs from Canonical, so made do with giving out the last of our old ones, and burning CDs for those who needed them. Thank you to Michael (MJEvans) for donating the blank CDs. Also thanks to our anonymous donor, who insisted on giving us $5 for his FREE cd!

Also new this year, was burning to thumb drives. Not only did I lend out my MultiSystem drive a few times, I also created a couple of them for people, and burned ISOs onto four or five drives as well. Yay for Ktorrent getting me all those ISOs, so they were available for people! Next year, I'll do even more. We had a request for Xubuntu, but I didn't have one, and the bandwidth was not sufficient to download it.

Saturday was a crush, and we were demonstrating Unity and Kubuntu, burning CDs, and talking about Ubuntu-Women and Linuxchix, and the issues surrounding women in Linux, FOSS, and even attending conferences. I enjoyed showing off Kubuntu and KDE and explaining the difference to lots and lots of people.

Also, once Zareason fixed the wireless on my Terra, Thomas put 11.04 32-bit on it, and I set it to the netbook interface. So people could really see the difference between Kubuntu and the new Ubuntu Unity interface. I saw the new Teo netbook at the Zareason booth -- it looks snazzy! We might have sold them a few netbooks, so I hope their good service to me pays off in the long run. :-)

One new feature at LFNW this year: http://linuxfestnorthwest.org/lfnw-principles. Not that the principles themselves are new; this group has always been friendly and welcoming. But now they are codified for all to see. Kudos to BLUG for this important step!

They know how to throw a party, too! The party Saturday night was lower-key than last year, and more fun, in my opinion. The beer was, if possible, even better too. :-)

The food was nothing special, but after the food, the games came out! Not only Guitar Hero and some Wii games, but also table games for those who wanted them. I think that created a really friendly atmosphere before the beer was poured. Also, the beer cups were smaller. I know I drank less, and felt good Sunday morning. Yay!

Sunday is a quiet day, with fewer sessions, and fewer visitors. However, I think quite a few visitors to our table were new. I was surprised at how many CDs went out. I was having trouble keeping up! I did have time to do two sit-downs with women who wanted to know more about the community, how to use IRC, etc. That was really enjoyable.

All in all, and excellent weekend! Again, the Hampton was affordable, clean, and convenient. The free breakfast also furnished a yogurt, apple and bagel for my lunch too. I look forward to 2012, and plan to speak.