[00:32] is anyone here? [00:32] now and then [00:33] i think the lectures are done for now, though [00:34] they'll be starting up again at 1500 UTC tomorrow :) [00:40] hi!! === obiwan__ is now known as obiwan_ [00:45] pleia2: weren't the sessions great today? :D [00:45] nhaines: yes! [00:45] How are sessions held in here? [00:48] is the chat locked and only operators are allowed to speak while they hold sesions? [00:48] Znupi: this channel is reserved for the speaker, questions are posted in #ubuntu-classroom-chat [00:49] we don't like to moderate this channel during the sessions, but sometimes have to [00:49] Ah, I see [00:49] pleia2: I noticed it was quiet here today. [00:49] nhaines: it was moderated :\ [00:49] So what were today's sessions about? [00:49] I am a speaker on Friday [00:49] UOW has become very popular, noise becomes a problem with hundreds of people [00:50] unfortuntely I could not see the activity today [00:50] Znupi: check out the schedule! :) https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek [00:50] Znupi: the schedule is up here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek [00:50] an, thanks! [00:50] bethlynn: shame! it was a great day :) the logs have been posted on the same page if you're interested [01:01] hello [01:01] anybody on? [01:14] pigphish: yes, but nothing's happening right now. [01:18] hi! how can i get a 1600x900 working resolution? [01:20] when do things happen/ [01:54] salud@s ¿que horarios se estan manejando para las charlas? [01:55] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek [01:56] 15:00 UTC the first one [01:56] jamesjedimaster_ gracias voy a revisar [02:37] Hola / Hello [02:38] !foo [02:38] bar [02:38] :) [02:40] ok, have a nice day, i leave... [03:08] Hello [03:09] hello [03:11] hello [04:09] Night [04:21] goodnight classroom [04:35] \join quickly [04:43] hao_: /join, not \join [05:01] tell me the command to run check disk [05:06] sams: Support is in #ubuntu [05:17] my headphone is not working on ubuntu,i have acer laptop [05:21] hello? [05:22] i recently switched over to linux on the laptop and now both the wired network AND the wireless network refuse to work. I've tried quite a bit, switching settings in th ehopes that i'll get it working. My laptop is an HP Pavilion dv5 running Ubuntu Linux [05:23] has it worked before in ubuntu, what version are you using? [05:24] my headphone is not working in ubuntu 9.04.ihave acer 5638 laptop [05:25] I wish I could help with the headphones, as that is the only sound 'thing' that has consistently worked for me (8.04, 9.04, 9.10) [05:26] i [05:26] oops.. i've noticed about 75% of noob problems are sound [05:27] even with my fresh install i had flash sound errors [05:27] I'd agree, it it were the the forums I would not have figured it out as quickly. (noob to ubuntu but used various unix 20 years ago, before children) [05:27] this is a clean install from a verafied ISO [05:28] the trick is to google till either you find an answer or someone responds [05:28] i tried intalling the OS 3 times now [05:28] PupERaver, what version? 9.10? [05:28] yes 9.10 [05:28] Outcold, I prefer to use, http://crunchbang.org/ubuntu-search-engine/ [05:29] pupERaver, have you tried wicd? [05:29] not familiar with that . what is wicd ? [05:29] pupERaver, did it work well under a previous version? [05:30] quietone, that may work but i've had to use fixes for other distros on ubuntu [05:30] it was a vista professional and got sick of the windows conformity [05:30] pupERaver, it's another network manager [05:30] pupERaver: what fixes? ndiswrapper? [05:30] OOh nice ill have to give that a try [05:30] what card and driver? === test is now known as Guest60193 [05:31] nvidia network card with a broadcom . i thought during the install (fetch and extract firmware) was common [05:32] pupERaver: I have seen items in the forum about broadcom and 9.10 but I haven't followed them [05:32] it may be a broadcom issue, have you checked compatibility? [05:33] no compatibility checks :( [05:33] QUESTION: no one answering question in the #ubunto-classroom-chat room [05:33] i'm not there.. [05:34] you should all ask in #ubuntu or #ubuntu+1 lol [05:35] maybe ask on the forums for someone else to verify [05:35] okay , ill give that a shot [05:35] you'll want to ask support questions in #ubuntu [05:35] this channel is for classes :) [05:35] thank you guys for the support [05:35] and we don't have another one until tomorrow at 1500 UTC [05:35] utc? [05:36] what is UTC? [05:36] its a shame i will be at work :( [05:36] google "UTC" [05:37] well, thanks. I was really hoping for some help so I would not have to spend a year figuring it out... [05:37] it's universal time code which would have taken less time to google than it took me to write this [05:40] not if you are stuck with crappy windose to google with [05:41] i guess that makes it roughly 7 AM my time [05:42] windows sucks and you folks are not willing to help newbies... how nice [05:43] windows has nothing to do with google-ing.. other than IE which I highly recommend against using [05:43] using Chrome because firefox keeps crashing [05:43] it's not that we aren't willing to help. we don't hold your hand to define english [05:44] many of us "donate" time here [05:44] wha tis english to you is greek to a lot of people getting started [05:45] there is too much information for a person to know everything [05:45] sure but there are also many other communities in several languages [05:45] not asking for hand holding, just a little help [05:45] ask for help about ubuntu [05:46] well I speak English, you speak english [05:46] fiberfolly: you were asking about drivers for dell systems [05:46] yes i am fuffman [05:46] not necessary [05:46] fluffman [05:46] the Linux kernel - the core of Ubuntu - should have all of the drivers you need built in [05:46] not necessary what? [05:46] my wireless will not work [05:47] you won't find "Linux Drivers" on the dell website [05:47] i know [05:47] even though they do provide ubuntu as an option [05:47] dell sucks worse then Micorsoft [05:47] Ok, have you tried plugging an ethernet cable into your laptop [05:48] not yet [05:48] OK, do that, and if you can get online [05:48] go to System > Administration > hardware Drivers [05:48] in ubuntu, correct? [05:48] yes [05:49] okay, will have to try tomorrow morning, but I appreciate the suggestion [05:49] will that get me to what I need to get it to work [05:49] That will let you know if any 3rd party drivers are available, and then it will download and install for you [05:49] cool. Thanks so much fluffman. I greatly appreciate it [05:50] Once that's done, look for the little networking symbol near the clock...left click on it to see your wireless network and connect [05:50] I will pass the help on some day, when I can actually help [05:50] :) [05:50] glad I could help [05:56] yes that should do it. just in case, maybe this is not the case, make sure you have the universe repo active in your software sources [05:56] but will all the step given by fluffman that should do the work [06:37] hey I am from Puerto Rico a little island in he caribean. using ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10 [08:42] hello anyone there? [08:42] yes.. am here [08:42] same here [08:42] hahaha [08:42] hai..all. [08:43] actually i have problems with empthy configuring a gtalk ccount [08:43] account;any ideas [08:43] hi openweek* [08:44] whaat kind of problema you are facing [08:44] please openweek6 keep in mind this is channel for ubuntuopenweek [08:45] sry....but i could not find an answer anywhere.... [08:45] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek/ [08:45] hehe [08:45] lets see [08:45] what problem you are facking [08:45] it says network error [08:45] anyother account you hace configured? [08:45] these are my account details [08:45] does any other account connect? [08:46] actually m completely new with empathy;used pidgin before [08:46] openweek6: i ve a week experience with ubuntu. and ma sure i can't help you. :) [08:46] encryption required ;checked [08:46] resource telepathy [08:46] server tlk.google.com [08:47] port 5223 [08:47] use old ssl :checked [08:47] openweek6: r u ok with YM? [08:47] ym implies yahoo messenger? [08:48] i can gtalk but cant ym.. :( yes ym=yahoo messenger [08:48] ok [08:48] try this [08:48] What.. [08:48] if you have any [08:49] google talk acct setup [08:49] yeah i have..... [08:49] go ahead and delete lets [08:49] start from scratch [08:49] now [08:49] yeah [08:49] login id will be [08:49] your email [08:49] yeha [08:49] put it [08:49] and passwd too [08:50] let us skip the security method [08:50] so advance leave it is [08:50] then.. [08:50] enable it and try [08:50] that how i ahve it set up [08:50] wait mtrying... [08:50] sure [08:51] AND I HAVE ANOTHER PROBLEM [08:51] WHEN INSTALLING APPS [08:51] the ubuntu softwre centre says [08:52] aja [08:52] Requires installation of untrusted packages The action would require the installation of packages from not authenticated sources. [08:52] what did you mean by aja? [08:53] ah sorry is that i am spanish speaker and we say "aja" is like "continue i am listening" [08:53] sorry [08:53] openweek6 [08:53] how it went [08:53] ? [08:54] that said network error! [08:54] weird [08:54] do you have a working account with it ? [08:54] yes [08:55] is it gtalk? [08:55] in fact let try just now [08:55] gtalk you mean google talk correct? [08:55] yeh [08:56] Anywya what about the second problem? [08:56] does it give you any info about the pkgs it want to install? [08:57] nope...it was going f9 a day ago [08:57] now to install any app. it says this ...m on ubuntu 9.10 [08:58] hey you there? [08:58] yes [08:59] sorry i am searching something [08:59] ok [08:59] i dont quite get the problem [08:59] i do understand you but not he entire situation [08:59] i told na... [09:00] have u tried to install any proprietary software or something [09:00] ? [09:00] when i try to install anything this thing pops up:Requires installation of untrusted packages The action would require the installation of packages from not authenticated sources. [09:00] i hve installed a lot of apps like qt designer,creator,netbeans etc [09:00] ah ok but those are ok [09:01] ok means? [09:01] open [09:01] so wht bout the problem [09:02] but sure there is not any instruccion like what it want to install or something? [09:02] and do you hve ny idea about the sk mrk session? [09:03] yeah i select the application to installl. [09:04] then after selecting apply .. [09:04] it gives this crap! [09:04] Yo [09:04] no kind of such instruction [09:04] geez [09:04] :S [09:04] hows the weather... [09:04] well this is no the right place to ask you [09:04] to pull some of the logs [09:05] and check if there is any other info [09:05] And about the ask mark session..... [09:05] and could you tell me...what all could i learn here!! [09:05] i will asume there is no broken pkg or anything like that [09:05] Never been here before, so i can just ask general question about 9.10 here? [09:05] ask mark session [09:05] ah [09:06] not sure whats that [09:06] haha [09:06] general question like? [09:06] hello daretodream [09:06] yeah ofcourse [09:06] i read it sumwer bout the open week [09:06] openweek6 you can check here too [09:07] AlanBell///openweek6: you would get a better answer if you asked in #ubuntu [09:07] where ? [09:07] oh, i posted my question already on Ubuntu Fourms its a question about memory but has nothin related to 9.10 i just stoped by here to see if i learn anything new in particular [09:07] giv the question [09:07] you can check that channel [09:07] hmm will try [09:07] Mark Shuttleworth started the Ubuntu project and Canonical. He will be responding to questions later [09:07] cuz remember [09:07] this is channel is for [09:07] ubuntu open week [09:08] I men when..would that be done? [09:08] Could you please tell me about the routine? [09:08] i too joined here 15 mins ago... [09:08] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek [09:08] hey wht all could i learn here in this open week [09:08] sessions start at 1500 [09:08] oh i recently bought corsair Dominator DDR2 1066 MHz PC2-8500 4GB 2x2GB and was wondering if it would work with my Dell motherboard i put the specs up on the thread its just that i dont know if i would have to speficially modify voltage or anything like that [09:08] which is in 6 hours [09:09] Will be there...Thank you!! [09:09] well openweek6 if you check [09:09] the wiki link alanbell provided [09:10] yeah ... [09:10] you can see what you actually will be instruct during the sessions [09:10] its not like wow you are gonna learn to build your own distro [09:10] but it could be possible though [09:11] but it all depends on how far you want to go [09:11] so keep the head up [09:11] hmm thnks...actually the prob is that the net speed here is less these times? [09:11] google is the best friend to be honest [09:11] hi [09:11] Hii [09:12] is open week session started ? [09:12] not yet [09:12] should we discuss here or #ubuntu-classroom-chat [09:12] ? [09:13] hey what are you professionally as... student? [09:13] i don't think it makes to much of a diffrence [09:13] during the session this should [09:13] eh tru [09:13] only for the instructors or presenters [09:13] and chat for chat :) [09:14] i am student openweek6 [09:14] ok my bad ;;;m sry [09:14] haha no its ok [09:14] i am so happy ubuntu and the opensource community is spreading [09:15] me too. [09:15] I love the spirit of opensource [09:15] Agree [09:15] its becoming HUGE [09:15] yes [09:15] and thats one of the reason i want to stick [09:15] to ubuntu open week [09:15] and i have a feeling soon schools will start implementing courses/computers already installed with ubuntu/linux [09:15] participate and eventually we can contribute to the community [09:15] thats a really cul idea.... [09:16] yea thats one of the projects i want to implement with some friend [09:16] I like programming and these days....i m working with qt [09:17] wow openweek6 thats awesome [09:17] !! [09:17] i want to learn programing XD i self-learned so far the basics of c++ and java [09:17] ?? [09:17] sucks i know XD [09:17] you have any experience with qt on ubuntu [09:17] < me? [09:19] it ws for [09:19] and Bbbye folks......gotta go [09:19] ahhh ok [09:19] take care [09:19] take care [09:19] hope you catch some of the sessions for this week [09:20] anyways what is xd [09:20] and hope you find solutions to your problems [09:20] yeah i will... [09:20] see you guys, was intresting... ill be back! when is the next session? 1500utc? Got class in 2 more hours 4am here [09:20] anybody could help me connecting my pidgin to yahoo messenger? [09:20] yeah hope so... [09:21] should not be to hard [09:21] and will look for u there? [09:21] me too i have class. [09:21] I will be joining for the k mark session [09:21] Nice time with u all!!!!!!!!!!!! [09:21] see ya [09:21] there is that much you have to setup [09:22] username is for example me zgudino16 [09:22] google the port settings for [09:22] yahoo on pidgin [09:22] and pass is your normal mail/im passwd [09:22] i dont think yo would need to mess with port settings considering ubuntu uses iptables and generally allows that service? [09:23] correct [09:23] so excited, can't wait for session to resume again :) need to sleep though [09:23] eh guess im not as slow as i seem [09:23] goodnight all [09:23] agree [09:23] good night [09:23] night [09:23] im supposed to get off also! Haha [09:23] haha we are off this week [09:23] :D [09:24] so no class no job [09:24] its PATRIOT days [09:24] if u are behind a proxy [09:24] hey i think configuring port settings ..would be difficult [09:24] there is no need [09:24] unless [09:25] you are behind some firewal [09:25] l [09:25] BBye [09:25] iin that case you will want to use proxy [09:36] i tried to change the pager server to 66.163.181.173 but still cannot connect with YM. I must hv missed something. [09:38] dc... [09:39] pager for yahoo scsa.msg.yahoo.com [09:39] this is the ip if i ping [09:39] 68.180.217.19 [09:40] ping scsa.msg.yahoo.com [09:40] oops.. [09:41] 68.180.217.22 [09:42] yeah.. a few addresses [09:42] yeah that should be the inter-domain doing the maginc [09:42] magic [09:42] but still.. fail to connect... [09:43] really [09:43] ehhh [09:43] i just dowmnloaded this 9.04 2 weeks ago [09:43] what port you have for pager [09:43] ? [09:43] the settings must be fresh [09:43] 5050 [09:43] thats right [09:44] chat room [09:44] US [09:44] just in cae [09:44] se [09:44] go to proxy tab [09:44] google talk works fine without tweaking anything [09:44] and select no rpoxy [09:44] i use no proxy [09:44] ok [09:44] wiat [09:45] mann.. it was gnome,,, [09:45] did i change that [09:45] ? [09:45] :) [09:47] it said account locked for unknown reason. logging to yahoo may fix this === openweek7 is now known as vcalvo [09:48] just try on my win. no prob logging in [09:48] :S [09:48] so.. it must be somewhere in this pc [09:49] Hello [09:49] :S [09:50] is this ubuntu openweek? [09:51] can't see that 'face' here :) [09:51] yes [09:51] but session have not start yet [09:51] ohok [09:51] when do they start? [09:51] hey azharbuntu [09:51] mm [09:51] shoot not sure what to sugget [09:51] suggest [09:52] is this your only acct using pidgin? [09:52] if it is you can try to delete the profile ".purple" and start again setting YM [09:52] nope.. irc now, gtalk working fine, and ym still diasbled [09:52] *disabled [09:52] oh no [09:53] then do not do it [09:54] no ssl right? [09:56] does anyone know anything about getting ALC880 to work well with linux? [09:57] z-itou16: ssl? i think i've heard that a few years back? can't seem to remember [09:58] :) [09:58] ah yes in the advance tab for YM make sure there is no check mark where it says "use ssl for something" [09:58] thats the last option there [09:58] i am sure you dont have that enable [09:58] but god dont know what else [09:59] can't see the 'ssl' [10:00] :S [10:00] i am running pidgin 2.6.3 [10:00] you are using the one that came with the system? [10:00] me 2.5.5 [10:01] i see [10:01] just downloaded the whole ubuntu 9.04 [10:02] this is just a trial run... i'll try until the system crash.. then install a fresh copy :) [10:02] try change this paget [10:02] cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com [10:02] pager [10:03] hey everyone :) just curious how 9.10 is working out? [10:03] just perfect [10:03] yes now i can use 2 xserver session at the same time! [10:03] so my sis and myself are running full compiz at the same time [10:03] any likes dislikes in particular? boot issues? [10:03] no boot issues... [10:04] same here, no boot issues [10:04] dislike: Empathy and telepathy-butterfly [10:04] still fail.. [10:04] i installed pidgin again.. not happy bout empathy [10:04] why don't you like it [10:04] hahaha [10:05] too many crashes with telepathy-butterfly... i send messages, people didn't receive it... [10:05] :\ [10:05] if i hadn't MSN, i would still use empathy i think... [10:05] am happy as long as i could connect to YM... good for you withn all the choices [10:07] one particular inconvenience i have is that i dont see plugins for empathy [10:07] oh yes! [10:07] i love music tracker from pidgin [10:07] Plugins like music-tracker vor pidgin... too good this plugin [10:07] i work CHARM!! [10:07] it works [10:07] NICE z-itou16 :D [10:08] gnomeye do u know why mr mark and the ubuntu team decided to switch? [10:08] 9.10 is great [10:08] voice and cam support? [10:08] now if only I could find a linux distro that works with my soundcard [10:09] |:-( [10:09] openweek3 did the kernel did not load your audio card driver? [10:09] it loads the driver [10:09] i get some sound [10:09] but the volume is really low [10:09] and if i turn it up using alsamixer [10:09] have you max all in the volume control menu [10:09] it gets very distorted [10:10] :S [10:10] hey gnomeye you are gonna laugh at this [10:10] but [10:10] in my bo [10:10] box [10:10] openweek3: what sc have u got? [10:10] same happens in (.04, opensuse, vista and 7 :-( [10:10] the audio and camera thing are like grey out [10:10] :( [10:10] ALc 880 based [10:11] compaq onboard [10:11] lol [10:11] lol z-itou16 [10:11] it works great in xp [10:11] i don't need this cam/voice support thing... if i want to call my friends over the world and see them i use skype. it works just fine. [10:12] ntegrated High Definition audio * Realtek ALC 880 chipset * Supports up to 8 audio channels * Dolby Pro Logic II compatible Dolby 5.1 [10:12] thats right gnomeye [10:12] it's msi ms 7174 mobo [10:12] intel 910GE chipset [10:12] openweek3: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/254505 --> Seems to be a problem since 6.xx ... [10:13] i think i tried changing that in alsabase.conf in 9.04 [10:14] but i heard there isnt one in 9.10 [10:14] (alsabase.conf that is) [10:14] i dont thing it worked either :S [10:16] there isn't a alsabase.conf in 9.10? /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf [10:17] guys take care brb later === openweek5 is now known as rldowling03 [10:18] * jasonjang is back (gone 21:57:40) [10:27] gtg bye [10:32] hello anybody on? [10:32] hell there, im wondering if anybody can tell me how to map a network drive? [10:32] windows? [10:32] no ubuntu [10:33] a drive shared on a windows machine i mean? [10:33] or shared from ubuntu [10:33] yeah [10:33] windows [10:33] its on the network server [10:33] in nautilus type [10:33] smb://servername/sharename [10:33] nautilus? [10:34] are you using gnome or kde [10:34] ? [10:34] using ubuntu 9.10 not sure what that is tbh [10:34] ahhh ok [10:34] your interface is probably gnome then [10:35] do you see [10:35] no [10:35] in ap applications [10:35] applications menu in top right [10:35] nautilus is the file browser [10:36] pigphish: demolition49_ #ubuntu is the support channel [10:36] what is this channel? it says classroom [10:36] yeah? [10:36] sebsebseb: isnt this the classroom? im being taught? [10:36] pigphish: demolition49_ go on the link in the topic [10:37] pigfish try this link [10:37] http://opensuse.swerdna.org/susesambacifs.html [10:38] shoot [10:38] im still stuck with finding nautilus [10:38] sorry that link is for demolition49 [10:38] http://opensuse.swerdna.org/susesambacifs.html [10:38] demolition49_: This room is used for Ubuntu Developer Week and Ubuntu Open Week and such [10:38] ok [10:38] ill go to support [10:38] z-itou16: thankyou [10:39] pigphish: thankyou [10:40] may i ask what session [11:05] pigphish: time table here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek === jay is now known as Guest79772 [11:40] /msg NickServ identify password [11:44] hello all [11:45] anyone out there [11:45] anyone knows abt ask mark session [11:46] openweek6: It's tomorrow. [11:51] hey [11:51] PLease tell me fast abt ask mark session [11:53] anyone out tehre [11:54] openweek* it is in 27 hours time === filipe is now known as piovisqui [12:21] Hi [12:37] hello all! [12:49] hello WiL_ :) [12:56] hey ikt, how are you? [12:56] I'm good, finally setup my dns correctly, how are you? [12:56] I am new to the ubuntu or linux group and OS now. [12:57] figuring out how to us linux 9.10 [12:57] That's cool, ubuntuforums.org has tons (and tons and tons) of info [12:58] but simething i was trying to figure out which i have not found yet was how to down load firefox in a nother language for linux...since I know ubuntu already have it . [13:00] Good question [13:00] hehe yep. [13:00] hello [13:00] WiL_: I think there are language packs in the repositories [13:00] I have tried to redownload FF but then it does not put it on the computer like i think it should in windows but i need to start to get out of the windows mind set heheh [13:01] really nameiner....cool ...now i have to figure out how to get there and get them out heheheh [13:01] yeah, we don't do download.com style :P [13:01] If you head to: System > Admin > Synaptic Package Manager [13:02] ok [13:02] Actually under Admin it has Language Support [13:03] I just added kde but ... [13:03] You are running kubuntu? [13:04] i am running gnome now but i can switch between kde and gnome. [13:04] Doesn't matter, I think this is what you want anyway: [13:04] http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=212310 [13:05] thanks ikt I will give this a try. [13:05] hope it works :) [13:05] now all i have to do is get ride of windows of the system completely. [13:06] WiL_: well, there used to be packs, now I can only find some for thunderbird but there are translation packages for gnome and kde, try searching for "locale" [13:06] ok nameiner thanks [13:07] now all i have to do is get ride of windows of the system completely. <- transition slowly young padawan :) [13:09] hahah yes yes ikt... [13:09] :) [13:10] In 9.10 I have digital spdif output working but it only offers me stereo sound output, does anyone know how I can enable multichannel sound? [13:16] hello === jshute_ is now known as jshute [13:29] Roy__: hello === openweek6 is now known as X-Man === jshute_ is now known as jshute === dalesd_ is now known as dalesd [14:23] what up team? [14:24] 30min on my watch? [14:24] about that, yes === openweek8 is now known as polazarus === openweek2 is now known as pak33m [14:51] whoo hoo! [14:51] 10 minutes everyone! [14:51] jo [14:51] hi jcastro [14:52] Morning [14:52] * IdleOne puts a shinny red apple on the desk [14:52] im ready [14:53] hi guys [14:53] * Grantbow waves [14:54] Anyone has got a problem with an external hard drive that suddendly becomes slow to transfer data. about 1Mo/seconde when it use to be really fast with 9.04 [14:54] bfiller, is it just you or do you have others? [14:54] guillaume: you'll want to head to #ubuntu for support questions [14:54] guillaume, #ubuntu might help [14:54] jcastro: paulliu will be helping out as well [14:54] paulliu: are you there? [14:54] We'll start in ~5 minutes [14:55] oh, good job jcastro [14:55] :) [14:55] hah [14:55] ok thx [14:55] let's try that guy === jcastro changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to Ubuntu Open Week! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek || Session: Ubuntu Moblin Remix || All questions go in #ubuntu-classroom-chat | [14:56] bfiller: yes. [14:56] ok, looks like we have 245 people already! [14:56] no pressure :) [14:56] I'm going to go ahead and moderate the channel now, if you have questions, please ask them in #ubuntu--classroom-chat === akgraner changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: elcome to Ubuntu Open Week! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek || Current Session: Ubuntu Moblin Remix - Bill Filler and Crew | All questions go in #ubuntu-classroom-chat || [14:56] #ubuntu [14:57] guillaume, yes [14:57] and preface them with QUESTION: so we don't miss them [14:57] thiebaude, how do I get there?? [14:57] i m really bad with irc [14:58] write: /join #ubuntu [14:58] cheers [14:58] ok bfiller and paulliu1, please introduce yourselves and take it away! [14:59] ok [14:59] Hi, my name is Bill Filler and I'm an Engineering Manager in Canonical's OEM Services Group. We work on custom versions of Ubuntu for netbooks and other devices. [14:59] I'll be joined by Software Engineer Paul Liu, also a member of the OEM Services Group. Paul did much of the packaging of Moblin for the Karmic release. [14:59] We'll be discussing Ubuntu Moblin Remix and will be basing the presentation off of the wiki page at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek/UbuntuMoblinRemix. So you can follow along looking at that page. [15:00] As I go through this presentation questions may arise. Preceed your question with the word QUESTION to gain a moderator's attention. Copy your questions into #ubuntu-classroom-chat, and we'll do our best to answer them at the end of the presentation. [15:00] ok, lets get started then [15:00] What is Moblin? [15:00] Moblin is a major initiative launched by Intel targeting the netbook market. Intel is the upstream and has developed some very appealing code for Moblin and it has gathered lots of interest in the market and community. [15:01] Moblin is not a distribution itself (but does provide a "reference" implementation based on Fedora), but instead relies on OSV's (like Canonical and others) to support, package and ship Moblin on their distributions. [15:01] So Canonical decided to release a version of Moblin running on Ubuntu (Ubuntu Moblin Remix) such that we could give users the freedom to try out Moblin on our great platform that they know and love [15:01] that is what Ubuntu Moblin Remix in Karmic is [15:01] Lets talk in detail about Ubuntu Moblin Remix release [15:02] Ubuntu Moblin Remix is the Moblin 2.1 preview release running on Ubuntu 9.10 [15:02] It is developer focused, as based on an "preview" (i.e. not final) version of Moblin [15:02] Moblin 2.1 final release will be out any day now but was not done in time for inclusion in Karmic [15:03] Moblin's rpms were converted to debian packages, lots of that work was done by paulliu1 and others at Canonical [15:03] Some packages in made it to "universe" for Karmic, others in PPA https://edge.launchpad.net/~moblin/+archive/ppa [15:03] Ubuntu Moblin Remix image available for download here: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-moblin-remix/releases/karmic/release/ubuntu-moblin-remix-9.10-moblin-remix-i386.iso [15:03] Bug tracking: https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu-moblin-remix [15:04] and there are forums as well for questions at http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=376 [15:05] now we can look at some of the Moblin components and UI screenshots [15:05] and describe a bit about each [15:05] (please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek/UbuntuMoblinRemix) [15:05] lets start with the Moblin toolbar [15:06] it is the heart of the moblin interface and is the panel at the top of the screen [15:06] it acts as the launching point for most activities [15:06] starting with myzones, the button to the top-left [15:06] myzones is the main home screen. Sections for calendar entries, favorites, recent docs, tweats from twitter [15:07] it dynamically updates as tweets come in and documents are open [15:07] it contains a "quick launch" section on bottom left for launch your favorite applications [15:08] next in the panel is the status panel [15:08] which shows your current social networking/im status and allows you to change it [15:08] empathy is the default IM client moblin [15:09] next is the People panel [15:10] it shows a user's friends from Empathy and allows you to initiate chat from this panel [15:10] it shows pictures of friends, etc.. [15:10] next is Internet panel [15:10] which allows you to quickly launch/search web pages and view open tabs and pinned pages [15:11] it's integrated with moblin web browser which I will describe later [15:11] then comes the Media panel [15:11] the media panel allows quick launch/search of recently opened media files, playqueue display [15:12] it is integrated with moblin media player UI as well [15:12] Pasteboard is next [15:12] self explanatory :) [15:12] Then comes the Applications tab [15:13] it is essentially the launcher panel, where user's select installed applications to launch [15:13] it is searchable which is very nice, and apps can be pinned as favorites from here which make them show up in the myzones space [15:14] the Zones switcher comes next [15:14] zone switcher shows active windows in all the zones (equivalent to workspaces) [15:14] ok [15:15] Moblin uses mutter as the window manager [15:15] which is a clutter-enabled version of metacity window manager [15:15] each application window in moblin is opened in it's own zone (workspace) and the zone switcher (activated by alt-tab) allows you to switch [15:16] Next on the toolbar comes the system tray area [15:16] which shows typical system type icons, like power, sound and networking [15:17] of interest is the networking panel, called carrick [15:17] (see screenshot) [15:17] it talks to connman Connection Manager (i.e. NOT Network Manager) [15:18] and has support for wired, wifi, 3G (in Moblin 2.1) and Wimax [15:18] ok moving on, Moblin provides a couple of applications which Intel wrote [15:18] moblin web browser and moblin media player [15:19] moblin web browser uses mozembed with clutter wrapper (clutter-mozembed), moving to Firefox 3.5 in Moblin 2.1 [15:19] the version in Ubuntu Moblin Remix is not the Firefox 3.5 version but the embedded mozilla clutter version [15:20] the current version supports flash, plugins etc but is not as robust as standard Firefox 3.5 [15:20] Moblin Media Player - clutter based media player, talks to gstreamer back-end [15:21] is a library in that you can add music, videos and photos [15:21] other Moblin distros may include other media players (like banshee), UMR includes moblin media player only [15:22] Moving on to other key components in Moblin stack [15:22] I briefly mentioned Mutter [15:22] Mutter is a clutter enabled window manager, Moblin Toolbar is an example of a mutter plugin [15:23] Clutter btw is key to the moblin system [15:23] it's a library that provides GL functionality for the UI [15:23] Moblin uses nbtk (netbook toolkit) as a widget library so to speak on top of Clutter [15:24] Clutter provides the ability for all the fancy animations and effect which are done so well in Moblin UI [15:24] mojito is a daemon and API for social networking [15:25] it's used by myzones, people and status panels to talk to different backends [15:25] bognor-regis is the media playback daemon used by moblin media player [15:26] and bickley is the media meta-data engine used by the media player as well [15:26] I'm sure I'm missing some, but those are the important Moblin components that come to mind [15:26] ok, next topic [15:27] how are are Ubuntu Moblin Remix and Ubuntu Netbook Remix different? [15:27] Ubuntu Netbook Remix was developed by Canonical well before Moblin. Canonical continues to develop and support UNR going forward. We are testing and supporting many hardware models out of the box with UNR and will continue to develop UNR past Karmic. [15:27] UNR is quite popular, intuitive and well integrated in our platform. [15:27] some key points [15:27] about UNR [15:28] UNR is well integrated with the Ubuntu platform (gnome, Ubuntu One, notifications, etc..) [15:28] UNR user interface is straight forward, simple to use [15:28] UNR has been shipping commercially for over 1 year, it's well tested and proven [15:28] some folks are confused which to use Moblin Remix or UNR [15:29] we view Moblin Remix as a developer's version and should be used as such [15:29] UNR on the other hand is a fully functional, tested release [15:30] Canonical wanted to give people the choice to play with both on our platform [15:30] hence doing Moblin Remix [15:30] next topic [15:30] What vendors are shipping Ubuntu Moblin? [15:31] to date, Dell Mini 10v is shipping with a 9.04 (Jaunty) based Moblin [15:31] this used the Moblin 2.0 release (not 2.1) [15:31] Dell has made the image available for download: Available for download here: http://en.community.dell.com/wikis/linux/ubuntu-9-04-moblin-remix-developer-edition.aspx [15:32] ok last topic before we get to questions [15:32] How do I get more information about Moblin? [15:32] Intel upstream for Moblin at http://www.moblin.org [15:33] Bugtracking http://bugzilla.moblin.org [15:33] #moblin on freenode [15:33] Intel you'll see releases a "reference" implementation of Moblin based on Fedora. This is availabe for download from moblin.org [15:34] that's all for the presentation, I'll start looking at the questions now.. [15:35] Amaranth:QUESTION: Moblin specifies LSB-style RPMs as the way to distribute 3rd party software, doesn't it? How is that being handled? === BillGates is now known as Guest20750 [15:35] Amaranth: we repackage as debian packages and push into debian/ubuntu or ppa [15:36] erUSUL: QUESTION: media playback is all gstreamer based ? [15:36] erUSUL: in Moblin Remix, yes it's all gstreamer based [15:36] erUSUL: I believe Moblin may be releasing some sort of helix support in the future [15:37] Question: Does UMR use X? Is the UI built on Gnome? [15:37] lifer999: UMR does use X [15:37] lifer999: UI is built on clutter and mutter, mutter-plugins [15:38] lifer999: but there are still many gnome components installed, but not the traditional gnome panels you are used to seeing in ubuntu [15:38] QUESTION: what is the position of ubuntu devs regarding NetworkManager vs ConMan ? [15:39] erUSUL: in Moblin Remix we tried to be true to what is provided by Intel in their Moblin distribution [15:39] erUSUL: and Moblin uses Connman by default so that is what we provided [15:39] erUSUL: I'll say connman has come a long way since the beginning of Moblin and is getting quite good :) [15:40] erUSUL: network manager is still the default for all other Ubuntu release (desktop, UNR, etc..) [15:40] QUESTION: will the browser migrate to webkit ?? [15:40] erUSUL: not that I know of, but is migrating to firefox 3.5 themed for Moblin [15:41] QUESTION: what should applications developers do (or avoid doing) to make sure applications targetted to the regular Ubuntu desktop also work on Moblin? [15:41] AlanBell: good question [15:41] AlanBell: I believe Moblin will be releasing (or has released) and SDK [15:42] AlanBell: but in general most Ubuntu apps work fine in moblin [15:42] AlanBell: just beware of using newer libraries that may be in one vs. the other (like a newer clutter or something like that) [15:42] paulliu1: any comments from you on this question? [15:43] bfiller: Most GTK+ and QT applications works fine. I just met some resolution problems. Resize window not working good in mutter. [15:43] bfiller: But it's not related to moblin. [15:44] QUESTION: can you comment on that Intel/Microsoft Silverlight on Moblin announcement? Does that have any relevance to UMR? [15:44] AlanBell: don't know much about this, but can tell you the silverlight stuff is not in UMR [15:44] AlanBell: we will only ship components that are open-source in our community verison of UMR [15:45] QUESTION: will normal gtk applications run in Moblin? [15:45] stefanlsd: yes [15:45] QUESTON: can you expand on the description of mojito ? [15:45] paulliu1: I'll let you take this one [15:46] erUSUL: Mojito is a services which manage social services. moblin-panel-myzone will read data from mojito services and display the content (eg. from twitter). [15:46] erUSUL: Developer can use libmojito-dev to develop their own plugins. [15:47] erUSUL: So it's not hard to add Yahoo 360 blog services into mojito. [15:47] erUSUL: I believe mojito also supports facebook, lastfm and others [15:47] QUESTION: Any long-term plans to merge UNR and UMR? [15:47] erUSUL: Currently mojito supports facebook, lastfm, twitter, digg, and flickr. [15:48] lifer999: don't think so [15:48] lifer999: they are both on different paths/codebases so I think it's doubtful, but that's just my opinion [15:49] QUESTION: How usable is upstream fedora based moblin for day to day use ? [15:49] erUSUL: I use it as a reference only, so not sure how robust it is [15:49] erUSUL: but I expect it works ok for personal use [15:50] QUESTION: Will moblin support enterprise grade wireless at some point or is there a way to have moblin use NM? [15:50] Pres-Gas: good question [15:50] Pres-Gas: moblin can use Network Manager instead of connman [15:50] Pres-Gas: you just need the network-manager-netbook UI, which is the moblin UI toolbar plugin that talks to network manager [15:51] Pres-Gas: in fact network-manager-netbook is in our PPA but failing to build :) So if someone wants to fix it that would be great :) [15:51] Pres-Gas: ppa is here: https://edge.launchpad.net/~moblin/+archive/ppa/ [15:52] Pres-Gas: it actually works really well [15:52] QUESTION: Is installing propietary hardware drivers as easy as in Ubuntu? [15:52] keffie_jayx: yes, jockey-gtk is installed but you'll need to manually run it as there is no gnome-panel to show the notification icon :) [15:53] keffie_jayx: but should work just fine [15:53] QUESTION: What's your opinion of ChromeOS? [15:53] lifer999: that's for a different day :) [15:54] QUESTION: what is the situation regarding the infamous GMA500 graphic driver regarding UMR ? [15:54] erUSUL: oh, the poulsbo (: [15:55] erUSUL: there is no pouslbo driver for karmic so it's not supported, but I've heard Intel will be releasing a driver in the future (hopefully open source) that will make it work [15:56] erUSUL: see http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzY2Mg [15:57] just a few minutes left, any other questions? [15:58] ok, I guess that's a wrap! Thanks everybody. [15:58] thanks bfiller and paulliu1 [15:58] Amaranth: you're welcome! [15:58] next up is emmajane with Writing a book === akgraner changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to Ubuntu Open Week! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek || Current Session: Writing a book - emmajane | All questions go in #ubuntu-classroom-chat || [16:01] is that my queue to go? :) [16:01] Take it away emmajane :-) [16:01] Excellent! [16:02] Hello and welcome to my session on Writing a Book: A Tour of Ubuntu for Aspiring Authors. As always, I'm very excited to get the chance to talk about documentation. Thanks to all the folks who made this week happen and especially to jcastro and akgraner! [16:02] (and also to Amaranth for doing the intros) [16:02] I'm going to cover main three topics today: (1) So you think you want to write a book?, (2) Distribution and (3) my Toolkit. I hope you'll find the information useful. Please add your questions in the #ubuntu-classroom-chat channel and I'll do my best to answer everyone's questions. [16:02] Topic 1/3: So you think you want to write a book? [16:02] With the success of Front End Drupal I've had a lot of people telling me they too have a great idea for a book. Fantastic! The world needs more books. But what is your motivation for writing this book? [16:03] Are you writing it for you because you have to get something off your chest? Or are you writing a book because you think it will sell? [16:03] These are very different motivations and it's important to know which one is yours before you start. [16:03] If you're writing for you, have at it! These books often include genres like memoirs, fiction and more "personal" accounts of things. They don't worry too much about "will people buy this" so much as, "do these characters have integrity?" Of course every author will fret about their books and whether or not anyone will like it. [16:03] (Trust me I know) [16:04] Writing a book that you want to sell. I'll assume that most people here are interested in writing some kind of "tech" book (or at least non-fiction).... [16:04] If you are writing to sell it is absolutely critical that you do some market research first. [16:04] Some of the things you will need to know are: [16:04] (1) who are your competitors in this field? Are there already books on this topic? How well are they selling? (Check their Amazon rank to get a general idea of this.) [16:05] (2) What does the market think of your competitors? Look for reviews about the books that have been written. Does the audience think that a certain topic was missed in the book? or covered poorly or incorrectly? Find out what people think is missing from what is already written. [16:05] (3) If there are no books on the topic, find out if there really is an audience. Just because a lot of people are interested in acoustic heavy metal, it doesn't mean they'll actually buy a book on the topic. Is your audience a buying audience? [16:05] As you define the scope of your book, and your target audience, you will begin to develop your outline of topics that are important enough for you to spend hundreds of hours working on... [16:05] Yes: hundreds of hours. [16:05] By the time you've written your book, edited your book, and marketed your book you will have spent at least three hours for every page of text. I wrote approximately 290 pages of Front End Drupal. (3x290=870 hours) That doesn't include the time my reviewers spent on the book, the graphic designer, the indexer, and the marketing team. [16:06] I know it seems like a glamorous life to be an author, but it's a lot of work! [16:06] So do you STILL think you want to write a book? :) [16:06] I'm going to pause here and see if there are any questions in #ubunut-classroom-chat [16:07] Is anyone here thinking about writing a book? [16:07] (or maybe not anymore? ;) ) [16:07] Excellent! Both hao and jledbetter are (still) thinking about writing a book. :) [16:08] hao, has a very specific topic in mind, which is great! It's writing an introduction of ubuntu linux in Chinese [16:08] QUESTION: how could you make a living from writing a tech book? I mean it's not Harry Potter. [16:08] Short answer? You can't. [16:09] Generally technical authors consider their books to be very expensive business cards which get them more consulting work. [16:10] some authors will put out one new book a year and plan to retire on their royalties. But no one that i know earns a living JUST from technical writing of books. [16:10] There's also magazine articles and other forms of paid writing... [16:10] QUESTION:has voice-recognition soft, made true ghostwriting possible? [16:10] Lots of authors say their book instead of writing it. [16:11] I don'tknow that voice recognition software is worth the hassle of getting it trained to your voice. Some folks have excellent skills and make it work; others simply hire someone to transcribe the audio tapes. [16:12] Ok. I'm going to move on to the next topic... [16:12] Let's take a look at some of the different business and publishing models that are available today... [16:12] Topic 2/3: Distribution [16:13] There are essentially two ways to put your book in front of an audience: by having someone else "publish" your book; or by publishing your own book. They both have advantages and disadvantages. Let's take a look at those now. [16:13] First I'll speak to working with a publisher. I was incredibly lucky to get a wonderful publisher on my first book contract. With that said, what I got was essentially industry standard. That means: 10% of net sales and I do not retain my copyright. [16:13] 10% of net means that when Amazon puts the very heavy discounts onto the book, I get less money. Generally my share is less than $2 for every book sold (even though the book retails for $40). [16:13] And I don't keep my copyright. [16:13] Sounds sort of crappy, right? Well... there are HUGE benefits to working with a large publisher: [16:13] (1) They already have a distribution network that is going to get your book onto bookshelves all over the world. Front End Drupal sales are highest in the US, but they have also sold thousands of copies internationally. [16:14] (2) The publisher is INCREDIBLY motivated to get your book into as many hands as possible. They will send out free review copies on your behalf to anyone that you think should have a copy. Although I'm not sure what the ratio is, I bet for every free review copy that gets mailed out, there are hundreds of sales. [16:14] (3) The publisher has the in-house resources to get your book into as many formats as possible. Front End Drupal is available in print, as a PDF, by subscription in Safari Readers Library (same as the O'Reilly books), as a Kindle book and it's being translated into other languages (which I will also get royalties from). [16:14] So on the one hand I give up some of the freedoms that I might have, but on the other hand, I have a publishing house that's very motivated to sell my book. Not all publishers are this motivated. You will need to do your research. [16:14] A note on copyright: while the publisher does retain copyright... I don't have a problem with this. They are paying me for my work and we are in a business relationship to make money. This is like your boss owning your copyright for the work you do on their time. [16:15] (or many software projects which owning your volunteer contributions... check the fine print if you don't believe me. ;) ) [16:15] The ADVANTAGE to this is that they have the pockets to chase down copyright infringement. [16:15] Some authors ask for copyright, or what an alternative license. That's great too. But for a technical reference book with a shelf life of no more than two years... I don't really care if the publisher wants to retain full rights. The content is almost out of date as soon as it hits the printer. You need to make your own decisions on this. [16:16] So let's pretend you want to self publish... [16:16] You get to make all the rules about the license and distribution and format of the book. But ... you also have to do all the work. [16:17] I think it makes sense to self publish when there is a very small market, or if you are trying new ideas and want to be able to do iterative development on your manuscript. In addition to Front End Drupal I have also published two books on my own (which are available as CC-licensed work from emmajane.net). I have a kit on email marketing that is available for sale from HICK Tech as well. === richard is now known as Guest57669 [16:17] I also have a few articles and books which are GNU FDL through the Linux Documentation Project (www.tldp.org). [16:17] Just because you choose to work with a publisher for some of your work, doesn't mean that you are limited to that relationship. My publisher does, however, know about all the work that I put out. I feel it's very important to maintain this relationship because of the non-compete clause in my contract with them. [16:19] There have been a few questions about licensing in #ubuntu-classroom-chat. Licensing is a big topic so I'm going to break here and let people ask those questions if they have them. The most important part about licensing is your freedom to choose what is most appropriate for each of your projects. What's right for me, may not be right for you. [16:19] QUESTION any follow up book to Front End Drupal would have to go through the publisher first, if they chose to publish then you would be bound by the non-compete clause? [16:20] With my publisher I have a written contract which states I will not produce anything in print which will compete with the sales of Front End Drupal (theming of Drupal, version 6). [16:20] I also have an excellent relationship with my publisher and choose to give them right of first refusal on future projects which I believe are relevant to their market and which they can distribute better than I can. [16:21] some things aren't "big enough" or "developed enough" for me to take to them as a book project. e.g. my ebook on email marketing is only 40 pages. [16:21] emmajane: ok. the publisher chose not to go with the second book, you are free to self-publish? [16:21] For any book on Drupal I would not choose to self-publish. [16:22] What a traditional publisher can do for me is far greater than what I can do on my own. [16:22] If I wanted to put out a mini book with more advanced topics (or more beginner topics) which does not compete with the sales of FED, I'm free to do so. [16:23] Any other questions about licensing? I know there was a question about whether the GNU FDL would be covered, but I'm not sure what the question was? [16:24] * emmajane pauses just in case people are typing their questions... [16:24] QUESTION: about GNU FDL, this is the license I found on wikipedia. So do you consider using mediawiki a great way to write a book with lots of people? [16:25] The notion of authorship and collaboration is very very interesting. [16:25] When I write in collaboration with others I generally "hide" my voice and allow others to edit it. In this case the free-est possible license is the best one. [16:26] GNU FDL has limitations that are good for "book" books (e.g. restrictions on keeping the front matter (which is the copyright stuff) intact), but I think it's less relevant for non-linear texts such as Wikis. [16:26] FLOSS Manuals is another project that focuses on collaborative writing. [16:26] I think they're using GPL? [16:27] so that they can mix with code as well. [16:27] collaborative writing can be wonderful, but I think one of the most interesting and engaging parts of a book is the voice the author brings to it. [16:27] if you are working on a "book" without a voice... I'mn ot sure how good of a read that would be? it sounds dry and dull to me. :/ [16:28] (Even my Calculus text book in university, Spivak? had humour about rabbit population dynamics) [16:28] QUESTION: Are you finding publishers (or your publisher, I guess) are looking for things that have more of a narrative, and engage the reader, rather than old tech manual infodumps? How can a writer make dry technical topics more engaging? Thoughts along those lines? [16:28] Technical manuals are things that get shoved into boxes and are never read. [16:29] They aren't books. They're monitor elevators so that your screen is at the right height. ;) [16:29] Hopefully they were written by someone who is on staff and isn't trying to make any kind of supplemental income from their writing. [16:30] Front End Drupal had lots of fun examples and "interesting" chapter introductions. [16:30] The book had: ponies, kittens, pirates, toilet birthdays, hobbits, orks ... um... what else... [16:30] oh right. Some stuff about Drupal. [16:30] :) [16:30] I'm taking my first colledge writing class, and for one team writing assignment, people write different parts, and then one person edits it to have a uniform voice. Maybe that's the way to do it [16:31] Yes, that's how they do book sprints at FLOSS Manuals. [16:31] (www.flossmanuals.net if you're interested) [16:32] * emmajane pauses to see if there are any more questions? [16:32] seeing none... [16:32] And finally, let's take a look at the tools I used to create Front End Drupal and my other, self-published books. [16:32] Topic 3/3: Toolkit [16:32] There are basically four tools that I use when writing: paper to do the planning, a text editor to write the initial draft, version control to save my bacon when things go wrong, a screen grab tool and a word processing tool. [16:33] More specifically this is: ... well ... paper and a fountain pen. The pen is a Parker pen I bought in England and the paper is typically 24lb bond paper with as much recycled fibre as possible. [16:33] But you probably wanted to know about the tech tools? [16:33] The first draft of Front End Drupal was written in Vim. I also use TomBoy a lot. (This spring I wrote ~10,000 words in TomBoy) This is just a draft to get as many words as possible written out. [16:33] These text files are versioned using svn at first and then Bazaar for the second half of the book. I could go more into this process... but there are a lot of resources already available for this (some of which I've even written). Start at www.bazaar-vcs.org, or check out my previous Open Week presentations. [16:34] Once the first draft has been written, I start to look at the formatting I'll need. Whether I'm self-publishing or working with a formal publisher, there's going to be some kind of template required at some point to make things pretty. [16:34] Front End Drupal used MS Word templates from the publisher. I, of course, used OpenOffice.org for this step. The publisher then converts these templates into some other format which they then send to the printer. I get to see final PDFs to do a final proof before the book gets printed (and also between each print run). [16:34] When I'm self-publishing, I use my own templates in OOo and output PDF. Depending on how I want to sell the book I can then either upload to a printer, such as Lulu.com... or I can just print the text off on my own colour laser printer as needed. [16:35] (Although my desktop computers are all purchased used, I do invest in good peripherals...including my printer.) [16:35] For screen shot tools I use Ubuntu's "Take Snapshot" tool and also the Firefox plugin, Screengrab. The second one allows you to take a picture of a page that is taller than a browser window. This is incredibly helpful for Web writing. [16:35] and that's my toolkit. When I'm working on other documentation projects where I want to output to multiple formats (e.g. PDF and HTML) I use more sophisticated tools than OOo (specifically: DocBook). [16:36] My guess is that there will be a lot of questions on tools. So I've left a ton of time to go over specific questions about tools, and any other questions you have about writing books! [16:36] QUESTION: what is your view on writing books using LaTeX? [16:37] Writing books should happen in a plain text editor. Marking up text for formatting and distribution should happen in whatever tool chain is going to give you the output formats you need. [16:37] I know lots of people who swear by LaTeX. For me XML has always made more sense because HTML was my first "machine" language. [16:37] QUESTION: would you prefer to self-publish in a format other than pdf? [16:38] PDF is just a format for printing, IMO. If you expect to distribute and allow others to print output, you should be working with PDFs. [16:39] If you want people to contribute to your work, you may want to use a Wiki instead of a PDF as an output. I would still work in some kind of machine readable language that can output to multiple formats though. (Some wikis will do this.) But my definition of "book" is pretty traditional and always includes a linearized version of the text at some point. [16:39] QUESTION: what about lyx? [16:40] See above re. LaTeX. [16:40] My answer for any of the machine languages is essentially the same: if you like it, and it outputs to formats you want, go for it! [16:40] If you are collaborating with others and you're the only person who cares about that format... well... you may want to consider using something else. [16:40] QUESTION: Do you write all text before adding screenshots? [16:40] "all" is a pretty subjective term... [16:41] Generally I have an outline and I know where screen shots are going to be relevant. I leave little notes to myself in the first draft to add screen shots later. [16:41] Software has a nasty habit of changing GUI widgets. So I try to leave the pictures out for as long as possible. [16:41] QUESTION: Do you use Bzr in centralized mode or distributed ("shared working tree") mode? Why? (Or did the question ever cross your mind?) [16:41] It depends who else I'm working with. :) [16:42] It's just like software development though... choose the right model for your team. [16:42] QUESTION: How often and how many do you let "proof-read"? [16:43] I had over ten reviewers for Front End Drupal. [16:43] Three peer/target market reviewers; three tech reviewers; one copy editor; one "technical" editor that made sure I was conforming to Pearson's style guide. [16:43] I think that's all the reviewers I had... [16:44] QUESTION: Do you think a lot more books should be offered as a paid for book, but also a free Ebook, from whoever wrote/published it? [16:44] Well.... I think that authors should have the freedom to make that decision for themselves. [16:44] It's great when an author has a full time job and can afford to take the risk with their publisher of giving away free books. [16:45] I give away a LOT of my material as well. But when I spend the time to put hundreds of hours into a linear book that is my voice, I'm not so keen to give it away. [16:45] I do, however, contribute an (almost) equal amount of time to free software projects to help with their documentation. [16:45] e.g. this talk! :) [16:46] I also write technical content for lots of projects. That goes back to "hiding" my voice on collaborative works though. [16:46] QUESTION: Have you checked out Google Wave? Any thought vis-a-vis publishing? [16:46] I have a Google Wave account. [16:46] publishing though? erm. [16:46] I dunno. I guess I'm just old skool. [16:47] I've used the collaborative editing tools as well (one is a desktop client that gets used at UDS, gobby?) and there's a Web-based one too (the name is escaping me though). [16:47] QUESTION: How important is an attractive and illustrative cover page for a tech book? (sorry if the question has been asked) [16:48] wellllllllllllllllllll... um... [16:48] go look at the cover of Front End Drupal and then let me know privately how important you think the cover is. ;) [16:48] I'm just kidding. [16:48] I think it's important to the stores who don't know anything about tech and are going to put your book on their shelves. [16:49] I don't think it's important to the buyers if you already have a name in the community and a "loyal" following. [16:49] QUESTION: do you have any broad recommendations for someone looking to improve their writing craft? someone who might some day want to write a book, but doesn't feel like their writing is "there" yet? [16:49] Two words: Write. Lots. [16:50] Writing is a skill that takes practice. You can't go from writing nothing to writing a whole book. :) [16:50] or maybe s/can't/shouldn't/ [16:50] But seriously: just get stuck in there and start writing every day. [16:50] Contribute to Wikis and documentation projects if you're nervous about your own voice. [16:51] Fix stuff that looks "broken" to you and think about why you want to change it. [16:51] Blog. [16:51] Journal. [16:51] I also find that talking a lot helps to develop a voice. When you read my stuff you can "hear" me. [16:51] QUESTION: Do you think that proprietary closed source paid for book writing software, that has only been made for Windows, should ideally be ported to Desktop Linux soon, especially if it is rather popular, and won't work properly in Wine or at all, even after attempted configuring? [16:52] erm... like InDesign? [16:52] I'm not sure which software you're referring to. [16:52] or FrameMaker? [16:52] or... [16:52] Book *writing* software is stuff like Notepad and TomBoy. :) [16:53] I assume you mean a formatting tool, not a writing tool.... [16:54] a Writing tool is something like a pen and paper. :) [16:55] It's true that Linux doesn't have very sophisticated formatting GUIs, but I think you'll find that a lot of huge publishing houses don't either and they use stuff like DocBook and LaTeX as well. [16:55] For most people OpenOffice.org will do a fine job of formatting short texts (under 200 pages). [16:56] There are more complicated layout tools as well, but if I'm doing something bigger, I generally just switch to DocBook. Should there be more tools? I'm not sure... I think I'd rather have the programmers work on things with a larger market. [16:57] QUESTION: which is the the book or books that you have already read and while you were in the process you thought: that's a good one, good written ... [16:57] Every book has good lessons in it. [16:57] They're all different though. Choosing a favourite would be like having to pick between my cat and my rabbit. It'd be a hard choice. :) [16:57] QUESTION: what's the next book, you're dying to write? [16:58] I'm already on contract to write the prequel to Front End Drupal. :) [16:58] So that's the next book. :) [16:59] We're almost out of time so I guess that's a wrap! [16:59] Thanks for all your great questions, folks! [16:59] That was great. === jcastro changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to Ubuntu Open Week! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek || Session: Getting People involved in your LoCo/Team || All questions go in #ubuntu-classroom-chat | [16:59] thanks alot emmajane! [17:00] Ok next up we have Jono Bacon with "Getting People involved in your LoCo/Team" [17:00] I am going to give it a few mins for late stragglers [17:04] alrighty [17:04] I think we can get started [17:04] firstly, thanks everyone for joining me in my session today [17:04] and thanks to everyone for joining in the wider open week schedule [17:04] we have an awesome set of sessions throughout the week [17:05] the goal of this session is to discuss methods in which you can help spread the word about your team and have people get involved [17:05] this session is squarely focused on outreach, and the resource that you need in place to make outreach succesful [17:06] the plan is that I am going to cover some key topics and then throw the session open to Q+A where you can ask your team-related questions [17:06] ok, lets get started... [17:06] one of the reasons why I love the Ubuntu community is its diverse and abundant set of teams [17:06] we have teams covering development, advocacy, documentation, translations, testing and more [17:07] each of these teams helps gather people together to focus on common problems, and to help move Ubuntu forward in quality and features [17:08] teams are fairly common in communities, and even tiny communities will often break down different skills into different teams [17:08] teams help facilitate more effective communication (you can have team-specific mailing lists, IRC channels etc), and a sense of localized morale can build in a team [17:09] but teams offer two specific benefits which we will capitalize on when attracting people to them [17:09] the first is Scope [17:09] if we look at the global Ubuntu community we can literally tens of thousands of people passionate about the community [17:09] these people are spread across forums, mailing lists, IRC channels, physical meeting, social media sites and more [17:10] if we were to put all of these people into one huge room (such as a football stadium), we would be overwhelmed [17:10] we would feel like a raindrop in the sea [17:10] this would in turn make it difficult for us to build social connections and feel a sense of scope [17:10] scope is critical for us to feel like we understand the full extent of the team [17:11] if we join at a team that has 10 people in it, we feel like we fully understand the extent of the team when we know those 10 people [17:11] if the team has 20,000 people in it, we will always feel somewhat insecure about where we fit in, due to the raindrop issue [17:12] LoCo teams are great solutions for scope - they provide a safe place in which other people of similar cultural backgrounds (French, German, Spanish, Estonian etc) can get together in a team that is typically small enough that we can all feel the scope of the team [17:13] the way we capitalize scope is to really secure 1-on-1 relationships between the members, this will in turn make the team feel all warm and fuzzy [17:13] the second element of teams is Belonging [17:13] the reason why people stick around in communities is to feel a sense of belonging [17:14] this is how it typically works: [17:14] Sarah discovers Ubuntu [17:14] she likes it, starts learning more about it, and is keen to meet others who like it [17:15] she learns about the community and decided to join a team, such as her local team Ubuntu-UK [17:15] she joins the team and meets a warm reception, and discovers events that are happening, team projects, meetings and other activities to keep her occupied [17:15] she contributes some wiki pages, draws some icons, attends some meetings and some other things for the team [17:16] people enjoy he contributions and thank her for it [17:16] she likes this, and this drives her enthusiasm to contribute more [17:16] she makes more contributions and more people appreciate it [17:17] before long everyone in the team knows Sarah and they respect her work, and she feels a tremendous sense of achievement and belonging [17:17] the other folks in Ubuntu-UK are no longer names on the Internet, but instead friends [17:18] this drives a sense of belonging, a sense that Ubuntu-UK is a safe and inspiring place for her online, and a little bit like the TV show Cheers where "everybody knows your name" [17:18] (I hope the Cheers theme music is now going to pester your brains all day, folks) :-) [17:18] so in a nutshell, with our teams we want to communicate these two key attributes: [17:19] 1. Scope - make the team feel small, loose and close: make sure that everyone feels they have an opportunity to know what is going on and who is involved. [17:20] 2. Belonging - build a positive atmosphere, focused on doing productive and fun things, and ensure that contributions are welcomed and celebrated. [17:20] so, how do we build these things? well lets get started [17:20] the first thing you need is a firm web presence [17:20] now, so so so many team make the same mistake when they form [17:21] it works a little like this: [17:21] 1. Start a team [17:21] 2. Create a communication channel - typically a mailing list [17:21] 3. Get close friends involved - the team is now about 5 people strong [17:21] 4. Promote a little - a few blog entries, Twitter posts [17:21] 5. Decide a web presence is needed. [17:22] 6. Spend the next two months bickering about which CMS to use [17:22] the first few months of any team are like the first few months of a babies life - it is about making a social connection [17:22] and not arguing about what color their clothes should be [17:23] the first few months should be about building a team - starting to develop these social connections [17:23] it is about ensuring that people can meet each other, get to know other people in the team, learning what skills everyone can bring to the team etc [17:23] the arguing about CMSs issue always detracts from setting up a team [17:24] as such I always recommend: create some wiki pages on wiki.ubuntu.com and just use that for now as a means to store information, the CMS can come later [17:24] the content on your web presence should be focused on these social connections [17:24] some ideas: [17:25] * Members page - have a page in which your members can put their picture, short bios and links to their website [17:25] * Meetings - you should schedule regular IRC meetings with an open agenda - make sure your team knows when the meeting is and how they can get involved - I will talk meetings more in a bit [17:27] * Knowledge Base - you should start documenting common information that your members need to know - if you are a LoCo team, specify the kind of work you plan on doing, where you meet etc - if you are a translation team, document common word dictionaries, step-by-step guide to making translations suggestions in Rosetta etc [17:27] the goal of our web presence is to answer the common questions your team has when it forms [17:27] we want to make sure the barrier to entry is low [17:27] as I said earlier, a key thing here is Communication [17:28] two communication resources are needed: [17:28] 1. Channels - you want to provide an effective means for the team to talk at any time - most teams have (1) a mailing list and (2) an IRC channel - mailing lists are great for longer discussions and IRC channels are perfect for building social connections [17:30] 2. Scheduled Team Time - it important that you come together as a team regularly to discuss topics - the problem with mailing lists and IRC is that people will dip in at random times - when you schedule some team time, you provide an opportunity for everyone to get together at once - this is typically in the form of IRC meetings [17:30] these meetings are the first critical method getting people involved [17:30] when scheduling meetings you should do the following: [17:31] 1. Document the details - have a wiki page that outlines where you meet (which IRC channel and which network), what time (most use the UTC timezone although for LoCo teams it is usually fine to use your local timezone), and what dates (they are often recurring (e.g. the first Tuesday of every month) [17:32] 2. Ensure key attendance - the founders and leaders of the team absolutely need to attend meetings - it is these people that will drive discussion forward, keep people motivated and ensure everone gets a chance to speak [17:32] 3. Public Agenda - have a wiki page in which everyone can add an item to the agenda to discuss - this is soooooo important - it makes the team feel open and accessible [17:32] and then..... [17:33] 4. Promote! [17:33] you should spread the word about your meeting everywhere [17:33] good places include: [17:33] * Member blogs - particularly if on Planet Ubuntu [17:33] * Twitter / identi.ca - announce the meeting and also announce an hour before it kicks off that it is taking place - this will be a good reminder [17:34] * Facebook - consider creating a Facebook page for your team and announce meetings there [17:35] * Mailing List / IRC Channel / Team Resources - be sure to announce the meeting to your team, they are the key participants - post to your mailing list, but it in your IRC channel's topic and ensure it is on your team wiki pages [17:35] now, there is one big misconception about promotion [17:35] that is that the only people responsible for it are leaders [17:36] you need encourage *everyone* in your team to promote your meetings [17:37] a good way of doing this is documenting a firm commitment for people to blog or promote it on give days - as an example, for the Ubuntu Global Jam, we had a meeting once and of the 15 or so primary participants, we asked each to commit to a blog entry about the event on a different day [17:37] this ensured a consistent spread of messaging on Planet Ubuntu [17:38] I can't emphasize enough how important meetings are [17:39] *every* team should have them, and if you feel like you have nothing discuss, you have a problem: the point of a team is to *do things*, and if you have no content for your meeting, you are not sufficiently running your team [17:39] so, the first step are these meetings - they are the easiest to organize, cost nothing to run, and easy for people to participate [17:39] with these meetings you should discussing projects that you want your team to work on [17:40] I strongly recommend you take the same approach I take with my team at Canonical with this regard [17:40] for the horsemen I flesh out a plan for each cycle about what we will focus on [17:40] so as an example, for the 10.04 cycle I have asked each of the guys to document what they want to work on, and we decide together how much we can achieve [17:41] we then document these projects in blueprints on Launchpad and this gives us a good sense of what we are focusing our efforts on [17:41] as such, I would recommend that you consider discussing plans on a per cycle basis for your team [17:41] lets look at an example of a loco team [17:41] a 10.04 plan for a LoCo team could involve: [17:42] * organizing an Ubuntu Global Jam event [17:42] * organizing a release party [17:42] * working together on a given translations [17:42] translation [17:42] * creating some resources for the team, such as flyers, stickers etc [17:43] * planning on running a booth at a given conference or shoiw [17:43] show [17:43] each of these different ideas can be registered as a blueprint where you can decide what action items need to be developed to achieve the project and who will volunteer for it [17:44] this kind of project management approach to teams may seem a little tedious at first, but what it does is it firmly states some projects that team members can contribute to [17:44] it provides focus and direction for the team, and meetings are a great opportunity to discuss these team projects [17:45] part of the reason I am promoting the idea of building a plan for each cycle is that each project you agree on will be a carrot and stick to attract new members to your team [17:46] just going out there and saying "woo! come and join our LoCo, it is awesome!" is typically not enough, and if people do join, they will get bored if there is nothing to work on [17:47] but instead going out and saying "woo! our team is working on this cool event, and we are looking for people to help, go and check out this blueprint which outlines the project and join this meeting to come and discuss it" - this provides some real meat on the bones [17:47] this is the key in getting people involved - provide great communication opportunities and an interesting set of projects to work on [17:48] the *vast majority* of teams that struggle in getting off the ground are teams that have failed to set a sense of direction - we look to leaders to do this, and this project planning approach that I am recommending wil solve this [17:48] when you have your project plan in place, you can then go and shout from the rooftops to get people interested and involved [17:48] ok, I am going to grab a glass of water and then I will take some questions [17:51] QUESTION: Can you give an example of what a team that "fails to get off the ground" looks like? [17:51] sure [17:51] typically it looks like this: [17:51] * team forms, puts resources in place, excitement builds [17:52] * ideas are generate but in an ad-hoc, random way, no real structure or planning is put in place [17:52] * new members are unsure of how to get involved in an idea due to this lack of structure, nothing gets done, the mailing list starts getting quiet [17:52] * the team then loses momentum and starts to stagnate [17:53] QUESTION: when do you think is the best time to do the LoCo meeting?, thinking on each ubuntu release... [17:53] online meetings I recommend as at least one a month [17:53] physical meetings can happen whenever but I always recommend at least one Ubuntu Global Jam event and one release party [17:54] what project could be a good start to gather people and get them involved? [17:54] a great start could be one of these: [17:54] * Ubuntu Global Jam event (this is a physical event where people get together to work on Ubuntu) [17:54] * Release Party (another physical event where people get together to celebrate the release) [17:55] * Wiki Jam (maybe organize an online event where people get together to build out the team wiki pages) [17:55] * Physical Meets (maybe organize some physical meetings with presentations) [17:56] basically any project that the team is interested in working on, be it physical or online is cool, the key is building a structure around that project [17:56] QUESTION: should all of the team members be ubuntu-religious? For example: we got a couple of people who uses mac os x on the pcs but use ubuntu on servers and make a development work (sent patches and etc) for ubuntu projects. how to deal with this - the presentation is important not less than the development. how can one tell people - go and get ubuntu and on the other hand use mac os x or windows 7 for his own needs? [17:56] I would argue that *everyone* is welcome [17:57] we want to have an atmosphere in which people can migrate to Ubuntu [17:57] when I formed a Linux User Group many new people used Windows and eventually transitioned to Linux [17:57] QUESTION: A follow-up... What would you consider numeric failure, or is there such a thing? [17:57] not sure what is numeric failture === jcastro changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to Ubuntu Open Week! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek (changes made, please check regularly) || Session: Byobu by Dustin Kirkland || All questions go in #ubuntu-classroom-chat [17:57] (3 minutes left) -ed [17:57] QUESTION: What is the most important contribution a LoCo can make to the Ubuntu ecosystem? As specific as possible, if you can. [17:58] there is no single contribution that trumps others, but I think LoCo teams really excel in advocacy [17:58] namely: going and representing Ubuntu in their local area, providing a local support network, and representing Ubuntu at events [17:58] QUESTION: how can we encourage people with no interest in computers to be involved? [17:59] at least some interest in computers is needed, but having a group that provides a friendly, encouraging and welcoming atmosphere is the first step [17:59] ok folks, my time is up [17:59] thanks everyone for joining my session! [17:59] and I recommend you all join #ubuntu-locoteams if you are in a LoCo team [17:59] thanks! [18:00] * kirkland high fives jono [18:00] * jono high-fives kirkland [18:00] Alrighty, I'll attempt to follow the illustrious Jono's presentation on the Bacon Community [18:00] lol [18:01] ask him about his very own t-shirt line on the subject some time :-) [18:01] haha [18:01] okay, howdy everyone [18:01] rock on kirkland :-) [18:01] my presentation is on an awesome piece of software that I think makes Ubuntu very unique [18:01] particularly, Ubuntu servers and command lines [18:01] but Ubuntu desktops too [18:01] something I wrote called Byobu [18:01] question 1 is usually, "how on earth do you pronounce that..." [18:02] * http://people.canonical.com/~kirkland/byobu.wav [18:02] well there you go [18:02] byobu is a japanese term for a fancy, folding screen [18:02] http://images.google.com/images?q=byobu <--- something like that [18:02] so a quick poll over in #ubuntu-classroom-chat .... [18:03] raise your right hand o/ if you're completely new to GNU screen in #ubuntu-classroom-chat [18:04] okay, so byobu is a layer of scripts and configuration utilities that sit on top of GNU screen [18:04] i think that it makes it far more useful, and usable [18:04] in jaunty, an early version of byobu was available under a different name [18:04] called, screen-profiles [18:04] byobu is the followon to screen-profiles, being much faster and more usable [18:04] so lets dive right into the demonstration! [18:05] to participate in the demo, you will need to keep an eye on your irc client (here) [18:05] and to open up a new terminal, like gnome-terminal, and ssh to a system i've configured in EC2 [18:05] ssh -C guest@ec2-75-101-202-231.compute-1.amazonaws.com [18:06] the password is guest [18:06] you will have read-only access to this screen [18:06] and i'll drive the demo [18:06] at the moment, you should see something that looks like the Matrix on the screen [18:07] i generated this setup with another tool i wrote called "screenbin" [18:07] for sharing screensessions in EC2 [18:07] okay, we have 30+ people in already [18:07] so i'm going to unlock the screen [18:07] now, i've ssh'd to a second machine in EC2 [18:08] where I'm running byobu! [18:08] byobu is a window manager [18:08] similar, in some respects to gnome or kde [18:08] but entirely in a text interface [18:08] we can open new windows, move among open windows [18:08] attach/detach from sessions [18:08] and configure notification applets [18:09] okay, so across the bottom of the screen you should see 2 lines [18:09] the upper line showing the open windows [18:09] the lower line showing some stats about my system [18:09] most of the keybindings are attached to F-keys [18:09] so first, i'm going to open a few more windows [18:09] using the key [18:09] now i have windows 0 - 3 [18:10] i can use and to move back and forth among the windows [18:10] let's run a few different programs in each window [18:10] i'm going to run "top" in window 3 [18:10] now, i want to rename window 3 from "bash" to "top" [18:10] so I use the key [18:11] i'll choose a name for this window to make it easier to find [18:11] now i can move back and forth to the "top" window when I need to [18:11] perhaps i use other windows for a web browser, and irc [18:12] you get the idea [18:12] now, let's play with the configuration [18:12] you should see a hint on one of the lines at the bottom [18:12] Menu: [18:13] here, we have a curses based menu [18:13] first, let's look at the help available on Byobu [18:13] this shows you these F-keybindings that i've been using [18:13] we've gone over F2, F3, F4, F8, and F9 [18:13] we'll do the other shortly [18:14] now consider for a second the normal screen keybidings [18:14] ie, without Byobu [18:15] hmm, i'm having trouble getting those to come up because of my double screen session [18:15] but if you try ctrl-a-? in a local screen session, you'll see them [18:15] let's look at the other config options [18:15] we can change the colors of the two lines across the bottom [18:16] okay, i've changed it to cyan [18:16] there's ~15 different colors [18:16] i like to use a different color on each server i manage [18:16] helps with visual recognition of what machine i'm on [18:17] i can also toggle the status notifications of the little things across the bottom [18:17] these are "status notifications" [18:17] so i can see what i have enabled/disabled right now [18:17] now for compatibility, i opened this session 80x25, so that it should fit on *everyone's* screen [18:18] but normall i run my terminals *much* bigger than that, so that i can fit more info across the bottom [18:18] i'm going to enable a couple more here [18:19] okay, i'm going to turn on: hostname, whoami, ipaddress and network traffic [18:19] okay, no i've overused my 80 characters across, so let's turn a few more off [18:19] first, that red "4!" tells me that there are 4 updates available for my system [18:19] let's install those [18:20] give it 7 seconds [18:20] and that 4! should disappear .... [18:20] boom [18:20] the updates installed [18:20] also, i don't really need to know my uptime here [18:20] let's turn that off [18:21] and this is EC2, so i don't really care about my cpu speed [18:21] on my laptop i do, because i use frequency scaling [18:21] Amazon does not though [18:21] cool [18:21] now my info fits across the bottom line [18:22] i'm actually going to turn off the hostname too, since the ip address and hostname are very similar [18:22] and now that i know that F9 is the menu, i don't need that either [18:22] clear? [18:22] cool [18:22] so across the bottom, we have a "logo" [18:22] the 3 color \o/ is like 1/3 of the ubuntu logo [18:23] this is an Ubuntu 9.10 system [18:23] which differs based on where you run this [18:23] 1# means that there's only 1 person logged into *this* system [18:23] actually all of you (42 of you) are logged into a different one, that i used to ssh to this one [18:23] the ~$0.31 is interesting here.... [18:24] that's an approximation of how much this EC2 instance is costing me [18:24] (or Canonical, as the case is) [18:24] there's up and down networking [18:24] which is pretty low right now [18:24] but if I start downloading something big, that will spike [18:25] let's watch the network traffic increase :-) [18:25] that's a lot of bandwidth :-) [18:25] i can go back and forth to other windows [18:25] while that downloads [18:25] in fact, I can disconnect, and come back later! [18:25] watch this ... [18:25] F6 -> detach [18:26] so now I'm back at my other system [18:26] sorry, forgot how to reattach for a second there ! [18:26] byobu -x reattaches [18:26] as you can see, my download continued in the background [18:27] let's look at the rest of the configuration [18:27] so perhaps you don't like the F-keys [18:27] because they conflict with some other program [18:27] like mc [18:27] you can disable them easily here [18:28] or you can just toggle them on/off while you're in byobu with ctrl-a-! [18:28] but i like them, so i'm going to cancel [18:28] i can also change the escape sequence [18:28] which is ctrl-a by default [18:28] but often emacs users dislike this [18:28] actually, since i'm using 2 screen session here, ctrl-a is problematic for me [18:29] i'm going to switch this one to ctrl-b [18:29] hah! [18:29] now i can show you screen's hot keys [18:29] i used ctrl-b-? [18:29] this is screen's help [18:30] to do something like our F3/F4 to go back and forth between windows you use ctrl-a-p and ctrl-a-n [18:30] i think F3/F4 is easier :-) [18:30] you can also have a set of default windows open for you when you use byobu [18:30] you can use these or create your own [18:30] none are enabled by default [18:31] but similar to opening firefox and launching your favorite 10 webpages in tabs, you can do something similar in byobu [18:31] finally, you can toggle this setting on and off [18:31] i like byobu so much i have it launch by default every time I ssh or login to a system [18:31] this is nice because my commands are *always* running in a screen session [18:31] I can easily attach/detach any time [18:32] perhaps my Xorg crashes, or my wifi drops [18:32] my programs continue to run in screen [18:32] and I just reattach later [18:32] so back to the notifications .... [18:32] let's say you wanted to find out more about one of the brief little icons at the bottom [18:33] there's a special key you can hit to get detailed information [18:33] ctrl-a-$ [18:33] this is a fancy mode of vim [18:33] there are a couple of hints at the top [18:33] special keys [18:33] zr, zo, zm, zc [18:34] for instance, here's a breakdown of my ec2 cost by component [18:35] cool? [18:35] okay ... [18:35] let's take a quick tour of the config directory [18:35] so your configuration is in .byobu [18:35] your "profile" is a symlink to one of the colored profiles [18:36] changing your color is a matter of updating this symlink (which you can do in the menu) [18:36] this is the nastiness that byobu handles for you :-) [18:36] screen is really powerful, but can be painful to configure [18:37] so one last feature before we open it up for questions .... [18:37] perhaps you use some other distro that doesn't have byobu [18:37] or perhaps you have access to an Ubuntu machine that doesn't have byobu, and you don't have admin access to install it [18:37] byobu comes with an "export" utility [18:38] that will "flatten" the configuration, such that you can copy it somewhere else [18:38] ultimately, byobu is just a really complex screenrc configuration [18:38] man byobu-export [18:38] this is the ticket! [18:38] so i'll choose a color [18:39] and it creates a .tar.gz tarball that i can copy and unzip elsewere [18:39] i'll unzip it to show you what's in there [18:39] so now i have a .screenrc [18:40] this is just one giant, monolithic byobu configuration [18:40] note that the one we use in our package is more modular, and how we can turn features on/off dynamically [18:40] you'll loose a little of that with the export [18:40] but still, it's pretty cool to be able to install this anywhere that you have gnu screen [18:40] i actually use byobu on my Palm Pre, which has WebOS, and includes screen! [18:40] it works like a champ! [18:41] and then there are a few helper scripts in there too [18:41] okay, so i'm going to open the floor to questions.... please post your questions in #ubuntu-classroom-chat, and lead with kirkland: Q: [18:42] nperry-work: sure ... Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal [18:43] nperry-work: and type "byobu" [18:43] nperry-work: that should start a new session [18:43] actually, I encourage *everyone* to give that a shot now, since none of you had write access to our shared term [18:43] MenZa: thanks for the kind words :-) [18:44] brettalton: as to color selection being ambiguous, please file a bug with a suggestion for the improved verbage [18:45] brettalton: defaulting to your local chosen colors would be a sane thing to do, probably [18:45] nperry-work: i don't know what thunar is, but if it's text-based,yes, you should be able to [18:46] but only text-based programs will run in here [18:46] you can launch X programs, if you're using SSH x-forwarding [18:47] lbrinkma: oh, good question about ctrl-a-$ on german keyboard ... I don't know honestly; open a bug about that [18:48] MenZa: regarding your busted colors .... [18:48] MenZa: i see you're on Ubuntu 8.10, which has a bug in screen itself (fixed in later versions, and in the byobu-ppa) [18:48] MenZa: it arbitrarily limits color changes on that line to something very small [18:48] MenZa: upgrade to the backported screen version in the byobu ppa [18:49] brettalton: right so it was really hard for me to choose keybindings [18:49] brettalton: you can always just run "byobu-config" by hand [18:49] brettalton: also, if you have a look at the keybindings definitions, you could add your own to your local ~/.screenrc [18:50] brettalton: your local ~/.screenrc is source LAST, so you can override most of byobu's defaults there, if you're comfortable writing a liine or two of screen config code [18:51] alyssum: so F6 is how you detach [18:51] alyssum: and "byobu -x" is how you re-attach [18:51] alyssum: i setup all of my servers to launch byobu by default [18:51] alyssum: and i use F6 to detach, if i need [18:52] cyphermox: good question ... that's a limitation of screen itself [18:52] cyphermox: something that i'd like to fix in the screen source code [18:52] cyphermox: basically, you could have it automatically update "something" to the last command run in that window [18:52] cyphermox: that's the closest we could get [18:52] cyphermox: i played with it a little, but i didn't like it [18:53] cyphermox: if i ran "ls", my window would change its name to "ls" [18:53] cyphermox: so it was changing "a lot" ... wasn't quite right yet [18:53] cyphermox: so for now, the F8 thing is necessary; sorry [18:54] brettalton: so to have byobu launch by default .... [18:54] brettalton: first, go to each system and sudo apt-get install byobu (if it's not there already) [18:54] brettalton: launch a byobu session with "byobu" [18:54] brettalton: go to configuration -> F9 [18:54] brettalton: and toggle the bottom item │ Byobu currently launches at login (toggle off) │ [18:55] brettalton: then each time you login (ssh or tty), you will start a new byobu session, or reattach to an existing one [18:55] sebsebseb: so shared write access .... [18:55] sebsebseb: that's something a little different, separate from byobu [18:56] sebsebseb: basically, there's two things I needed to do .... [18:56] sebsebseb: I needed to make /usr/bin/screen setuid to root [18:56] -rwsr-sr-x 1 root utmp 361080 2009-07-06 05:36 /usr/bin/screen* [18:56] and then i needed to add a few lines to my .screenrc [18:56] ubuntu@ip-10-243-18-53:~$ cat .screenrc [18:56] aclumask guest+r guest-w guest-x [18:56] aclchg guest +r-w-x '#?' [18:56] aclchg guest +x 'prev,next,select,detach' [18:56] multiuser on [18:57] these aren't default in Ubuntu for obvious security reasons [18:57] for the sake of EC2 and this demo, I don't care [18:57] if one of you starts misbehaving, I just pull the plug on the VM and it's gone :-) [18:57] Landon: great question about screen-profiles vs. byobu ! [18:57] Landon: a complete list of improvements is available at http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2009/11/ubuntu-910-byobu-and-openweek-session.html [18:58] Landon: the highlights ... [18:58] Landon: it's *much* faster, more responsive, performant [18:58] Landon: and it has a lot of little usability improvements [18:58] okay ,my time is running out [18:58] let me leave you with a couple of links .... [18:58] if you want to talk more, head over to #byobu [18:59] if you want to follow announcements, tutorials, howtos, etc, subscribe to: http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/search/label/Byobu [18:59] and for code, dev info, bugs, etc.: https://edge.launchpad.net/byobu [18:59] thanks so much for your time [18:59] if i didn't get to your question, please post in #byobu and i'll answer them there [19:00] done! [19:00] * kirkland looks at that timestamp ^ === akgraner changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to Ubuntu Open Week! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek || ISO Testing Tracker - Ara Pulido || All questions go in #ubuntu-classroom-chat || [19:03] ara, sorry! [19:04] jcastro, no problem :) [19:04] Sorry about that everyone, I was dozing off. :) [19:04] Take it away Ara! [19:04] Hello all, thanks for coming! [19:04] My name is Ara and I am part of the Ubuntu QA team [19:04] In this session, part of the Ubuntu Open Week, I am going to talk about the ISO tracker, one of our tools to manage testing [19:05] Do you guys know the ISO tracker and its function in our testing process? [19:05] In the QA team (http://qa.ubuntu.com/) we have two main activities to perform (among many others): Testing and Bug triaging. [19:06] You might already know that Ubuntu has a 6-month release cycle, which means that every 6 months we have a new Ubuntu release, ready to install. Less known is the fact that, before the final release, up to 8 development releases are launched: Alpha 1 to 6, Beta and Release Candidate. [19:06] (although we are going to have only 3 alphas in the cycle that started today) [19:07] Not only for the final release, but for all these releases, we need to test that installation is working OK for the ISO images. The management of the testing of these images is done in the tracker. Everyone can help, and I will show you how. [19:07] The ISO tracker is hosted at http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/. Go there and have a quick look. [19:08] I'll give you some seconds... [19:09] Milestones normally happen on Thursdays. During that week testers can start looking at the tracker to check if candidates images are appearing. [19:09] OK, first question [19:09] QUESTION: you only test clean installs with desktop/alternate or there is testing with upgrades using the alternate cd ?? [19:10] erUSUL, we also test upgrades, not only clean installations, we will get back to that later [19:10] continuing... [19:10] First thing you will need to do is to create and account in the ISO tracker. Take into account that if you already have an account in the Ubuntu Brainstorm (http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/) you can use the same account. [19:11] Click on Log in, Create New Account tab. [19:11] Select a username, email, and solve the simple captcha. Your password will be sent to that email account. Let me know when you all have an account. [19:13] While people create their accounts, I will continue explaining a bit how the tracker is structured [19:14] OK, a couple of questions [19:14] QUESTION: do we have to do anything special to get a brainstorm account to carry over to iso.qa? (I can log into brainstorm, but not iso.qa) [19:15] jtniehof, normally nothing is required. it is weird. I will look into that this week. In the mean time, you can create a new account [19:15] QUESTION: Where is or when will there be a Lucid Lynx release scheduled? [19:16] sebsebseb, the Lucid schedule is already public at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidReleaseSchedule [19:16] OK, going back to the structure of the tracker... [19:16] Whenever there are images to test, a message tells us which milestone we are testing. In this case, I have created a fake milestone for this session, so we can play around without breaking any previous results :-) [19:17] You can see the message "We are currently testing candidate images for the fake Ubuntu Open Week release" [19:17] At Ubuntu, we produce builds for many different *buntu flavours. In the ISO Tracker we have a category for each of them. You can filter by category using the “Filter” menu in the bottom left of the page. That would allow you to concentrate in the flavour you want to test. [19:18] For this fake milestone I have created fake builds to test for Ubuntu, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, Mythbuntu and Ubuntu Studio [19:19] I haven't included them all to avoid confusion (we have soooo many builds!!!!) [19:19] Once you select a category, you will be able to select an image to download for that category. A category like “Ubuntu” may have different images: i386 Live CD, amd64 alternate, etc., and all of them need to be tested before releasing a milestone. [19:20] If you click now in any of those images, you will have access to a direct link of the ISO to download. Don't try to download it, though. This is a fake milestone, and you won't find much in those links :) [19:21] For each product we have a selection of tests you may run for that image. For every test, there is a link to the test case description in the test case wiki. The test cases are easy to follow when running any of them. All the test cases available need to be covered before the release of a milestone, so everybody is welcome to help :-) [19:22] To have an idea, we had 194 testcases to run for Karmic in each milestone [19:22] So, to sum up the structure, every category contains a set of ISO images and every image contains at least one test case. [19:22] Here you can find a diagram that will help you understand: http://ubuntutesting.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/iso_tracker_diagram.png?w=500&h=353 [19:23] Any questions regarding this structure? (or any other question) [19:24] So, let's start pretending that we are in the middle of a testing cycle [19:25] Let's select one of the builds, let's say, Ubuntu Alternate i386 [19:25] click on it [19:25] QUESTION: i asume most people test in VM's or i am mistaken? if so how does that affect the testing? [19:26] erUSUL, testing happens either in real hardware and/or VM. Many people test in VM, but some others test in real HW [19:26] erUSUL, obviously, it is always better in real HW, but HW testing already happen in Canonical certification labs, so it is not that bad to use VMs [19:27] QUESTION: should I download the image, burn a CD and test? or would it be better to do the testing in a VM? [19:27] akgraner, OK, more or less the same question. Either way is OK. I will get back to this issue later in the talk [19:27] QUESTION: I am thinking what does milestone mean. I could look it up, but it would be useful to have the answer as part of the session, for other people that aren't sure what it means. [19:29] sebsebseb, good question. A milestone is a announced Ubuntu release that it is not final. We produce official ISOs for those milestones (Alpha1, Alpha2... Beta, RC) and they need to be tested, as we encourage people to install them if they want to help with the development process [19:29] We discourage them, though, for production [19:29] OK, going back to our fake testing [19:30] We have selected Ubuntu alternate i386 [19:30] We have a list of 9 test cases that we need to cover [19:30] as you can see right now, nobody have reported any of them [19:30] so we have to work hard to cover them all [19:31] also, we have a link to the ISO on the top of the page [19:31] let's select one of the test cases, let's say Install (auto-resize) [19:32] everybody is in that test case page? [19:32] You can see that nobody has tested it yet [19:33] You have a link to the testcase with instructions to follow [19:33] In this case the link points to http://testcases.qa.ubuntu.com/Install/AlternateResize [19:33] All test cases are described in the test case wiki [19:34] So, once we follow the instructions for that test case, we have to report back to the tracker [19:35] A good report will help the release team decide whether a fix is necessary before announcing the milestone [19:35] So, how do we report? [19:35] First decision: FAILED or PASSED? [19:35] If the installation is unsuccessful, this is, if the bug you encountered is bad enough to prevent you from using the system, mark the test as failed. [19:36] If you encounter no bugs or only bugs that didn't affect directly to your ability to run the system, mark the test as passed === Idiot is now known as Guest82618 [19:37] I.e. An error in the partitioner broke the installation: FAILED [19:38] i.e. You installed correctly, but Firefox was in English, when you installed in Spanish: PASSED (with bugs) [19:38] If you encounter any bugs, no matter if you marked the test as PASSED or FAILED, you should be reporting it in Launchpad. Once reported, add the number of the bug to your report and mark it as "Serious" if you think that the release team should be looking at it as soon as possible. [19:39] And the comments: [19:39] And this is related to the VM/HW question before [19:40] Comments are always welcome. You can explain briefly the configuration of the test machine, if it was run in a physical machine or a virtual machine. [19:40] But bugs should be added to Launchpad [19:40] I will add now a report for that test case [19:42] If you refresh that page (http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/result/3424/19) [19:42] you can see now my report [19:42] You can add yours as well [19:42] (this is no real data, so you won't do any harm) [19:42] Couple of questions [19:43] QUESTION: Why is there a session about the milestones/development versions, (alpha, beta, rc, which is what I thought it meant), when most Ubuntu users are told not to run the development version, because of how they shoudn't be relyed on fully, for proper computer usage. [19:43] sebsebseb, wow, that's more a meta question :-) [19:43] sebsebseb, but I'll try to answer it [19:44] sebsebseb, as I told before, there is a lot of test cases that need testing. Some people want to help with the Ubuntu development and they don't know how to start. This could be a good starting point :-) [19:45] sebsebseb, also, ISO testing is not meant to replace your ubuntu installation. It is better to use spare HW, a spare partition or a virtual machine [19:45] QUESTION: when you said "run the system" is "install the system" you do not test beyond the end of the install; do you? [19:46] erUSUL, you can do some smoke testing. Open your browser, browse the web, use open office, etc, use compiz, etc. Do the things you would normally do. [19:47] OK, continuing... [19:48] (btw, I've seen some of you already "reported" in the tracker. Nice :-) [19:48] As I told before, every single test case needs to be run at least once before releasing a milestone. When the date of the release is near, it is very important to focus on those tests that haven't been run yet. [19:48] These following two links give you the clue on what to test [19:48] http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/build/all/untested [19:48] http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/build/all/inprogress [19:49] for our fake milestone we already have one in progress, \o/ [19:50] Another feature of the ISO tracker: Subscriptions [19:50] Sometimes you can only want to help with a flavour or kind of build. If you are, let's say, a Mythbuntu user and only care about this flavour of Ubuntu, you can subscribe to it, and get email announces every time a new build of your subscriptions is ready to test. To subscribe to a type of build, just click on the build, select the testcases you would like to test (normally you would select all from a build) and click on subs [19:50] cribe. Finally, to subscribe to the emails, go to your profile page, on the top right corner, and select E-mail notification. [19:51] ok, a good question [19:51] QUESTION: test cases are run prior to releasing a milestone. So when are they tested? Do the tests for alpha 6 start right after the alpha 5 release or a few days before alpha 6? [19:53] OK, normally testing start happening Monday of a week of a release (that happen on Thursdays). But it can vary, so subscriptions are very important if you want to be notified about it [19:53] So, when it is going to be the next ISO testing week? [19:53] As we told before, you can check the Lucid Lynx release schedule at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidReleaseSchedule [19:54] As you can see, the first milestone, Alpha 1, is scheduled to be released December 3rd (not surprisingly, a Thursday). That means that the week of November 30th is the perfect week to help testing the ISOs. [19:54] So, if you want to help testing, join us on #ubuntu-testing that week and start helping with the Ubuntu development process! [19:55] (we are daily on that channel to solve and chat about Ubuntu testing) [19:55] QUESTION: Why is there only going to be three alphas, instead of six? [19:56] sebsebseb, I guess that was a decision from the release team, and I don't have the answer. You can ask it in #ubuntu-release and the release team will surely help you [19:58] OK, if there are no more questions I think we can wrap up [19:58] I hope to see you all at #ubuntu-testing for Lucid Alpha 1 ISO testing! === jcastro changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to Ubuntu Open Week! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek (changes made, please check regularly) || Session: Learning Project by Elizabeth Krumbach || All questions go in #ubuntu-classroom-chat [20:00] thanks ara! [20:00] pleia2: you're next! [20:00] Hi everyone, welcome to the Ubuntu Open Week session on the Ubuntu Community Learning Project (UCLP). [20:01] My name is Elizabeth Krumbach, I'm a board member of the UCLP, have been involved with technical review of professional coursework, have worked to coordinate classes in #ubuntu-classroom and am involved locally with my LoCo team which seeks to launch classroom training. [20:01] As a pretty new project, this session will give details about the UCLP, I will be covering project goals, general project status and how to individuals can get involved, I'll pause for questions throughout. [20:02] The goal of this project is to create coursework that can be used by individuals for teaching, for Ubuntu LoCo teams, for Linux Users Groups, for presentations at conferences, for IRC, for Moodle-based teaching - anywhere you're teaching folks about Ubuntu. [20:02] Our project page is here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning [20:02] We have an IRC channel on this network over at #ubuntu-learning [20:02] Our mailing list is here: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-learning [20:03] And we have a Moodle installation over at http://learn.ufbt.net/ which supports openid logins (so you an use your launchpad account) [20:03] < mhall119|work> QUESTION: isn't there a SuSe project to develop open learning material based on moodle? [20:04] I don't know, but it would be interesting to find out and perhaps coordinate some things with them material-wise [20:04] Moodle isn't our only format though, since our goal is to service a number of different venus [20:04] venues [20:04] So, to actually achieve this goal, we seek to develop core material for use in 3 major deployment formats: [20:04] * Live classes [20:04] * Moodle [20:04] * IRC [20:05] And we've recruited a diverse group of individuals to be on our team board, whose expertise cover various portions of the "Learning" spectrum, including primary education, Moodle deployments, training in IRC and live class training. [20:05] < yos> Question: I'm a n00b...what is moodle ? [20:05] the main site for Moodle is http://moodle.org/ [20:06] it's used for online-based training, the site describes it as "Moodle is a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a Free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites." [20:06] Now, as far as material goes, we have five core sections we seek to cover: [20:06] * How to Use Ubuntu: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/UbuntuDesktopTopics [20:06] * How to Maintain Ubuntu: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/SystemAdminTopics [20:07] * How to Develop Ubuntu: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/DeveloperTopics [20:07] * How to Spread Ubuntu: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/AdvocateTopics [20:07] * How to Teach Ubuntu: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/TeachingTopics [20:07] you may want to take a look at those pages now, and they'll give you some idea as to how the informal layouts are for each [20:08] As you can see from these pages, we've been developing course outlines and collecting resources for each of these topics - but we need more help! [20:08] Before I get into talking about our workflow, are there any questions so far? [20:09] < doctormo> QUESTION: Are there people who manage each of those sections? responsbility for editing and keeping things sane? [20:10] That'll be talked about some in workflow, but yes - there is a loose collaboration between folks to control who is editing what when, and we hope to have more of it as the project progresses [20:10] < openweek1_> QUESTION: The goal is to have materials in help of LOCO teams? [20:11] yes, one of our goals is to have materials for loco teams to teach, doctormo is already teaching several of the courses he's developed for "How to Maintain Ubuntu" at his loco tea m:) [20:11] and the Pennsylvania team will be using some of the desktop courses for our outreach to a local non-profit [20:12] < mhall119|work> QUESTION: is Edubuntu involved in this project? [20:12] yes, I'm in contact with LaserJock about the project, but they've been very busy with polishing up Edubuntu these past few months [20:13] hopefully we'll expand our partnership with them moving forward, along with other teams like the Doc team, Ubuntu Classroom and others [20:13] on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning if you go down to "Affiliates & Key People" you can see some of the contacts we've already made with existing teams [20:14] < mhall119|work> QUESTION: can I contribute instructional material for ubuntu derivatives like Qimo? [20:14] absolutely! we'd just need to define it as such on our wiki so people know where it belongs [20:15] < sebsebseb> QUESTION: Unfortunately these days most computer courses are Windows only or mainly, especially at low levels. Would this be one of the projects goals, provideing exams and coursework for Educational Establishments who are then teaching students/pupils about [20:15] Ubuntu and opensource/freesoftware in general. With the people passing the course gaining a qualification that in the future many employers, at least in the computer industry, would be interested in. [20:15] yes, but our coursework is not at all related to getting any kind of certification [20:16] if you're looking for a program to get some formal qualifications you probably want to check out Canonical's training options: http://www.ubuntu.com/training [20:16] < openweek1_> QUESTION: What is the policy about using these materials in university courses about Linux? [20:17] it's perfectly fine as long as they abide by the CC-BY-SA license we're releasing them under [20:17] < kennethvenken> QUESTION: which versions of ubuntu will be covered by this project? Supported versions? Newest version? LTS version? [20:17] great question, we're focusing on LTS version, but that's up for discussion [20:18] ok, I'm going to move on and talk a little bit about workflow [20:18] The workflow for course development is essentially: [20:18] Step 1: Collaborative discussion and outlining on the wiki [20:18] For instance, if you take a look at our "How to Use Ubuntu" wiki page, you'll see that I've taken "ownership" of the Introduction: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/UbuntuDesktopTopics [20:19] As people want to write classes, they update the wiki page so others know they're working on it. [20:19] You'll also see links on that page to existing documentation - we leverage this as much as possible [20:20] straight wiki pages aren't great for teaching people from, so we take this material, reference it, and build a framework around it so a teacher can teach it (in real life or irc), or it can be put into moodle [20:20] Step 2: Further development and fleshing out in bzr+asciidoc [20:20] We track core cores material in Bazaar and the asciidoc format. While it's not required for people to write in this format (.odt is fine if that's all you can do!) this is the preferred method for the team due to the ability to easily transform it into other formats. [20:20] s/cores/course [20:21] This portion of the development process will be the real meat of the course, putting it into a format that people can learn from, linking to the raw documentation from the wiki and other online resources, and essentially turning raw wiki documentation into a teachable format. [20:21] To have a peek at the Sysadmin courses currently in bzr check out: https://code.launchpad.net/ubuntu-learning-materials [20:21] Step 3: Putting material from B into our 3 major deployment formats - live classes, irc, moodle [20:21] s/B/Step 2 [20:22] In this section we hand it off to our experts in live classes, irc and moodle for them to put it into their respective formats. [20:22] so someone familiar with moodle will take the raw documents produced and put it into a moodle course [20:22] a live classroom teacher may export the lesson plan as PDF directly and follow that for teaching [20:23] ...but this is our workflow in a perfect world, and we don't live in one :) [20:23] To account for this, the project is very flexbile with this workflow. [20:23] Want to join the project and just do an IRC session? Great! Update the wiki to show the class you're covering and link to the session logs so we can gain from your expertise. [20:23] Want to join the project and just do development directly in Moodle? Excellent! Update the wiki to show what you'll be covering in your Moodle course and link to your progress. [20:24] This is a pretty preliminary view of how we're doing things now and it'll be worked through in the coming months, but are there any questions before I move on to how to get involved? [20:24] < axisys> how do I pull this https://code.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-learning-board/ubuntu-learning-materials/trunk [20:25] doctormo is the bzr expert on the team, so I'll let him answer this one :) [20:25] OK so there are a few old branches you should ignore, one is trunk, which is filled with odfs. [20:26] the best thing to do is to pull from the development focus [20:26] bzr branch lp:ubuntu-learning-materials [20:27] thanks doctormo [20:27] Make sure you keep your branches up to date, and then commit your branches when you've made changes. [20:27] we're going to be writing some documentation specifically targeted toward contributors to help with this [20:27] We'll do merge requests and variosu thijngs, to be taught. [20:28] < mhall119|work> QUESTION: going back to linux-for-education.org, which uses moodle, can we put out moddle versions there ? Is there any objection to that? [20:28] < mhall119|work> if we want to translate asciidocs into moodle, can we do it there and link to them? [20:28] < mhall119|work> or is there a moodle site for this project we can put them into? [20:28] so, Moodle is not actually my forte, but the license allows us to share this material and contribute it to any other moodle deployments [20:28] asciidoc can be exported into html, and that would be put into moodle [20:29] and our moodle site is here: http://learn.ufbt.net/ :) [20:29] we've already imported at least one course from another source since the license was friendly [20:30] Now... how do you get involved? How do you benefit from our resources? [20:30] We've made it pretty easy to join the project, as outlined in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/Structure: [20:30] 1. Get a launchpad account and sign the Code of Conduct (see: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GnuPrivacyGuardHowto#Validation%20on%20Launchpad) [20:31] 2. Introduce yourself to the team and give us an idea of your interests, skills, and how you see yourself working with the team (introductions can happen via mailing list or in IRC, in public or to a team board member) [20:31] we like introductions because then we know what kind of talent we have on the team, those of us organizing course material can know who to ask about certain things [20:32] for instance, I know dinda is a Moodle wizard :) so we've been able to ask her when we get stumped on moodle, if she doesn't know she tends to know who to ask! [20:32] 3. Apply for or have one of the board members add you to the launchpad team: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-learning [20:32] that's it! very simple :) [20:32] < mhall119|work> QUESTION: how small can a contribution be? I've written a couple of short "hacklets" for ubuntu-fl.org that are really more of the tips and tricks nature, would you want those? [20:32] < mhall119|work> example: http://www.ubuntu-fl.org/2009/08/27/hacklet-apt-cache-redirect/ [20:33] These are great! In the case of these I'd link them to the wiki page they're related to [20:33] so maybe that would go under our "maintaining ubuntu" course, so add it to the wiki and when the person writing the course gets to it, they may decide it's a great resource and to teach it in the course [20:34] our course writers will tend to be experts in what they're writing, but having resources written by dozens of other brilliant minds will help a lot, so links to the wiki, links to docs like this [20:35] So, we're looking for folks to help out the project in a variety of ways: [20:35] * Folks who will help fleshing out outlines and getting links to great material that exists so we can link to it as reference material [20:35] (so jump right in! thanks already mhall119|work!) [20:37] * Course writers either using the set workflow, or developing directly for Moodle, IRC or Live sessions [20:37] we already have cprofitt with some great plans for moodle, doctormo doing live sessions, and Ubuntu Classroom chugging along with IRC sessions but we need a lot more help [20:38] so... [20:38] * Moodle experts who can help others with Moodle development [20:38] we had a great session with an educator that dinda put us in touch with several weeks ago [20:38] * IRC teachers who will lead courses in IRC (related to http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Classroom) [20:38] we'd love to see this channel active again for more than just Ubuntu Open Week :) [20:38] * Real Life session teachers who are seeking to teach course material [20:39] so again, folks looking to teach things for their LoCo teams, using our materials [20:39] we want people doing this, giving us feedback, helping us improve our documents [20:39] * Material reviewers [20:39] doctormo tends to post his finished courses on his blog and the comments are great! we need more folks doing this [20:40] And how can you benefit from this project? As courses are released, you can take them and start teaching them! [20:40] Already, Martin Owens has already released 10 courses in PDF that he's been teaching for the US-MA LoCo for the "How to Maintain Ubuntu" section, which can be found at the bottom of https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/SystemAdminTopics under "System Administration Basics Course" [20:40] and as I mentioned before, the Pennsylvania team is planning on doing some intro classes for a local non-profit that refurbishes computers [20:41] < openweek1_> QUESTION: how will be handled other than english languages in the materials/courses [20:41] the great thing about asciidoc is the ability to port it into different formats - I am not intimately familiar with translations, but I'm told it can be exported into translation friendly formats [20:42] < artopal> QUESTION: What was the rationale behind choosing asciidoc instead of some other lightweight markup language like, e.g. txt2tags (which is also very feature full), or the more common (and complex) alternative: docbook? [20:42] We hashed this out during meetings, docbook was decided to be too hard to learn - the barrier to entry was too high [20:43] I don't recall why we didn't go with txt2tags, but team member BiosElement spent several weeks researching a whole pile of formats [20:44] asciidoc has a format very similar to wiki, so we figured most people could catch on quickly [20:44] and although it's not quite as easy as writing things in odt (which we'll accept too, if we need to), aciidoc's ability to be exported into loads of formats is great [20:44] < openweek1_> QUESTION: I dont get it, how is asciidoc related to Moodle? Is it its native format? Because I have some expiriance with moodle, but no export/import [20:44] asciidoc can be exported into .html, which you can import into moodle [20:45] < kennethvenken> QUESTION: do you have a roadmap? When will the first courses be ready? [20:45] the first 10 courses are completed and we're actively developing several more [20:45] we don't actually have a roadmap with specific goals, we should :) [20:46] < doctormo> QUESTION: are courses peer reviewed at all? [20:46] as I mentioned earlier - one of the things we need volunteers for is review, thus far they've been reviewed on blogs and by posting raw material to the mailing list [20:46] so yes, they are peer reviewed [20:48] This pretty much wraps up my summary of the project, are there other questions? [20:49] < mhall119|work> QUESTION: are you reaching out to LoCo teams to contribute? we're always looking for something to do for Ubuntu [20:50] we'd like to do more of this, thus far we've reached out to some of the leaders in the community (popey with locoteams is aware) [20:51] and there are several loco teams who have already approached the project to say that they're ready for material when it comes out - very inspiring for us :) [20:51] < doctormo> QUESTION: Does this project compete with the Canonical courses? [20:51] not directly, we're all community based, have no certifications tied to our programs are are more geared toward grass roots teaching in locos and things [20:51] s/are are/and are [20:54] < duanedesign> QUESTION: if you start working on a paticular topic what is the best way to communicate this so their is no duplication [20:54] you'll want to update the wiki page to say that [20:55] for instance, if you check out https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/UbuntuDesktopTopics [20:55] you'll see a line which says: Ubuntu Desktop Introduction -- Log of this course outline from doctormo, pleia2 developing [20:55] just a note like this next to an item is sufficient, and perhaps a link to your in-progress work (whether it's in bzr, moodle, etc) [20:56] that way people know you're working on it, and if they want to pitch in they can contact you [20:56] < mhall119|work> QUESTION: can you pull existing content from the Ubuntu Pocket Guide of Official Ubuntu Book? [20:56] if the license allows for it [20:58] if the license doesn't allow for any of it to be duplicated, it can be referenced though [20:58] we can say "for more reading - check out $awesome_resource" [20:58] < yos> question: I'm new to ubuntu and I don't have any special skills however, I have a lot of free time on my hands...is there anything I can do to contribute? [20:59] great question! one of the things we need is reviewers for some of the material who will actually learn from it [20:59] you can review it and tell us if it makes sense to you, as someone new to the material :) [20:59] you can also help flesh out our outlines, link to documentat that you love and find helpful [20:59] and now I have to wrap up this session [20:59] thank you everyone! hope to see some new faces over in #ubuntu-learning :) === akgraner changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to Ubuntu Open Week! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek (changes made, please check regularly) || Session: Writing Secure Code - KeesCook || All questions go in #ubuntu-classroom-chat [21:00] pleia2: thanks! [21:00] Hello! [21:01] so, if I understand correctly, discussion and questions are in #ubuntu-classroom-chat [21:01] I'll be watching in there for stuff marked with QUESTION: so feel free to ask away. :) [21:01] this session is a relatively quick overview on ways to try to keep software more secure when you're writing it. [21:01] I kind of think of it as a "best-pratices" review. [21:02] given that there is a lot of material in this area, I try to talor my topics to langauges people are familiar with. [21:02] as a kind of "show of hands", out of HTML, JavaScript, C, C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, SQL, what are people familiar with? (just shout out on the -chat channel) [21:03] 21:02 < openweek1_> QUESTION: will this presentation be language specific? [21:03] some of it will be, but I'm trying to tailor the examples to stuff people are familiar with [21:03] there are some "general" best-practices that apply to any language, which I'll cover first [21:04] 21:03 < openweek5__> NONE - where do start? [21:04] I find that programming is easiest to learn when you find something specific you want to change. so in that case, learn the language of the project you want to change/improve. :) [21:05] okay, cool, looks like a pretty wide variety. :) [21:06] I'm adapting this overview from some slides I used to give at talk at the Oregon State University. [21:06] you can find that here: http://outflux.net/osu/oss-security.odp [21:06] the main thing about secure coding is to take an "offensive" attitude when testing your software. [21:06] if you think to yourself "the user would never type _that_", then you probably want to rethink it. :) [21:07] I have two opposing quotes: "given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow" - Eric Raymond, and "most people ... don't explicitly look for security bugs" - John Viega [21:07] I think both are true -- if enough people start thinking about how their code could be abused by some bad-guy, we'll be better able to stop them. [21:07] so, when I say "security", what do I mean? [21:08] mean a bug with how the program functions that allows another person to change the behavior against the desire of the main user [21:08] ^I [21:08] if someone can read all my cookies out of firefox, that's bad. [21:08] if someone can become root on my server, that's bad, etc. [21:08] so, I tend to limit this overview to stuff like gaining access, reading or writing someone else's data, causing outages, etc. [21:09] there are plenty of other security topics (permissions, role separation, MAC, etc etc). but I'm trying to show how to avoid security bugs. [21:10] I'll start with programming for the web. [21:10] when handling input in CGIs, etc, it needs to be carefully handled. [21:10] the first example of mis-handling input is "Cross Site Scripting" ("XSS"). [21:10] if someone puts hi in some form data, and the application returns exactly that, then the bad-guy can send arbitrary HTML [21:10] output needs to be filtered for html entites. [21:10] luckily, a lot of frameworks exist for doing the right thing: Catalyst (Perl), Smarty (PHP), Django (Python), Rail (Ruby). [21:11] e.g. http://research.outflux.net/demo/sql-bad.cgi putting in blah as the password, and after submit, it's blinking [21:12] if you use http://research.outflux.net/demo/sql-better.cgi you'll see it gets escaped [21:12] another issue is Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF). [21:12] the issue here is that HTTP was designed so that "GET" (urls) would be for reading data, and "POST" (forms) would be used for changing data. [21:12] if back-end data changes as a result of a "GET", you may have a CSRF. [21:12] I have a demo of this here: http://research.outflux.net/demo/csrf.html [21:12] imdb.com lets users add "favorite" movies to their lists. [21:12] but it operates via a URL http://imdb.com/rg/title-gold/mymovies/mymovies/list?pending&add=0113243 [21:12] so, if I put that URL on my website, and you're logged into imdb, I can make changes to your imdb account. [21:13] as a result, it should use POST forms, not GET or direct URLs [21:13] (or use form "nonces", though I won't go into that for the moment) [21:14] another form of input validation is SQL. [21:14] if SQL queries aren't escaped, you can end up in odd situations [21:14] for example: SELECT secret FROM users WHERE password = '$password' [21:14] with that SQL, what happens if the supplied password is ' OR 1=1 -- [21:14] SELECT secret FROM users WHERE password = '' OR 1=1 --' [21:15] it'll be true and will allow logging in. [21:15] my rule of thumb is to _always_ use the SQL bindings that exist for your language, and to never attempt to manually escape strings. [21:16] every language will have a good way to pass variables into SQL [21:16] for perl [21:16] my $query = $self->{'dbh'}->prepare( [21:16] "SELECT secret FROM users [21:16] WHERE password = ?"); [21:16] $query->execute($password); [21:16] this lets the SQL library you're using do the escaping. it's easier to maintain, and it's much safer in the long-run. [21:16] some examples of SQL injection issues are here too: http://research.outflux.net/demo/sql-bad.cgi [21:17] try that with the password as ' OR 1=1 -- and you'll see the "secret" :) [21:17] 21:17 < playya_> QUESTION: what about prepared statements? [21:18] that's basically another way to say "bound variables", IIUC. in the above perl example, $query is a prepared query, and gets execute with the $password variable [21:18] static SQL and program variables should never mix -- using prepared statements/bound variables should always be used. [21:19] another thing about web coding is to think about where files live [21:19] yet another way around the sql-bad.cgi example is to just download the SQLite database it's using. [21:20] so, either keeping files out the documentroot, or protecting them: http://research.outflux.net/demo/htaccess-better [21:20] moving from web to more language agnostic stuff ... [21:20] when your need to use "system()", go find a better method. [21:20] if you're constructing a system()-like call with a string, you'll run into problems. you always want to implement this with an array. [21:20] python's subprocess.call() for example. [21:20] this stops the program from being run in a shell (where arguments may be processes or split up) [21:20] for example, http://research.outflux.net/demo/progs/system.pl [21:20] no good: system("ls -la $ARGV[0]"); [21:21] better: system("ls","-la",$ARGV[0]); [21:21] best: system("ls","-la","--",$ARGV[0]); [21:21] in array context, the arguments are passed directly. in string context, the first argument may be processed in other ways by the shell. [21:22] if the first argument is ;cat /etc/passwd then the first runs ls -la ;cat /etc/passwd and the shell splits it into two commands [21:23] in the latter, "ls" gets an argument of ";cat /etc/passwd" which isn't a valid file name, and it correctly screams about it [21:23] and "--" is used to indicate to ls that option arguments have finished to stop $ARGV[0] from leading with a "-" and having ls blow up again. [21:24] handling temporary files is another area to be careful with. [21:24] static files or files based on process id, etc, shouldn't be used since they are easily guessed. [21:24] all languages have some kind of reasonable safe temp-file-creation method. [21:24] File::Temp in perl, tempfile in python, "mktemp" in shell, etc. [21:24] i.e. bad: TEMPFILE="/tmp/kees.$$" [21:24] good: TEMPFILE=$(mktemp -t kees-XXXXXX) [21:24] examples of this as well as a pid-racer are in http://research.outflux.net/demo/progs/ [21:25] programmers should think about the sensitivity of what they have in memory. normally, it's not a big deal, but what about passwords? [21:25] keep data that is normally encrypted out of memory. [21:25] so things like passwords should be erased from memory (rather than just freed) once they're done being used [21:25] example of this is http://research.outflux.net/demo/progs/readpass.c [21:25] once the password is done being used: [21:25] fclose(stdin); // drop system buffers [21:25] memset(password,0,PASS_LEN); // clear out password storage memory [21:25] then you don't have to worry about leaving it in core-dump files, etc [21:26] if it's not cleared, it could hang around in memory. [21:26] 21:26 < erUSUL> QUESTION: for passwords use mlocked mem ? [21:27] this is an even better approach, yes. this keeps the memory from ever being written to disk, in the case of swapping. [21:27] note, however, that if you hibernate to an unencrypted partition, mlock() won't save you. :( [21:27] for details on mlock, see "man mlock". (also note that there is only so much room for mlock memory) [21:28] http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/karmic/en/man3/mlock.3posix.html [21:28] for encrypted communications, using SSL should actually check certificates. [21:28] clients should use a Certificate Authority list (apt-get install ca-cerificates, and use /etc/ssl/certs) [21:28] servers should get a certificate authority. [21:28] the various SSL bindings will let you define a "check cert" option, which is, unfortunately, not on by default. :( [21:28] this is very language-specific, though, so it requires some level of research. but SSL without cert checking isn't very protective. [21:29] one item I mentioned early on as a security issue is blocking access to a service, usually through a denial of service. [21:29] one accidental way to make a server program vulnerable to this is to use "assert()" or "abort()" in the code. [21:29] normally, using asserts is a great habit to catch errors in client software. [21:29] unfortunately, if an assert can be reached while you're processing network traffic, it'll take out the entire service. [21:29] those kinds of programs should abort on if absolutely unable to continue (and should gracefully handle unexpected situations) [21:30] switching over to C/C++ specific issues for a bit... [21:30] one of C's weaknesses is its handling of arrays (and therefore strings). since it doesn't have built-in boundary checking, it's up to the programmer to do it right. [21:30] as a result, lengths of buffers should always be used when performing buffer operations. [21:30] functions like strcpy, sprintf, gets, strcat should not be used, because they don't know how big a buffer might be [21:30] using strncpy, snprintf, fgets, etc is much safer. [21:30] though be careful you're measureing the right buffer. :) [21:30] char buf[80]; [21:30] strncpy(buf,argv[1],strlen(argv[1])) is no good [21:30] you need to use buf's len, not the source string. [21:30] it's not "how much do I want to copy" but rather "how much space can I use?" [21:31] since Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid), the compiler will attempt to fix up unsafe function usage with safe ones, if it can. [21:31] 21:30 < playya_> QUESTION: isn't it better to loose a service for some time because of assert instead of having an owned machine? [21:32] certainly, but the assert catches an issue -- the code should just say "oh dear" and drop the connection, etc. i.e. graceful error handling instead of just shutting down. [21:32] if there is genuinely no way to recover, then it makes sense to shut down. but those situations are rare. [21:32] another tiny glitch is with format strings. printf(buffer); should be done with printf("%s", buffer); otherwise, whatever is in buffer would be processes for format strings [21:32] instead of "hello %x" you'd get "hello 258347dad" [21:33] I actually have a user on my system named %x%x%n%n just so I can catch format string issues in Gnome more easily. :) [21:33] format strings get passed from high-level functions, though, so it's not always obvious. [21:34] gtk's dialogs, for example, will call sprintf on passed buffers, so those dialogs should use "%s", msg); instead of msg); [21:34] since Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid), the compiler will yell about possible format string issues, so those warnings are good to pay attention to. [21:35] (for more details on the security features of the C compiler, see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CompilerFlags ) [21:35] 21:34 < kennethvenken> QUESTION: are there tools that check for these kind of pitfalls? [21:35] the compiler is in the best position to do it, so that's where I've spent the most time looking [21:36] the last bit to go over for C in this overview is calculating memory usage. [21:36] (this actually applies to C++ too) [21:36] if you're about to allocate memory for something, where did the size come from? [21:36] malloc(x * y) could wrap around an "int" value and result in less than x * y being allocated. [21:36] this one is less obvious, but the example is here: http://research.outflux.net/demo/progs/alloc.c [21:36] malloc(5 * 15) will be safe, but what about malloc (1294967000 * 10) [21:37] checking for this is simple, but many people aren't in a habit of testing for it: [21:37] if (x >= (INT_MAX / y - 1) ) { .... [21:37] x=atoi(argv[1]); [21:37] y=atoi(argv[2]); [21:37] that "if" will be true when x * y would overflow and wrap back around. [21:38] C++ has a similar issue with the "new" operator, when allocating an array of objects [21:38] if an object is "x" bytes big, and you need an array "y" long, this is effectively doing a malloc( x * y ) all over again. [21:38] so, the biggest thing to help defend against these various glitches is testing. [21:39] try putting HTML into form data, URLs, etc [21:39] see what kinds of files are written in /tmp [21:39] try putting giant numbers through allocations [21:39] put format strings as inputs [21:39] try to think about how information is entering a program, and how that data is formulated. [21:39] 21:39 < erUSUL> QUESTION: Do not most people use malloc wrappers to avoid this kind of things like xmalloc ? [21:39] it'd be nice if it was more of a standard practice, yes. [21:39] the xmalloc's I've seen just check return codes, though, they don't validate the math. [21:40] i.e. xmalloc(x * y) still has the same problem. [21:40] something like xallow_array(x, y) which then did the INT_MAX tests would be better. (this is what image libraries have moved to do it, since they're constantly allocating 2d buffers, etc) [21:40] there are a lot of unit-test frameworks (python-unit, Test::More, CxxTest, check) [21:41] give them a try. :) [21:41] writing tests is great for finding bugs in general (and security bugs too) [21:41] as for projects in general, it's great if a few days during a development cycle can be dedicated to looking for security issues. [21:42] that's about it from me; it was a quick overview. :) [21:43] I've left some time for questions, if there are any? [21:43] anything about secure coding, security in ubuntu, security in general? [21:43] I can also answer questions about video formats and ubuntu development processes. ;) [21:44] 21:44 < amik> any particualr dangers in Java (other than sql stuff)? [21:45] I don't know of any language-specific issues with Java, but the all the stanard stuff (tempfiles, ssl, etc) applies. [21:45] 21:45 < jtatum> QUESTION: can you recommend any reading material for various types of security testing? [21:46] specific to testing, it's a little iffy. security testing tends to either fall into "software testing" or "pentration testing", which can be very different things. [21:46] as for books, I recommend: [21:46] Secure Programming Cookbook for C and C++ by Viega, Messier [21:46] The Art of Software Security Assessment by Dowd, McDonald, Schuh [21:46] Fuzzing for Software Security Testing and Quality Assurance by Takanen, DeMott, Miller [21:46] and for online, Secure Programming for Linux and Unix HOWTO by David Weeler http://www.dwheeler.com/secure-programs/ [21:46] 21:45 < sebsebseb> QUESTION: Apparantly OpenBSD is the most secure OS is this true? [21:47] this obviously depends on one's definition of "most secure OS". At DefCon in CTF, considered by some to be the most dangerous network in the world, the organizers traditionally use OpenBSD. [21:48] that said, OpenBSD sure misses a lot of features I like to use on my desktop. :) [21:48] 21:46 < kennethvenken> 'QUESTION: what kind of code analysis techniques are applied to source code written for ubuntu? [21:49] there is no specific code analysis that happens for all ubuntu software, but lots of people use a lot of different systems to doing code analysis. [21:49] for example, coverity runs their tests frequently, "sparse" is used on the linux kernel. [21:50] when I do audits, it's a combination of manual investigation (looking at how data passes through the code) and looking at the build logs to see what the compiler is screaming about with the various warnings for format strings, unchecked return codes, etc. [21:50] 21:49 < openweek1_> QUESTION: some python specific materials about security programing? [21:50] I don't have anything handy, though I think David Wheeler's website has good general stuff in it [21:51] 21:50 < amik> QUESTION: any thoughts on how to get developers to get into the 'defensive security' state of mind in daily work? [21:51] this is, I think, a matter of making people more paranoid. ;) thinking about how software can be misused is key. [21:51] that said, it is sometimes very hard to do this when coding to a dealine, etc. [21:51] 21:51 < sebsebseb> kees: What's CTF and Defcon? well Defcon is I guess some kind of security conference or somethign [21:52] sorry, I should have explained that more. DefCon in an annual computer security conference (it follows the more corporate "Blackhat" conference). CTF is Capture the Flag, a challenge that runs the entire conference where teams try to break into eachother's systems to earn points. [21:52] great fun. :) [21:53] 21:53 < kennethvenken> QUESTION: are you Dutch? ;) I'm from Belgium [21:54] I'm half-dutch (hence my americanized last name "Cook"). I'm named after my grandfather. :) [21:55] thank you everyone for listening! [21:55] I'll clear out of the way now. if other questions pop to mind, feel free to catch me on freenode or via email @ubuntu.com. thanks! === akgraner changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to Ubuntu Open Week! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek (changes made, please check regularly) || Session: Getting KDE 4 ready for LTS - JonathanRiddell || All questions go in #ubuntu-classroom-chat [22:00] Good evening friends [22:00] Getting KDE 4 ready for LTS [22:00] this will be a bit of a ramble about Kubuntu and KDE 4 [22:00] anyone here to listen? [22:01] awooga [22:01] and yes, you need to reply in #ubuntu-classroom-chat, this channel is special [22:01] KDE 4 has been a long journey. I mean pure dead long. And we're no there yet. [22:01] But nearly [22:02] World domination is around the corner [22:02] it's very exciting [22:02] My first KDE conference was in 2003 and we were talking about KDE 4 then [22:02] You see, at the time KDE was good [22:02] Some people had planned to make a free software desktop environment and had succeeded. [22:02] There was a desktop shell, a web browser, a file manager, a kick arse music player. Everything you needed [22:02] But it wasn't taking over the world [22:03] It was good, but it wasn't notably better than the rest. [22:03] Along the way Windows had become not quite so crap and Mac OS had been rewritten into something really very impressive, there was also someone called Miguel who kept submitting patches to KDE that got rejected, I heard he went off and did something else [22:03] So in order to take over the world we had to do better than good. Incremental improvements on what KDE was wouldn't cut it. We had to take a long term view and make something rocking. [22:04] As it happens we had a good technical foundation to make something rocking on top of, the Qt library, which was being re-written for the multi-platform bling enabled world of the next decade [22:04] Qt 4 came along and that allowed a whole lot more to be done with desktop applications. It could make them beautiful. [22:04] Qt 4 is a big step in taking over the world. When compositing came along people thought that was beautiful but it only added beauty between the applications. To have a truely beautiful desktop you need a powerful toolkit which can make beauty easy. Fortunately Qt 4 does that [22:05] So KDE had to be rewritten and this took some time. It had to be made cross platform, easy to programme for complex things and most of all it had to be beautiful [22:05] and when I say beautiful, artwork is a big part of that, but it's a whole user experience [22:06] Needless to say this affected Kubuntu a lot [22:06] Kubuntu is a KDE distro. We believe that KDE is the best desktop platform and so the best distribution can be made from KDE [22:06] Our hope is to make KDE shine [22:07] which will make lots of happy users [22:07] So back in hardy time KDE 4.0 was launched [22:07] This was not perfect timing because 4.0 was a complete rewrite and as such missed a lot of the stuff which had been there before. It was a lot more beautiful but that's not great when you can't play your music. [22:08] or whatever the important thing is for you that's critical but missing [22:09] 4.0 came out when it did because it had been ages in the making and open source needs people to release often [22:09] else the developers get bored [22:09] and you don't want that, then they'll go getting boyfriends and girlfriends and stop doing important things like coding [22:10] this ment our development at hardy time was split between KDE 3 and 4 [22:10] which isn't ideal for an LTS which needs all your quality assurance attention [22:10] so it wasn't an LTS, which was sad [22:11] akgraner: any questions? [22:11] slacker_nl> QUESTION: so 4.0 got released because of social activities of developers ;) [22:12] it got released because if you're developing in the open source way you need feedback and eventually you need more feedback than a beta will give you [22:12] there were plenty of warning that 4.0 would eat your babies but probably not enough [22:13] but we did have KDE 3 and 4 available as sebsebseb points out so there was an option for everyone [22:14] 4.0 was pretty but it wasn't beautiful for users. however for developers it was, the new APIs and pillars of KDE available were a big improvement on what was there before [22:14] Kubuntu now has an LTS coming up again [22:15] Lucid will be released in April and it will be LTS for Kubuntu [22:15] that means it has to be good enough that people can run it at their work or in a public library or whatever and should they need to call Canonical to get help the guys in Montreal can answer without banging their heads on their desks [22:16] the last 18 months of KDE development has been making sure all the gaps are filled which need to be filled for users [22:16] this has included some significant gaps [22:16] stuff like network connection is annoying if it's missing [22:17] and because Kubuntu is a KDE distribution and sticks closely to KDE, whenever KDE has a gap, that means we get one too [22:17] which hurts a lot for say, network connection [22:18] there's other issues like that which need to be filled [22:18] fortunately the important ones are getting filled [22:19] network manager is working well for most cases, bluetooth has a new maintainer, we wrote printer management tools etc [22:19] but that does all have to be polished for the LTS, which often involves buying beers for the relevent KDE developers [22:19] akgraner: questions? [22:19] QUESTION: how many users use kubuntu-desktop? (think this data is available with the popularity-contest package) [22:20] honestly no idea [22:20] you could get a relative percentage from popularity contest but I've not looked at it for a while [22:20] I expect it's gone down since KDE 3 days [22:20] KDE 4 has been a painful but necessary journey as I say [22:20] QUESTION: Is anyone looking into Ubuntu One integration with for example Akonadi? [22:20] and I expect that once KDE 4 has all the gaps filled in, it'll take over the world! [22:21] QUESTION: what direction will kubuntu take with regards to the Software center and kpackagekit? [22:22] sandsmark: yes but not enough for it to be packaged [22:22] till adams did an akonadi plugin to get akonadi talking to the couchdb address book from ubuntu one [22:22] but I don't think it got completed to the extent it would be useful for users [22:22] so anyone who wants to pick that up and run with it would be most welcome [22:23] slacker_nl: at the moment we're using kpackagekit because it's an upstream project and that means we don't have to maintain our own application [22:23] as a smallish limited team we don't really have the resoures to be maintaining large applications on our own, we're much better at packaging and integrating other people's apps [22:24] software centre is a nice UI, which I find kpackagekit's UI could benefit from being simplified in various ways [22:24] but I havn't seen any new features in it, I think it's just a new UI [22:25] #ubuntu-classroom-chat [22:25] slacker_nl: popcon.ubuntu.com [22:25] jpds: didn't know the data was publicly available [22:25] will have a look [22:25] akgraner: hum, how does one retract questions? :-P [22:25] * Randomtime (n=chatzill@88-109-37-11.dynamic.dsl.as9105.com) has joined #ubuntu-classroom-chat [22:25] I expect we'll stick with kpackagekit, it has notable flaws like not being able to warn before installed unsigned packages but that's being fixed now [22:25] slacker_nl: not in a very good format but the raw data is there. [22:25] * chorse (n=chorse@celeborn.chorse.org) has joined #ubuntu-classroom-chat [22:25] * d00rm4n has quit (Client Quit) [22:25] * ulysses__ (n=ulysses@89.106.244.86) has left #ubuntu-classroom-chat [22:25] sandsmark, just let me know before I post them..:-) [22:25] jpds: i see [22:25] * openweek5_ (i=d07f021d@gateway/web/freenode/x-67ed6d970d921557) has joined #ubuntu-classroom-chat [22:25] QUESTION: what percentage of canonical resources are given to kubuntu? how much can u actually get done? [22:25] sorry I grabbed to much//// [22:26] I doubt you can put a percentage on what canonical gives kubuntu [22:26] there's me on the desktop team, agateau on the experience team, and a lot of time given irregiarly from others on the Platform team [22:26] then there's shipit which is very very expensive [22:26] and the server hosting and whatnot [22:27] it all adds up to a lot, but I can't put a figure on it [22:27] so where was I? [22:27] oh yes, I was saying that KDE 4 had gaps which are being filled [22:27] and that it's the best platform [22:27] Kubuntu also has issues [22:28] we're a rocking team of beautiful people [22:28] but we're not perfect [22:28] we've had a lot of bad rep from our translations for example, our translations go through launchpad and for various reasons that has caused problems which understandly annoys people [22:29] we also package every release of KDE and major apps like KOffice as backports, but that takes a lot of QA which sometimes hasn't been done well enough [22:30] sometimes we add patches to KDE which havn't been tested enough or which add new strings which then aren't translated [22:30] there's good reasons for doing all the above, but when they cause problems that annoys people and quite rightly so [22:30] so with an LTS coming up it's time to review such practices and kick them into shape [22:31] some of our more beautiful Kubuntu developers have written a document called.. Project Timelord [22:31] which is the sort of name that only apachelogger could come up with [22:32] at UDS and over the next cycle or three we'll be working hard to make sure our QA is kept high so that now KDE 4 is coming into its own as a world beating platform [22:32] .. we'll be best able to take that platform to the users [22:32] akgraner: next? [22:32] mmiicc> QUESTION: Does KDE get any help from Nokia? [22:33] well Nokia funds Qt development and KDE is built on Qt, so that's a multi million euro help there [22:33] they hire a couple of KDE developers and sponsor KDE conferences and developer sprints [22:34] they also give jobs to a lot of KDE developers who go on to work on Qt (which is a mixed blessing since they often stop doing so much KDE stuff) [22:34] of course Nokia's interest in KDE and Qt is self serving, they want to own the best platform for cross desktop development so that people know and love Qt [22:35] and they want that working on their phones so people know and love developing for Nokia phones [22:35] which is all quite mutially compatible with KDE so we're happy with the setup [22:35] QUESTION: Is it possible to get a little sound on KDE 4's KDM, like the old GDM found in 9.04 and earlier. Yes sound when it first loads up or a username and password isn't put in properly. I don't like GDM 2, because it can't be themed like the old one, so I will use KDM to replace it now that it looks good with a blue bubble theme, unlike the KDE 3 version. [22:35] and Qt is now LGPL and open source style-developped so that's great [22:37] sebsebseb: hmm, I don't think there's any code in KDM for sound. it would be easy to add because KDE's Phonon API makes it very easy to do that, although I don't know if upstream would be interested [22:37] akgraner: next? [22:37] QUESTION: Thank you and the Kubuntu team for such great work on the Netbook Edition. How can one help with the development of the Netbook remix? [22:37] this is the topic I was just coming to [22:38] free software is taking off in interesting ways and netbooks are one of the most interesting [22:38] Microsoft's illegal monopoly practices have made it very hard for linux to get onto laptops, but netbooks are allowing that to happen [22:39] the Plasma team (who make KDE's desktop shell application) have been working on a netbook interface [22:39] and we put that into our netbook edition of Kubuntu which came out with 9.10 [22:39] we have a good partnership with upsteam there [22:39] upstream didn't get it all working for 4.3 so there are some gaps that need filled [22:40] and of course for Kubuntu we need people packaging, bug triaging, testing, all the tasks that Kubuntu's normal desktop edition needs [22:40] you can join us in #kubuntu-netbook to help out [22:40] or talk to the plasma guys to help out on the user interface [22:40] akgraner: next? [22:41] amik> QUESTION: how is KDE doing in general in the linux world as compared to GNOME? [22:41] well, this is a question filled with political pitfalls [22:41] Gnome is a fine desktop, it's doing well, but is it taking over the world? [22:41] maybe a bit, but not enough [22:42] KDE has gone through this re-write process to help it take over the world, and that's not complete, but any day now it will be, and then we'll rule! [22:42] as a developer, KDE has the best platform to write for. as a user you can pick what works best [22:43] akgraner: next? [22:43] QUESTION: What's the nokia-pim-suite in KDE svn: http://websvn.kde.org/branches/work/nokia-pim-suite/ [22:43] not a skoobie [22:43] I guess it's something mobile related but I've not heard of that before [22:44] kdepim is still going through the KDE 4 process [22:44] the apps are ported to KDE 4 but most aren't ported to akonadi, the new data management server [22:44] so there's loads of activity going on there [22:44] akgraner: next? [22:44] QUESTION: what does kubuntu needs more, testers, bug triagers or packagers? [22:45] a bit of everything [22:45] it just depends on the time, today for example we've been packaging KDE 4.3.3 [22:45] so more packaging would be good there [22:45] but now we'll need testers for those packages [22:46] so more testers wanted there [22:46] and once the packages are out people will report bugs and we'll need quick bug triagers to sort out the important ones from those [22:46] join us in #kubuntu-devel to help :) [22:46] akgraner: next? [22:46] QUESTION: Any changes KDE & Gnome will join their resources to become the One Desktop to Rule Them All? Say 5, 10 years from now? [22:47] that's not really technically possible, you'd need to rewrite Gnome in Qt and I don't think there's much appetite for that [22:47] it's a shame we have this desktop split, it's a horrible waste of resources [22:47] but well, KDE was here first :) [22:47] akgraner: next? [22:47] QUESTION: I haven't tried Kubuntu yet, (plan to run it in a VM soon). What are, in your opinion the major benefits with KDE in user experience over GNOME? What do you think of the new GNOME Shell? [22:48] as a sweeping generalisation KDE is better integrated, it has more robust technical grounding and often has more options for users [22:49] but for the most part you can just run the apps you find work best for you, it's up to us KDE developers to make sure you care about our apps :) [22:49] I've not seen Gnome shell, I've only heard Ubuntu Desktop developers say "it's a disaster" but they could well be wrong [22:50] akgraner: any more? [22:50] not yet.. [22:50] QUESTION: when will we see Gubuntu with KDE taking over? [22:51] once all the gaps in KDE 4 are filled [22:51] although I'm more interested in taking over windows and mac than I am gnome [22:51] that's where the real market share is [22:51] akgraner: next? [22:51] QUESTION: what is the ppa for kde packages (for lucid/karmic)? [22:52] our PPAs are under the ~kubuntu-ppa team in launchpad [22:52] we have an experimental one for crazy stuff, a staging one where we build packages and a backports one for releasing updates [22:52] currently staging has 4.3.3 building away, you could try to install it to test it but it's not complete so it may well not install or it may break stuff, that's the fun of testing [22:53] akgraner: next? [22:53] QUESTION: any thoughts on timelord? [22:53] I think I gave some thoughts above, it covers a lot of our important issues [22:54] it doesn't give answers to everything, the branding and marketing question is something that's not easy to conclude [22:54] I sympathise but mostly disagree with stopping using rosetta, but the rest is about where I think we want to be going [22:55] akgraner: next? [22:55] QUESTIONS: what work remains to be done in KDE until they catch up with themselves? (for lack of a better phrase...) [22:56] network management isn't complete. there's an update coming along with KDE 4.3.3 which should fix support for VPNs and GSM but there's probably more to be done there [22:56] I need to finish the printing management stuff [22:56] kpackagekit needs porting to the new policykit to get new features and the UI could be improved a lot [22:56] bluetooth I mentioned [22:57] there's no ibus frontend which means no same CKJ integration, and oriental people quite like being able to write on their computers [22:58] akgraner: all done? [22:58] yep I believe so.. [22:59] so in conclusion, KDE 4 is going to take over the world. it's a long hard job this and we're still getting there [22:59] but it's the best platform and that is turning into the best desktop [22:59] all helpers welcome in #kubuntu-devel [23:00] and remember: by becoming a Kubuntu developer you automatically become good looking [23:00] thanks for listening [23:01] < rhkfin> QUESTION: does KDE have a community manager, if, who? [23:01] not that I know of, one of the charms of KDE is it's quite non-heirarchical and everybody gets on well with everyone else with very few exceptions, it's a great community to be in === jcastro changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to Ubuntu Open Week! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek (changes made, please check regularly) || Sessions resume at 1500UTC || All questions go in #ubuntu-classroom-chat [23:12] interesting class [23:15] [23:16] bye bye channel mute for now :D [23:16] :) [23:16] [23:17] weee! [23:17] night all [23:18] slacker_nl: bye [23:21] whoops [23:22] * jcastro whistles [23:22] heh [23:22] there should be a perl script for this [23:23] jcastro: What are the allow messages from outside and no messages from outside modes anyway? [23:23] I dunno [23:23] plus a perl script to use something like festival to make it into a podcast or to actively listen instead of read [23:23] hah, that would be fun to listen to [23:24] there's probably an irc module for python too, if yer inta that [23:24] jcastro: I was just thinking it's Freenode a network, where ops aren't meant to be shown all the time in a channel really [23:24] could even make it all gooey [23:24] sebsebseb, dunno, I usually fiddle enough buttons to get the job done [23:24] jcastro: for what modes? [23:25] just the +m usually [23:25] that n was an accident [23:25] I don't even know what that does [23:25] http://freenode.net/using_the_network.shtml [23:25] channel +n? [23:26] I think so [23:26] in irc, you send messages to the channel [23:26] if you're clever, you can /msg #channel message [23:26] even if you're not on it [23:26] I think that shuts that option down [23:26] that makes sense [23:26] has been a while since I telnetted to port 6667. :) [23:27] (so I may have forgotten or mis-remember) [23:27] jcastro: try /msg #testchannel-1230 foo [23:29] also worth noting is that banning without kicking will silence someone. :) [23:30] Solarion: What's 6667 and why you doing telnet? [23:30] sebsebseb: a default ircd port [23:31] telnetting to a port will let you talk directly to whatever's listening [23:31] default IRC server port ok [23:31] telnet mailserver 25 will send mail, if you can talk SMTP and you don't hit its filters [23:33] Solarion, who doesn't ;) [23:33] heh [23:47] hi === fcuk112_ is now known as fcuk112 [23:57] hello [23:57] hi [23:58] what is 1500 utc in est? [23:58] seth556: that's 3 p.m. Greenwich time. [23:58] 10am [23:58] ok thanks [23:58] EST is -5 UTC [23:58] seth556: you can go to timeanddate.com and check over there === jrwren_ is now known as jrwren [23:59] Or you can run: "date; date -u" in a terminal. [23:59] if you download the ical file and load it into a calendar app it will set all the times to your local time as long as you have your timezone set up