[14:30] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/01/25/%23ubuntu-classroom.html following the conclusion of the session.
[14:31] <pleia2> hello everyone! :)
[14:31] <pleia2> welcome to Ubuntu User Days
[14:31] <pleia2> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays
[14:32] <pleia2> the User Days Team has been working hard these past few weeks in order to bring you a series of sessions that will last for the next several hours
[14:32] <pleia2> we have members from many teams in the Ubuntu community here today who have graciously volunteered to share their knowledge with all of us
[14:32] <pleia2> before we begin with sessions in a half hour, we would like to get a quick feel for who is here. If you are here, please say your name and where you are from (as much as you're comfortable with :))
[14:32] <pleia2> this channel is unmoderated at the moment, so you can talk
[14:34] <pleia2> well, I'm Lyz and I'm from San Francisco, it's bright and early 6:30AM here, the sun hasn't come up yet ;)
[14:35]  * coolbhavi just reads and waves :)
[14:35] <pleia2> thanks coolbhavi!
[14:36] <pleia2> shy people today
[14:36] <tgjk> okay, I'm Thomas and come from Germany. The time's half past three.
[14:36] <pleia2> cool, welcome tgjk!
[14:36] <pleia2> anyone is welcome to chime in as they come by during this session, but moving on, a few of you are probably wondering what User Days are all about
[14:37] <pleia2> User Days were created to be sets of classes offered during a one day period to teach the beginning or intermediate Ubuntu user the basics in order to get them started *using* Ubuntu
[14:37] <pleia2> this is in contrast to some of our other events, which focus on development and other ways to get *involved* with Ubuntu
[14:38] <pleia2> as such, the full schedule for today is focused on sessions about Ubuntu, about Ubuntu flavors, a tour of the Desktop (Unity) how to find help, and more
[14:38] <pleia2> direct link to the full schedule can be found here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDaysTeam/saucy
[14:39] <pleia2> now for a quick rundown of how today will work:
[14:39] <pleia2> each hour, an instructor will be giving a class in this channel, #ubuntu-classroom
[14:39] <pleia2> during the classes, #ubuntu-classroom will be moderated (+m). This means that only the instructor and hosts will be able to talk in the channel
[14:39] <pleia2> (it's not moderated right now, since we wanted to give you a chance to say hello)
[14:40] <pleia2> any discussion about the class should take place #ubuntu-classroom-chat
[14:40] <pleia2> so please join there too if you haven't already :)
[14:40] <pleia2> if you have a question during the class, please ask in #ubuntu-classroom-chat. Be sure to prefix it with 'QUESTION:' to ensure that it gets noticed. For example:
[14:40] <pleia2> QUESTION: What are Ubuntu User Days?
[14:41] <pleia2> Anyone wanna give it a try? :)
[14:42] <ClassBot> pleia2 asked: Do you like cats?
[14:42] <pleia2> I love cats!
[14:42] <ClassBot> tgjk asked: Does it matter if I use Linux mint?
[14:43] <pleia2> great question :) many of the packages in Mint come directly from the Ubuntu repositories, so much of the operating system is the same
[14:44] <pleia2> you may not get much from the Unity session, but others are applicable to Ubuntu derivities
[14:45] <pleia2> now, after each session, our group of volunteers will post the IRC logs to the wiki as soon as possible
[14:45] <pleia2> so if you miss a session or just want to review what you learned, be sure to check out https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays for links to logs (the subject will become a link)
[14:45] <pleia2> if you can't wait, Logs will also be automatically posted on http://irclogs.ubuntu.com near the end of each hour (ClassBot also shares this link at the beginning of each session)
[14:46] <pleia2> and please be sure to remind all of your friends and family who might be interested in using Ubuntu that this event is taking place today. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays/JoiningIn has some information about how they can participate
[14:47] <pleia2> finally, before we move on to answering any more questions about Ubuntu User Days that you might have, I would like to give a big thanks to everyone who has helped make this day possible :)
[14:48] <pleia2> jose has done a great job tracking down speakers and following up to confirm
[14:48] <pleia2> he's also running another real life event today, but will join us later - busy guy!
[14:48] <pleia2> and of course to all the instructors who volunteered their time over the weekend to share their knowledge with us
[14:49] <pleia2> anyone have any questions about how this day will work?
[14:50] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
[14:55] <pleia2> ok folks, we're coming up on the first session in 5 minutes
[14:55] <ClassBot> There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.
[14:55]  * pleia2 gives ClassBot a cookie
[15:01] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/01/25/%23ubuntu-classroom.html following the conclusion of the session.
[15:01] <jose> so, hello everyone!
[15:02] <jose> welcome to the Introduction to Ubuntu
[15:02] <jose> here, I'll explain some bits about Ubuntu in general
[15:03] <jose> so, let's get started!
[15:04] <jose> Ubuntu is an operating system based on Debian, and it's a Linux distribution
[15:06] <jose> Ubuntu is supported by lots of people around the wold, we have a huge community
[15:07] <jose> as you know, it's available for its free download at ubuntu.com
[15:07] <jose> we have releases every 6 months
[15:08] <jose> and each release is codenamed with an adjective and an animal
[15:09] <jose> and also has its version number from the year.month it's released
[15:09] <jose> our latesr version is 13.10, codenamed Saucy Salamander
[15:11] <jose> we have different versions, for Desktop, Server, Cloud and Touch respectively
[15:14] <jose> so, any questions until now?
[15:14] <jose> feel free to ask at any moment
[15:16] <ClassBot> SuprEngr asked: can Ubuntu stop the heavy rain & lightning?  ;)
[15:16] <jose> it can!
[15:16] <jose> Ubuntu has super powers, but you'll have to discover them yourself ;)
[15:17] <jose> so let's move on
[15:17] <jose> you can download Ubuntu at different servers
[15:18] <jose> first, we have ubuntu.com for the latest Long Term Support release
[15:18] <jose> and also the latest released version
[15:22] <jose> then we have relases.ubuntu.com where you will find all the supported versions
[15:23] <jose> and old-releases.ubuntu.com, where you can find versions that are no longer released
[15:23] <jose> talking about releases, we have regular versions and LTS versions
[15:24] <jose> (LTS stands for Long Term Support)
[15:24] <jose> regular releases are supported for 9 months
[15:24] <jose> while LTS releases are supported for 18 months
[15:25] <jose> those terms are both on Desktop and Server
[15:26] <jose> any questions?
[15:29] <jose> moving on
[15:29] <jose> if you want to download Ubuntu via torrent, you will be able to find the .torrent file on releases.ubuntu.com
[15:30] <jose> the .iso file you download can be put on a USB (further instructions at ubuntu.com)
[15:30] <jose> or can be burned onto a CD/DVD
[15:31] <jose> oh, mistake on my side, LTSs are supported for 5 years
[15:31] <jose> (ages ago it was 18 months :) )
[15:31] <jose> back to the .iso part
[15:31] <jose> it works as installation media
[15:32] <jose> and also as a LiveUsb/CD/DVD
[15:32] <jose> so you can go ahead and try Ubuntu on your PC without installing anything or modifying your system
[15:34] <jose> the interface for installation/trial is self explanatory
[15:34] <jose> so it's quite easy for anyone to do it :)
[15:36] <jose> any questions so far?
[15:38] <jose> let's continue then
[15:39] <jose> Ubuntu was founded by Mark Shuttleworth, a South African guy who has been to space
[15:39] <jose> and the project is backed by Canonical
[15:39] <jose> and lots of contributors around the world, like pleia2 and I :)
[15:41] <jose> the community grows every single day, and if you want to join you're totally welcome to
[15:41] <jose> now, we also have different flavors, but we'll have a session that explains some of them later on
[15:42] <jose> if you want to get support, then benonsoftware's session is the most appropriate for that, also make sure you stay tuned!
[15:43] <jose> but in the meanwhile, #ubuntu here, on irc.freenode.net and askubuntu.com are your best bets :)
[15:43] <jose> now, let's check if there are any other questions...
[15:45] <ClassBot> SuprEngr97 asked: ​ is it worth mentioning the definition of "ubuntu"?
[15:45] <jose> sure, Ubuntu is an african word which means 'a shared humanity'
[15:47] <jose> so pass the word about Ubuntu to friends, family, whoever it may be, share the spirit! :)
[15:47] <jose> well, that's all for me folks!
[15:48] <jose> I'm at a local event, so I need to run other events :)
[15:48] <jose> make sure to stay tuned for other sessions!
[15:48] <jose> thanks for being here, and enjoy the rest of User Days!
[15:50] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
[15:55] <ClassBot> There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.
[16:00] <coolbhavi> Hey, hows everyone doing?
[16:00] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/01/25/%23ubuntu-classroom.html following the conclusion of the session.
[16:01] <coolbhavi> Hopefully you have enjoyed intro session and I'm hopefully not going to bore you much :)
[16:02] <coolbhavi> Now to start us off, I'm going to go over some of the ulta basics of the  CLI and why you would want to learn it a little way
[16:02] <coolbhavi> ultra*
[16:03] <coolbhavi> then we will have some time for questions as it goes with other sessions
[16:04] <coolbhavi> to get introduced, I'm Bhavani Shankar a ubuntu developer and a contributor just like other millions :)
[16:05] <coolbhavi> OK now! lets get into some CLI
[16:05] <coolbhavi> So why use the CLI or command-line-interface?
[16:06] <coolbhavi> quoting some lines from man intro:
[16:06] <coolbhavi> "Under Linux there are GUIs (graphical user interfaces), where you can point and click and drag, and hopefully get work done without first reading lots of documentation. The traditional Unix environment is a CLI (command line interface), where you type commands to tell the computer what to do. That is faster and more powerful, but requires finding out what the commands are."
[16:07] <coolbhavi> this quote will give us a good starting point into where to get help, it intros us to the "man" command man is short for manual, and as part of Debian and thus ubuntu's policy every command on the CLI must have a manual page.
[16:08] <coolbhavi> so you know where to find help :) and if you dont you can always file a bug :)
[16:09] <ClassBot> phanimahesh asked: How do I access this CLI?
[16:10] <coolbhavi> phanimahesh, I use unity so searching for terminal in dash or ctrl alt T keys would help
[16:11] <coolbhavi> or on gnome
[16:11] <coolbhavi> moving on :)
[16:12] <coolbhavi> you can bring up this help as easy as typing "man <command>" like say "man ls" will bring the manual up for the ls command
[16:13] <coolbhavi> ok now lets drop a few commands at once :)
[16:13] <coolbhavi> what makes the CLI on linux and other UNIX and UNIX like OS's so unique?
[16:14] <coolbhavi> ts ability to pipe commands into one another effectively chain them onto one another or make functions on the go or it can be treated as a programming language in itself
[16:16] <coolbhavi> but we wont touch as much on that today as we are going a few basic samples
[16:16] <coolbhavi> back to piping commands and example of ls
[16:17] <coolbhavi> ls alone gives you a directory listing, like dir in windows
[16:17] <coolbhavi> now from the man page we will add few flags and see what happens
[16:18] <coolbhavi> it tells us we can add the -l flag to put the listing in vertical
[16:18] <coolbhavi> or -a to show all files including hidden files
[16:19] <coolbhavi> so we end up with someting like "ls -la"
[16:20] <coolbhavi> this is great until you try it on your pictures collection directory :)
[16:21] <coolbhavi> if its anything like mine it flows well off the screen way to fast to be useful
[16:21] <coolbhavi> so we're gonna chain a command with it, or technically pipe the `ls` command into a second one
[16:22] <coolbhavi> in this case we want to use a terminal "pager" like `less`
[16:22] <coolbhavi> so to do this we are gonna do "cd ~/Pictures" then "ls -la|less"
[16:23] <coolbhavi> this will take the output from ls and before it shows it to you "pipe" it to the less command
[16:23] <coolbhavi> the less command then will show us one "page" at a time moving to the next with spacebar
[16:24] <coolbhavi> more info on less can be found with ... man less :)
[16:24] <coolbhavi> but this showed us putting two commands working as one, that is a fundamental part of the Linux CLI
[16:25] <coolbhavi> It also allows for other things too like "ls -la|uniq" will remove duplicates
[16:26] <coolbhavi> or "ls -la|uniq|sort" will remove duplicates then sort them by alpha order
[16:27] <coolbhavi> you can chain or pipe indefinitely :) another command which finds good usage is cut
[16:28] <coolbhavi> ls -la|cut -f 1 -d " "|uniq
[16:28] <coolbhavi>  i'll leave you with this command to look in the manual and find out what its doing
[16:29] <coolbhavi> one more nice feature of the cli is aliases
[16:30] <coolbhavi> this is a very handy feature for those that use things like "ls -la" a lot of times
[16:30] <coolbhavi> you can simply `alias ab="ls -la"`
[16:31] <ClassBot> SuprEngr asked: ​ what happens if I type "man cut"?  [ouch!}
[16:32] <coolbhavi> SuprEngr, manual for the cut command comes up :)
[16:33] <coolbhavi> and then when you type ab , it runs the `ls -la` commmand in its place
[16:33] <coolbhavi> ( until you close the terminal ) to make the command persistent, edit the .bash_profile file in your home directory and add it to the bottom
[16:34] <coolbhavi> then next time you open terminal that will automatic be set for you and you can use ll right away ( there are also other commented out examples of common aliases in the bash_profile file already )
[16:35] <coolbhavi> you can also override the ls command itself
[16:35] <coolbhavi> like `alias ls='ls -la'` then when you run ls which runs the -la switch when u run ls
[16:36] <coolbhavi> but be very carefull doing this, you can overide important commands by accident, the easiest way to tell safely if your shortcut is already a system command is to use the "which" command
[16:37] <coolbhavi> like "which ls" will tell you either it doesnt exist and is safe to alias, or it will return the location of the ls binary program than it would run if you had used it.
[16:38] <coolbhavi> and one more important thing here is dont just type in the command to see if it exists because dangerous commands like rm and dd can wreck the system
[16:40] <coolbhavi> I'll cover a bit more basic samples but will leave some gap for any questions now :)
[16:42] <ClassBot> IdleOne asked: is it possible to reload the bash profile without restarting my terminal?
[16:42] <coolbhavi> IdleOne, you need to source the file to effect that
[16:43] <coolbhavi> source ~/.bash_profile
[16:43] <coolbhavi> ok :) lets move on then :)
[16:43] <coolbhavi> pwd: The pwd command will allow you to know in which directory you're presently in (pwd stands for "print working directory").
[16:44] <coolbhavi> this is a good one to have rembered so you can easily tell where you are on the system
[16:45] <coolbhavi> so if you do it as soon as you open the terminal you get something like "/home/bhavani/" returned
[16:45] <coolbhavi> telling us we are in our home directory
[16:46] <coolbhavi> also there are 2 handy shortcuts for changing dir's that you'll likely see a lot
[16:46] <coolbhavi> the first being ~
[16:46] <coolbhavi> ~ expands in bash ( the CLI program ) to the current users home dir
[16:47] <coolbhavi> so "cd ~/Desktop" will take me to my desktop
[16:47] <coolbhavi> and the other is - ( minus )
[16:48] <coolbhavi> so once we had "cd ~/Desktop" we can then "cd -" and that will take us to the directory we were last in no matter where we were
[16:49] <coolbhavi> So these where some basic samples which I hope would get you started with cli
[16:50] <coolbhavi> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal is an excellent page to start off with
[16:50] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
[16:50] <coolbhavi> any more questions welcome :)
[16:55] <ClassBot> There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.
[16:56] <ClassBot> tgjk asked: Is here a possibility to read the STDERR?
[16:58] <coolbhavi> tgjk, havent tried through a command per se but have mostly redirected those in my experience like file.out 2>&1 | tee output
[17:00] <coolbhavi> thats it guys I hope you enjoy rest of the sessions lined up :)
[17:00] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/01/25/%23ubuntu-classroom.html following the conclusion of the session.
[17:01] <phanimahesh> Hello everyone!
[17:01] <phanimahesh> I am Mahesh, and I've been using ubuntu since 2006.
[17:02] <phanimahesh> I will talk about Launchpad today.
[17:02] <phanimahesh> Outline:
[17:02] <phanimahesh>  - What is Launchpad
[17:02] <phanimahesh>  - OpenID
[17:02] <phanimahesh>  - Launchpad Answers
[17:02] <phanimahesh>  - Reporting Bugs
[17:02] <phanimahesh>  - Translations ( if time permits)
[17:03] <phanimahesh> I will handle questions after I finish with each of the topics.
[17:03] <phanimahesh> Firstly, what is Launchpad?
[17:03] <phanimahesh> Launchpad is an open source suite of tools that help people and teams to work together on software projects.
[17:03] <phanimahesh> It brings communities together by making it easy to share code, bug reports, translations and ideas across projects.
[17:04] <phanimahesh> Launchpad provides many services, but as a user, you will likely be interested in OpenID, Launchpad Answers, Reporting Bugs, and Contributing translations.
[17:04] <phanimahesh> I will cover each of these topics briefly.
[17:04] <phanimahesh> You will need a Launchpad account before you can use some services. It's free, and takes less than a minute to get started.
[17:05] <phanimahesh> Its as simple as going to Launchpad.net, clicking on login/signup at top right, then filling out name, email and password.
[17:05] <phanimahesh> You shouldn't face any issues, but in case you get stuck,
[17:05] <phanimahesh> a detailed documentation is available at https://help.launchpad.net/YourAccount/NewAccount
[17:06] <phanimahesh> If you do not already have an account, please register one. (After the sessions.)
[17:07] <phanimahesh> Now, What is OpenID?
[17:07] <phanimahesh> If each website starts asking us to create an account, all hell breaks loose. ;)
[17:08] <phanimahesh> people reuse passwords in different sites, which is very bad practice.
[17:08] <phanimahesh> openID tries to solve this problem.
[17:08] <phanimahesh> Open ID allows you to use an existing account to sign in to multiple websites, without needing to create new passwords.
[17:08] <phanimahesh> It works this way.
[17:09] <phanimahesh> Launchpad is an openID provider.
[17:09] <phanimahesh> an OpenID provider is some website you trust, who will verify your identity for others.
[17:09] <phanimahesh> If you need to login to a openID enabled site, use your profile URL as the openID.
[17:10] <phanimahesh> Your profile url would be https://launchpad.net/~your-nickname
[17:10] <phanimahesh> For example, mine is https://launchpad.net/~phanimahesh
[17:10] <phanimahesh> You will be redirected to Launchpad.
[17:11] <phanimahesh> BTW, the nickname is your Launchpad user id, not IRC nick.
[17:11] <phanimahesh> If you are not already logged in, you will have to log in to Launchpad, and then allow the website to know your identity.
[17:11] <phanimahesh> It'll return you to the site you want to use, andyou will be logged in.
[17:12] <phanimahesh> This means that you can use any openID enabled site if you remember your launchpad nickname, and password.
[17:13] <phanimahesh> If it sounds familiar, yup, you might have seen a similar process while using "Login with Google" or Login with facebook.
[17:13] <phanimahesh> Infact, Google, Yahoo, Wordpress, Facebook, AOL are also openID providers.
[17:13] <phanimahesh> So, where can you use openID?
[17:14] <phanimahesh> You can use openID to log in to Blogs on blogger, wordpress (using an openID plugin), LiveJournal, and a growing number of sites.
[17:14] <phanimahesh> A more detailed list can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenID#Adoption
[17:14] <phanimahesh> To learn more about the benifits of openID, visit http://openid.net/get-an-openid/individuals/
[17:15] <phanimahesh> Okay, so any questions so far about OpenID with Launchpad?
[17:15] <phanimahesh> Let's move onto Launchpad Answers.
[17:16] <phanimahesh> While mailing lists, web forums, and IRC are great places to find help with free software, they do have a couple of shortcomings:
[17:16] <phanimahesh> There's no way to track the progress of a question and knowledge about the software is spread across different places.
[17:17] <phanimahesh> Launchpad Answers is unique in that it works like a bug tracker.
[17:17] <phanimahesh> It notifies volunteer support contacts of new questions, builds a searchable knowledge base of good answers, and allows people to ask questions and offer support in different languages.
[17:18] <phanimahesh> Using Launchpad Answers is easy, first off, visit the Answers page at https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu.
[17:18] <phanimahesh> Click on the "Ask a Question" link in the right top of the page.  Next, type good summary to your question.
[17:19] <phanimahesh> "Please help me!" or "I need help" is not a good summary ;)
[17:19] <phanimahesh> So what is a good summary?
[17:19] <phanimahesh> A good summary should be able to describe your problem briefly.
[17:19] <phanimahesh> If it is a big project and I am one of the people that help with only some issues, I should be able to say if I can deal with it or not, by looking at the summary.
[17:20] <phanimahesh> Infact, that is the primary use of summaries.
[17:20] <phanimahesh> Click on next, and Launchpad will now search for existing questions that look similar.
[17:20] <phanimahesh> If it finds any, it will show you them.
[17:21] <phanimahesh> If Launchpad doesn't find any similar questions, or those it finds are unhelpful to you, you can write a more detailed description of your problem and submit your question.
[17:21] <phanimahesh> This also means that good summaries allow you to see relevant existing questions very quickly.
[17:22] <phanimahesh> You will not need to post another question and wait for the answers if an existing question answers your question.
[17:22] <phanimahesh> Once you've added your question, Launchpad emails anyone who's volunteered to be an answer contact for your language.
[17:22] <phanimahesh> Most work on Launchpad is done by volunteer users, like you and me.
[17:23] <phanimahesh> They can then ask you for more information or offer an answer. Launchpad will then email you whenever your question changes, such as when someone suggests an answer.
[17:23] <phanimahesh> The project maintainers can see list of unanswered questions, and this is one of the nice features that mailing lists don't have.
[17:23] <phanimahesh> So, any questions before we move on to bug reporting?
[17:24] <phanimahesh> Askme to slow down if i am going too fast. i tend to do that, at times.
[17:25] <phanimahesh> okay. looks like we have no questions.
[17:25] <phanimahesh> Either I'm being awesome or my class is boring. :P
[17:26] <phanimahesh> Moving on to bug reports..
[17:26] <phanimahesh> Ubuntu is one of the many projects that use LP as their bug tracker.
[17:26] <phanimahesh> Some good practices for any bug reporting system:
[17:27] <phanimahesh> Always remember that while reporting a bug, it is absolutely essential that you provide all information that you can.
[17:27] <phanimahesh> there's a saying that goes along the lines of "you can never provide too much of information."
[17:27] <phanimahesh> The people who help with the bug triaging are volunteers. And if they have to spend time getting more information, it slows down things a lot.
[17:28] <phanimahesh> In general, three things are important in a bug report.
[17:28] <phanimahesh> a) What was expected to happen?
[17:28] <phanimahesh> b) What actually happened?
[17:28] <phanimahesh> c) What is the minimum series of steps that can make it happen?
[17:28] <phanimahesh> The last one is important because if I am a triager and I need to confirm a bug, I should be able to "make it happen".
[17:29] <phanimahesh> If I am a developer and I fix a bug, I need to verify that my fix actually works.
[17:29] <phanimahesh> "making it happen" is called reproducing the bug.
[17:29] <phanimahesh> You may see people calling it repro for short.
[17:29] <phanimahesh> Now, coming back to Ubuntu,
[17:30] <phanimahesh> Launchpad allows you to report a bug from browser, but most of the time, some necessary information will be missing. hence the recommended way is to use Apport.
[17:30] <phanimahesh> Ubuntu has a nice helper called Apport. It is the bug report generator.
[17:30] <phanimahesh> It will collect the necessary information, and open a browser for you to fill in the missing details.
[17:31] <phanimahesh> for more information about apport, see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Apport
[17:31] <phanimahesh> So, I found a bug. What do I do?
[17:31] <phanimahesh> Most programs usually have a "Report a bug" menu entry in help menu.
[17:31] <phanimahesh> help -> report a bug or report a problem
[17:32] <phanimahesh> Clicking on it will start Apport, and the program will guide you.
[17:32] <phanimahesh> Sometimes, you can not use the menu.
[17:32] <phanimahesh> There is no such entry, or the application may not be responding, or the problem is an infrastructure component like Linux kernel, Graphics system, sound system etc.
[17:32] <phanimahesh> In those cases, you can type ubuntu-bug <packagename> in a terminal to start Apport.
[17:33] <phanimahesh> As coolbhavi said, you can access terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T in Unity or Gnome.
[17:33] <phanimahesh> KDE users can use Konsole.
[17:33] <phanimahesh> If you don't know the package name, or if you are not sure, people in #ubuntu-bug will be happy to help.
[17:34] <phanimahesh> Round the clock, there is almost always someone in there who is listening.
[17:34] <phanimahesh> If you do not get a reply immediately, wait some time. People may not always be looking at their chat windows.
[17:34] <phanimahesh> To know more about finding the right package, please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage
[17:35] <phanimahesh> there are these people called bug hunters. They search for bugs and report them.
[17:35] <phanimahesh> We love them!!
[17:36] <phanimahesh> In case you have plans to get started along that route, it is a must for you to read that section.
[17:36] <phanimahesh> And also https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/ReportingBugs
[17:37] <phanimahesh> To file a bug against a program that is currently running, go to System > Administration > System Monitor, and find the ID of the process:
[17:37] <phanimahesh> Or if you are not afraid of command line, you should be looking at ps
[17:38] <phanimahesh> Yup, "ps" is the command that can list running processes. Or you can use "top"
[17:38] <phanimahesh> for example https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=system-monitor-id.png
[17:39] <phanimahesh> This shows the system monitor screenshot
[17:39] <phanimahesh> Then you can type ubuntu-bug <pid> in the terminal to start Apport.
[17:39] <phanimahesh> It will figure out the correct package and include information about running process that makes it easy to debug and fix.
[17:39] <phanimahesh> You may not always have internet connection.
[17:40] <phanimahesh> If you are offline, or if the bug prevents you from connecting to internet, Using the `command apport-cli -f -p <package name>` on the target system will collect information and provide you with an option to "Keep report file for sending later or copying to somewhere else".
[17:40] <phanimahesh> oops, I misplaced a backtick.
[17:40] <phanimahesh> apport-cli -f -p <package name>
[17:40] <phanimahesh> that is the command.
[17:41] <phanimahesh> (Backticks are a common way of enclosing commands. It has some special meanings in terminal. google to find out more)
[17:41] <phanimahesh> The report is then saved on the target system, in your /tmp directory which is cleared out on reboot, with a .apport extension.
[17:41] <phanimahesh> So before you shut down the machine, copy the file somewhere safe.
[17:42] <phanimahesh> After copying it to a different system you can file that report using `ubuntu-bug  <location of apport file>`.
[17:42] <phanimahesh> All translations bugs (spelling mistakes, wrong translations, spell check errors, language support issues) should be reported against a special package called 'ubuntu-translaions'.
[17:42] <phanimahesh> From there, the BugSquad will triage them and assign them to the right person and package.
[17:43] <phanimahesh> oh, and BugSquad is not an alien force! Its volunteers again! If you are interested in helping, drop by at #ubuntu-bugs
[17:43] <phanimahesh> If for some reason you cannot file a bug through the Apport tool you can file one via Launchpad.
[17:43] <phanimahesh> When doing so please ensure that you have determined which package it should be filed against.
[17:44] <phanimahesh> To report a bug when you don't know the package name
[17:44] <phanimahesh> You can use https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug/?no-redirect
[17:44] <phanimahesh> Please use this as a last effort, in case you can absolutely not find the package.
[17:45] <phanimahesh> Again, if you need help with filing a bug, do drop by at #ubuntu-bugs.  We'd be happy to help
[17:45] <phanimahesh> If you have already reported a bug directly via Launchpad, but want to add additional debugging information via Apport to the bug, you can do this by running the command "apport-collect BUGNUMBER"
[17:45] <phanimahesh> Any questions so far?
[17:46] <phanimahesh> okay. Moving on..
[17:46] <phanimahesh> Only describe a single problem per bug report so that each can be followed up on in detail.
[17:46] <phanimahesh> If you experience several issues file separate reports.
[17:46] <phanimahesh> Add supporting attachments to explain or help others reproduce your bug.
[17:47] <phanimahesh> This might include a screenshot or video capture of the problem or a sample document that triggers the fault.
[17:47] <phanimahesh> To add an attachment to the bug use the Include an attachment section of the bug form.
[17:47] <phanimahesh> Additional attachments, if necessary, can be added after the bug is reported via Add a comment/attachment at the bottom of the page.
[17:47] <phanimahesh> For anything hardware related, give precise details about your hardware. Attaching the output of "lspci -vvnn" and "dmesg", after a fresh boot, will help a lot.
[17:49] <phanimahesh> https://bugs.launchpad.net/dkimpy/+bug/1272724
[17:49] <phanimahesh> That is the latest bug reported on launchpad.
[17:49] <phanimahesh> Let me explain some sections on that page.
[17:50] <phanimahesh> you'll see a green text "This bug affects 1 person. Does this bug affect you?"
[17:50] <phanimahesh> If you click it and answer yes, the number after the fire icon, called bug heat, will increase. It helps highlight important bugs, and also subscribes you to the bug report.
[17:50] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
[17:50] <phanimahesh> (Assuming you are logged in)
[17:50] <phanimahesh> Please dont click that button if your bug is a hardware bug.  The same issue can be caused by several different hardware and each need to be different bugs.
[17:51] <phanimahesh> You will see a 'status' in the bug report. A bug report can be in several states.
[17:51] <phanimahesh> When you report a bug, it is marked 'New'. if someone can confirm it, they will change it to confirmed. please do not confirm your own bugs. that makes having two statuses pointless.
[17:51] <phanimahesh> If some information is missing, they will set the status to incomplete, and ask for information. Do not hesitate to change it to New, AFTER you have supplied the information that was asked.
[17:51] <phanimahesh> If you are using a development version and a program crashes, Apport will kick in automatically.
[17:51] <phanimahesh> You will get a popup asking if you would like to report a bug, and it will collect most of the necessary information for you.
[17:52] <phanimahesh> Don't worry, it will ask for your permission before collecting, and shows the data and asks, before sending it to LP.
[17:52] <phanimahesh> Make sure you write down what you were doing while it happened.
[17:52] <phanimahesh> Moving on to what is NOT a bug.
[17:52] <phanimahesh> Support requests - please use IRC (#ubuntu), forums, LP answers, Ask Ubuntu, or other community support means.
[17:52] <phanimahesh> feature and policy discussions (including suggestions to change defaults) should be discussed on ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list.
[17:52] <phanimahesh> Small feature requests to software, especially those that are not installed by default, can be asked by filing a bug.
[17:52] <phanimahesh> Development ideas should be posted to http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ or discussed on the ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list.
[17:53] <phanimahesh> Already filed -  if its a software bug and already filed, then better subscribe to the one already filed and add additonal information if any
[17:53] <phanimahesh> Alright! Question time!
[17:53] <phanimahesh> Sorry folks, there isn't enough time left to cover translations.
[17:53] <phanimahesh> here is one of my answers on How do I report a Bug (http://askubuntu.com/a/137915/45659)
[17:54] <phanimahesh> A more complete guide can be found at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs
[17:54] <phanimahesh> People in #ubuntu and #ubuntu-bugs will be happy to help if you need further assistance.
[17:54] <phanimahesh> Oh, and if it is a hardware bug, have a look at http://askubuntu.com/questions/14008/i-have-a-hardware-detection-problem-what-logs-do-i-need-to-look-into/14126#14126
[17:55] <phanimahesh> In case you get stuck, you will find everything you need at https://help.launchpad.net/
[17:55] <ClassBot> There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.
[17:55] <phanimahesh> And you know what? LP uses itself for code hosting and bug management.
[17:56] <phanimahesh> (often done in Opensource circles. its called dogfooding)
[17:56] <phanimahesh> using your own tools.
[17:56] <phanimahesh> So if you find a problem with launchpad, you can report a bug against launchpad project!
[17:57] <phanimahesh> Alright! now philipballew will take over.
[17:57] <phanimahesh> Thanks for being here, and have a good day!
[18:00] <philipballew> It's about that time
[18:00] <philipballew> Lets give a virtual round of applause to phanimahesh for that last session.
[18:00] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/01/25/%23ubuntu-classroom.html following the conclusion of the session.
[18:01] <philipballew> Well if the irc nic does not explain it,I am Philip Ballew.
[18:02] <philipballew> Coming at you live from San Diego today with a high of 24 C/ 75 F today.
[18:02] <philipballew> My session is on Ubuntu Unity.
[18:02] <philipballew> I will go over some features it has.
[18:02] <philipballew> Some things you can do with it.
[18:03] <philipballew> and move into a few customizations with it.
[18:03] <philipballew> If we have time, and I assume we will, I will go over some pointers with using the system, and then go into some q&a with all of you.
[18:04] <philipballew> alright. Here we go:
[18:04] <philipballew> First off when you install ubuntu, there are a few things I recommended doing first.
[18:05] <philipballew> the first is making sure you are using the right graphics driver, just to make sure it does not make unity look poor if you are not.
[18:06] <philipballew> An easy link to find some ways to work on Unity can be found at http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/10/10-things-installing-ubuntu-13-10
[18:06] <philipballew> lets look at a few of them.
[18:07] <philipballew> The way that I like to work on unity to see all of its features to to just tinker with it.
[18:08] <philipballew> now a disclaimer: If you break your system do not get mad at Ubuntu, me or your computer.
[18:08] <philipballew> these things happen.
[18:08] <philipballew> alright.
[18:08] <philipballew> a nice piece of software to use in ubuntu tweet
[18:08] <philipballew> *tweek
[18:09] <philipballew> it provides many features to make the unity interface something you can call your own.
[18:09] <philipballew> Here is a screenshot of the things it provides: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/unity_tweak_tool_310.png
[18:09] <philipballew> props to Joey for OMG also.
[18:10] <philipballew> also perhaps you do not like the window buttons on the side that they are, so you can also move them with this software.
[18:10] <philipballew> alright, want to feel cool now?
[18:10] <philipballew> awesome!
[18:10] <philipballew> lets open up bash
[18:11] <philipballew> with unity you can open a terminal easily with ctrl + alt + T
[18:12] <philipballew> I just did it myself and you can to!
[18:12] <philipballew> http://www.webupd8.org/2013/10/8-things-to-do-after-installing-ubuntu.html
[18:12] <philipballew> here, this article explains some ways to install some indicators to your desktop.
[18:13] <philipballew> let us use the weather indicator as an example.
[18:13] <philipballew> sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao
[18:13] <philipballew> sudo apt-get update
[18:13] <philipballew> sudo apt-get install my-weather-indicator
[18:14] <philipballew> now remember ppa's can be tricky sometimes
[18:14] <philipballew> but they can also be fun,
[18:15] <philipballew> This will create a nice weather info indicator in the top bar of unity.
[18:15] <philipballew> alright
[18:16] <philipballew> some other cool parts of unity is its ability to use the dash to search for things online.
[18:17] <philipballew> lets look at those
[18:18] <philipballew> here is a nice article about scopes that ubuntu has
[18:18] <philipballew> http://www.zdnet.com/ubuntu-13-10-saucy-salamander-review-smart-scopes-in-mir-out-7000022022/
[18:18] <philipballew> worth a read
[18:19] <philipballew> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SmartScopes1304Spec
[18:19] <philipballew> also this because Wiki pages can be nice sometimes
[18:19] <philipballew> let me get some examples of scopes
[18:21] <philipballew> oldie but a goodie
[18:22] <philipballew> now I see some people in the chat channel asking about 12.04
[18:22] <philipballew> here is a link on customizing 12.04
[18:22] <philipballew> http://hackerspace.lifehacker.com/a-short-guide-to-customizing-ubuntu-12-04-lts-for-beg-595909239
[18:22] <philipballew> alright, lets move into some basic ubuntu keyboard commands.
[18:22] <philipballew> I mean sure you can use the mouse, but why?
[18:23] <philipballew> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KeyboardShortcuts
[18:24] <philipballew> alright, here is a doc page about it.
[18:24] <philipballew> however iirc, in 13.10 and before you can hold down the super key and have a page of keyboard shortcuts pop up.
[18:25] <philipballew> let us look at a big one here: ctrl + alt + tab
[18:25] <philipballew> this changes the ap you are working on.
[18:26] <philipballew> pretty basic however can greatly enhance productivity.
[18:26] <philipballew> so I can use this to shuffle between applications.
[18:27] <philipballew> now it is needed to be said that this is for all workspaces
[18:27] <philipballew> if you want to just shuffle on the workspace you are in, you can just use alt + tab.
[18:27] <philipballew> easy right?
[18:27] <philipballew> here: try it yourself.
[18:30] <philipballew> alright, so when you all have time, go ahead and read the documentation yourself.
[18:31] <philipballew> here is a site I have used before to find interesting terminal commands to paste things into and do some customizations also.
[18:31] <philipballew> one of the options is the ability to have the white dots removed:
[18:31] <philipballew> sudo xhost +SI:localuser:lightdm
[18:32] <philipballew> sudo su lightdm -s /bin/bash
[18:32] <philipballew> gsettings set com.canonical.unity-greeter draw-grid false
[18:32] <philipballew> to remove the guest account you can do it with:
[18:32] <philipballew> echo allow-guest=false | sudo tee -a /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-unity-greeter.conf
[18:33] <philipballew> now remember when I talked about online searches?
[18:33] <philipballew> not everybody might need those.
[18:33] <philipballew> so there is a simple way to remove those:
[18:33] <philipballew> sudo apt-get autoremove unity-lens-music unity-lens-photos unity-lens-video
[18:33] <philipballew> gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Lenses disabled-scopes "['more_suggestions-amazon.scope', 'more_suggestions-u1ms.scope', 'more_suggestions-populartracks.scope', 'music-musicstore.scope', 'more_suggestions-ebay.scope', 'more_suggestions-ubuntushop.scope', 'more_suggestions-skimlinks.scope']"
[18:34] <philipballew> also, if you do not like the scrollbars the way they are, this site shows how to change them:
[18:34] <philipballew> gsettings set com.canonical.desktop.interface scrollbar-mode normal
[18:34] <philipballew> if you want to go back:
[18:34] <philipballew> gsettings reset com.canonical.desktop.interface scrollbar-mode
[18:35] <philipballew> if you want to show your name in the top pannel by the date:
[18:35] <philipballew> gsettings set com.canonical.indicator.session show-real-name-on-panel true
[18:35] <philipballew> and to reverse:
[18:35] <philipballew> gsettings set com.canonical.indicator.session show-real-name-on-panel false
[18:35] <philipballew> now another thins that is worth saying is sometimes Ubuntu will present a lot of crash reports:
[18:36] <philipballew> you can stop these by:
[18:36] <philipballew> sudo gedit /etc/default/apport
[18:36] <philipballew> well actually probably gksude
[18:36] <philipballew> *gksudo
[18:36] <philipballew> gksudo gedit /etc/default/apport
[18:37] <philipballew> the site this is all on says that nest you will have a  text file will open, In the last line you will see "enabled=1" change it to "enabled=0". Save and close file.
[18:37] <philipballew> Now enter following command in terminal to stop apport service:
[18:37] <philipballew> sudo service apport stop
[18:38] <philipballew> Want a firewall for your system?
[18:38] <philipballew> sudo apt-get install gufw
[18:38] <philipballew> then open it from the dash and set it up.
[18:38] <philipballew> Want to play DVD's and live somewhere where you can?
[18:38] <philipballew> sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg libxine1-ffmpeg gxine mencoder libdvdread4 totem-mozilla icedax tagtool easytag id3tool lame nautilus-script-audio-convert libmad0 mpg321
[18:39] <philipballew> sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
[18:39] <philipballew> some of these will install the ability to play music as well
[18:39] <philipballew> unless you are always using ogg
[18:40] <philipballew> now as we wrap up here I want to let you know that trying to mess with your system all the time, can break it.
[18:40] <philipballew> however I will show you how to reset unity now:
[18:40] <philipballew> this might invilve dropping to a tty f.y.i.
[18:40] <philipballew> *involve
[18:41] <philipballew> sudo apt-get install dconf-tools
[18:41] <philipballew> dconf reset -f /org/compiz/
[18:41] <philipballew> setsid unity
[18:41] <philipballew> unity --reset-icons
[18:41] <philipballew> alright. that is a lot of stuff to go over with Ubuntu Unity I guess right?
[18:42] <philipballew> now if you have any questions, I am happy to answer
[18:42] <ClassBot> SuprEngr asked: ​ maybe ot the right plce to ask but... I've always wondered: what does the "gk" in gksudo mean?
[18:42] <philipballew> SuprEngr, great question
[18:43] <philipballew> gksudo is for opening graphical application from the terminal.
[18:43] <philipballew> in a gnome enviorment
[18:43] <philipballew> so with kde, I beleive I would use ksudo
[18:44] <philipballew> you can also throw a & at the end of the command to have the terminal go to a new line after opening the app.
[18:44] <philipballew> kdesudo
[18:44] <philipballew> actually I am informed
[18:45] <philipballew> thank you:)
[18:45] <philipballew> is there any more questions?
[18:45] <philipballew> alright, thank you for coming everyone
[18:50] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
[18:55] <ClassBot> There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.
[19:00] <Cheesehead> (Applause)
[19:00] <Cheesehead> Package Management Tips and Tricks
[19:00] <Cheesehead> Thanks, ChanServ
[19:00] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/01/25/%23ubuntu-classroom.html following the conclusion of the session.
[19:01] <Cheesehead> Hello from the shores of lovely Lake Michigan.
[19:01] <Cheesehead> It's a beautiful, sunny day here. +13F (-11C) with a lovely breeze.
[19:01]  * Cheesehead puts on more sunscreen
[19:01] <Cheesehead> Go ahead and ask any questions you have, anytime.
[19:02] <Cheesehead> To ask a question, join #ubuntu-classroom-chat and start with QUESTION:
[19:02] <Cheesehead> I will see it, though it may take me a minute or two to answer.
[19:02] <Cheesehead> I plan to (very briefly) discuss:
[19:02] <Cheesehead> 1) What the packaging system is...and is not.
[19:02] <Cheesehead> 2) The three most common package-management problems we see in the help forums...so you will know them when you see them
[19:02] <Cheesehead> 3) The command-line tools that help you. This is the big part.
[19:02]  * Cheesehead sips his drink and looks around the room
[19:03] <Cheesehead> == Seven lines about what packaging is ==
[19:03] <Cheesehead> Package Management is the way you install most software. I'm sure you already knew that. And I'm sure you already know how easy it is.
[19:03] <Cheesehead> You open Software Center, click, and stuff just magically installs or uninstalls. Your built-in package Manager is the secret sauce that makes it possible.
[19:03] <Cheesehead> Your software updates, both system software and applications, are also merely packages that get installed.
[19:04] <Cheesehead> Packaged software is much more than a simple app store. There's a whole infrastructure of testing and trust-building behind the scenes.
[19:04] <Cheesehead> Many Ubuntu community members making sure that those packages do what they claim, that they are free of malware and adware, that they are appropriately licensed, etc.
[19:04] <Cheesehead> Since Software Center is fairly obvious, much of the discussion today is command-line driven. It's fast, and it's the easy way to identify problems.
[19:04] <Cheesehead> ...But if you have a Software Center question, do ask!
[19:05]  * Cheesehead takes a drink of water and checks for questions
[19:06]  * Cheesehead wait for everyone to catch up with the reading
[19:07] <Cheesehead> On to the tips and tricks
[19:07] <Cheesehead> == The three most common pitfalls ==
[19:07] <Cheesehead> The pitfall that causes the most frustration is installing packages from out in the wild instead of from the Ubuntu Repositories.
[19:07] <Cheesehead> Packages mean convenience. They do not mean security. The Ubuntu Repositories and the Ubuntu Security Team provide secure and trustworthy packages.
[19:07] <Cheesehead> Over in the support forums, we help a *lot* of users who downloaded something off the web...and it broke their system. Or it was from Debian. Or it was from a different release of Ubuntu.
[19:08] <Cheesehead> And phillipballew may disagree with me, but I lump PPAs in with "out in the wild"
[19:09] <Cheesehead> In the support forums, we do see systems that get hosed from...er...probelmativ PPAs.
[19:09] <Cheesehead> Bottom lime: Don't install strange packages you found on the web UNTIL you have backed up your system.
[19:09] <Cheesehead> The one time you don't backup is the time a strange package will cause problems.
[19:10] <Cheesehead> If you don't backup, then I recommend against playing in the deep water.
[19:10]  * Cheesehead refreshes his drink
[19:11] <Cheesehead> The pitfall that causes the most confusion is thinking that packages are the *only* way to install software.
[19:11] <Cheesehead> There are other ways. They are sometimes not easy. They are sometimes incompatible with packaged software.
[19:11] <Cheesehead> If you install a tarball or compile software from source code, those are not packages - the Package Manager cannot help you uninstall them or update them.
[19:12]  * Cheesehead throws a toy to the dog and checks for questions
[19:13] <Cheesehead> But you're smart enough not to fall into those traps. You don't download packages from the wild, and you know the difference between a package and a tarball. (Good for you!)
[19:13] <Cheesehead> The most common pitfall is IGNORING ERROR MESSAGES.
[19:14] <Cheesehead> If you get a warning or an error during an install, uninstall, update, or when opening or closing Software Center or Software Updater...
[19:14] <Cheesehead> Jump into the help zone right away. Your system is asking for help.
[19:14] <Cheesehead> Errors and warnings *don't* go away on their own.
[19:14] <Cheesehead> Really.
[19:15] <Cheesehead> Whatever the problem is, it will probably get worse with time. And it's usually really easy to fix.
[19:15] <Cheesehead> You already know where to get help:
[19:15] <Cheesehead> https://help.ubuntu.com
[19:15] <Cheesehead> irc://irc.freenode.net/ubuntu  (That's the #ubuntu channel here)
[19:15] <Cheesehead> http://ubuntuforums.org        (We help a *lot* of people there)
[19:15]  * Cheesehead sips his drink and pauses thoughtfully
[19:16] <ClassBot> ianorlin asked: if you use debuild is compiling from source still not using packages if you make a .deb and then install it through dpkg?
[19:16] <Cheesehead> Yes...sort of.
[19:17] <Cheesehead> Great question.
[19:17] <Cheesehead> Yes, it's certainly a package.
[19:17] <Cheesehead> Yes, you can install/uninstall it using the package manager
[19:17] <Cheesehead> But no, it's not easily sharable
[19:18] <Cheesehead> Nor easily updatable
[19:18] <Cheesehead> You get the ease of install/uninstall, but you miss the benefits of the Ubuntu Repositories and support.
[19:19] <Cheesehead> == Tips for success ==
[19:19] <Cheesehead> The flip side of the biggest pitfall is also the biggest tip: Use the help resources early and often.
[19:19] <Cheesehead> Getting help in Ubuntu means you must use the Terminal.
[19:20] <Cheesehead> (why, how convenient that we're about to cover that!)
[19:20] <Cheesehead> A lot of great diagnostic information is *only* available using the Terminal.
[19:20] <Cheesehead> The second big tip is "Don't be scared of the error message." Read it.
[19:20] <Cheesehead> Really read it. Then read it again.
[19:20] <Cheesehead> Most of the time, it will tell you exactly what the problem is.
[19:21] <Cheesehead> And you will surprise yourself - you understand the problem and know how to fix it.
[19:21] <Cheesehead> The third big tip is "The Terminal is your friend." Embrace it.
[19:21] <Cheesehead> Borrow money from it.
[19:21] <Cheesehead> And that leads us to...
[19:21] <Cheesehead> == Practical Exercise ==
[19:21] <Cheesehead> (You can still ask questions!)
[19:22] <Cheesehead> We're going to update your software, search for a package, install a package, uninstall it, and see what's inside a package. All on the command line so you can watch the gears spin.
[19:22]  * Cheesehead sips his drink
[19:22] <Cheesehead> Let's update your software. This is the equivalent of running Software Updater. Try the following command:
[19:22] <Cheesehead> sudo apt-get update
[19:23] <Cheesehead> Yes, give your password.
[19:23] <Cheesehead> Let it crank a minute.
[19:23] <Cheesehead> What's it doing? It's merely updating your package cache. It's not downloading any packages or installing anything.
[19:24] <Cheesehead> When it's done, try the command:
[19:24] <Cheesehead> sudo apt-get upgrade
[19:24] <Cheesehead> If the system asks you a question, read the question. Then answer.
[19:24] <Cheesehead> There. You just updated your system without running Software Updater.
[19:25] <Cheesehead> Now, if you open Software Updater, it would show your system up-to-date. They read from the same data...the package cache you just updated, among others.
[19:27]  * Cheesehead waits a moment for everyone to catch up
[19:27] <Cheesehead> == Practical Exercise ==
[19:27] <Cheesehead> Let's look for packages to manipulate pdf files. The is the equivalent of Software Center's search feature:
[19:28] <Cheesehead> Try the command:
[19:28] <Cheesehead> apt-cache search pdf
[19:28] <Cheesehead> Well, that's a big list, and it scrolled by too fast to use. Let's refine that search a bit.
[19:29] <Cheesehead> apt-cache search pdf edit
[19:29] <Cheesehead> That's better. We can see a couple possibilities like pdfmod
[19:30]  * Cheesehead throws a wayward volleyball back to the beach party next door
[19:30] <Cheesehead> This command-line output can -of course- be piped and grepped and reformatted any way that's useful to you.
[19:30] <Cheesehead> This command-line output can -of course- be piped and grepped and reformatted any way that's useful to you.
[19:31] <Cheesehead> There. You just did a Software Center search without opening Software Center!
[19:31]  * Cheesehead sips his drink and checks for questions
[19:33] <Cheesehead> == Practical Exercise ==
[19:33] <Cheesehead> Here's a big one.
[19:33] <Cheesehead> Let's install a package and play with it a bit.
[19:33] <Cheesehead> "apt-cache show" gives us lots of information about an example package called "hello"
[19:34] <Cheesehead> Now try this command:
[19:34] <Cheesehead> apt-cache depends hello
[19:34] <Cheesehead> Now try: apt-cache show hello
[19:35] <Cheesehead> "apt-cache depends" gives us the list of packages hello needs to function. apt will automatically install any that are needed.
[19:35] <Cheesehead> "apt-cache show" gives us lots of information about the package
[19:35] <Cheesehead> Now let's install it:
[19:35] <Cheesehead> sudo apt-get install hello
[19:36] <Cheesehead> If you open Software Center and search for "hello," you should see the package, and it's marked installed.
[19:37] <Cheesehead> Software Center and apt (and others) share the same packages data.
[19:38] <Cheesehead> Leave Software Center open, and try the following command to uninstall "hello"
[19:38] <Cheesehead> sudo apt-get uninstall hello
[19:38] <Cheesehead> You should get an error message "can't get a lock"
[19:38] <Cheesehead> You can only have one package manager (like Software Center or apt-get) open at a time.
[19:39] <Cheesehead> Go ahead and quit Software Center. Leave hello installed a little longer.
[19:40] <Cheesehead> Let's see the files that "hello" installed. Try the following command:
[19:40] <Cheesehead> dpkg --list hello
[19:40] <Cheesehead> New let's see what package installed the file /usr/bin/hello. Try:
[19:40] <Cheesehead> dpkg --search /usr/bin/hello
[19:41] <Cheesehead> See the power there? You can answer the questions "What files does this package install?", and "What package installed this file?"
[19:42] <Cheesehead> That's very handy when you are tracking down a bug. Now you know what package to file against!
[19:42] <Cheesehead> It's also handy just for exploring your system.
[19:43] <Cheesehead> Oh, let's run the installed hello application:
[19:43] <Cheesehead> On the command line, simply enter the command "hello"
[19:44] <Cheesehead> Yeah, that's all it does.
[19:44] <Cheesehead> Finally, let's clean up by uninstalling hello:
[19:44] <Cheesehead> sudo apt-get uninstall hello
[19:44] <Cheesehead> or sudo apt-get purge hello
[19:45] <Cheesehead> Uninstall removes everything that's not in /home or /etc
[19:45] <Cheesehead> Purge removes everything that's not inn /home
[19:45] <Cheesehead> "Purge" sounds stringer, but it's exactly the same...just removes the /etc files too.
[19:46] <Cheesehead> stringer? Well, perhaps stronger.
[19:46] <Cheesehead> And you know how to figure out which files those are...
[19:47] <Cheesehead> There. You just installed a package, uninstalled it, and found all the files it installed.
[19:47] <Cheesehead> Bonus: You found which installed files are associated with which package.
[19:47] <Cheesehead> We have a couple minutes for questions
[19:48] <Cheesehead> We can talk about apt-mark, or autoremove, or clean/autoclean, or sources.list, or the hidden daily apt cron job, or many other possible topcs. Ask away...
[19:49] <Cheesehead> Or Aptitude or metapackages or dependencies or versions or rmadison...
[19:50] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
[19:50] <ClassBot> tgjk asked: The question maybe is a litle stupid. Where's the difference between autoremove and autoclean?
[19:51] <Cheesehead> GREAT question!
[19:51] <Cheesehead> Autoremove uninstalls pacakges that the system thinks you don't need.
[19:51] <Cheesehead> Example: If you install hello, and hello pulls in libhello
[19:52] <Cheesehead> But during uninstall only hello get uninstalled and libhello remains installed...but nothing needs it.
[19:52] <Cheesehead> libhello is considered "orphaned." A common-enough oversight in automated package management.
[19:52] <Cheesehead> autoremove uninstalls libhello.
[19:53] <Cheesehead> clean/autoclean refer to the original package files in /var/lib/apt/archive
[19:53] <Cheesehead> The system saves every package file, even when superseded by a newer version.
[19:53] <Cheesehead> "clean" removes all the files of a certain name
[19:54] <Cheesehead> "clean" without a name removes all those files.
[19:54] <Cheesehead> "autoclean" tells the system to remove obsolete files, but keep the current ones
[19:55] <Cheesehead> clean/autoclean have nothing to do with what's installed.
[19:55] <ClassBot> There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.
[19:55] <Cheesehead> and autoremove has nothing to do with what's in /var/apt/archive
[19:55] <Cheesehead> Boy, I hope that's clear. It's a bit arcane.
[19:56] <ClassBot> ianorlin asked: what does apt-mark do?
[19:56] <Cheesehead> apt-mark is the little-known way to mark a package manually-installed or automatically-installed.
[19:57] <Cheesehead> So when I install hello and libhello, hello is marked manually-installed, and libhello is marked automatically installed.
[19:57] <Cheesehead> I didn't specify libhello, it's a dependency.
[19:58] <Cheesehead> Those markings are how autoremove knows what's available to remove, and what's specified by the user to keep.
[19:58] <Cheesehead> Let's say I install LibreOffice, but later I decide I don't need all of it.
[19:59] <Cheesehead> I change the markings on the package I want to keep, and can uninstall the rest.
[19:59] <Cheesehead> Easy way to change a marking to manuall-installed: Sudo apt-get install it
[19:59] <Cheesehead> You've been great. Thanks for joining us.
[20:00] <Cheesehead> == Break Time ==
[20:01] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/01/25/%23ubuntu-classroom.html following the conclusion of the session.
[20:01] <pleia2> this means we can go stretch our legs and get a snack/meal :) see you back in an hour with jose's session on "
[20:01] <pleia2> "
[20:01] <pleia2> "Meeting the community"
[20:01] <pleia2> there we go :)
[20:50] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
[20:55] <ClassBot> There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.
[21:00] <jose> and looks like we're all set!
[21:00] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/01/25/%23ubuntu-classroom.html following the conclusion of the session.
[21:01] <jose> so, welcome back to User Days!
[21:01] <jose> I really hope you've been enjoying the day and learning some bits about Ubuntu
[21:02] <jose> now that I'm at a PC it's much easier for me to keep track on the session
[21:02] <jose> any questions are welcome at any time, so if you have any enquiries just post them on #ubuntu-classroom-chat with the QUESTION: prefix
[21:04] <jose> so, I'd like to ask for those in #ubuntu-classroom-chat, have you already met another member of the community? may be virtually or in person
[21:05] <jose> looks like we've got a bit of a shy crowd today :)
[21:06] <jose> well, turns out I am a community member
[21:06] <jose> as well as many people who are in here, and in other channels
[21:06] <jose> basically, the community helps Ubuntu to be successful
[21:06] <jose> without the community, we wouldn't be as far as we are now
[21:09] <jose> community is a vital part of the project, and I'm sure there are some community people in your city or country!
[21:09] <jose> (yeah, quite sure)
[21:11] <jose> there are groups of people who like Ubuntu and form part of the huge community, and are localized in your state/country
[21:11] <jose> these are called LoCo Teams
[21:11] <jose> that stands for Local Community Teams
[21:13] <jose> so, these teams have regular meetings and so some great events (like the one I went to today!)
[21:14] <jose> these are people that will help you out in case you have any problems with your PC
[21:14] <jose> or if you have any doubts about the community in general, they can give you a hand to get involved
[21:15] <jose> I won't cover much of that because that's the purpose of OpenWeek, but let's continue
[21:15] <jose> you can find the LoCo team that is nearest to you at loco.ubuntu.com
[21:15] <jose> that is what we call the LoCo Team Portal, give it a check :)
[21:19] <jose> so, did you find a team?
[21:19] <jose> if you did, make sure to contact them and say hi!
[21:20] <jose> I'm sure they'll welcome you warmly and explain what their future events are, with some more things
[21:21] <jose> you should also be able to find future events/meetings at their loco.ubuntu.com page
[21:22] <jose> while looking for your team you may have noticed the verified status on some LoCo teams
[21:24] <jose> there are some LoCo teams which go through a verification process
[21:24] <jose> this includes checking they are active and have all their resources set up
[21:25] <jose> and it's done by the governance body in charge of LoCo Teams: the LoCo Council
[21:28] <jose> are there any questions until now?
[21:31] <jose> let's move on then
[21:31] <jose> LoCo Teams, as I previously said, host events
[21:31] <jose> and they usually receive some Ubuntu items, including stickers (yay! stickers!) and some more stuff
[21:31] <jose> and give them out during those events
[21:31] <jose> or conferences, if there's any near you
[21:33] <jose> so, if you want a random item, then make sure to go to an event, and also meet some people who work for Ubuntu to be better each day!
[21:33] <jose> if you don't feel like going to events, then you can use the mailing list or their IRC channel
[21:34] <jose> that way, you will be able to have a chat with them
[21:34] <jose> if you're going to use IRC, make sure to be patient
[21:34] <jose> people take time to respond, don't get desperate and leave after 1 minute has passed
[21:38] <jose> if you have had any experiences with your LoCo team, please make sure to comment on #ubuntu-classroom-chat
[21:43] <jose> personally, I think I've quite much covered all the stuff about how can you meet your LoCo team
[21:43] <jose> if you have any doubts just ask ahead, I'll make sure to respond :)
[21:50] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
[21:55] <ClassBot> There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.
[22:00] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/01/25/%23ubuntu-classroom.html following the conclusion of the session.
[22:02] <holstein> hello hello! welcome the the presentation..
[22:03] <holstein> im going to be talking about equivalent applications, hopefully helping folks find specific applications to address needs and specific work flows
[22:03] <holstein> if you are not in the #ubuntu-classroom-chat channel, that is where you can go and ask questions..
[22:04] <holstein> i welcome any questions at anytime.. and i'll try to get to them in a timely/orderly manner
[22:04] <holstein> my name is Mike Holstein. i have been using linux exclusively for over 6 years now
[22:05] <holstein> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/holstein is my slightly out-dated wiki page, with contact information
[22:06] <holstein> i like to do online support in the IRC channels, and i advocate linux use whenever i feel i can, and when ever i feel it fits the needs
[22:07] <holstein> when discussing equivalent applications, what we are mostly taking about is, for example, someone is using photoshop on a windows PC, and they want to move to linux.. what application or applications can be use as "replacements" or "equivalents" for that user?
[22:08] <holstein> i would like to take a step back from that, and briefly talk about why we might be trying to find said replacement applications
[22:08] <holstein> you are likely either interested in switching to linux, and researching it.. or you are trying to migrate a friend/family member or client to linux
[22:09] <holstein> this migration (from any operating system to any other operating system) can be challenging, to say the least
[22:10] <holstein> the open source community is generally welcoming to newcomers, and, because its open, there is nothing hiding from anyone.
[22:10] <holstein> new users are welcome to look at and explore *everything*
[22:10] <holstein> personally, i think this give linux/ubuntu an edge in this department
[22:11] <holstein> when bringing a new user over to ubuntu, nothing is hiding from them, and they are able to, and encouraged to explore, and learn, and experiement
[22:11] <holstein> there are *many* different looks and feels that can be applied to an ubuntu environment, and i think that should be addressed when thinking about equivalent applications
[22:12] <holstein> what look/feel is the user used to? can you find, or easily tailer an environment to emulate that?
[22:12] <holstein> that is something we have to offer the new user that many other operating systems cant and are not interested in offering
[22:13] <holstein> we can basically create an equivalent platform, in many ways, that the new user can be comfortable in
[22:13] <holstein> this also implies that a person should be setting this up for a new user.. and, i think that is the best case scenario
[22:14] <holstein> i have had great success in migrating many users to linux in the past, but i always like to start with a sort of interview
[22:15] <holstein> what are the users currently using? what do they like about it? what applications?.. can all the needs be met
[22:15] <holstein> typically, its easy to meet all the software requirements.. but, occasionally, we just cannot offer equivalent hardware support
[22:16] <holstein> i did a presentation at my local linux user's group called "linux is not magic" where i basically tried to address some of these misconceptions
[22:16] <holstein> new users have machines with full windows support, out of the box, and they try and come to linux expecting an equivalent level of hardware support
[22:17] <holstein> i think it is important to make new users realistically aware that vendors are encouraged to provide linux support, and, those vendors *are* cooperating more and more with our community, providing great end user support
[22:18] <holstein> also, taking a minute to suggest to a new user to try a vendor such as system76.com ..they have been providing machines with ubuntu for years
[22:18] <holstein> this can, in itself, be an equivalent approach to what the users are used to.. buying a machine from a vendor.. you get it out and hit the power button and its already running ubuntu
[22:19] <holstein> and they can call a tech support number..
[22:19] <holstein> otherwise, its a lot that i feel we ask of new users. to basically leave behind a safe place where they had a lot of applications they were happy with.. and to install an operating system.
[22:19] <holstein> they may have never installed windows in the first place.. or OSX.
[22:20] <holstein> so, for that user, the process of aquiring linux and installing it has no equivalent process
[22:20] <holstein> they have never done that process, so, we must help the users who are interested.. and that brings me to addressing some specific applications
[22:21] <holstein> when one is talking about replacing windows applications, it is important to note the WINE project
[22:22] <holstein> WINE can basically give a native windows appications an environment to try and run on an ubuntu operating system
[22:22] <holstein> here is a site where one can go and check for WINE support of applications http://appdb.winehq.org/
[22:23] <holstein> i think the bigggest issue with WINE, however, is just that.. support
[22:24] <holstein> if you purchase a product, and it specificallly states "supports windows".. and you are using WINE in linux.. you are not going to be able to get support from that manufacturer
[22:24] <holstein> this basically puts support for the applications back on the end user, and the WINE team
[22:25] <holstein> for that reason, i typically dont use, setup, or suggest that new users use applications in WINE
[22:26] <holstein> although, an etremely powerful tool that is well supported, and accomplishing an amazing task, i feel for a new user, the risk of something not working is too high
[22:26] <holstein> also, in the same conversation of being realistic about linux.. any vendor is always welcome and encouraged to create native linux applications.. and more and more vendors are
[22:27] <holstein> i'll skip ahead for a second and talk about a great example of this.. steam gaming
[22:28] <holstein> steam has made available native linux support. this has helped with graphics driver support in linux as a whole, as well as addressing native gaming on linux
[22:28] <holstein> now, for example, we dont have to offer an equivalent to what many gamers need.. we have a native solution
[22:29] <holstein> the native solutions are always going to be "better" due to simply the burden of support and maintenance
[22:29] <holstein> there are many cross platform native applications that are available to answer many needs
[22:30] <holstein> when migrating a new user, or a school or business, i think it would be a great idea to have a realistic goal of migration over a larger period
[22:30] <holstein> *of time
[22:30] <holstein> take the (assumed) current windows machines, and switch, for example, the web browser
[22:31] <holstein> firefox is well known, well supported, cross platform, and stable/fast/secure
[22:31] <holstein> if you were to take an office of workers, and switch them over to firefox, then, later when you switch them to linux, they will have the *same* browser experience available to them
[22:31] <holstein> same look and feel
[22:33] <holstein> http://www.mozilla.org
[22:33] <holstein> along the same lines of the office worker.. if you would then take those users and migrate them to a different office suite.. replace the microsoft office suite with libreoffice
[22:34] <holstein> http://www.libreoffice.org/
[22:34] <holstein> i think anyone seeking an office suite would be quite pleased with libreoffice.. where i feel the issues arise are when one user in the office tries it.. and the others are using word
[22:35] <holstein> this can have inconsistencies that are uncomfortable for the new user of the software
[22:35] <holstein> this can also make folks thing the applications are "sub-par" or not up do the task
[22:36] <holstein> i find many new users come and they say something like "well, if linux were any good x-brand application would run on it". but that is far from the case
[22:37] <holstein> x-brand application, in that scenario, can always make a linux version... and if *everyone* in that offic place switches to libreoffice, the transistion will be smoother, as far as sharing files
[22:37] <holstein> the new user can have a feeling that FOSS is somehow the "generic" brand.. and that is not the case
[22:38] <holstein> a lof of these applications, libreoffice and firefox being among the top i can think of, are well developed, and well supported, fully capable solutions
[22:38] <holstein> firefox, for example, is not really trying to replace internet explorer.. firefox is just trying to provide an excellent product that allows web browsing
[22:39] <holstein> to think of it as an internet explorer replacement many not always be the best mind frame for a new user to be in
[22:39] <holstein> they may be looking for the look and feel of internet explorer when firefox is *very* capable
[22:40] <holstein> there are many cross platform applcations like that that one could switch a windows user to prior to switching themm to linux
[22:40] <holstein> http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html
[22:40] <holstein> VLC is a well known and well supported media player
[22:41] <holstein> http://www.gimp.org/ a large project for manipulating images and editing images
[22:41] <holstein> http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ a well known audio recorder/editor
[22:42] <holstein> http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/ is still a great way to migrate folks from outlook
[22:43] <holstein> http://inkscape.org/ an awesome vector-graphics application
[22:43] <holstein> http://musescore.org/ for music notation
[22:44] <holstein> http://www.blender.org/ for 3d graphics.. http://xchat.org/ for chat.. as well as many others
[22:44] <holstein> i think its important to find out what the users needs are, and what the needs are
[22:45] <holstein> there are also more and more options for web apps
[22:45] <holstein> whats a webapp? basically anything that can run in a web browser
[22:45] <holstein> this can be handy because, it can give an application an easy way to run basically natively in linux
[22:46] <holstein> google docs is a great example of this
[22:46] <holstein> if a user is using google docs on windows, they install ubuntu, and login to the google account and have access to the same google docs
[22:47] <holstein> http://www.noteflight.com/login is a music notation editor online like this
[22:47] <holstein> http://pixlr.com/editor/ is an online image editor
[22:48] <holstein> even something like this product from microsoft http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/web-apps/ can offer a "native" experience to a linux user for a product like office that is likely never to come to linux natively
[22:48] <holstein> i personally dont mind the web-apps, mostly becuase of the mobile support
[22:49] <holstein> if a user gets a phone or a tablet, and it has a browser, then, they can access the same applications, for example
[22:50] <holstein> what about the server side? we have a lot of great ubuntu specific server scenarios
[22:50] <holstein> http://www.ubuntu.com/download/server
[22:50] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
[22:50] <holstein> there are also many easy ways to click an button and easily deploy ubuntu on many major hosting services
[22:52] <holstein> there is a great project called turnkey linux
[22:52] <holstein> http://www.ubuntu.com/download/server
[22:52] <holstein> they offer ubuntu based appliances that are easy to run live and test, basically like a server version live CD
[22:53] <holstein> makes it easy to get an instance of wordpress or joomla up quickly
[22:53] <holstein> ubuntu server can easily provide an administrator equivalent work flows in the server space
[22:54] <holstein> any last minute questions?
[22:54] <holstein> i think, in closing, i'll just remind everyone that really, i feel it is an equivalent overall experience that the new user is looking for
[22:55] <holstein> if we, as the already established linux users, can go in and setup the machines and the environments for the new users, i think that will always be helpful
[22:55] <ClassBot> There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.
[22:56] <holstein> also, i think its time that we praise the vendors that are giving use equivalent support and applications
[22:57] <holstein> though, it may not be FOSS, i think it helps cultivate a community to have more companaies working for releasing linux software and hardware
[22:57] <holstein> getting more users should also help the FOSS community that has made the experience what it
[22:58] <holstein> with no questions.. i'll thanks everyone for attending, and hand the floor over.. thanks!
[23:00] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/01/25/%23ubuntu-classroom.html following the conclusion of the session.
[23:01] <pleia2> Welcome to our session on Ubuntu Flavors! Today we'll be covering Kubuntu, Lubuntu and Xubuntu :)
[23:01] <pleia2> I'm going to quickly cover what these "Desktop Environment" things are, like "LXDE" and "Xfce" and "KDE" and then we'll talk about the specific flavors that use these
[23:02] <pleia2> So a "Desktop Environment" or "DE" is a full interface, including Window Manager, panels, menus, engines, tools and often applications which are put or built to work together
[23:02] <pleia2> in Ubuntu you *used to* get the Gnome Desktop Environment, but today Ubuntu uses Unity which still uses lot of of Gnome
[23:02] <pleia2> KDE, LXDE and Xfce are alternatives to this default
[23:02] <pleia2> so, why would you want to switch from Unity to a different Desktop Environment?
[23:03] <pleia2> a popular reason is simply preference. Give another one a try! You may like you find out how customizable the panels that are in Xfce, how shiny KDE is or how fast LXDE is
[23:03] <pleia2> some let you slim down your environment by loading up fewer things by default, some are faster (usually by sacrificing eye candy), some work with lighter window managers which may run better on your system
[23:03] <pleia2> now, Kubuntu, Lubuntu and Xubuntu are full distribution flavors of Ubuntu which not only use these alternate Desktop Environments, but ship a lot of their own tools geared toward their user base
[23:04] <pleia2> decisions as to what applications are included are discussed and decided each release cycle, and are not related to default applications decided for Ubuntu, each team decides for themselves
[23:04] <pleia2> any questions about desktop environments before we get into specifics? :)
[23:05] <ClassBot> knome asked: are there other DE's available in the ubuntu repositories apart from the ones you mentioned?
[23:06] <pleia2> there sure are! GNOME3 has a flavor all its own, and then you have options like cinnamon and others
[23:07] <pleia2> ok, so let's talk about some of the specific flavors, valorie is here to talk about Kubuntu :)
[23:07] <valorie> Hi everybody!
[23:07] <valorie> I'm here to talk about Kubuntu, the oldest Ubuntu flavor. Kubuntu uses the KDE desktop on the base of Ubuntu.
[23:08] <valorie> KDE is the international community which has created the Plasma desktop and an huge range of software, from workspaces for desktop computers, netbooks, and now even tablets and phones, to applications for almost anything you want.
[23:08] <valorie> Sofware available ranges from simple utilities to a integrated development environment, including games, educational, graphics, multimedia and more.
[23:09] <valorie> http://kde.org/ is the door to the KDE community. The Kubuntu website is http://kubuntu.org
[23:09] <valorie> Kubuntu documentation is at http://docs.kubuntu.org. Here you'll see screenshots of lots of applications, how to install, links to application websites and helps, and so forth.
[23:10] <valorie> I'm part of the team working on documentation, so I'm really proud of this baby. :-)
[23:10] <valorie> What I love about Kubuntu is that we have our own friendly crew of packaging, web and doc folks; we're part of the larger ubuntu community, and also part of the KDE community.
[23:11] <valorie> Any questions so far? I'm about to dive into some of the nitty-gritty
[23:11] <valorie> Of course I love lots of the KDE software such as Amarok, and Konversation, Dolphin our file manager, and something no one else provides: Activities.
[23:12] <valorie> Many people don't use Activities, but if you divide up your computer time between say, writing and art, you might find Activies really useful.
[23:12] <valorie> Within an activity, you can use as many virtual desktops as you need, and associate any particular applications, documents or even webpages you want.
[23:13] <valorie> when my son first introduced me to Linux, virt desktops were the feature he thought was most exciting, while I didn't really see the use
[23:13] <valorie> I guess it's the same with activities, although we're seeing other projects do similar things now
[23:14] <valorie> Say you frequently travel; you can then associate your favorite travel websites, the photo image software you use, etc. Or maybe you want an activity just for your kids, or certain activities such as banking or work sites you want to lock away from everyone but you. All part of our great Plasma system.
[23:14] <valorie> I know I'm going quickly, but we're trying to cover three flavors in an hour.
[23:14] <valorie> Any questions?
[23:15] <valorie> We have the choice to use all the KDE software, and any Gnome or independent favorites such as LibreOffice, Firefox, or Chromium too, as holstein discussed last hour
[23:15] <valorie> Plasma is lovely, with "widgets" to do all kinds of useful things; endlessly configurable and totally powerful.
[23:15] <valorie> Those of you who choose other flavors can still use KDE applications such as Amarok, K3b and Krita, right along with everything else in the repos.
[23:15] <valorie> My wiki page, if you want to get in touch: https://wiki.kubuntu.org/ValorieZimmerman
[23:16] <valorie> I'm open for questions now, or it is the turn of ianorlin, who will present Lubuntu
[23:17] <valorie> ianorlin, you are up!
[23:18] <ianorlin> I am ianorlin I am started joining #lubuntu on irc and helping a lot and just kept volunteering when new opportunites occured
[23:18] <ianorlin> Lubuntu uses lxde which means it uses less system resources than unity kde or gnome which is good for running on older computers
[23:19] <ianorlin> it also runs well on newer computers and runs fast
[23:19] <ianorlin> http://lubuntu.net/ is the website for lubuntu
[23:20] <ianorlin>  http://www.linuxscreenshots.org/?release=Lubuntu%2013.10 is link to many screenshots of the applications in lubuntu
[23:21] <ianorlin> although lubuntu does not currently have 12.04 as a long term support release lubuntu 14.04 will be
[23:22] <ianorlin> lubuntu comes with firefox as web broswer, abiword as a word processor, gnumeric as a spreadsheet, evince for veiwing pdfs
[23:22] <ianorlin> these applications are trying to use ones that use less ram on the computer which older ones may not have
[23:23] <ianorlin> also for a file manager there is pcmanfm which has tabs and is lightweight and fast
[23:24] <ianorlin> Audicious is installed for playing music and Gnome M-player is for videos
[23:24] <ianorlin> any questions?
[23:25] <ClassBot> knome asked: what's the minimum suggested amount of RAM for running Lubuntu?
[23:27] <ianorlin> 256 is bare minimum but still the problem may be opening tabs in a web browser but for that you would want an alternate cd which lubuntu still provides
[23:27] <ianorlin> I have a working install on a machine with 512 mb ram and still works well for irc but you still can't open 30 firefox tabs for example
[23:28] <ClassBot> knome asked: how is the installed system different when using the alternate ISO? are some components dropped?
[23:29] <ianorlin> the alternate iso has a text based installer that uses less memory for the older machines but has no live seisson
[23:30] <ianorlin> yes the powerpc builds are officially supported but there are some issues as noted on the release notes
[23:30] <ianorlin> the alt installer installs same version of lubuntu
[23:31] <ClassBot> rww asked: I just noticed that Lubuntu has PowerPC images on cdimage.ubuntu.com. Are these officially supported by Lubuntu, or are they just there and maybe work?
[23:32] <ianorlin> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SaucySalamander/ReleaseNotes/Lubuntu is the release notes for saucy and yes they do work but I am not familiar with the problems that much with powerpc
[23:33] <ianorlin> if you have installed lubuntu and need to find help the offical support channels in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubuntu/Support
[23:34] <ianorlin> lastly here is a long list of links for most lubuntu things although ti is slighly out of date https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LubuntuLinks
[23:36] <pleia2> thanks ianorlin!
[23:36] <pleia2> now I will talk a bit about my favorite Linux in the world :) Xubuntu!
[23:37] <pleia2> as I mentioned earlier, Xfce is the Desktop Environment that comes with Xubuntu, you can find some details about it over at http://xfce.org/
[23:37] <pleia2> and the Xubuntu website itself is http://xubuntu.org/
[23:37] <pleia2> we just had our 14.04 Alpha 2 release this past Thursday :)
[23:38] <pleia2> when you load up the desktop for the first time, you get a desktop that looks something like this: http://xubuntu.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/xubuntu-13.04-desktop.png
[23:38] <pleia2> and if you open a couple windows you can get a better look at the window decorations (in this one thunar the file manager and the application finder): http://xubuntu.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/xubuntu-13.04-thunarappfinder.png
[23:38] <pleia2> it's a pretty familiar layout for most people used to old style Gnome2 or order Windows versions, and a lot of people like that
[23:39] <pleia2> the mouse icon at the top left is your menu, at the bottom of the screen you have a semi-transparent panel which you can easily add and remove stuff from, this is an older version but you can see the bottom panel here: http://xubuntu.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/xubuntu-12.10-desktop.png
[23:40] <pleia2> now Xubuntu with Xfce itself differs from Ubuntu not just in environment,  it doesn't come with Open Office, instead it comes with lighter-weight "abiword" for word processing and gnumeric for spreadsheet, just like Lubuntu
[23:41] <ClassBot> rww asked: how is upstream Xfce doing these days? The last release was back in 2012, and I imagine they're encountering trouble with the whole GTK2 => GTK3 thing. Still active and responsive, or struggling?
[23:41] <pleia2> they're still active, responsive and struggling :)
[23:41] <pleia2> it's a tough transition and their team is small, but we help where we can
[23:42] <pleia2> Xubuntu currently uses gmusicbrowser by default for music and parole for a video player
[23:42] <pleia2> both of these things are discussed every release too, lots of opinions around these :)
[23:42] <pleia2> as you saw in the screenshot with the file manager it's a pretty one, there are a bunch of wishlist items for expanding it but that work is done upstream, details at http://thunar.xfce.org/
[23:43] <pleia2> but as with all the flavors, you can install anything from the Ubuntu repositories, so you can install a different file manager if thunar is too simple to fit your needs
[23:44] <pleia2> Xfce uses the XFwm by default for the window manager, but this can be replaced if you have different preferences, I have a coworker who swaps this out and some people have had luck with Compiz
[23:44] <pleia2> just like Ubuntu, it comes with Firefox and Thunderbird for web and email clients
[23:45] <pleia2> one of my favorite things is that you can add multiple clocks :) I have three timezone clocks in my panel
[23:46] <pleia2> and in general, I love how flexible Xfce is - you can have icons on your desktop or not, you can add and remove panels as much as you want, grow and shrink them, make them horizonal or vertical, pile them on top of each other
[23:47] <pleia2> so for me, configurability and simplicity are what I love about it, before Xfce I used Enlightenment and fluxbox, both of which were also simple but at the time required a lot of manual editing of config files to configure, and I got bored with doing that
[23:47] <pleia2> Xfce gives me simple + pretty configuration dialogs!
[23:47] <pleia2> Any Xubuntu/Xfce questions before we open up to general questions?
[23:48] <ClassBot> knome asked: where can one get help for xubuntu?
[23:48] <pleia2> we have several help resources, documented here: http://xubuntu.org/help/
[23:48] <pleia2> if you don't see it there, you can also explore other Ubuntu help sites, many of them also take questions that have to do with the flavors
[23:49] <ClassBot> knome asked: if one wants to contribute to xubuntu, what's the best place to learn more about getting involved?
[23:49] <pleia2> you'll want to start at http://xubuntu.org/contribute/
[23:50] <pleia2> that gives you an overview of places where you can contribute, once you find a place I highly recommend either joining #xubuntu-devel or getting on our devel mailing list at https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-devel
[23:50] <pleia2> we're nice, you can talk to us :)
[23:50] <pleia2> (at least I am)
[23:50] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
[23:51] <pleia2> ok, let's open this up for general questions :)
[23:51] <pleia2> anyone have questions for ianorlin or valorie on kubuntu or lubuntu?
[23:52] <ClassBot> rww asked: How are you all handling the impending Xorg => {Mir, Wayland} situation? Any plans for it yet, or waiting for your upstreams?
[23:52] <pleia2> Xubuntu tested Mir last cycle, and like Ubuntu we found it wasn't really acceptable for use yet, we'll probably experiment again in 14.10 but we're making no decisions until we've tested everything
[23:53] <valorie> same here for Kubuntu
[23:53] <ClassBot> jose asked: ahoneybun asked: How do you change the brightness in LXDE?
[23:53] <valorie> KDE isn't developing for Mir while it is a one-desktop solution
[23:53] <valorie> so we'll see what happens
[23:53]  * pleia2 nods
[23:53] <ianorlin> lubuntu is not shipping mir immediately as this would introduce more resource use through compositing and dependices right now the openbox whic lubuntu uses by defualt window manager would not work nice with wayland right now
[23:54] <ianorlin> I currently have the keys on my laptop that adjust brightness settings and use that
[23:54] <ClassBot> knome asked: if i want to install another DE, do i need to do a fresh install?
[23:55] <valorie> We are all hoping, I think, that Ubuntu values all the flavors, and continues to ensure that we can all create great products on the ubuntu base
[23:55] <pleia2> no, you can just install the new DE, log out, and then select from the menu in the login screen what DE you want to use
[23:55] <ClassBot> There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.
[23:55] <ClassBot> knome asked: how do i install another DE?
[23:56] <pleia2> just search in the software center for what you want to install :)
[23:56] <ianorlin> yes and install it like any other package
[23:58] <ClassBot> knome asked: when are flavors' 14.04 releases released?
[23:58] <pleia2> same day as Ubuntu :) april 17th