Notes from the Mousepad

After thinking things through for a while, I finally got around to making a few updates to j1m.net. Previously I had everything over on j1m.net/chi-ubuntu, but I’m moving my posting activities over to the root page of my site. I’m still working on Xubuntu (quite a bit), and I’m still a member of the Ubuntu-Chicago Local Community Team, but I just thought that it would be better to have a more general web presence. After all, what if I ever have to move to Florida or something? I wouldn’t want to have to change my site’s main url to be j1m.net/fla-ubuntu, so it’s best to make this change now.

As for the site’s appearance, I’m using a modified version of the Misty Looks WordPress theme. I liked the layout of Matthew East‘s page, so I’ve taken a fair amount (okay, alot) from that, and have otherwise mostly worked to make the page a little wider, and (in case you haven’t noticed) to give it the colors of Xubuntu. I’ll be tweaking the CSS to clean up a few elements eventually (the vertical spacing between the blogroll links is a little wide for my taste, and the way I’ve removed the header image is a bit of a hack), but the site looks good enough for now. It’s pretty straighforward in appearance, but I’m just really getting to know CSS, and hopefully I will learn more as I go along. If the site renders strangely on your computer, please let me know.

As for FOSS-related activities, we had an in-person meeting of the Ubuntu-Chicago Local Community Team last weekend. It was held immediately prior to the Chicago GNU/Linux User Group meeting, so there were a number of Chicago Lug members present, and at least one person from the University of Illinois at Chicago’s LUG was there, too. Although we frequently collaborate with members of the Chicago Lug, it’s good to see some opportunities to work with members of the UIC Lug, too. We’re going to be working up some educational sessions, and some informal hackfests with folks from UIC, and I’m looking forward to it.

Xubuntu Gutsy Gibbon documentation is coming along. I’m going to be doing some more work on it today. It’s my first foray into documentation, so it’s been fun trying to learn the ins and outs of docbook. Because we’ve used the Ubuntu Feisty Fawn documentation (thanks, Ubuntu!) we’ve had to remove or change Ubuntu-specific elements to suit Xubuntu, and we’ve had to make sure the documentation is current for this release. It hasn’t been too challenging, but I think we’re still trying to wrap our heads around the .ent files. I think we’re close, though.

Well, this is all for now. I hope the new site works well. Thanks for visiting.

Things have been pretty hectic lately. It seems like there’s always too much to do in Chicago in the summertime. I’m excited about what is in store, though. Freddy Martinez and I have been working on Xubuntu documentation, basing it largely off of Ubuntu’s Feisty documentation, and we have to submit our first set of patches soon. As it stands now, I’m mostly just making the actual text accurate for Xubuntu, but I still have a lot of questions about the docbook, and how certain docbook elements may be used to interact with Yelp, the Gnome documentation browser.

We also have to do some additional work on the specification for the Xubuntu Documentation Browser, or x-d-b, as it is being called. “Xubuntu Documentation Browser” is just a lot to type out.

This weekend is BARcamp Chicago, and it runs all through the weekend. For what ever reason, I didn’t know that it ran 24-hours through the whole weekend. Yeah. As if I’ll be awake for all of it.

I’ve applied for Ubuntu membership, but the next community council meeting falls at the exact moment of a meeting that I have to attend in Eagan, Minnesota, which is near Minneapolis. I’ve pushed myself to the end of the line of membership applications, hoping that they’ll be able to fit me in somehow. *fingers crossed*

Tonight I went to a couple of Linux-related events after work, and I’m glad I made it out. I first went to an initial set-up meeting for a Chicago Gnome user group. We had some informal discussions about Gnome, and what a Gnome user group might be and do in the city.

Kevin is leading things up, and though things are still in preliminary stages, I think it will go well enough. It sounds like we’ll have a mix of application-specific talks, some coding talks, some work on understanding the Gnome frameworks and UI conventions. … It sounds like there’s room for everyone to participate.

After that, Kevin, Tristan and I walked over to 400 S. Wells and met up with a group of volunteers from Free Geek Chicago for an organizational meeting. I hadn’t been out to Free Geek since the second week in April, so I was excited to hear that the group is starting to use Xubuntu Feisty Fawn on the computers we build – we had previously used Xubuntu Dapper Drake.

In the words of Taylor, “Feisty Fawn is the bomb.” It was funny to hear him say it like that, but it also felt very good. I had known Feisty was good, but you sometimes take things for granted when you work closely with them. You see how much better something can be, and lose sight of how good it already is Even though I’m not a developer, it was nice to get positive feedback about a project I had assisted with.

I told them that myself and at least one other person are going to be hacking on some Xubuntu documentation this summer, and they were excited to hear it. They want to have more documentation and educational resources available for people who earn or purchase their computers. After all, what good is a free computer if you aren’t familiar with the OS and you don’t know how to use it? Dave and I laughed about being baffled by the huge lists of installable programs when we first were using Linux. The range of choices can be overwhelming.

As usual, there’s a lot of activity in the free and open source software world in Chicago. I’m still glad to be a part of it.

I went to the organizational meeting for Free Geek Chicago last Wednesday night, and got pretty inspired about what the group doing.

Free Geek Chicago is kind of like Habitat for Humanity, but for computers. Basically, people can work at the facility for 20 hours (over several weeks), and then earn a free computer. People can also buy computers from us, but for the most part it is kind of like a work-study program because your 20 hours of volunteering is spent learning about computers. You learn how to do an initial test of a computer, take a computer apart, test the individual components, put the computer back together, install an OS, and then do a final test of everything to make sure it works. We also test all RAM, and use a drive-wiping program to remove all data from the hard drives that people have donated.

Because we’re working with computers that have been donated by people, the computers are usually at least a few years old, and aren’t exactly super powerful. Still, we usually get decent PII’s and PIII’s, which certainly have enough horsepower to do most day-to-day tasks. Our distro of choice is currently Xubuntu, so it’s nice to see Xubuntu being used to benefit others.

If anyone in the Chicago area has a computer that they’d like to donate, or would like to volunteer at Free Geek Chicago, please visit the Free Geek website via the link above. We’d be glad to have your help and support.