notes from the mousepad

Hello Chicagoland folks.  : -)   The Ubuntu-Chicago Local Community Team has organized our Ubuntu 9.04, the Jaunty Jackalope, release party, and we want you to be there. : -)

You can check out the details on our team wiki page, but here is the short of it:

Date: Saturday, April 25th
Time: 2:00pm to 6:00pm (people may go out for a bit afterwards, too)
Location: IIT’s Institute of Design in downtown Chicago
350 North La Salle Street
4th Floor
Chicago, Illinois 60654
Who: Everyone is welcome to attend, but please RSVP via the sign-up sheet at the bottom of the wiki page.

We’ll have short talks about new features in Ubuntu, Ubuntu-Server, Kubuntu and Xubuntu, as well as some food and drinks. (Please bring a few dollars if you want to partake of the foodstuffs.)  We’ve also made an outreach to the Chicago Drupal Meetup Group in hopes of building a relationship and fostering some collaboration. We’ll see how that goes. : -)

If you have any questions about the event, feel free to be in touch.  Otherwise, we hope to see you on the 25th. : -)

Good news on the wiki front.  : -)  As of this morning, apt-urls are enabled on the Ubuntu Wiki.  What does this mean?  In simple terms, this feature provides a simple, wiki-based interface for apt, the base of our software management system.  It means that we can now insert clickable links on the wiki that can prompt users to install software from the Ubuntu repositories.  How cool is that?

How can you use this new feature?  Here is an example of how you could use it in the wiki.  In this example, we’ll look at installing the xubuntu-artwork package:

If you are an Ubuntu user who wants to use the stylish Xubuntu artwork on your system, just [[apt:xubuntu-artwork|install the "xubuntu-artwork" package]].

Of course, the end user just sees, “If you are an Ubuntu user who wants to use the stylish Xubuntu artwork on your system, just install the "xubuntu-artwork" package." (If you are a Firefox user on Ubuntu, you will also note that the link I’ve provided here works, too.  This is because Firefox also allows apt-urls to work in regular web pages.)

After clicking on the link, the user would then be prompted to choose whether or not he or she wants to install the package.  If they select yes, they are prompted to enter their password, and the system installs their software. Easy enough!

Because it is using apt, it is relying on the user’s configured set of Ubuntu repositories.  (Note: if a user is using a PPA or another software repository, those software sources would also be available.)  The installed packages can still be uninstalled via any of the regular software maintenance tools (e.g., synaptic, apt-get, add-remove programs, etc.)  In this manner, it doesn’t introduce new tools, it just provides a great new way of interfacing with them.

So . . . wiki editors . . . I now call on you to go forth and make good use of this new feature.  : -)  Let’s start using apt-urls in our wiki documentation.

Thanks to the Canonical system administrators for putting this in place, and to Matthew East for following up on the support ticket.

I’m attending the WritersUA conference in Seattle this week, and yesterday was day one of the conference.  The conference started with Scott McCloud talking about how he created his Google Chrome comic, and I attended other talks on ISO documentation standards, as well as architecting your content so it can be reused.

McCloud’s talk was interesting in a number of ways, but one aspect of it that struck me was the volume of work went into what he did.  The initial basis of the work was 10 dvd’s worth of recorded interviews with developers.  They did not allow the content of the comic book form to be dictated by some kind of marketing storyline.  The comic still stood up as a form of documentation.

Additionally:
* The use of bubbles as text-placeholders in the comic created some difficulties for translators, but they were able to make things work. He didn’t provide a great amount of detail about this.
* He loved the mash-ups that resulted from the work being licensed under a Creative Commons license, even if the mash-ups didn’t follow the letter of the license.  Google did not attempt to sue people who made these mashups for noncompliance with the license.
* He demonstrated how comic book framing can keep the use focused on one item at a time, and make it easier to explain difficult concepts in an elegant, easy-to-understand way.
* I think he referenced XKCD at least 3 times.  He likes it.
* I can’t draw comics.  :/  Maybe I can use some of this stuff with screenshots, though.

I also attended a session on ISO standards for documentation and D.I.T.A., an open-source documentation toolkit similar to docbook.  The standard is maintained by OASIS, a not-for-profit standards organization – it looks great!  We got to see snippets of it, but it costs about $200 to get a single copy of the standard. :/  Even members of the OASIS committee who volunteer to maintain the standard have to pay to get a copy of it.  I am glad that at I don’t have to pay to contribute to Ubuntu.

The best session of the day for me was the session on architecting documentation for reuse.  The Ubuntu documentation team already has some of our content architected for reuse; for example, we use docbook “entities” for repetitive items such as system and software version numbers, Ubuntu website urls and certain procedures, but this showed how it’s possible to do more.  I’m a little green as a member of the Ubuntu documentation team, but I’m eager to learn more about this approach.

As I’m sure is the case with other Ubuntu-related development groups, the Xubuntu team has been quite active as of late.  We spent some time this weekend testing out configurations of system settings now that we have migrated to Xfce 4.6 for the 9.04 release, and have completed the transition to the new artwork for the release, too.  Much of these discussions took place over IRC, and it was fun to be a part of it.  We were able to hammer out patches, test them out, and then provide feedback to each other based on our findings.  The time spent proved to be very beneficial, and the Xubuntu 9.04 release is shaping up very nicely.

I’ve also been working on the documentation for Xubuntu 9.04, which has been rebased off of the Ubuntu 9.04 documentation for this release.  What this means is that I’ve been able to use bzr to merge in changes from the Ubuntu documentation as they happen, applying them directly to the current branch of Xubuntu documentation.  This is different from prior Xubuntu documentation efforts that had been based off of a much earlier set of Ubuntu docs.

In that sense, I was starting at a bit of a disadvantage – each release brings changes and updates, not only to X/K/Ubuntu itself, but also the associated documentation.  However, by using the current branch of Ubuntu docs as a starting point for this release, and merging in updates as they get applied to Ubuntu documentation, I’ve been able to leverage the ongoing contributions of the Ubuntu documentors and keep the Xubuntu docs more up-to-date.

Using this approach took a little bit of experimenting to find a good workflow for myself, but Bzr has proved to be a more-than-adequate tool for this particular scenario.  For example, the bzr command that I’ve used most frequently as of late involves merging in the specific changes from one Ubuntu documentation revision to another into the Xubuntu documentation branch.  To do that, I’ve just reviewed recent changes to Ubuntu documentation, navigated to my local folder of the Xubuntu documentation branch, and issued a command similar to this one:

bzr merge -r211..212 lp:ubuntu-doc

Here I’m telling bzr to merge in only the differences between revisions number 211 and 212 from the Ubuntu Documentation branch.  Merging in changes between specific revision numbers allows me to cherrypick – I can merge the changes that I want, and skip the changes that I don’t want.  This is helpful because Xubuntu docs will not include the Ubuntu Server Guide (my apologies to Adam Sommer, who has done a ton of great work on the Ubuntu Server Guide for this release), so I have skipped revisions that include updates to the Server Guide.  : /

If there are no conflicts between the merged files, bzr just identifies the changes as modified files – no problems.  Files that contain conflicts are identified by bzr, too, and it is up to me to resolve those conflicts.  Once fixed, I can then use bzr to mark the conflicts as resolved.  The process still requires some manual review on my part, but reviewing someone else’s changes is much easier than writing my own stuff, and gives me more time to focus on documenting the elements that are specific to Xubuntu.

I’m still writing additional documentation that is specific to Xubuntu, but have a little bit of time remaining before string freeze.  : )  At the end of next week, I am going to be travelling to Seattle to visit a friend and her husband, and also attend a documentation conference out there.  I’m going to focus on the Design Strategies, Content Development, and Open Standards tracks.  It should be a great time, and should make for a great learning experience, too.

Hot off of the presses comes a release announcement marking the final release of Xfce 4.6!

from          Stephan Arts <stephan@xfce.org>
date    Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 6:30 PM
subject    Xfce 4.6.0 Released!!!

After more than two years of development, Xfce 4.6.0 has just been released.

Xfce 4.6 features a new configuration backend, a new settings manager,
a brand new session manager and sound mixer as well as several huge
improvements of its core components. A list of all the changes since
the last release candidate can be found on this page.

A visual overview of Xfce 4.6 is available here:
http://www.xfce.org/about/tour

Download Xfce 4.6 from the Downloads section of the Xfce website:
http://www.xfce.org/download

Regards,
The Xfce development team.

All interested parties should take a quick peek at the desktop tour that is linked-to above, but Xubuntu users won’t need to download anything from the Xfce website – Xfce 4.6 will be included by default in Xubuntu 9.04. 

CONGRATULATIONS to the entire Xfce development team!

Per Daniel Holbach’s recent blog post about the Global Bug Jam, I thought I’d add my two cents (or give you a penny for my thoughts, and donate the additional penny to charity) about what the Ubuntu-Chicago Local Community Team is planning for the Global Bug Jam.

There are still quite a few details for us to iron out, but we have the basics in place, and are gearing up for the event.  What have we done so far?  First, we’ve been able to secure a great location, the headquarters of Centro – an online media services company in downtown Chicago – for the event.  Centro uses a lot of FLOSS tools in their development, and they’ve been a consistent supporter of FLOSS events in the Chicagoland area for a number of years, so we’re really grateful to them for allowing us to use their space.  (As a side note, one of their developers who helped to secure the location for the event is also the creator of “Open Sprints,” an GPL’ed indoor bike-racing application that has garnered a lot of enthusiasm amongst the bike messenger crowd in the U.S.)

Ok, so we have a location.  We also have people who are going to attend.  Those people have (for the most part) been prepped on what we’ll be doing.  We held an introductory session as part of a Chicago GNU/Linux User Group meeting a few weeks ago, where we were able to set people up with Launchpad accounts, PGP keys, SSH keys, and the 5-a-day application.  For those who weren’t able to attend the meeting, I’m sure we’ll be able to set them up online in advance of the event, or when they arrive for the bug jam.

Also, I mentioned it briefly above (“We also have people who are going to attend…”), but we are expanding the ranks of our loco team for this event.  Ubuntu-Chicago had been relatively quiet for a while, but we’re doing what we can to involve people outside of regular X/K/Ubuntu users and developers in the bug jam.  One of the better things to see in this process is how members of the Chicago GNU/Linux User Group are joining in, and how we’re also getting involvement of people who develop for FLOSS projects, but who aren’t typically involved in local Ubuntu events.  (They don’t even have to use Ubuntu . . .).  For example, I have heard of one Miro developer plans to attend portions of the bug jam, we hope to get some folks from Banshee and GNOME . . . and I’ve even heard that the entire Tilda development team (ok . . . so it’s just one person) may be involved, too.

Personally, I’m going to do my best to advocate testing and bug triage of Xfce 4.6 during the event.  I’m also excited that there will be a Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM OUR BUG JAM LOCATION.  OH HAI, UBUNTU-CHICAGO CAN HAS TEH BEST PIZZA.

So, yeah, if you’re a X/K/Ubuntu user or FLOSS-coder who lives in / around Chicago . . . even if you’re not an expert . . . Check out our wiki page (with the new NavBanner that I ganked from the Massachusetts team), join our mailing list, and make plans to see us the weekend of February 20th. 

While it’s not exactly new news, nor is it as big of an update as having the final release of Xfce 4.6 available, the Xubuntu team has packaged Xfce 4.4.3 for the Ubuntu repositories, and the packages are available for Xubuntu 8.10 users who have backports enabled in their software source.

To enable backports, go to your menu and select Applications > System > Software Sources.  You will be prompted to enter your password, and once the application is fully launched, click on the Updates tab, and place a check in the “Unsupported Updates (intrepid-backports)” box.  Once you’ve marked that box, click on the close icon.  You will be prompted to refresh your software sources, and new updates should then appear.  The upgrade to Xfce 4.4.3 should be included in that set of updates.

Of course, you could update your sources via the command line, too.  I need to run to the airport now, so I’ll leave well enough alone and assume that, if you’re interested in updating your sources list using the command line, you would know how to do so. 

Interested parties can view the Xfce 4.4.3 changelog here.

Like quite a few others, I was able to attend the “Obamapalooza*,” election night event in Grant Park this past Tuesday. I was lucky enough to get a ticket to the event, and being part of that moment has made me very happy over the past few days.  I’m including a few photos and notations from within the cut, but my real reason for writing this entry concerns Barack Obama’s science, technology, and innovation agenda.  This seems to be a very ambitious and tech-friendly agenda, and one in which open-source and free-software advocates should be eager to participate.

I had a long day at work today, and I haven’t had much time to review the agenda yet, but I am interested in hearing what other individuals have to say about it, and if any Loco teams would be interested in working to address some of the topics together.  Pushing some of our ideas “upstream,” seems like a very worthwhile endeavor.  :]

Ok, here are the pictures.  :] Continue Reading »

Things seem to be moving right along in Xubuntu-land.  We’ve scheduled regular meetings for the Xubuntu team for the remainder of the Intrepid release cycle, have posted them to our wiki, and have passed along word to the communications team for inclusion of the meeting dates on the Fridge.  Having regularly scheduled meetings helped keep us moving along during previous cycles so I am confident that having our meetings scheduled well in advance will do the same for us here.

We have yet to complete our agenda for the upcoming meeting, but one item that will be included is discussion of the new website.  I’ve passed along a draft project plan to Cody Somerville, and he seemed to like what I had prepared.  If we go by what I’ve prepared, we’ll have an internal team of Xubunteros to start things off, and will have an external team of interested, able parties to assist us once we’ve laid the ground work.  Again, I’ll be posting further details once we get that plan in order.

Of course, you could always just show up to the Xubuntu meeting to discuss it with us.  :]

In other news, we are considering using Yelp to display Xubuntu documentation, primarily to limit the discrepancies between common Xubuntu and Ubuntu documentation.  Of course, Xubuntu would still have its own set of Xfce/Xubuntu-specific documentation, but we would be able to base our documentation on the primary base of Ubuntu docs.  One part of the reason for this possible move is that Xubuntu doesn’t have very many system-doc contributors, and adapting the documentation from Ubuntu to Xubuntu is pretty time consuming, but there are technical and content-based reasons for the possible switch, too.

Why is it time consuming?  The root of the matter is that yelp uses special “ghelp” links within the documentation, but the Xubuntu documentation is currently presented in Firefox.  Firefox cannot display ghelp links, so we have to convert all of the ghelp links to accommodate our use of Firefox.  Of course, modifying links is not so difficult, but the linking differences also necessitate that a different structure be used for the documentation files.  In fact, the Xubuntu documentation currently gets validated as one large meta-document based off of the initial index.xml file, and this is not valid docbook.

Relying on Yelp and adapting our documentation later in the release cycle would also allow us to leverage the numerous contributions that are made by the hoards of crazy documentors that submit patches for the Ubuntu system documentation.  Going that route would make it so the Xubuntu docs would be more accurate and comprehensive in terms of the documentation’s relation to the final released product.  More accurate and comprehensive documentation == more awesome documentation.

As a final (seemingly unrelated, but nonethess important!) note, I’d just like to point out the great work that Cody Somerville and some of the other Xubuntu / Xfce contributors have been doing.  For one, Cody took over as the Xubuntu project lead in the early Spring, and has been doing some pretty remarkable work.  He’s not only doing a great job in terms of his own activities, but is doing a great job of enlisting and encouraging the help of others.  I would also like to thank Lionel Le Folgoc and Jérôme Guelfucci for their remarkable packaging and bug triage work.  It looks like Jmak is getting a good start on the artwork for this release, too.

Neato burrito.

Cody Somerville has been writing quite a bit lately about what’s going on with Xubuntu, focusing a lot on the strategy document and some technical goals for the next release, but we also have a couple of other things in the works – some items that are kind of on the fringes of the distro, but important nonetheless.

One item is an update to the website.  Xubuntu.org is in need of a refresh!  We’ve had a couple of starts and stops on updating it over the last two releases, but nothing noteworthy ever came of it, so this time I’m putting together a project plan that will break the tasks down into smaller chunks with a clear plan for getting things in place.

I’m not going to guarantee that things will work like clockwork, and I’m not even sure who we’re going to get to help out with the website, but I figure that setting a plan with individual bits that people can do one-by-one is more likely to garner success than handing someone the keys to a base Drupal installation and saying, “Have at it!  Let us know when you’re done!”

I’m sure I’ll have more news on that once I’ve got the basic project plan in order, and (of course) we’ll be seeking out help with the website then, too.  If you think you might want to help out, please make a note of it – place a bookmark in the Firefox 3.0 of your mind.  :]  Or you can just read this blog aggregator thingy, and look for more info about the website project plan when I write about it.  Perhaps that would be better than trying to integrate Firefox 3.0 with your brain.

For now, though, work continues on adding poetic, beautiful content to the wiki, and a few documentation ideas are being tossed around amongst Xubuntu folks.  It’s kind of hard(y) to believe that the first Alpha release for Intrepid is less than a week away, but I suppose it’s how things go.