Re: Thinking about adding a Twitter stream to the Ubuntu install slideshow
On Wed, 2012-01-18 at 13:37 -0800, Dane Mutters wrote: and have it propagate wherever it's needed without bombarding Twitter with installer traffic. One marketing idea was to put gwibber dbus bindings into ubiquity so people could post to twitter that they were installing Ubuntu. A sort of Hey tell you friends type idea. It didn't happen I thinkf or technical reasons. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Thinking about adding a Twitter stream to the Ubuntu install slideshow
On Thu, 2012-01-19 at 01:28 +, Colin Watson wrote: Fetching something from the network and rendering it as part of the slideshow is much easier Yes, technical problems. Pulling in the gwibber stack itself isn't really required, it's a matter of loading the service (dbus) and then hijacking the existing web frame space in the ui for the authentication page which is simply passing the token information back as json. But yes, I understand that making sure gwibber is running, making sure we're online, checking all the boxes for all the social and privacy concerns that are doubtless to arise would be something to do only when we're confident about the architecture and test suite available for ubiquity. I just thought I'd throw in an interesting target on a 2009 blueprint which paints this relatively tame idea in a contrasting light. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: ubuntu udd update
On Tue, 2011-11-01 at 15:53 +1100, Martin Pool wrote: New in udd in recent weeks: Thanks for the awesome work guys. Bzr/Launchpad buildds is an awesome set of tools. Apropos. I'm hoping to put some of the work into GroundControl when I work out how the GUI would work and what functionality is easy to express. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: libsane and acl group selection in udev rules
On Wed, 2011-10-26 at 18:32 +0200, Julien BLACHE wrote: saned exists, it should not be used to share scanners over the network because sharing scanners is a bad idea that exposes every user of said scanners to data leak by just forgetting a sensitive document inside the scanner. Also, image data is transmitted unencrypted on the network. We have a successful shared scanner at a community center, people are scanning in photos of their kids. There is a sign to take your documents when finished scanning, it's in the same room as the computers. No security problems, it's a public space. Why break libsane so I don't accidentally implement something that is a bad idea? Remember, sharks with freekin' lazers! We might not approve of the use, but it's not good to force people to edit udev rules in undocumented ways to do something that the system can still do. Perhaps some added documentation in the udev rules or a commented out section that people can enable when they need to 'do the wrong thing'? You could even stick in some of your points directly into the file to make sure people understand it's wrong. Seconded on the problems with sane, but we deal with what we have at the moment and that's saned. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: libsane and acl group selection in udev rules
Hi Julien, On Tue, 2011-10-25 at 12:19 +0200, Julien BLACHE wrote: See SETUP section, /usr/share/doc/libsane/README.Debian.gz. Thanks for the docs, it seems to say that saned networked scanner support is legacy. Has the functionality been removed? If it has should we not remove it completely? If it hasn't been unsupported, then should it not work without cli powers and a deep requirement to understand ACLs? Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: libsane and acl group selection in udev rules
You seem to be saying it's not legacy, and then saying that it should be legacy? I'm confused because the documentation/enablement is so poor a systems administrator can not currently use saned whether he is informed or ill-informed about it's security implications. If it has security problems, then just say it's disabled and can be enabled thusly, report a bug upstream about it's crappness and how it should use ssl, gpg etc. Otherwise we have a feature that sounds dangerous (could blow up in your face) and is so difficult to set up that setting it up looks like a big fat packaging bug. Surely normal operation shouldn't look like a bug, regardless of how carefully you want systems administrators to consider the security of their system? Martin, On Tue, 2011-10-25 at 17:57 +0200, Julien BLACHE wrote: Pretty much the only safe and correct use case that exists for saned is within LTSP (and local use for scanners that can't be used as user, like some parallel port scanners). And even then, data is sent unencrypted so it is not suitable for use with sensitive documents. If you really want to share a scanner, the correct solution is scan send (either mail or private network share), not saned. Most of the time you'll just end up using an old workstation and have users log into it, scan their documents and save them to their network share. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
libsane and acl group selection in udev rules
As per the launchpad bug #773617[1] we've managed to track a
multi-release issue in oneiric to a packaging/acl issue.
It appears that the 40-libsane.rules file contains the following line:
ENV{libsane_matched}==yes, RUN+=/bin/setfacl -m g:scanner:rw
$env{DEVNAME}
Which should add the scanner to the scanner group and allow network
scanner sharing to work again. But we also have a saned group which I
believe the saned network scanner is using instead of scanner.
Should we change the setfacl to use saned? change saned to use the
scanner group? Add both scanner and saned permissions into the rules
file? Or add the saned user to the scanner group?
Please advise.
Best Regards, Martin Owens
[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sane-backends/+bug/773617
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Re: Proposal to delay release of Precise Pangolin
On Tue, 2011-10-18 at 22:15 -0400, nick rundy wrote: Yet the bug has existed for more than 3 years. Sadly, the same can be said for many other bugs. To be fair to the bug: * No one answered the question 'did you try compact layout' * Nautilus is a 'special' codebase which I wouldn't want to touch again this side of the 21st century, ugly and duplicative spaghetti. * Anything to do with how something looks, workflow or speed is not going to get fixed by the fire fighters or cathedral builders. * These types of bugs are too big/complex for quick patches and too small or unimportant for critical attention. * Nouser continues to pay for bug fixes, no economics and no other relationship between programmer and user. The gnome programmer deals with bugs as he feels like it and expects patches. I understand your point Nick, I'd really like a cycle that focuses _only_ on bug fixing and nothing else. But I'd also like a cycle that took everyone off coding to train a 100 new kernel hackers and 50 new xorg slaves. If wishes could be put in dishes the world would be delicious. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Brainstorming for UDS-P
On Tue, 2011-10-11 at 09:39 -0400, Rodney Dawes wrote: The Fluendo plug-in is the only fully legal MP3 codec implementation there is to use. You don't know that for sure Dobey, libmad has never gone to court and it's status is a guess. Perhaps a very good guess, but a guess just the same. Of course if we took the same actions for other free software with patent issues we'd also mark the linux kernel as non-free and kick that out too. *inconsistent* I didn't think Debian had issues with GPL libs though, that's new to me. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Brainstorming for UDS-P
On Wed, 2011-10-12 at 10:17 -0400, Rodney Dawes wrote: Given that libmad is GPL and has not paid license fees to implement the MP3 codec, it is not legal. Whether or not you disagree with the validity of patents or not is irrelevant. It's not patents I disagree with, it's the idea that patent owners can make up the law as they go. And as I've said, you can't be sure that libmad violates those patents and needs a license, Acatel just assumes you do and you just assume you do and don't give the issue enough doubt. Unknown probability is not certainty over this particular racketeering operation. And that's all these emails are about; ensuring everyone is aware of the doubt that exists with legal issues when non of us are legally qualified to throw cast iron statements about. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Brainstorming for UDS-P
On Tue, 2011-10-11 at 05:41 +0100, Colin Watson wrote: beyond what's normally considered free software With this meta package it gets very tricky, firstly because we've got four issues: distribution rights, copyrights, patents and one special case of DMCA issues. Most of the software/content in the package is free software and only 3 hack scripts pull in non-free software/content: ubuntu-restricted-addons (meta) - adobe-flashplugin - Non-free software - flashplugin-installer - Hack script because we can't convince adobe to change their distribution license. - gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg - Free software, lib issues* - gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3 - Non-free, not sure why we're using this instead of libmad which is free software. - gstreamer0.10-pitfdll - pulls in w32codecs which contains very certainly copyright infringing dlls (long time since I rechecked this though). - gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad - Free software, lib issues* - gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly - Free software, lib issues*, pulls in libmad (mp3 dupe?) and libdvdread4 which is a hack to install a script to install libdvdcss because we can't be sure if libdvdcss falls under the DMCA safe harbour so we do the wrong thing. - icedtea6-plugin - Free software, but lots of users want the non free Sun java-plugin because yahoo games didn't used to work with icetea. Maybe we should tell our users? gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse - Free software, lib issues* libavcodec-extra-53 - Free software, lib issues and packaging issues. ttf-mscorefonts-installer - Hack script to install the Microsoft fonts, unlikely we'll ever get a distribution agreement for this non-free content. unrar - Actually fixed by the FSF, there is no need for unrar-nonfree any more and unrar could probably go into the distro/main/multiverse (and probably is) so this should be removed. * Library issues are mainly due to patent issues which we have no data, we do know that certain libraries have a high probability of stepping on known aggressive patent pools but without data we end up sticking all media support together in a just in case package. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: why is there no mention of the word Linux on the ubuntu.com frontpage?
On Thu, 2011-05-05 at 19:35 +0200, Igor Kolar wrote: This might not seem like a big issue, bug given Ubuntu's commitment to open source it's at least a bit strange. I would appreciate some background on when this happened, any why. Because Ubuntu isn't Linux and Linux isn't an operating system. Linux is a kernel. You'll note the lack of 'Gnome', 'Xorg' and 'PulseAudio' too on the front page. Because 'Linux' is a toxic brand in the desktop space. Anything that can convince users that what we have here isn't Linux, the better. Otherwise we face resistance from people who tried redhat 6 back in 1999 and didn't like it and think we offer the same. I'm more chaffed by the lack of 'Free Software' or 'Free and Open Source' on the homepage. That shows a lack of support more than including the word 'Linux' there. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Canonical's future
On Sat, 2011-04-30 at 15:24 +1000, Chris Jones wrote: I'm actually gonna go against the grain and say that I reckon the release of Ubuntu 11.04 and Unity is going to benefit Canonical and make them even bigger than what they are already. Bigger isn't always better. What we want is a healthy Canonical in partnership with a healthy investment partnerships as well as a healthy community ecosystem. I don't agree with being told to pick one of the three. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Congrats on 11.04
On Fri, 2011-04-29 at 21:11 -0400, John Moser wrote: The Gnome developers are also upset at Canonical. No idea why. It's because Canonical only ate their ice cream cone and wouldn't eat their ice cream. I remember when Gnome developers* built a rocket and visited the moon, brought back a whole ton of cheese. I tell you one thing that'll stop people using Unity... if it doesn't actually work. Hardware issues are a lot more pressing that design issues, especially now that the design is much more demanding on the hardware. Also I don't like that I can't write anything in python that looks like Unity, I have to write it all in C and talk directly to OpenGL, which is messy. If I tried to use Gnome3 then I'd end up having to write in javascript, which I hate for no apparent reason. Oh woe! Won't someone let me write cool stuff in python? Yours with hugs and kisses, Martin Owens * That ever fictitious collective aggregate. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Congrats on 11.04
On Fri, 2011-04-29 at 23:03 -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote: Yes. python-kde4 and python-qt4 would love to let you do that. As much as I would love to show up Gnome by writing a qt4 gdm-greeter, it doesn't really work well. Gdm has issues with compositing that I can't quite get my head around. Perhaps I'll try it again some other way, not much experience with qt4 so perhaps I did it wrong in my tests. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Evolution in Ubuntu
Hey Chris, On Sat, 2011-01-22 at 16:16 +1000, Chris Jones wrote: If you're keen enough, you can probably sneak in the updated Evolution into your own system from a third party PPA or something. I'm sure the deb files are available from somewhere on the internet. It might be worth your while doing a Google search for them. I'm sure if he was bothered enough he could compile from source, find a ppa, build his own ppa or collect together parts for a time machine and get the next version early... I think what he's asking is because he's concerned about the situation for everyone's sake. If Debian has slipped a gear with the evolution version, then should we pay a little attention to re-aligning the release? Although I think Postler is looking more like a better email solution at this point. Maybe it won't matter for Ubuntu 11.10. For the record too, Natty will not be shipping with Gnome 3 as default. Yes, it will be the default Gnome version available to install, but Unity has replaced Gnome as the default out-of-the-box UI for Natty. I thought there was more to Gnome 3 than just GnomeShell? Is Unity completely Gnome 2x based with extensions or is it not what Mark, Jono and JCastro repeated over and over: 'Unity is still gnome, just a different shell' Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: The Oracle debate. Possibly an over-reaction?
On Sun, 2010-12-26 at 11:05 +0200, pec...@gmail.com wrote: 2010/12/26 Chris Jones chrisjo...@comcen.com.au: I know somewhere along the line Ubuntu is probably going to switch to LibreOffice by default. But does that mean that with the future inclusion of LO, it also means to future removal of OpenOffice from the repositories? If yes, can someone really explain why. I've not seen any move to remove openoffice.org from the repositories, so long as it still has a maintainer and thus developers for Debian or Ubuntu that are interested in making sure it's stable and packaged correctly. Then there is no reason to remove it. What focus on LibreOffice could do is remove the interest for maintaining openoffice in the community and if that happens then there is likely no one using it anyway. No one in Ubuntu community will advocate removal of legit free software just because of hatred. Unless it's mono ;-) *joke!* About rest of the projects - unless there are drastic license changes, MySQL and VirtualBox should be packaged and distributed as they are now. The thing about these new versions is that I don't really credit Oracle with them. As much as I don't really credit any new owner for the continued work of the teams they've purchased. It takes a good 3 to 5 years to see the real impact of a company on the product. For now I wouldn't be surprised to see an improvement in a bunch of Sun projects since a lot of programmers there will be scared of loosing their jobs and very keen on showing how awesome their project is to their new owners. But maybe I'm too cynical. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Feature suggestions: optionally placing home folder into separate partition during ubuntu install
On Thu, 2010-11-04 at 16:24 +, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: A problem that is both real and more interesting, is working out why so many people have that misconception, and how we can correct it. Add to ubiquity the information when it sees an existing ubuntu installation. Right now the warning goes something like Existing install detected! So we're going to delete a whole bunch of stuff before we continue and isn't exactly reassuring that it's not going to delete your home folder. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: More LiveCD space optimizations
On Fri, 2010-11-05 at 16:20 -0400, Martin Pitt wrote: One thing that currently needs it is usb-modeswitch. I'd love the usb-modeswitch-dispatcher thing to be rewritten in C, Vala, or another compiled language. Not only is it holding tcl in the default install, but it also dramatically slows down boot. That already is written in C, it's the script that pulls in the config and runs the usb_modeswitch program which is written in tcl. It should be very possible to convert it to python or vala. I have to wonder what 200 udev rules all with different vendor and product ids does to the boot time. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: More LiveCD space optimizations
On Fri, 2010-10-08 at 00:07 +0800, John McCabe-Dansted wrote: Strangely, even running advzip -z -0 images_human.zip shrinks it by 3%, and even shrinks the corresponding images_human.zip.gz file That's not strange, that's just entropic packing principles. You've got a bunch of assumptions that can be made about data and a bunch of compression iterations, each make assumptions about the nature of the data and some are fitting together better. I'm keen on this work since saving space allows for all sorts of goodies. Did we save space with any of the SVG cleaning or did that need to be brought up to the packaging level? Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: XDG Config Folders
Hey Sebastian, On Tue, 2010-08-31 at 22:51 +0200, Sebastian Geiger wrote: I just wanted to bring this up, if there has already been a discussion about this, maybe someone can point me to it or let me know about the current status about this issue. XDG underuse and misuse is a pet peeve of mine. More pressure on projects to adopt the spec would clear up whole hosts of problems we have with backup, configs and upgrades. A common mistake which is repeated a few times in the links you provided is the part about XDG_DATA_HOME being the location for user files. What the specification means by 'user specific data files' is not your emails, photographs or bookmarks (which are user files). It's means instead any of the program files that would have been put in /usr/local if you had access to write to that directory. A perfect example of something that should go into XDG_DATA_HOME is firefox plugins or gnome themes (or wallpaper hard links). All user files should instead go into their appropriate USER_DIRS as shown in /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults and ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs and not in XDG_DATA_HOME. I wonder if we could get some of those links clarified. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: XDG Config Folders
On Wed, 2010-09-01 at 00:19 +0200, Krzysztof Klimonda wrote: For example you are saying that emails should go to the directory specified in user-dirs.[defaults,dirs] but that makes no sense uless we are thinking about $DOCUMENTS/.email_app/. Emails, while being documents, aren't really suited for direct access. The same can be said for many other applications that doesn't fit into any of directory listed in the user-dirs.[defaults,dirs]. Direct access is a misdirection from the real problem of classification. Sure emails shouldn't be just files and rarely would I expect a user to use nautilus to manage their inbox, but the same can be said for most data sets whether they be photo galleries (i.e. cheese) or emails. What having them in user-dirs does is lay down a guarentee that the data will be in a narrower set of standard formats and will make developers think very carefully before they run away inventing new formats, new indexing and new storage mechanisms. Instead what it should promote is the sharing of data between applications. Of course few programmers really want to tie themselves down to using standard formats in known locations with the possibility of having to track externally modified data. It's still not a good excuse to hide user data sets from both users and other developers. Emails, events, bookmarks and contacts are user data sets just like photos, documents and videos and it's a damn shame that we mis-classify them and save their contents in strange places. But this is a gnome problem and judging by that list of non-xdg projects to be converted it looks like only a legion of developers all working on this full time would be able to sort it out. Anyone got a few million quid? XDG_DATA_HOKE is supposed to be basically a local, user-writable equivalent of /usr/share. There are many things that fit neither this requirement nor user data description. Yes, and anything else in the XDG_DATA_DIRS list. But few things don't fit in my assessment of the problem. Perhaps we could do with a guide and maybe I can have a word with a few pipe devels about their experiences, requirements and thoughts on the whole thing of data classification and storage. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: XDG Config Folders
On Tue, 2010-08-31 at 19:35 -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote: I think working to promote cross desktop adoption of technologies that make it easier to interact with data in a consistent, DE independent manner, (like Akonadi) will do more to solve this class of problems than specification work. I agree. But isn't that what I was saying? Such guides are for promoting cross desktop adoption of standard tech. Help programmers see how it works quickly? Or did it look like I was suggesting each person develop independent libs? I thought the recent Akonadi diagram on planet ubuntu was very useful. Shame about the 'K' name of the project and the kde location of it's code, would have been nice to have it on github/savanah/launchpad etc. Save a lot of face for a lot of devels in other projects. So who's up for ripping out EDS and replacing it with Akonadi for Narwhal? OK maybe I do know Akonadi isn't a storage mechanism, but at least we could wedge it between EDS and Evolution. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu packaging assistance?
Randall, I was going to ask if you had contacted the local team, but you seem to be already in with that team. If no one in your team is a packager, it's hard to imagine there could still be packagers near Vancouver but not in your loco too. (although it could happen) Martin, On Wed, 2010-06-30 at 16:51 -0700, Randall Ross wrote: Hi, I'm looking for an Ubuntu developer skilled in the art of packaging to mentor/coach one of my colleagues who wants to package his first app for Ubuntu. Exciting stuff! Preference to anyone in or near Vancouver BC, making it easier to work face-to-face but remote is okay too. Cheers, Randall. - in Vancouver -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: No Flash player in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - the Lucid Lynx
Hello Palle, This is not the place for support, this is for development discussion. Could you report the problem to one of the support channels listed here: http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community Martin, On Mon, 2010-06-28 at 13:45 +0200, Palle Hellemann wrote: I can't install a Flash player on my Fujitsu Lifebook T5010 Tablet. Likewise the fingertouch on the screen doesn't work (and I don't have any overlay on the screen, so it is working, when I start it up in Windows7). But touch with the pen works fine. -- MVH/Best regards Palle Please do not send me Microsoft Office documents. Send OpenDocument instead! http://fsf.org/campaigns/opendocument/; -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Shouldn't update-manager's check for updates setting have an hourly option?
On Wed, 2010-06-23 at 00:38 -0400, Nathan Dorfman wrote: A fair point, but I think that up to 24 hours without a critical security update could be undesirable in some situations. Certainly, I think the default should remain daily. For what it's worth, Fedora's default is daily but it does provide an hourly option. I still think it would be preferable for Ubuntu to have one as well... Wouldn't it be awesome if our machines had an optional xmpp connection to each of the servers and when there is a critical security update it could tell each of the machines to update their packages. Just throwing out a solution there, no reason machines couldn't be async. I wonder if xmpp can cope with millions of connections. Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Is Ubuntu commited to free software?
On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 18:32, David Schlesinger le...@access-company.com wrote: I disagree: these politics are part of free software, not open source software. There's nothing in the OSI Definition dictating that you remove the option to use non-open source software from users if that's their choice. Feel free to point out where I've missed it, if you believe it's in there. These politics weren't striped out of the OSI they were transformed and re-communicated as practical and level headed thinking. Just because someone is talking about freedom doesn't mean their a raving loon who toes the FSF party line, they might just be concerned for their own practical application of technology. No need to jump down their throat about it David. On Thu, 2010-06-10 at 13:18 -0400, Dan Trevino wrote: I find it interesting that every time someone who obviously has an interest in Free Software proposes some ways that Ubuntu can be more free, they are immediately attacked as being part of some elist group, making demands on others, and have their concerns dismissed as only being of interest to the FSF or some miniscule part of the community. +1, I see far too much uninformed backlash. At least Scott K was right with the assertion that these blobs are bugs to be fixed not ghosts to be exorcised (as the FSF may have you do) but no need to go wild with 'politics is bad' memes. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Is Ubuntu commited to free software?
On Wed, 2010-06-09 at 16:59 -0500, Travis Beaty wrote: Now then. Having been involved in the Linux society and culture, I understand why closed-source software is shunned. However, I also see that, at this juncture, it is often necessary to make things work. Right now, I've got a wireless driver and a graphics driver that are proprietary. I know this because the Device Manager told me. I also have the restricted extras package installed. But Mp3 playback isn't closed source, it's not a problem because it's licensed under the LGPL. You can play back MP3s and still be completely free as in speech... patents aren't copyright, the owners of the code actually want you to use these things as open source. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Is Ubuntu commited to free software?
On Wed, 2010-06-09 at 18:30 -0500, Travis Beaty wrote: Hmm. This confuses me, then. Because I know it was a problem at one point, at least with SuSE. I had to get different packages from plf in order to play them. The problem is patents, i.e. people who didn't write the code, who have nothing to do with it telling the people who did write the code that they can't use it, distribute it etc. It's pretty silly and needs to go away, but that's a legal thing. Anyway, if you see a patent problem it's got nothing to do with closed sourceness. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Proposal: DNS cache by default for ubuntu-desktop
On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 14:41 +0100, Mohammed Bassit wrote: This is already implemented in NetworkManager. I believe dnsmasq-base is included by default in Lucid (in Karmic too I think). You only need to select Shared to other computers when edit the IPv4 settings of a network connection [1]. Yes that's right, of course the design is rather ghastly at the moment, but perhaps with attention the connection sharing could be more useful by being discoverable. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: LiveCD optimisations
Hey Louis, Sounds great and looks like a pretty good script, I have some comments: You may be able to make it a little faster by using the find results in one like like this: find / -type f -name *.svg -print0 | xargs -0 -I FILE sh -c '/tmp/scour/scour.py --enable-id-stripping --indent=none -i FILE -o FILE-opt test -s FILE-opt mv FILE-opt FILE || rm FILE-opt' Although if you can get all that into a script file, so much the better so it's not all on one line. But at least it's not doing a find 3 times for the same files. Do you need to chroot into the file system to perform these steps? considering that your downloading code to do it (with bzr which isn't installed ont he cd). Would it not be good to perform these steps outside of the squashfs and iso file system? For instance I got resolve issues when it tried to do the apt update. Consider doing a check to see if the iso exists before reserving scratch, errors are likely if you don't. Are there no more things that could be optimised? For instance does using xmllint with --noblanks on the 12496 xml files save any space? Finally... should some of these optimisations work their way upstream so all packages have optimised files, smaller downloads, smarter mirror storage etc? Martin, On Thu, 2010-05-20 at 20:35 -0400, Louis Simard wrote: Greetings ubuntu-devel-discuss :) I have a proposal for you, and I'll present it simply with the 5 W's. -- WHAT? -- Optimise the PNG images and SVG files on the Ubuntu LiveCD. Optimise the Ubuntu LiveCD by putting start-up files and programs near the end of the CD. -- WHY? -- Optimising the PNG images saves 5.5 MB on the filesystem.squashfs. Optimising the SVG files saves an additional 7 MB. This is a total of 12.5 MB which could be used to pack more software or another language pack or two onto the LiveCD. Optimising the CD to put files at the end allows it to boot marginally faster (about 10 seconds on my benchmarks), start applications faster, and allows the CD drive on a user's computer to run quieter while using his/her applications, as reading near the end (edge of the disc) requires slower spinning. These changes will give prospective users a better view of Ubuntu right from the LiveCD. There might also be additional benefits to having smaller PNG and SVG images, such as saving space on a user's hard disk when installed. The uncompressed (pre-squashfs) savings for the SVG images is 18 MB. -- WHEN? -- Now! :) Just kidding. As soon as possible would be nice. Maybe even for the next Ubuntu version, codename Maverick Meerkat! -- WHO? -- Ubuntu developers. But don't go thinking that you'll do all the grunt work of testing these optimisations for yourself! (See HOW? below) -- HOW? -- Attached to this email is a bash script I've made to perform all of these optimisations on any Canonical-supported Ubuntu 10.04 LiveCD image, almost automatically. (After optimisations are done, you can check the state of the LiveCD in a bash shell from within it. The rest is fully automatic.) The real savings would come from optimising the PNG and SVG images right in the packages themselves, not just the LiveCD. Given a directory containing PNG and SVG images, the part of my script dealing with OptiPNG and Scour.py can automatically optimise these files. The best candidate for such a Scouring would be ubuntu-docs, as it has tons of PNG images. Most application packages have an SVG icon or two as well. Thanks for your time! - Louis -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu needs a new development model
Indeed, but what you suggest is not economically relevant although it may be interesting socially. Work on making GPG keys easier to work with and easier to trust people and packages signed by people and organisations, then you can work on getting it more distributed. Martin, On Wed, 2010-05-05 at 23:26 -0400, Ryan Oram wrote: This is intentional as I am a economics/computer science major, currently writing my thesis on the economics behind the open source development model. To be frank, I feel that the current Ubuntu development model is unsound as it simply does not scale. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu needs a new development model
On Thu, 2010-05-06 at 16:23 -0400, John Moser wrote: Which brings us back to trusting people. I'll ignore your over the top theatrics and merely posit that perhaps solving the problem of trust can only really be tacked once you've got a firm grasp of human dignity. Most people are not out to get you, you just need a proper system of reputation that can signify the trustworthiness of someone you don't know through the people you do. I've often said that I think PPA keys shouldn't be added until the user has had a chance to look at a well designed page about the signatory and their connections to other people and organisations. As I said, the tools we have a insufficient and the workflows we have are immature, but don't just sit there with your hands under your bum telling me it's not possible and we should give up. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu needs a new development model
You mean Publishing Model not Development Model There are people thinking about development models, economics, community, tools etc and this thread is not about any of it. Martin, On Wed, 2010-05-05 at 18:44 -0400, Ryan Oram wrote: Ubuntu needs a change in direction. I propose that Ubuntu adopt a development model where only the core operating system, userland, core libraries, and desktop environment are frozen every 6 months. The applications would then be freely updated to the newest versions at all times. Package maintenance and support for the end-user applications would be provided by the developers themselves. This new release system would be very similar to the semi-rolling release system I implemented (and tested) in infinityOS. Thanks, Ryan Oram -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Accounting Program
On Sun, 2010-03-07 at 18:22 +0100, Jan Claeys wrote: The problem with most open source accounting apps is that they don't support local (country-specific) requirements, or they need extensive tweaking that requires help from local accountants and a bunch of programmers to get and keep it right (laws change every day, but there is also the integration with banks, etc.). It's very true, you have know what your making. IOW: every serious accounting application will need a dedicated company behind it... (or multiple companies if you want to go international). Lets be clear, I don't intend on making the accounting program to replace all accounting programs. I will be making something which solves the problems of one man in Vermont, United States and anything above and beyond that in complexity and addition will have to come from other people solving things for their own needs or paying me to solve them. A company isn't the answer unless your company is doing a) investment development (bleh) or b) is a a bunch of programmers to get and keep it right I believe you probably indicate a. and I would vehemently disagree with you. There is power in people's own drive to solve their own problems, it just has to be focused on the productive elements. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Accounting Program
On Sun, 2010-03-07 at 14:32 -0500, Danny Piccirillo wrote: What if you created a framework that could add support for other states and countries so that a new application isn't needed for each case? Of course. It would be silly not to reuse what we already have available and of course just as silly to not position it with other things in mind. But you do that for all sorts of programming. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Accounting Program
On Sun, 2010-03-07 at 22:27 +0100, Jan Claeys wrote: The reason why I mention a company is that if an accounting program wants to be useful for more than a couple of other people it will need *a lot* of maintenance, and some changes will have rather short deadlines (the tax office won't buy it if you tell them you can't declare/pay taxes because the volunteers that maintain the program you use are too busy to work on it right now). Oh, and one more thing to think about: some countries have laws that list requirements for accounting software. Who said anything about volunteers? -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Accounting Program
Hi Brett, On Sat, 2010-03-06 at 05:18 -0800, Brett wrote: There's a plan for that. Would you put $200 in to the hat if you also set up the hat and drummed up other people's interest? Am moving back to my hometown in a few weeks, and was thinking of getting in touch with the local university, see if we could get some of the comp sci kids interested. I am an accountant, so while the FOSS stuff already out may be fine for point-of-sale or home use, it does not really cut it when compared to Quickbooks, MYOB, etc. Anyone else into this idea (accounting software for linux), let me know! For me this is going to be a personal project, I plan to go to Vermont for a few weeks to spent time with my inlaws. Quickbooks is being used to manage a small org and is the only package that's requiring VirtualBox at the moment and I want to replace it. But I've seen QuickBooks, it looks really badly designed (from a UI perspective) so I'm intending on making something better than QuickBooks. Much better. Can I put you down as an accountant to call on for advice? Maybe there is something you already know you dislike in existing packages, missing features or just bad positioning. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Why is UPG halfway implemented?
On Fri, 2010-03-05 at 15:05 -0500, John Moser wrote: So yeah, i tend to be the Lock it down until it's unlocked person. There should be a /home/_Shared/ folder owned by root, drwtrwxrwx, linked to as Shared Documents. Why the underscore? Just put it in some other directory and not in /home/, it's not exactly a home directory. /shared/ or /media/shared/ or /srv/shared/ I'd also worry about it being owned by root, what group? root too? shared:users should be a good ownership and drwxrwx--- with the sticky bit should be a good permission. Although hat's only my first instincts. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Indie Software Dev
There's a plan for that. Would you put $200 in to the hat if you also set up the hat and drummed up other people's interest? Because I believe that this is something we can make money doing and provide Ubuntu with something GOD DAMN AWESOME and FOSS. Martin, On Fri, 2010-03-05 at 16:44 -0800, Brett wrote: I'm launching a commercial software business. I'm targeting the Mac right now, but I am curious to find out how this would be received by the Linux community. I have an ongoing conversation with a friend of mine about this, and I think that the free and open culture surrounding Linux would mean that there is no market for an indie dev to go after. He thinks that the market is here, am I wrong? Would anyone buy a $20 app on Linux? I would buy a $500 app if someone wrote a decent accounting program :-) -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Focus of the introduction for programmers
Hey Sense, Perhaps the problem is that inside the Ubuntu project there aren't a great number of development projects that new users can just dive right into. Basically anything to do with bzr, launchpad, ubiquity or the handful of other little extras that help the Ubuntu distribution. Most programmer imagine working on applications, or other more visible things. The Ubuntu project it's self isn't the right place for that, we need to go upstream, it's the wider FLOSS community that should be promoted. Sure their work will benefit Ubuntu in the end, but it's worth noting the difference between Ubuntu's development efforts and upstream's. Martin, On Fri, 2010-01-29 at 19:00 +0100, Sense Hofstede wrote: Hello, Often there's someone who knows some programming and asks how (s)he can help Ubuntu. Currently those people are mostly referred to the MOTU: packaging. However, I'm not so sure if directing all programmers to packaging is the best solution. Some people just want to write code and the MOTU is not the right place to do this. Maybe the introduction for developers should also mention the possibilities for contributing code as well as packages. This would require a wiki page providing a clear overview of all different projects in Ubuntu you could contribute to, so it's easy to find what projects you could work on. Regards, -- Sense Hofstede [ˈsɛn.sə ˈɦɔf.steːdə] -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: No Cyber Cafe Software for Ubuntu yet...
On Sat, 2009-12-26 at 13:58 +0100, Markus Hitter wrote: Am 26.12.2009 um 07:23 schrieb Martin Owens: The target of computing design is to make the very complex, simple to operate. Unfortunately, many software designers think that way. The more demanding, but technically superior way is to reduce complexity. I would have to disagree with your wording. The more demanding, but technically superior way is to reduce complexity of the design, not the function. A less complex function is a function that doesn't do as much. Of course we're disagreeing over 'entropic complexity' vs 'systematic complexity', the former which needs to be reduced and the latter increased as costs allow. I know, it's a nit pick over semantics, but it's important since we could get people choosing to remove functionality in the name of reduced complexity, when what they should be doing is improving the design (both inward and outward designs). Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: No Cyber Cafe Software for Ubuntu yet...
On Sat, 2009-12-26 at 18:37 +0100, Markus Hitter wrote: That's what I often do. As a rule of thumb, if there's more than one way to achieve a goal, there's too much functionality. Not exactly mainstream, I know. By profession I'm a mechanical designer and there the cost of redundant stuff is much higher. But even for software, the cost of redundant functionality is above zero. I didn't think we were talking about redundant behaviour, that's poor design, high entropic complexity and repeated structural complexity. That's a specific pattern, kind of an apropos of nothing to what I was talking about. What did you think I was saying? that we should repeat functionality ad-nausium as a sort of bad replacement for actual advancement? Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Software Design
On Sat, 2009-12-26 at 19:57 +0100, Markus Hitter wrote: To get back to the initial topic, instead of paying people to write tools for taming complexity, paying people for getting rid of unused stuff would be even better. Culling is a valid job, it's just not valid to remove functionality; move it, transform it, make it an irrelevance and remove duplicates. But removal of the primary instance functionality is giving up on design IMO. Image viewers: Instead of improving F-Spot to be the best thought reference, half a dozen additional image viewers pop up, each of them obviously created from scratch. I'd pay to get an image viewer that works TBH, F-Spot's got bad deps on my machine, and in other regards some of the functionality in F-Spot should never have been put in there, but into a further, deeper layer that made the functionality more far reaching and less complex, less repetitive. But you try asking people to write infrastructure software, you might as well be talking to brick walls. f-Spot works as it does because it's not been designed, much like most software. It's either a clone or need de jour, not exactly room for design in those modes. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: No Cyber Cafe Software for Ubuntu yet...
On Sat, 2009-12-26 at 16:11 +1000, Chris Jones wrote: I sense a bit of laziness involved with the OP with wanting software that does all the hard work for you! Isn't laziness a good thing? If the OP is willing to pay for the development of tools to speed or make easier the setup of these systems, then we should support them, not ridicule them as being lazy. The target of computing design is to make the very complex, simple to operate. If it takes a lot of work to set up the OP's systems, then the tools are badly designed for this task. QED. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: artwork
Hello Coz, Lets not call for people to be fired just yet, I'm sure things can be improved with some community involvement and a little unmooding of the style. Though it's totally subjective, as style usually is. A lot of people call my graphics too cartoonish and not serious. I tend to iconify instead of illustrate and that's reflected in my styles. Is there an art team? much like the technical board? Regards, Martin On Sat, 2009-10-24 at 19:18 -0400, coz DS wrote: Hey guys, I had been on the art team for a number of years. I am really surprised that some of the artwork, ie,,,boot splash and splash screen with progress bar , were able to be considered let alone actually used. I have to tell you that that the choices for these images and colours are completely not ubuntu in any way and certainly the worst choice. When booting into karmic, the white ubuntu symbol should have had the colours gradually fill it in as a progress bar...and the following boot splash the ubuntu logo certainly should have had color and the background for that image most definitely should NOT have been used...it implies a dark..albeit muddy,, theme is going to be default system theme. I have seen none of the major distributions have any inconsistencies...including ubuntu...with graphics during install..or boot..as radical and inappropriate as karmic has. Who ever has made these decisions is most likely a developer and there are NO developers capable of making final choices for anything without discussing the options with at least one qualified artist. Creating and deciding on graphics , especially for a distribution as globally used as Ubuntu, takes as much skill and time and mental capabilities as it does to code any application...or DE..and any of the developers who think otherwise should be kept as far away from decision making about graphics permanently!!! To mr shuttleworth,,, if you are making final decisions then you need to pull yourself away from graphics altogether and let the art team back in as official...if on the other hand you are relying on an artist at cononical to make these final decisions ,, then please give them their walking papers. coz -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: [ubuntu-marketing] Reviving the Marketing Team (yet again!) with a focus on simple activism
Hey Danny, On Wed, 2009-10-21 at 01:30 -0400, Danny Piccirillo wrote: Cross-posting just to get the word out. I've added the Ubuntu LoCo Contacts lists, a group very pertinent to this topic. Many lengthy and interesting discussions have come up about what to do with the Marketing Team. Ultimately, it comes down to how motivated people are to create their own projects under the team. Just like any other LoCo, this depends on individual involvement, but i don't want to start yet another discussion on this. Well, what might be needed is someone to head up the team. Some artist or designer (not developer) who stands like a poised like a hero against the backdrop of the Ubuntu Community landscape and to whome we can all look up and say: I bet if I ask him, he'll know where I can get a poster for my event As the moment I produce content, I don't tend to produce it under the banner of the marketing team. The website for spread ubuntu isn't linked very well with the marketing team and the marketing team has no grand vision or responsibilities. I merely wanted to propose changing or adding to the scope of the team to include general activism. Dropping all focus on marketing probably isn't going to be any better, not to mention that just like marketing, activism is also something done by local community teams, BUT adding simple activism to the scope of this team, might give the team more purpose and drive up activity in other areas. Yes, marketing Ubuntu *is* activism, but i'm talking about officially recognizing general FOSS activism as one of the functions of the team. I'd advise against including activism. You don't need to widen the scope. You just need to find someone or some people willing and able to drop their own LoCo's work and come higher into the world community. A leader perhaps? The mailing list can be used to share ideas for activism and pass on things like this open letter to Obama in support of FOSS (reddit link: http://www.reddit.com/tb/9w23y/ original link: http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20091020050110241). If you're in support of this idea, just pass on any simple actions you come across to the list. There's also this nifty activism guide: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ActivismGuide Interesting, thanks for posting Dan. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Huge instability and insanely large memory footprint in 9.04
Hey Caroline, On Thu, 2009-09-24 at 18:58 +0100, Caroline Ford wrote: You don't have enough RAM. 1 GB is pretty low by today's standards. You may be happier with xubuntu on a lower spec machine, but as you've got a fast CPU then you should get more RAM as it is a clear bottleneck. I don't think I agree, I do refurbished computers which are normally P4 CPUs with 512MB of RAM. According to tests an Ubuntu machine will work reasonably well on 390MB of RAM or more, but less and it won't work very well at all. XUbuntu should be used on PIII machines with 128-256MB of RAM and we normally have enough 128MB SDRAM sticks to upgrade them. But anything less and it's scrap metal. At first I took offence at your idea that 1GB is low by today's standards, but then I took a moment and thought that perhaps it's a degree of ignorance on your part about who Ubuntu is being developed for. It's not being developed (as Windows 7 is) for the latest and greatest computers being sold right this second. It's being developed for all computers ranging from the old P4s mentioned to the sub-powered Atom and Arm netbooks all the way up to the monster 16GB RAM Gaming rigs for playing Savage2. It it's not working on a computer with 1GB of RAM, then we need to fix it. This is clearly not a case of user error. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu for laptops
On Tue, 2009-09-22 at 11:40 -0500, Patrick Goetz wrote: If you google for ext4 and battery life you can find quite a bit of discussion about how the default filesystem configuration prevents the disk from being able to go to sleep. The bottom line is optimizing for performance is more or less inversely proportional to optimizing for low energy consumption. So yes, it would be useful to have a laptop-optimized version. I wouldn't like to see a different version, that makes two problems: 1) More complexity with managing a version. 2) No control when the laptop is plugged into the wall. What would be more ideal is to sort out the file system driver so it behaved differently when it's on battery power (or in any kind of energy conservation mode). Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu for laptops
On Tue, 2009-09-22 at 22:40 +0530, shirish शिरीष wrote: The use-cases are unique to laptops and laptops in battery-mode. Any benefits on this are surely going to overlap with UNR as well. (as it suffers from similar constraints) I can see it also effecting these new cloud computing servers which are supposed to be able to conserve energy when required. I know they go into suspend, but disk sleep is surely the first step in getting good power management. I know Tso is an awesome guy, his ext4 presentation at UDS Jaunty was a highlight for me so if he says it's too hard to do, then we might just have to suck it. I'm an optimist, if these fine kernel folks have a problem thrust upon them, they will likely solve it somehow. More resources required? Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Why Ubuntu is not ready for prime time
On Wed, 2009-08-26 at 14:53 -0400, Nathan Dorfman wrote: P.S.: If the OP is not a troll, I don't know what is. http://redenaz.deviantart.com/art/Behind-the-Keyboard-Trolls-76598407 Do NOT feed the trolls! Hug them. Martin, -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Improve LiveCD localisation (Was: Remove F-Spot from the LiveCD)
On Sun, 2009-06-28 at 00:37 +0200, tacone wrote: I really think the best thing to do would be to offer a download option for localized CDs. That way an english+selected-language cd can be shipped without sacrificing LiveCD applications. You might be helped by binary diffs instead of full isos, and a more advanced windows and linux program for managing the production of the CDs. Say something like the USB Creator but CD Creator so we can finally have burning software for people with windows and no ISO burner. Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: AMD/ATI vs NVIDIA vs Intel
On Sun, 2009-06-21 at 13:39 +0200, Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: Or just because they take profit of the fact that they are advertised as _the_ free video card for linux, but they do not really work for fixing their drivers timely. I have nvidia, ati and intel cards. The most problematic and buggy are the intel drivers, and the most hateful thing is that on windows, their drivers work. Do not make me link bugs here again. I wouldn't be counting nVidia as favoured partners any time soon: http://www.linuxpromagazine.com/online/news/nvidia_eschews_android_and_linux_prefers_windows_for_tegra -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Stable 64-bit flash
By include, do you mean have a package in multiverse that has a script that downloads the flash nonfree player from adobe? (and through the dark dark door, down the dark dark stairs, in the dark dark cellar, some skeletons lived) Although getting the script updated to download the correct version depending on your arch would probably be a better bet, I bet it's also set to be i386 only too. A more clever script would prevent confusion I think. Regards, Martin Owens On Wed, 2009-06-17 at 12:19 -0400, Danny Piccirillo wrote: IIRC, the Flash 64 bit Alpha almost made it into Intrepid, but was not because it is an alpha. It was already much more stable than using the 32-bit version on 64-bit Ubuntu, and now that 64-bit Flash alpha 2 is out, i recommend we make an exception, and include it in Karmic. -- http://www.google.com/profiles/danny.piccirillo -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Stable 64-bit flash
On Wed, 2009-06-17 at 13:25 -0400, Daniel Chen wrote: The more clever script approach was tried - and reverted - back in early Jaunty. The current flashplugin-installer package downloads from archive.canonical.com, which cannot distribute non-final Flash releases. Nothing seems to have changed on Jaunty installs when installing ubuntu-restricted-extras, does this install via the script or are we talking perhaps at cross logic? Anyway, this seems like a job for Adobe, probably make it in for 10.04. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: On apturls and repositories
On Mon, 2009-06-01 at 09:48 -0700, Dylan McCall wrote: Sounds like the discussion at UDS about having support for adding repositories (or at least PPAs) via apturl didn't get very far. At risk of prolonging a stalemate, I get the impression blocking this idea for safety reasons is completely pointless. The session was polite and we talked about everyone's views. Some of these choices are down to political background more than technical options. Although Alexander Sack didn't help by suggesting that the decision had already been made at All Hands. As I said I would, I've compiled some mock-ups of what I was talking about with various people: http://doctormo.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/ubuntu-apt-url-and-the-white-list/ I'm going to add the same to the whiteboard for the blueprint now. Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Epson iscan and plugins
Hello all, I had to compile and install the epson iscan software (LGPL) for ubuntu since the debs provided by the manufacturer are specific for debian. Like a good dev I made the ubuntu debs available in my repository (main problem, scripts assume sh is bash, all fixed) I also compiled a deb for the plugins which are non-free but licensed with a distribution allowed clause: https://launchpad.net/~doctormo/+ppa-packages This should allow a selection of scanners not currently working by default, to work. I included a hal fdi for putting all the supported scanners in the right security group so you don't have to be root. So my question is, would this be a good thing to add into ubuntu main and multiverse? I'm not a packager or MOTU so the packages are not ideal, but I've had a couple of reports from happy ubuntu users who found my PPA with google searches, some of them were fustrated that they couldn't get their Epson scanner working. Any advice would be very useful. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: What's wrong with Ubuntu's policy?
I find Dell's policy to be logical and fitting for what they do. But I would stress that part of what FOSS does better than all those other guys is evolution rather than large revision. I'd be a wary of breaking the 6 month release heartbeat cycle, it keeps everyone on their toes and allows for new and interesting things to be tried out without breaking OEMs or large stable deployments. Although part of me also feels that we haven't yet reached the maturity with a number of key foundation systems to really be sure about deployment longevity. (i,e xorg, audio, hardware-handling, config-handling all of which are moving along) Although if LoCo experience is anything to go by, people are happy with their Ubuntu installations and some will ask for re-installation with a newer version. But most are happy. Regards, Martin Owens On Thu, 2009-05-21 at 14:12 +0300, Peteris Krisjanis wrote: Actually, it is not disappointing, it's just Dell as OEM shows us a way where we should be going to. Yes, we need to change release policy. We really need LTS every two years (and lot of small development releases between them), AND we need to overlook 'we don't release new software, just updates' policy. People already use gizillions of PPA reps and backport packages to get what they need. I know, people who love bloatin edge like me would be slightly disappointed because it would mean no more shiny, regular releases with newest stuff. But we need to acknowledge that we have outgrown our geeek roots and Ubuntu is not only for us anymore. So I actually support Dell decision. LTS must and should be aim we are going after and it must be hard stable and basic functionality working without a glitch. Just my two euro cents, Peter. 2009/5/21 Markus Hitter m...@jump-ing.de: Hello all, today it came to my attention Dell plans to do two things: a) Stick with Ubuntu 8.04 in favour of a more recent release for new machines. b) Fork the package repository to get updates out to their customers. http://www.betanews.com/article/Dell-Most-Linux-users-dont-really- need-the-latest-version/1242843704 In my opinion, this is disappointing. Very disappointing. What is wrong with Ubuntu's release/fix/backport strategy for such a thing to happen? Markus - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter http://www.jump-ing.de/ -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: What's wrong with Ubuntu's policy?
Hey Markus, Well, xorg is based on (or part of) X, which is about 20 years old. X was considered to be mature for some time, and severly behind a few years later. Do you really think there is something like a maturity which can be reached? If not after 20 years, how long does it take? 30 years, 50 years? Similar facts apply for the other packages you mentioned. It's true that xorg is old, but age is not maturity (not even in people). While the world moved on, the x window system saw reductions in it's maturity in modern systems because of project stagnation. It's not until very recently that xorg has been pushed to achieve the maturity it badly needed (thanks Bryce team). My strong feeling is, reaching maturity is almost like stopping development, which shouldn't happen. It looks like the key to success is to reach a good user experience in constant development, without ever reaching task done. Maturity isn't about releases, I feel it more about keeping up with integration, flexibility and bug fixes, all those none featured things that are so important to a nice stable system. Some parts of our systems have never been integrated very well (configs), some are just confusing as hell (audio) whilst others have bit rotted over time (xorg). So you don't need to stop development, you just need to make sure that every sub-system is keeping pace and developing more flexible, modular and easier designs over time. Perhaps others have a different view of maturity though. thoughts? Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Usev permissions and USB scanners
And if you'd like to fix it, there is a set of hal fdi files which put scanners into the scanner group for ACL control: /usr/share/hal/fdi/preprobe/10osvendor/20-libsane.fdi /usr/share/hal/fdi/preprobe/10osvendor/20-libsane-extras.fdi Sometimes the fdi files can miss a supported scanner (like my Epson v500) But hopefully with the additions sent upstream, the next person with your scanner shouldn't suffer the same fate. Be sure you know which driver supports your scanner though, it's important to get it in the right package. (libsane, libsane-extras, iscan-plugins etc etc) Although no idea how this effects DeviceKit, I presume it's going to need some kind of similar list of devices supported. Regards, Martin Owens On Sun, 2009-05-03 at 16:16 +0300, kohe...@gmail.com wrote: Hello, In the Brother support page: http://solutions.brother.com/linux/en_us/instruction_scn1c.html#u9 They recommend changing the mode for USB devices to 666, which is a security issue. I created a usbdev group and added my user to that group, added a group setting to that line instead of the recommended mode change, and my scanner works, I think that this group should be added to the default installation, and the rule modified accordingly. What do you think? Please reply to all, so I'll get the message, I'm not a list member. David Kohen -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu Gaming Team
Some confusion maybe seen from the naming, but I see no real issue. The team members who wish too can look at and work with more specific Ubuntu issues and act as a conduit between the teams of both distributions to make things better. Many teams work in this way and I see no real competition or massive problems and a hopeful flow of information would only be productive. So long as you can join their mailing list and give the enough homage, I'm sure you can avoid political rumblings. It would be good to be able to join interested people from Ubuntu communities to interested groups in Debian without fear that the people will get caught in a war. Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Unmaintained Repository Was: Spoke too early
Hey Andreas, The fact is, that we don't like to have unmaintained packages in the archive, kdvi in this case is one of them. It was re-introduced in intrepid solely to fill the gap for some features missing in okular. (If some people starts maintaining it and releases new versions, it can of course be packaged again). There is an interesting protocol here, you remove any package which is no longer maintained upstream? Do you have a page where you keep the relevant rules about these things? I would like to read up on it. I wouldn't think that removing unmaintained packages just because they no longer have an upstream maintainer to be a bad idea, limiting and too destructive of user choice. More usefully would be to assess the bit-rot, number of bugs, any critical or security issues which makes it dangerous. This package here looks like it works in jaunty, baring any security issues I see no reason why it should be removed. (although I'm sure these things are assesed in due process) The other option is to move these things to an unmaintained repository where users can have the initiative to install things they want but also be made aware of it's unmaintained nature (perhaps even encouraging developers to maintain it). At least then people wouldn't have to go digging around for PPAs. MOTO: What has been made, is available; what is yet to be done, costs to do. Although what to do about packages such as the recent Eclipse packages, which are maintained upstream, but not in our packaging. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Unmaintained Repository Was: Spoke too early
At the point where Kdvi was removed: - All important features that had been reported as missing in Okular compared to Kdvi, had now been added to Okular. - Kdvi is unmaintained. - Kdvi is an KDE3 application where a KDE4 replacement exists. So those three things combined was the reason for removing it. Ah so the important part here is not that it's unmaintained, but that it's superseded with a package that should (in theory) offer all the features. Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Hardware information applet... anyone working on it?
Further, this could (in theory) give users a one-stop-shop for all things physically attached to their computers so they know where to look after connecting new hardware. It's sounds useful, just be aware that there is a difference between a device and hardware. The former is a representation of function in the software and the latter is representational of the physical, user recognisable object. Too many programers get these confused with each other and you end up with a mess of data that's not quite sure what it is. So device if your notification is going to show devices or hardware. I think BlueTooth is more of a device bus, like usb. You may or may not want to keep it with that list. Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Replacing network-offline (old version 2xmonitor) with NM wlan 0% signal strength icon
2) Create trust to this study platform within interested players - commercial OEMs, non-commercials, universies; Is Canonical not interested in brining these OEMs and other commercial entities into the community or does it find it's job is now just to shield them from the community? I hope that commercial interests are willing to become full members as is deserved of any productive member of this community. Willing and able to participate in discussion, sharing information about relevant findings and new developments. This is why I'm so happy to see Dell reps at UDS, it feels like they have a stake in what goes on in the wider Ubuntu community and they're willing to work inside the community instead of outside. So in answer: considering the views of all community members should cover OEMs and other organisations views. So we have no need for special caveats. Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Remove app via apt-get from menu
It is true that some menu items in Ubuntu have context menus (another example is Firefox's Bookmarks menu), but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea. Firefox bookmarks are a great comparison, because the bookmarks menu isn't a context menu, it's a list menu. It's a good idea to have a context menu on a list menu because otherwise you'd have no way to attach verbs to nouns in this scope. Unless you plan on inventing some new way of doing this such as gnome-do. Breaking people's train of thought and the way brains work is not the way to make intuitive designs. Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Remove app via apt-get from menu
Hi Markus, I once was in a Lighting Talk which was describing some interface research related to context. It was fascinating because it showed the difference between nouns (applications) and verbs (run, delete, uninstall) On Fri, 2009-03-20 at 00:35 +0100, Markus Hitter wrote: Right-click menus inside a left-click menu? I can't imagine any user interface guideline agrees here. So, with this we have to consider that the left mouse click is actually just a useful way to pull up a list widget with a bunch of ordered nouns. A context menu is still valid here, because we have no verbs apart from the default (assumed) one 'Run'. There are a number of Brainstorm items that ask for this feature, it's a well requested idea that already has an implementation in mint and enough rationale to back up it's addition. 2009/3/19 Andrew Barbaccia andrew.barbac...@gmail.com I agree. Two places to accomplish the same thing seems confusing. That rationale makes no sense when your dealing with context, it's not two places. It's a rationale context link from one idea to another. Think about if we applied the same logic to nautilus, we'd have to remove the Places menu, it's already in the nautilus Places list, get rid of the home folder because you can access it from /home, remove previews, because it's so easy to load them in a viewer and finally remove the ability to double click on anything, because why should you need to load a file from a nautilus context when you can just load the target application first and use that Open/Load functionality. This may at first look like duplication, but it's not, it's contexted functionality and it improved the ease of use of the system. Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Replacing network-offline (old version 2xmonitor) with NM wlan 0% signal strength icon
Hello Matthew, As a couple of small corrections to this, it's not a metaphor, and it's not what OS X does. The Design team has just discussed this and we agree it's confusing. The two-monitors icon sucked, but our first try at a replacement wasn't so hot. :-) We will have another go, considering the cross and slash possibilities proposed here, and we'll seek a UI freeze exception for 9.04 for a replacement icon. Thanks for raising the issue. Part of the problem is that your trying to merge two concepts into one. On the one hand you have Network Connection and on the other you have Online Status The first is what we use to connect to eth0 (a label that needs replacing) or connect to a wifi network, it's what you get with a physical connection. So an ethernet connection should show a filled plug icon (just like mac osx) and a wifi connection shows the signal strength. the disconnected icon can show the unplugged icon or the no wifi connection icon (on mac I thought it has a black line through it) The second concept is Online Status, a completely under served status. Are we online? Would the lay person grok that they are online from this icon or would it show that they are in fact sitting behind a paywall? I don't think it's as useful to equate network connectivity to online status. I think we may need two separate icons, or one of these newfangled status widgets and more robust NM APIs for giving that status to apps. Regards, Martin Owens PS, My ideal table of Statuses: 0:Offline 1:Network Connection 2:Router Visible 3:DNS Visible 4:HTTP redirects to router address 5:Search Domains Visible (i.e google.com) (assume your fully online) -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Metacity as a compositing manager
In the interest of feature-parity, the relevant question to my mind is: can composited Metacity do everything that the default Compiz can? I'm not talking about what can be enabled with ccsm or simple-ccsm, but what can be enabled in Appearances - Desktop Effects. If the simple transitions and wall and things that are available in Normal and Extra (on KDE at the moment, so unsure of phrasing) mode are available then yes, I would remove Compiz and let Metacity handle it. For the record: KWin does handle these things just fine from what I can tell. If metacity just does the features in 'Normal' visual effects. Then you could reserve the Extra button for installing compiz, much like the codecs are installed. That way you don't need them on the CD, but they are still there where people expect it to be. Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Thoughts for assisting those with limited bandwidth
Hi Markus, Do they need to install -0ubuntu2 and THEN -0ubuntu3? I don't know how Fedora does, but you always have the fallback option to download the full package. The server always has to provide full packages to allow new installations. It would be logical for a from-version property to be included in the system. If there is a version from x to y and a version from y to z. and is is installed, then install xy and then yz. Alternitivly, if there is a package x to z. Just one update. All these things are being talked about in the debian binary diff packages discussions. Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Doing something about signal:noise complaints
Hello Colin, On Fri, 2009-01-23 at 13:40 +, Colin Watson wrote: [Please preserve quoting attributions in your replies; it makes things awfully confusing when you remove them. I've restored them here.] How much should be preserved? Knowing that some quotes can get out of hand, I tend to crop, but tend to include the quote that the test refers to. On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 10:56:03AM -0500, Martin Owens wrote: ... Somehow confident? your confident, but you don't know why? Loïc was indicating that the space filled with [somehow confident] is (in the web survey) a drop-down from which you can select several different options indicating different degrees of confidence. I took the survey, I knew what the context was. But somehow isn't right in this context and I wanted to say so. Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Doing something about signal:noise complaints
On Thu, 2009-01-22 at 11:19 +, Andrew Sayers wrote: Hi all, Ubuntu developers tend to complain about the ratio of signal to noise on this list - that is, the percentage of posts that take up their time without helping them to improve Ubuntu. Many developers have apparently unsubscribed from the list for that reason. Grumbling developers are never a good thing for a project, so I'd like to see what can be done about it. Grumbling developers aren't good, no, but then I've also seen how developers treat and think of their users in the most distasteful ways on other lists. There must always be some contention, simply because to segregate developers away from users is a move that would only serve to make what we do more out of touch and in the end more useless to none technical people. These people are not going to know how to talk geek with us. I don't mind user posts, I quite like to see non-developers being involved with development. I'd like it more if developers didn't consider community interaction 'noise' Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Doing something about signal:noise complaints
I'm [somehow confident] that other people would consider these examples of noise. Good point - I've now changed it to ... consider these to be examples of noise. Is that alright? Somehow confident? your confident, but you don't know why? My brain must have auto replaced it when I read it to somewhat confident -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: possibility of opening hardware stats ? Smolts
1) Gather dmi, bios, i2c and other system information sources with kernel level drivers able to deliver this information via sysfs or some other mechanism. Isn't this possible today ? Sure, for dmi info you just have to read protected memory as root. But you have to know the deference between what hardware your running on. dmi only works on IBM bios based PCs, won't work on Macs or new fancy none bios motherboards. So something that can sort that info out despite what kind of hardware it's running on would be better. As far as OEM mobos are concerned, have no idea. HAL's replacement being devicekit, I was writing it quite late, the name slipped my memory. sorry. https://edge.launchpad.net/devicekit http://hal.freedesktop.org/docs/DeviceKit/DeviceKit.7.html would that have any benefits in getting some of the issues you talked about? Perhaps, but by this time, I'm sick of talking to brick walls. It's obvious that other developers don't care about none functional hardware information. Either that or they think they know best, and don't care to discuss it. Thank you for taking time and explaining everything so well. Would like to know a bit more about the project you tried Martin Owens. Sure: https://launchpad.net/dohickey the python based client implements some very rough filtering and sorting logic to pick through the erroneous information. I was working against 530 computer profiles, sent to me by the community. So some things are fairly good at coping with missing info, others such as RAM type were quite hard to work out. Still, I consider the project put to bed since most of this stuff should go into devicekit. Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: too complicated
Oh it is, i just meant don't go doing a global replace on the wiki with that because formatting and special conditions would break pages. But yes, in a carefully considered editing exercise, one could edit many pages on the wiki and make them more usable/friendly. The problem with the command line I've found is that people don't know what they're looking at or what the commands they're copying and pasting do. The first problem could probably be fixed by a simple cli which reports the success of a command and only plagues the user with information when there has been a problem. The second problem is more difficult. Short of making the computer sentential able to explain any command or teaching every user what commands are for. Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Alpha Test 2008-12-16
Alpha Test conducted by Martin Owens, on Tue 26 Dec 2008 09:17:20 -0500 Notes: Lots of things couldn't be tested, we need some more information in the test suite about how to execute some things. Other things are blocked because it's impossible to reset the account we use for testing. I'll be working on it more to fix these issues for tomorrow. Website Testing Consistency Tests * Web Forms are valid - * Fields accept non-latin characters. - * Website has media ✔ * Website has style sheets ✔ * Website Looks Good ✔ Signing up * Signing up with OpenID ✔ * Profile Image is imported ✘ Default Image only * Account information is correctly imported from lp ✘ Unable to test, account existed already. * Edit Account Details Works ✔ * Edit Address Works ✘ No edit address link, no address listed Buying Services * Buying links are prevalent and noticeable ✘ Only links are to right hand side, very small * ToS and other policy documents are presented and easy to read and correct. ✘ Joke ToS, box is quite small. * Payment type is accepted. ✘ Unable to test, no account resets * Payment system is live and accepting real money. ✘ Unable to test, no account resets * Subscription types work logically. Concurrently purchased subs do not overlap. ✘ Unable to test, no account resets File Storage * Works for Subscribed accounts, not unsubscribed accounts. ✘ Unable to test, no account resets * Persists correctly. Items do not disappear, randomly move, etc. ✘ Unable to test, no account resets * Provides useful information regarding account quotas, etc. ✘ Unable to test, no account resets * File Status, Size, Type (Preview will not be tested) ✘ Unable to test, no account resets Client Testing Installation Testing * Installation documentation is available ✘ Can't find installation documentation * Is using a non development PPA ✘ Can't find none development PPA * No dependency errors ✘ Depends on above * Fuse U1FS installs correctly ✘ Depends on above GUI Testing * Mount loads correctly ✘ Unable to test * Use documentation is available ✘ Unable to test * Gnome help is available ✘ Unable to test Functional Client Testing * Copying Files ✘ Unable to test * Moving Files ✘ Unable to test * Deleting Files ✘ Unable to test * Verify files appear in another mount (notify) ✘ Unable to test * Verify file appear in the website ✘ Unable to test * conflicts ✘ Unknown test, clarification required Sharing * create share ro/rw ✘ Unable to test * remove share ✘ Unable to test * browse shares ✘ Unable to test * edit shares ✘ Unable to test * share sees updates ✘ Unable to test Uninstalling * All files removed ✘ Unable to test * Fuse mount is removed ✘ Unable to test -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Do you really want developers to be on this list was (Re: Very bad status of hardware (especially wifi) support in ubuntu, due to the too many accumulated regressions)
This list was created to give users a way to discuss Ubuntu development with developers. Comments like I was just joking about you having to know anything make the decision to unsubscribe easy. I'm seriously considering it myself. It should remain, developers should remain. Developers are never going to get away from users who want to bitch, greater layers between the developers and users just breeds users who resent and don't understand developers and developers who don't understand (none programmer)user needs. Very Bad. So on one side I think that list moderators or peers should be very prompt in telling the wrong sorts of emails where to go, perhaps with a standard template which explains the rules and a little checkbox by the offence. On the other hand, list members should try not to bait the trolls. I've caught myself being suckered in too, so I know it's not easy. But why reward the wrong sort of emails with any response other than a boiler plait 'Your being rude' email? Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Very bad status of hardware (especially wifi) support in ubuntu, due to the too many accumulated regressions
Anyway, thanks for the good work in areas different from hardware support. Intrepid is lovely, every time I try it I really would like to be able to start using it. I hope to be in time for jaunty :) Have you tried reinstalling Ubuntu 8.10 from scratch? I have the same wifi as you and I have none of those problems. the iwp/iwl thing was a pain in the neck in the past, but that's been made much better. Things I would check: blacklist file, modules file, custom compiled cruft that may be still around, dmesg, lsmod. So far most of the errors I've seen reported for wifi and that I have come across have either been because of faulty upgrades (a major problem) or lack of firmware or (and this was bad) drivers loading before all their dependencies or after a cut-off module has been loaded. Best of luck with your problem, developers in various communities continue to work very hard on wifi and network problems. Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu 8.10 significantly slower than previous versions
Anyway, it does look like linux wins in the end. I do not believe that is a good thing; Just because Gnu/Linux can be faster than windows vista doesn't automatically mean we are serving our users well. The good news always comes from the users directly who never complain about slowness. When you start to hear complaints, that's when you have a problem. I've noticed Savage2 doesn't work as well any more. But I was cutting it thin with 1GB of RAM with that game but fortunately 8.04 was just slim enough to run it well. Now however the extra bulk in 8.10 has made the game cache more often and me die is horribly messy ways. :-P Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Inclusion of a mobile management tool
What does the mobile manager do? what does is manage? There has been a lot of discussion and debate about Hardware Management vs Device Capability. Should the manager provide functional access then it might work via hal capabilities, if it's configuration or some other kind of hardware management then an app might be useful. Regards, Martin On Mon, 2008-11-03 at 22:29 +0530, Chandru wrote: Wammu -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Inclusion of a mobile management tool
On Mon, 2008-11-03 at 22:56 +0530, Chandru wrote: One very common use of a mobile management app is backup of contacts. Apart from that if need be (not exactly too common), back up text messages. But beyond that Wammu provides capabilities to manage mobile's calendar, To Do, etc, etc which can come handy at times. Then it's an app for accessing the data stored on a phone? Yes this should be integrated further into other systems. A library for example like libgpod so that any program could access the data. Then things like opensync could take care of the job without any specific programs for mobile phones. (which mobile phones? the iphone? the ROM blackberries? Nokia symbian phones?) Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu 8.10 released but...
Firefox is a special case. Because of Mozilla Corp's trademark policy Ubuntu cannot ship Firefox and call it Firefox unless Mozilla has approved all the changes in the package. If you have a problem with Firefox, I think you really need to look upstream. Doesn't this tie our hands with regards to serving our users? If mozilla went evil and decided to ignore any bugs not found in the windows version. What would we do? Ont he other hand for Mozilla's side, aren't they inviting forks if no one but Mozilla devs can fix problems? Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: support
It's probably using the wrong driver, Install the hplip tools and run the setup program. Compare the driver that the hp tools assigns with the one that ubuntu automatically assigns. If hplip doesn't fix the problem, and it's own setup says everythign is ok otherwise, then you might be dealing with some odd cups problem, encoding into postscript twice or what have you; although I haven't seen that kind of error for many years. Failing all else, ask on the foomatic/gutenprint mailing list. Some good experts with printers there. Best Regards, Martin Owens On Thu, 2008-10-09 at 13:44 +0200, David Martín Fernández wrote: My HP DeskJet 845c printer is recognized and works, but only printed symbols. What could be wrong? Thanks _ ¿Sigue el calor? Consulta MSN El tiempo http://eltiempo.es.msn.com/ -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: tablet-support in Ubuntu
Someone needs to kick^H^H^H^Hask upstream :) If we want to forward the bugs upstream, do we do this on xorg (wherever it might be), evdev or linuxwacom bug tracker? Not sure to be honest, months and months ago (so long ago I forget) I sent Bryce a wacom table to work with. I'd hold off on bug reports until he's finished and happy with the support he's created for the one I sent. Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Configuration masquerading Data
Dear Felix, Ahhh wait! It's nice you separated data and configuration, but to be honest: I really don't want my home directory to be flooded with data I don't even want do see outside the application! Calm down dear, it's only a discussion. I don't want to have a folder background images in my home where the background images are, I don't want to have a evolution emails folder where I can get to my emails without opening Evolution itself! I don't think I'm alone with this thought...think of all the non-power-user, for them it would be a tsunami of data they cannot handle... I don't think it would be that much of a 'tsunarmi' not only would defaults be selected in a way which would make them structured and shared; but they would be configurable (even to the point of hiding) and wouldn't exist until you needed them anyway. The idea is nice, but not for every program! Why should I want to access the emails directly? Why wouldn't you want to? 1) Backup your emails without special software, 2) Be tied to a specific program for the rest of your life with special syncing software. 3) Unable to index emails without special indexing software. 4) Be able to search for emails without a searcher that integrates with said indexing software 5) Be able to input and export to and from other services and devices without special software. In fact one of the themes of the above is that for every innovation you need to have special software which interacts with the application APIs or hidden proprietary formatted configuration files in order to do anything interesting. It's a lot of wasted work which only comes about because developers think it's nice to want to hide their user's data. I can use Evolution for that, its nicer and a lot more user friendly then the file explorer is! I think this is a big step in the wrong direction, you would like to use the email application just to make the connection and download the mails! That reminds me of the old telnet email clients - my uncle still uses one of them, because he's familiar with that - but we have really powerful applications now, we should use them! So be it, no one said these folders couldn't be hidden in a teletubby distro for those who are weak of heart. As far as a step in the wrong direction I think not: the underlying technical principles set forth in my previous emails would be valuable, if employed in an integrated manner. they would allow people to move from/to gnome/kde/xfce without having to sync data, it would allow programmers far more stability and confidence in how to access various types of data, creating a platform for more interesting ideas to be tried out. Oh and most people end up creating a backgrounds folder anyway. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Configuration masquerading Data
Hi Felix, Now I think your idea is not bad at all, because we have a quite nice folder structure already (Documents, Pictures, Videos and so on). But they must be used! Correct me if I'm wrong, but FSpot makes its own directory (/home/foo/Photos) for the pictures you want to copy to picture location (you can select this option when importing pictures to fspot). Yes that is the case, the way these directories are configured is that there is a config file which lists each one. this allows for folders in different languages to be used correctly by programs without having to have that foreign language support built in (without breaking horribly). Getting folders used is a matter of project preference, although support for the ideas from other developers would help push standards too. I still see some issues (like a unified way to save emails, not that if I first use Thunderbird my emails are stored like foo.mail and with Evolution they are stored like 080916_foo.evomail or similar) but issues are here to resolve and as you pointed out already: this is a discussion, so lets discuss :) The file names them selves might not be such a problem so long as the structure is well defined. Making sure the folder structures in evolution correspond to the folders in the file system would be a first step. This may either be done through convention or by configuration (such as a more detailed XDS) The file formats and the mime-type would be the most important aspects after structure. E.g ~/Email/Personal Account/Inbox Martin, are you familiar with Cosimo Cecchi's Summer of Code project? (http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gnome/appinfo.html?csaid=15C2B5BC19A9276A) It's a very interesting project, it actually seems more radical than my ideas but certainly is along the same lines. Having an index based file chooser is a very useful feature. Probably a integration of his media manager into nautilus would solve some of your problems? Although the main aspects of being able to run your files through any application outside of gnome is still very attractive. ergo: ssh from your laptop to your computer, your looking for a contact in your evolution account. You have the command line. P.S. I've taken cheese mailing list off the reply, don't want to flood their list. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: [Evolution-hackers] Configuration masquerading Data
Hi Gilles, first, let me tell you I perfectly agree with you that user data should be easily accessible to users. It's their data after all. It's not just abut accessibility in your currently working computer at this point in time. It's also about visibility, compatibility with alternative and future programs, the ability to use these files in interesting way. Do we have a program that can give you real time reports on your emails? do we have innovation in data processing? I beleive hiding the data has lead everyone down the garden path, restricting compatibility, reducing the drive for standardisation and ensuring programmers have lots of work to do in the import and export plug-ins market. Now I want to shade this a bit for what is usually called PIM data. imho, users (I mean normal non-geeky users) often only know about one way of getting to their data and can only handle few at a time. Dealing directly with how the user interfaces is an important question, but I believe we must enable as many routes to use our data effectively with the way we structure our output. For instance I don't believe someone will check their emails in nautilus. But could they do a search or open those self same emails in kmail without syncing and api bridging crutches? Could they access their email in a command line tool? is there a way to send a message in a business account on evolution as an attachment in your gmail account? This is really important wrt to what you said about mails. Somebody replied to this thread qualifying what would be the direct (brutal) application of your proposal as a tsunami of data and I can only agree with that. This would be a poor user experience really :) Well only if the emails were all pushed into their face, say if we store them all in ~/, I'm not advocating bad design. Picking out the ideal structure for where emails go which is out of the way but still available is important. The suggestions I've given already make it clear that the system is just as important as the principle to make sure we don't introduce new problems. About standards, evolution actually uses standards to store data, mbox for mails, ics/vcard for addressbook, events memos. this is good, if EDS is already using these files then it's not much of a change to make it configurable and/or based on XDS directories (which distro's could then configure) giving users, distributors and other programmers ways to find and control data output in what ever way they feel their target users would like. It can also export all of these data from their hidden store to another standard format. Even nicer, it has a backup plugin that saves all this and configured accounts to a tarball that you can save anywhere you want. Personnaly I've had harder times getting my data out of thunderbird last time I tried (which was probably ~1.0). Lots of exports are band-aids, some exports are genuinely useful such as svg to pdf, going from editable design stage to print ready production. others are for compatibility or for backing things up. Exporting an email to a processed thread file would make sense I think. Exporting it to an email backup file seems like it's trying to get around the limitations of the user data storage, because if normal backup solutions can't back your emails up without making special exceptions to decided what is data and what is configuration for every app it's not doing something right. Now obviously all programs probably won't be able to deal with evolution's backup tarball (but most probably can with individual exports) but that's probably because nobody even thought about getting started on standardizing this kind of stuff before. If you made a backup using a standard file backup utility when using the proposed ideas; you would be able to recover the emails in the right directories ready for use, even if during the time you had moved applications or even platforms. In fact there would be no thought needed from the user, it would be a simple matter of getting the files in the right places. As for opensync, could you imagine if they could eliminate all those custom end point plugins for each and every application? Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: [Evolution-hackers] Configuration masquerading Data
Hi, I think it would be important to distinguish between a local cache of a remote IMAP or CalDAV folder (i.e. Configuration) vs. local mail folders, calendars, contact lists, etc. (Data). I agree, I regretted not making a note about cache data. Caches are temporary stores, if it makes sense to export them to a more permanent states then that would be where they'd translate into user data. As an example, pidgin's user lists and profile images are cache, unless the contact is tied to a standard address book system where the profile image could be stored in the right place it's not permanent and is more of a state of the application. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Configuration Validation
Dear Ubuntu and APT Developers, I would like to introduce an idea and see if any of you would like to review it and see how helpful it would be to solving a problem. These ideas may have already have been expressed so I'd like to see if they are under development elsewhere. In Debian based distros like Ubuntu we have pretty tight control over lots of files. The guidelines for getting something appropriately packaged for the repositories are set up as best practice guidelines for the kinds of support in our projects that make them easier to install, use and modify. One of the concerns I have is with configurations, specifically those in /etc and those in ~/.* . The files in /etc are known to the apt system and it's been built to warn the user if config files are to be overwritten. The config files in ~/.* are not recorded anywhere and they are at the mercy of the competency of the developers in format and version control. I'm not aware of any guidelines for these files. To solve some of the problems with this set-up I had a ponder. A solution that came to mind was to have a validation system which involves two steps (below). This system would be employed to check the integrity of the system at any time, and the integrity of certain package configurations during upgrade time. In essence, just as we recommend each executable come with a man page, we should recommend each configuration file come with a definition and validation xsd. Checking the entire system would be a matter of going through each definition, checking the existence of the config file followed by step one, which would be a translation of the config file from what ever text format it is in to an xml structure using standard transformation methods for various formats, these can be made as plugins for which the definitions would identify in order for translation backwards and forwards to take place. Step two is to use an xsd appropriate for each config file to check the validity of the config against the version of the application installed it is applicable to. An optional step three on upgrade time is to use xslt translation to upgrade configurations assuming no validity or conflict errors. This would allow for much safer upgrading. Now once employed this system would not only be applicable to config files in /etc but also to configurations employed per user in ~/ these checks can be carried out at any time and especially if there is problems with logging in (as I have seen with gnome). I imagine the locations for each xsd, xslt and config definition file would be set locations much like the man pages and could be if successful in future revisions integrated into the way apt/deb works. I propose python as a language of choice to build such a system. I assume much of these ideas to have been discussed at length before, but my searches aren't picking up useful results. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Configuration Validation
2008/9/12 Andrew Sayers [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Could you spell out some specific issues that this would solve? For example, are you looking to avoid two packages overwriting each other's files in ~/? If so, can you give an example of that happening? Examples: 1) I manually edit a config file in /etc which is read during startup to do something interesting. There is no standard way of checking to see if the config I've written in valid in format other than seeing if my computer will still boot or see if there is a specific validation utility to check for me. 2) I upgrade gnome, the .gnome2/backgrounds.xml file changes in format between the two versions. the xslt and validators are able to upgrade the config files without removing settings and my backgrounds. 3) I install an application which uses the same settings file, but their xsd validation files don't match, enabling packages to be marked as conflicting protecting corruption. 4) I would be able to use a utility which employs the translation software to edit any xml or oddly formatted config file in vi/emacs/nano/gedit in a manner that suits my tastes without causing errors or problems, say I hate editing ini files but like editing xml files. Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Configuration masquerading Data
Dear Ubuntu and Evolution Developers, I'm sending this email to the gnome evolution hackers list to see what their thoughts are. I have noticed a really odd disconnect in gnu/linux with user data which has me a little worried. Some user data is hidden from users in configuration directories. Technically configuration directories denoted by being hidden (suffexed with a '.') are there to hold collections of configuration files for the applications which they serve. But there are plenty of programs using these directories to store the data results as well as configuration. For consideration I present Cheese, a very nice tool for using web-cams to take photos with weird disfiguring effects. The problem as I see it is that Cheese stores each of the photos in it's ~/.cheese directory which makes them hidden from the user. Instead I propose that Cheese use a standard directory (possibly configurable) such as ~/Photographs/Cheese or ~/Documents/Cheese which is accessible to user browsing. Cheese is an excellent example of making user data more accessible to casual file browsing which is not just limited to jpeg images but could just as easily apply to the way Evolution stores emails, addresses, contacts and so on. In these instances the data is always bound up in evolution specific formats inaccessible to casual browsing as well as casual integration (without delving into the EDS API) I'd like data to be available to send in an email, or browse in nautilus (or on a command line) I'd like to be able to open the same jpeg in image viewer and gimp, not just in what ever created or generated them. I'd like to be able to open addresses and copy an event file to my thumb drive. Wouldn't it be good to backup all your files without configs and be sure your not missing emails or bookmarks? In fact the methods we use to store data seems to be along the same lines that certain Windows and Mac programs use to obfuscate and hide data in order to lock users into their products. Do we really need to do this on our gnu/linux systems? Should we instead intend user data to be converted with plugins and export features in every application because of their hidden default outputs? This issue may be interesting to the FDO (freedesktop.org) crowd. It is a very heavy topic that will probably get me a little flaming because it goes against what is currently best practice. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Configuration Validation
I think we've all had that idea at one time or another, but sadly it's based on a misunderstanding of how the community works. Oh no, I understand that people will be people. I don't expect them to agree. But building systems to validate system integrity doesn't require projects approval directly. Some of this is a distribution/packaging problem and some of it is a system integrity problem. Having a community which then realises the usefulness of new mechanisms to their projects just aims to decrees the burden of work from the packagers and shift it to the projects where it is most efficient. Projects like GConf tackle this issue in a more Linuxy way: write a tool, then convince people that they'll get more value for less effort by using it. If you're really motivated to work on this problem, I suggest you talk to them about what you can do to help out. Ah the gconf approach, this project suffers from not being able to include existing config files, it excludes people from directly editing text files which has always been a big complaint. And it's a copy of a bad idea from windows (even with a gtk-regedit) with a few of the ideas fixed with regards to user data. Although at least they do have validation, if not the packaging integration. It's not hard to Imagen a sort of fuse-fs solution to bridge the gap and ties into deb/apt although it may not work with what their currently doing. As for your 'go away and come back with the goods' suggestion, I'll take it under advisement while I try and pick holes in the idea first. I'm only interested in building something once I understand everyone's objectives and points of view on the subject. Design the blueprints first then go build the building. I'll be talking more about this at UDS in December if you want to join the session. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Boot-time improvements
Hrm, my 2-year old laptop takes bout 45 seconds to boot if I have MySQL, Apache2, and MythTV's server set to start at boot. Actually, the 4-year old laptop might take about that long regularly...haven't booted that in a while. I wonder what causes such variation? Certainly the processes that need to start do, but a default install without any extra services ought not to require more than 40 seconds on a laptop less than 2 years old. In cases where it does, there has to be a reason, but how do we find it? Reading the Fedora research into this problem they seemed to find a whole bunch of places where the code was told to wait for a second, or what for half a minute on both boot up and shutdown. No mater how new the laptop it'll still wait for 30 seconds for nothing. Making sure the code isn't doing this kind of hack will improve things and I reckon they made good progress. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Dealing with codecs, was: Making deals with Microsoft
Hey Remco, I only have/had two problems with the situation, and that's not something against Canonical per se I do have some problems with this but it can not be solved by limiting the users workstation; I don't even believe it's right to keep certain formats off the CD for instance keeping liblame away from ubuntu is a great travesty since it's free software. No what we need to encourage the use of free codecs on websites is better tools. Better authoring tools, better distrobution tools and more focus on making our system that uses these codecs by default is _the_ best system to make videos and audio. At the moment even if someone wanted to create a theora video they'd have to jump through a number of technical hoops, mostly because they'd be making it on a mac because our tools aren't good enough. Build it and they _will_ come. Keep trying to tie users hands with educational buffering and scary stories about how we're all being stupid for installing wmv codecs isn't going to work and isn't the right tactic to use. I'd favour having all codecs on board by default; for instance we should be trying to get real media to make a _real_ real media plugin and stop fobbing us off with their helix stuff, we should ask them for open source versions of the codec that works with everything. Not only that but any codec that we currently use windows dlls for we _must_ reverse engineer and recode from scratch, work is already going into ffmpeg for wmv support. More money is needed to free these parts properly. Some of the stop gap measures we've put in place aren't good enough because they're not legal anywhere. I'm waiting for Canonical and other workstation software vendors to put some developer money into solving these problems. Where is the investment money from these tablet PC makers into the projects that would reduce their costs in the long run? We should be asking them to invest in real project too. Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Dealing with codecs, was: Making deals with Microsoft
It sucks, but that's software patents for you. It's sucks? no eating a bad piece of pie and farting too much sucks. Having your laws slapped in your face by greedy bastards that's an insult several levels above sucks my friend. I don't believe in these so called licenses, they didn't make the software nor did most of them 'invent' the formats they claim to 'own'; Legal remedies as well as technical ones need to be forthcoming. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: making deals with M$
All of a sudden, any 'back room deals' are irrelevant. I wish people would talk about issues instead of technical solutions or flaming some mis-informed guy. Anyone care to? -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: making deals with M$
It concerns me only that Canonical would think WMV support was important enough to bother with in this day and age. The thing with Novell is that they have proven themselves to be wrong headed when it comes to FOSS. It makes them dangerous and their mono and silverlight developments are proofs of the pudding minds. Contrast however that with canonical, even if they did a deal with Microsoft (which I'd like to see) I can't yet think that their attitude to FOSS is wrong. They know how it works and why it's important. Even if they get stung with this deal the rest of their developments should be safe. Besides I've been asking for ages for patents to be nullified, DMCA/EUCD to be questioned in court to wit decss and for wmv support to be rewritten into a foss library (i.e. ffmpeg). We can't keep on using windows dlls for our codecs, it's not right(legal in any country) and it's not how we're supposed to do things here. Fortunately while there are those of us bemoaning the codec problem, there are still those of us trying to solve it. Regards, Martin Owens 2008/6/7 Remco [EMAIL PROTECTED]: And just for kicks they annoy their primary user base by providing the video in MP4 format. Real classy, Canonical. Remco -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: making deals with M$
Anybody in their uneducated right mind probably. I run openSUSE and run it happily I might add. Lets take a breath here and step back from the FUD button on your keyboard. Spoken like a true Microvell shill. Richard A. Johnson sees no problem with the technicalities of openSuSE and Mark Fink has problems with Novell. Not only are they mostly opinion, one is political and the other is technical but utterly daft and pointless. Now now boys and girls, lets not get away from the point of this thread, Canonical having business dealings with Microsoft. Who has something useful to say about the real subject? Regards, Martin -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubuntu beyond GTK apps?
I agree 100%. I try and keep my desktop as close to default as possible because it makes it so much easier to test bugs. The less customization I do, the more likely it is that it isn't my fault somehow. And besides, just because I know how to edit config files doesn't mean I like doing it. Although I'd much rather have everything work the way I want it to out of the box, I realize that sometimes my preferences differ from the norm. I'm fine with that, but if we're going to do something as fundamental as a UI reorganization, we have to be absolutely sure that the majority would benefit from it. Evan We're getting off track here, it's obvious that we can't annoy experienced users just because we want to make life easier and simpler for more people. We can however offer serious smart configuration and option GUIs where smarts can't be done. I find it hard to believe that those who install or log on in KDE could not have a different configuration from those that log in via Gnome for both gnome and kde settings for such things as switching buttons around. Anything that doesn't conform to the HIG of gnome or kde in those settings is a bug, it might not be an important one but it _is_ a problem and not a feature. The solutions will be non-obvious and a real pain in the neck sometimes but we can't just dismiss these problems because their too hard or require too much ingenuity to solve. So solutions people? Best Regards, Martin Owens -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Suggestion to make remote recovery easier
Wow, you guys are going at this problem with a ferocious intent. We are already working on a remote support tool, a lot of what you've been talking about we have already talked about and built. So far it's not finished and much work is needed in peer review so if you can lend your time to looking at: https://launchpad.net/locoremotesupport/ We would be most grateful. Our plans are remote support using a combination of reverse tunnel ssh and jabber chat services. Do let me know if you start another project (coding) or if you figure out the ideal way of organising ssh. Best Regards, Martin Owens, Ubuntu-US-MA leader 2008/5/8 John McCabe-Dansted [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 6:56 AM, Andrew Sayers [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 1) Creating or modifying an account that has the necessary permissions 2) Creating an SSH connection 3) Destroying or reverting an account to its original state thread. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
