Global Jam

This weekend, March 1st – March 3rd, the Ubuntu Community is holding our twice-annual Global Jam. So far this cycle we have announced and released the Ubuntu Touch shell for phones and tablets, and what better place to show it off than with your local community! Instructions of installing Ubuntu Touch on several devices can be found here.

If your team is already planning a Global Jam event, and you can bring a device capable of showing off Ubuntu Touch, be sure to let everybody know by putting it into your event’s details. If your team doesn’t have an event scheduled yet, then you should go and make one! Anybody can register a Global Jam event, and it doesn’t need anything more than you and a friend at a local cafe or park.

LoCo Team Jams

Here are the LoCo Teams that currently plan on showing of Ubuntu Touch at their Global Jam event.

Catalan LoCo Team on 2013-03-02 10:00:00 UTC

Learning about Ubuntu mirrors, virtual machines on Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview on phones and Catalan translations

Ubuntu Indonesian Team on 2013-03-02 01:00:00 UTC

Demo Experience with Ubuntu 12.10
Using Ubuntu tablet

Arizona LoCo Team on 2013-03-02 17:00:00 UTC

The Ubuntu Global Jam is an incredible opportunity for the Ubuntu community to unite together around the weekend of 1st – 3rd March 2013 to work together to improve Ubuntu. we should have working ubuntu tablets and phones to show off.
Everyone is able to contribute to the Jam, and everyone is welcome and encouraged to get involved. Curious about how to make a real difference to Ubuntu? This is a great chance to make that difference.
The Ubuntu Global Jam incorporates events that have been organised over the world to get Ubuntu contributors and fans together to have a great time and improve Ubuntu. Each event has one or more of our themes:

Ubuntu Vancouver LoCo on 2013-03-02 13:00:00 UTC

The Ubuntu Vancouver Local Community will be jamming on marketing, documentation and other priority tasks. We’ll have the Ubuntu Phone and Ubuntu Tablet on display. We’ll also take some time to enjoy Jam!

Ubuntu Colombia on 2013-03-02 19:00:00 UTC

Evento en G+: https://plus.google.com/events/c769asqdbp1qmnpe6rs4klhn0sc
Evento en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/212012785606964/
Aprovechando que Canonical, empresa que desarrolla y mantiene Ubuntu, libero [1] el pasado jueves 22 de febrero su versión para celulares Android (Dispositivos Nexus unicamente), en @HackBo junto a Ubuntu Colombia, queremos hacer un Hackaton que intente derivar una nueva ROM de Ubuntu Touch, para algún otro tipo de celular que no sea Nexus. El porqué del Hackaton, se desprende por la dificultada del procedimiento y en algunos casos la inviabilidad de tener drivers apropiados o incompatibles con los diversos celulares que hay en el mercado.
Actualmente en @Hackbo ya tenemos dos dispositivos Nexus funcionando, y servirán como norte de lo que se quiere, pero el objetivo principal sera tenerlo en un nuevo dispositivo, por ejemplo un Motorola Atrix, S3, Sony, tablet chino, etc. Entonces:
Objetivos:
> Entender procesos como root, instalación de recovery, instalación de ROMs, creación de backups, herramientas de Android, fastboot, etc
> Personalizar el código fuente de Canonical para un dispositivo determinado
> Resolver problemas de compilación para cada dispositivo y entornos determinados Hacer pruebas de la ROM personaliza da y determinar problemas de drivers
> Búsqueda y solucion a problemas de drivers
> Compilación final de una nueva ROM
> Documentación del procedimiento
Requerimientos:
> Maquina Linux preferiblemente, o si no una maquina virtual con Ubuntu 12.04.2 o superior
> Tener un celular o tablet el cual se este dispuesto a:
-Perder la garantía
-Posiblemente pero en un % muy muy pequeño, brikearlo
> Descargar ANTES del evento las fuentes necesarias:
- apt-get install phablet-tools
- Determinar el VENDOR deacuerdo a su celular, a partir de este enlace: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Devices#vendor=;
- Si NO aparece su VENDOR, entonces hacer: phablet-dev-bootstrap micelular (~16 GB)
- Si SI aparece: phablet-dev-bootstrap -v MIVENDOR micelular
- Mas detalles en el enlace [2] (Es el procedimiento a grandes rasgos que seguiremos, pero la idea es entender bien esto en el Hackaton, entonces solo se requiere pre-descargar las fuentes)
> Portátil, en lo preferible bueno si es posible
> Cables USB para cada dispositivo
> Opcional: investigar como rootear su dispositivo he instalarle recovery
Organiza:
@Hackbo y Ubuntu Colombia.
[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Install#Instructions_for_flashing_a_phone_or_tablet_device_with_Ubuntu
[2] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Porting

Ubuntu-Michigan on 2013-03-01 05:00:00 UTC

For the entire weekend of March 1st through March 3rd, we’ll be jamming
online, primarily in our IRC channel (#ubuntu-us-mi on Freenode).
Participation is simple:

1) Log into IRC (there’s a client available on http://loco.ubuntu.com/teams/ubuntu-michigan under Resources if you don’t already have one handy) and join #ubuntu-us-mi

2) Say “I’m jamming” (or use some variation thereof. Examples include: “we be jammin’”, “I like toast and jam”, “Jam on it”; something with the word “jam” in it will suffice.)

3) Find something to work on and announce it to the channel. Perhaps you’d like to answer questions on http://askubuntu.com? Great! Want to test out 13.04 on your machine? Awesome.

4) OPTIONAL: If you’d like to join a Google Hangout and hang out with folks, we’ll post instructions in channel.

Some ideas for jam topics:

1) With the recent announcements about Ubuntu Phone and Ubuntu Tablet, consider using this Jam as an opportunity to try them out. Bring your hardware and show others, even (and especially) people who have never
seen Ubuntu on these form factors.

2) Consider doing some testing. Ubuntu always benefits from the extra energy the community invests in making sure Ubuntu is as solid and bug-free as possible.

3) Simply have fun! Jams don’t have to be “all work and no play”. Some teams just get together to build community and strengthen friendships. A stronger local community makes Ubuntu better!

When I read the news about Canonical’s decision to change the way Ubuntu Developer Summit (original announcement here) I was totally astonished. I expected this change will cause a lot of buzz within the community, especially given the fact that all recent Canonical decisions are considered very controversial. This surprises me heavily, as I can spot a big number of problems that this decision may cause, as well as problems with the way this decision itself was handled. Jono Bacon’s article explaining the decision did not satisfy me either. It explains the general reasoning behind this idea, but it does not clarify everything.

UDS is a part of long-term Ubuntu tradition. Every six months the developers from all over the world would meet in order to plan development for the upcoming release, brainstorm ideas, discuss problems and collaborate in many ways to ensure that next Ubuntu is going to rock. But the event is not (was not?) just about planning. It was a chance for the community to actually meet, to get to know each other, to tighten the bonds within community. I believe this is crucial for being deeply engaged within the community, and for ensuring the relations within community, as well as it’s structure and organisation are well and sound (and isn’t it important to have friends within the community?). We all know that a big number of Canonical employees are working remotely, and I feel that this may be one of the key facts which contributed to the decision of converting UDS into an online meeting. Apparently some folks at Canonical realized that people do not need to meet in order to be productive. Moreover, a very important part of UDS was outside the sessions – people would discuss brilliant ideas during the dinner, some would seek for aid for their team by looking for interested folks, others would flash their mobile device with the help of experienced ones, and finally, some people would teach each other a lot. It is clear that none of these will happen in case of an online UDS.

From what I understood, the idea is to make UDS available to everyone, so that all contributors, regardless of where they live in and how far are they willing to travel, could participate to the sessions. I can, however, see some significant inconsistency here. The first fact is the choice of Google Hangouts for sessions. I agree this is a great handy tool for video conferences, and I use it myself a lot, but it cannot be assumed that everyone is perfectly fine with G+ policy; there indeed are people who do their best to avoid any Google products. We are told that IRC sessions will be provided for these who can’t join videos, but that doesn’t do much sense, because it does not differ at all from remote participation in summits which were real meetings (people who were unable to travel to UDS could use IRC to contact with session participants, the IRC log was displayed live in the room so that everyone could interact with the discussion even if they were miles away – I have participated this way during UDS-Q, and the experience was actually quite satisfying, even though I couldn’t see the faces of people I was speaking with).

I also have to express my doubts about session organisation. While some UDS sessions were indeed held by less than 10 people, many other would grab interest of more (e.g the ones from Community track), resulting in more than 50 developers in the room + at least 20 on the IRC, with at least 30-40 of them participating actively in the discussion. Now, if the point is to let everyone participate, then it means we aim for even more participants. Now please imagine 80-100 people in a single G+ hangout. Even a number like 30 seems bizarre! Either this will end as a huge mess, or only some people will be voiced (which, again, breaks the idea of opening UDS to everyone).

I have also concerns about the way it is said to be organised. The event is going to be two-days long, and it will take place between 4pm to 10pm UTC. Obviously, that means that a big part of the word will be sleeping then, and the other be at work etc. And that, once more, is aganist the principle of opening UDS to everyone. I don’t see any reason why this can’t be a 24h event, with sessions spread more or less evenly, so that those living in Australia can participate too. I also believe that some teams might want to schedule meetings on times that suit their people best, why limit them to few hours, if this is going to be an online event?

The length of the event is also interesting. Two days. Two days of few-hour long discussion. Compare that to traditional 5-day long UDS with sessions from 9am to 6pm. Add the fact that online UDS will take place two times more frequently, and the conclusion is that we’ll need to be 10 times more efficient to discuss all that is needed. Will this be enough time? Luckily, event length can be fine-tuned if needed. Some speculate this may be related to Ubuntu switching to rolling release model.

One of the main problems with how was decision handled is that it was 1) a surprise 2) immediately effective. I opened up Planet Ubuntu on Wednesday and learned that the UDS is next week. A lot of time to prepare discussion topic, isn’t it? At the time of writing this, there is not a single blueprint registered for this UDS. I might go on explaining why this was a terrible idea to announce it this late, but I believe you get the idea. Please also note that Canonical has never notified before about such idea. Until the announcement, everything seemed that the next UDS will take place as usually – this time in Oakland, and I expect there may be people who have already reserved their time. I feel that such crucial decisions need to come with some kind of transitional period.

With all respect to Canonical and their right to manage the money they own (UDS is a really expensive event, every time I try to imagine the amount of money that had to be involved in Copenhagen, my mind suffers stack overflows), I am very skeptical about this decision, both because of the reasons I explained, and because of some that I’d rather not share publicly. Time will tell how it will affect planning, development and community. I hope the lack of such meetings won’t have a major impact.

And please keep in mind that regardless of what changes are done to the way we organize our work, Ubuntu community will always make sure your favorite OS is the best possible! :-)

Filed under: Ubuntu

We’re back! That’s us: Alan Pope, Mark Johnson, Tony Whitmore, Laura Cowen, and (not forgetting) The Podcats. We’re here in Studio A for the first episode of Season (Series) Six of the Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo Team!

In this week’s show:-

• We take a look at what’s been happening in the News:
  • Why we should stop using open source licences…
  • Ubuntu: Now on phones and tablets…
  • Challenge to Python trademark application…
  • Opera browser switches to WebKit…
• We catch up with what’s happening in the Community:
  • A new Totem (Movie Player) UI was proposed but has since disappeared from the Web…
  • Ubuntu Developer Summits will now be every 3 months and virtual…
  • Daily builds and updates to phablet-tools…
• And we mention some events:
  • Hack ‘n’ talk – Google Campus, London, UK – 9th March
  • Open Source Junction – Open Source Hardware meets Open Source Software – Trinity College, Oxford, UK – 14th-15th March
  • North East Linux Fest – Harvard University, US – 16th-17th March

Please send your comments and suggestions to: podcast@ubuntu-uk.org
Join us on IRC in #ubuntu-uk-podcast on Freenode
Leave a voicemail via phone: +44 (0) 203 298 1600, sip: podcast@sip.ubuntu-uk.org and skype: ubuntuukpodcast
Follow our twitter feed http://twitter.com/uupc
Find our Facebook Fan Page
Follow us on Google Plus
Leave us some segment ideas on the Etherpad

                          

The ubuntforums are currently being updated, so we’re going down for a few hours. DON’T PANIC 

We anticipate anything up to 10 hours downtime, though we hope to be back a lot sooner. The moderation team will be available during the day here to provide updates. You can access other support options here

You may know one of the most used resources for support in the Ubuntu Community is AskUbuntu.com. But there is a big problem with the system: it is only in English. So many people end up wondering where can they get support in their local language, as their English level is not that good, or do not even understand it, or maybe they want to get support on their language. They go to their Local Community teams, and maybe Launchpad, but we all feel this is not enough.

In an effort to give a solution to this problem, which we discussed last UDS during the Leadership Summit, I got assigned the work item to investigate and work on localizing the Question and Answer (Q&A) systems. As I mentioned before, we are using Ask Ubuntu! as the current Q&A system, and is only available on English, and if anyone asks a question in other language it gets translated. But we want to have a system that can be used in various languages for people to get support in their native language, with no hesitations. This will be a way to improve the quality of the support given at the moment, and also get to a broader scope when we are talking about outreach. Ubuntu is available in many different languages, so why not also offer support in those languages?

So this is where you come in. I have been investigating on various Q&A systems, but would like to hear from all of your suggestions on which systems can be used for this specific project. That is why I have created the QandALocalization wiki page for you to add all your ideas on the project. We really need your help on this issue, as I would like to have many systems to compare, and finally decide on which one we should be using, so I do not regret about choosing the wrong system.

I would like to mention some requirements for the systems, remember they should have most of them (if not all!):

• Free and Open Source Software
• Easily translatable, even better if it can be done with Launchpad
• Integration with Single Sign-On systems, as we would use the Ubuntu SSO for logins
• Points or trophies system
• Obviously, a nice design that looks professional, and can be tweaked to get an Ubuntu theme
• It would be great if it is already translated in some languages</li

If the system you are thinking of meets those requirements, it is certainly something we are looking forward to analyze. In the future we will need the help from developers, translators and designers, so we can create a platform that can be stable and fulfills all of our requirements. I will also make sure to provide constant updates on how the project is going. I am really excited to start this, and expect a great outcome from it.

If you have any suggestions or want to chat about the project, you can go to the #ubuntu-q+a channel on irc.freenode.net (click here to join using webchat) and ping me (JoseeAntonioR), or you can also send me an email to joseeantonior AT ubuntu DOT com, I will be happy to answer all your enquiries and listen to all of your feedback.

After some consideration of both recent and historical decisions by Canonical in regards to the Ubuntu project and distribution, the lack of any noticeable dissension by the community leadership, I’ll be deleting my Launchpad account, along with all memberships to Ubuntu groups, this Saturday, March 2nd. The date represents the six year anniversary of my creating the account, so it seems somehow appropriate to delete it on this day. Additionally, this will give me a few days to [hopefully] make sure that I’m out of my commitments cleanly and things are turned over to the new Ubuntu Maryland contact properly. If you know of something that is needed to do before this date, please contact me.

Ron Swift is planning to have a local bug jam event this Saturday. Please RSVP to him if you are interested in participating.

Have you planned your Jam event for this March 1, 2, 3? There's still time.

Here's the link to register. It only takes a moment.
http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/add/?global_event_id=2221

You can register an in-person event or an online event. If you're Jamming online, why not try a Hangout as a good way to prepare for the upcoming UDS?

Thanks and let's get Jamming!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=NHMUChmqJxE#t=3...

Within the Ubuntu realm there have been some dramatic changes that have erupted at the end of February 2013. The first shift was that the Ubuntu Developer Summit has shifted to an electronic-only format with the first one in the new style set to launch within a week of announcement. The second shift was the announcement that rolling releases are under formal consideration with that release paradigm change being under consideration at the hastily-announced event.

Where is the Ubuntu realm going? If you have the answer to that, you are among a select few. For the various flavors such as Xubuntu, Kubuntu, and Lubuntu this is perhaps a systemic shock as the main flavor is now making fairly radical changes that may or may not fit with the goals of the flavor projects. The main line of Ubuntu is seeking convergence where it dominates the desktop, the tablet, and the phone. Rolling releases will presumably be needed to keep up with the fast-paced phone realm.

This is a bit of a change. Is the desktop where the future of computing is headed? Is the desktop going away in favor of pocket computers that somewhere inside still have a tiny amount of circuitry that results in them being called "phones"? That much is uncertain. The gamble being made by Canonical as it adds yet another mobile operating system to an already crowded space is that that is where things are headed. As noted by Anna Leach on The Register earlier in February, total planet-wide sales of cellular phones declined 1.7% last year. Half of all cellular phones on the planet sold in 2012 were made by one of the following three manufacturers/design bureaus: Apple, Samsung, Nokia.

Right now there is a bit of a rupture as to where Ubuntu and its flavors are progressing. That is unfortunate. There remains quite a bit of uncertainty in the market and no clear breakthrough leads yet that are truly destroying one segment of the market for another. The desktop is not dead and the cell phone seems mature/stagnant in terms of innovation at the moment.

Between the UDS changes and the rolling releases proposal, we are effectively rolling the dice. As a user of Xubuntu on a BeagleBoard-xM, I have to watch the development of the rolling release proposal very carefully to see if I am not left behind as Personal Package Archives (PPAs) do not build for ARM architecture routinely. My board is already considered unsupported but I would still like some flavor of Ubuntu, preferably Xubuntu, to still be able to boot on it. Indicators currently are not pointing towards that but towards a major drive now to get Ubuntu Phone ready and live as soon as possible.

Let us all hope that this roll of the dice is the right one.

Paradigm Shifting Without A Clutch by Stephen Michael Kellat is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at http://archive.org/details/NoClutch.

The Kubuntu Council terms for David Wonderly, Harald Sitter, and Jonathan Thomas expire on 2013-05-20. This is a call for nominations for the Kubuntu Council to elect three members.

The term will be for two years, 2013-05-21 to 2015-05-20.

As in the past, the election will be conducted using CIVS (Condorcet Internet Voting Service). The top three ranking vote recipients will be elected.

Schedule:

Nomination period: Now to 2013-05-01
Ballot Preparation: 2013-05-01 to 2013-05-04
Voting Period: 2013-05-04 to 2013-05-20
End Poll/Results Announced: 2013-05-20
New Term Begins: 2013-05-21

Eligibility:

All Kubuntu Members are eligible to be nominated and to vote. If you have a public email address in launchpad, you need take no further action to receive your voting ballot. If you do not have a public email address, please contact me offlist with the address you’d like your ballot sent to, otherwise you will be unable to vote.

Nominations:

All Kubuntu Members are eligible. The Kubuntu Council is intended to represent all of the Kubuntu community. Applications from involved non-developers are encouraged. If you are nominating someone else, please confirm their willingness to serve before nominating them. Nominations should be done in public via either kubuntu-users or kubuntu-devel mailing lists. If there is some extraordinary reason that precludes that, contact me directly.

Commitment:

The Kubuntu Council is the leadership body of Kubuntu. Members of the council are expected to be active in Kubuntu. The Kubuntu Council has three primary roles:
- Approve development plans for future Kubuntu releases
- Approve Kubuntu membership applications
- Resolve disputes within the Kubuntu project

The time commitment is not large. Meetings are generally only once every several months and conducted via IRC.

Questions:

If there are questions, you can contact me (preferably) via this mailing list or (if really necessary) via direct mail.

Scott K
For the Kubuntu Council

Port-a-thon

I can’t believe it hasn’t even been a week since we announced the availability of the Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview images. We also put instructions out to contribute to the effort and specifically how to port Ubuntu Touch to new devices.

In the recent Ubuntu Development Hangout with some members of the Ubuntu Touch team I mentioned it already: these people are heroes. They’ve worked day and night and it was a pleasure to put the porting guide and Port-a-thon event together with them.

After that it has been very satisfying to be subscribed to the Ubuntu Touch devices list. We started with four devices, on which Ubuntu ran right from the start. The reference devices so to speak. Fast-forward 5-6 days and we have images and instructions for 15 other devices. FIFTEEN!

On this list currently are: Asus Transformer Infinity, Asus Transformer Pad TF300T, Galaxy Nexus (toro + toroplus), Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 Wifi, HTC Desire, HTC DNA, Huawei Ascend G300, Nexus One, Samsung Galaxy Note II, Samsung Galaxy Note, Samsung Galaxy S (GT-I9000), Sony Xperia S, Sony Xperia T, VZ SGSIII.

If your device is on the list and you’re curious, head to the devices list and find out how to get the new Ubuntu Touch hotness straight to your device.

Another 22 ports are work-in-progress with developers or teams of developers working on them.

Update 2013-02-27 17:56 UTC: it’s 23.

Thanks a lot to everyone who helped make this happen. If you’re curious what’s happening, make sure you join the ubuntu-phone mailing list and ubuntu-touch IRC channel. More info on the Contribute page.

JAMS!

Ubuntu Global Jam is coming up this weekend (1-3 March) and if you have a look at the list of events, you can see that from Tempe to Tehran we have events lined up where people get together to make Ubuntu better. With all the excitement around Ubuntu Touch, we added instructions to the Ubuntu Global Jam page on how to help by either testing, porting or writing apps.

If you don’t have an event nearby or your team is too spread out over the state or country, you could at least still get together on IRC or over Hangouts. We have docs on how to run an event.

Was about to blog about the 0.2.0 release yesterday, but some bugs sneaked in at the last minute, so here comes Homerun 0.2.1. Here is an overview of the main changes.

"Single runner query mode" support

Homerun 0.1.x can show results from KRunner runners through the Runner source, which lets you combine a set of runners and query them for results.

A little-known feature of KRunner runners is the "Single runner query mode". This feature means Homerun can take advantage of these special runners to display a list of items without requiring the user to search for something.

This makes it possible, for example, to add the Activity runner to your Home tab and switch between running activities, or to add the Kate or KDevelop session runners and get a quick list of available sessions.

In Homerun 0.2.1, these runners are directly listed as Homerun sources in edit mode, making it easy to add them to your tabs.

This is still experimental though: one important limitation right now is that there is no way for such sources to refresh themselves. This means that your list of activities is not going to update itself as you start or stop activities. It also means the "Recent documents" runner is not yet a suitable replacement for the "Recent documents" source since it cannot refresh itself :/

Multiple actions per item

Homerun sources now have the ability to expose additional actions for each item.

The other actions are accessible through a context menu, which can be triggered by:

• Left-clicking the arrow in the top-right corner of the item
• Long-clicking the item
• Right-clicking the item
• Pressing M or the "Menu" key

File-oriented sources like the "Dir", "Recent Documents" and "Favorite Places" sources take advantage of this by showing relevant "Open With" actions and a "Properties" action. This makes it possible to open a file with another application or to open a folder with Dolphin instead of browsing it within Homerun.

The "Recent Documents" source also adds an action to let you remove an item from the list.

Actions exposed by runners are also displayed in this context menu.

Note that favorite handling has also been moved to this menu, making it more unlikely to remove a favorite place by mistake.

Improved Power tab

The Power tab received a few improvements:

• Unavailable sleep modes are not listed anymore.
• Opened sessions are now directly listed below the session items, making it fast and easy to switch between opened sessions.

Visual changes

Homerun is a fullscreen launcher, it is now even more fullscreen: the borders around the screen has been removed, reducing clutter a bit.

Header titles are now aligned to the left of the screen, they look less odd on tabs which do not have many items, such as the Power tab.

In containment mode, a shadow is now shown behind the text. This improves the readability of text over highly-constrasted wallpapers.

Conclusion

That's it for this version. You can get it from download.kde.org. Note that this new version requires KDE SC 4.10.

Recently Jono Bacon, the Ubuntu community manager, has annouced that UDS-S for Oakland, USA will be cancelled. Instead Ubuntu Developer Summits will be held online every three months, and the first one: Next WEEK.

This is quite a problem.

1. Tell us earlier!!!! We all are expected to UDS-S in May. Some even booked their flight tickets and hotel vouchers, and now suddenly Canonical is telling us to cancel the reservations…. Give us a pre-notice at least please.

2. What to plan? For example, for the coming UDS in March, it’s in the middle of the Raring release cycle, and FeatureFreeze is already coming up. Of course some might say that Canonical is trying to get rid of non-LTS releases. I do think so.

3. Timezone. I’m at UTC+8, and planned UDS sessions will start at 16:00 UTC. That’s basically midnight for me.

4. Friendship. People tend to get close in UDS. Will this ever happen online?

5. Length. Two days wasn’t actually enough, considering the length of past UDS summits.

6. Away from community. One of the Ubuntu Studio developers thought it would be an act to move away from the *community* which means contributors mot getting along together.

7. Budget. Is Canonical really want to save up budget to develop that they don’t want to sponsor people anymore?

I hope Canonical can really think about this idea twice (maybe thrice).

Are you tired of typing a hostname, username, password and WiFi password every time you flash Nexus7 with Ubuntu Core images?

Do you wish to automate those boring steps?

Do you wish you could reboot into fastboot mode over ssh without reaching and fiddling with volume down and power keys?

Now you can!

$ bzr branch lp:~ubuntu-nexus7/ubuntu-nexus7/preseed

Has a nifty command called

$ ./prepare-preseed

By default it takes preseed.cfg, attempts to copy wifi.cfg or fetch current active WiFi connection settings from Network Manager's /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/* downloads latest bootimg and twiddles it to include all of the above.

After that you can fastboot flash standard user-data image + this cusom bootimg and voila, upon fastboot reboot ubiquity will come up and will automatically answer all the questions for you and boot into desktop with wifi connected.

If you want to customize settings simply edit the sample preseed.cfg.
If you do not want to always type in sudo password to get the network password you can run:

$ ./get-network-info > wifi.cfg

After that each reflash will be a breeze and not require root password. (Note that I uploaded udev rules in fastboot a while a go to allow using fastboot as a non-privileged user, if you need to support more devices please file bugs against android-tools with the output of lsusb when your device is connected).

So what about rebooting back into fastboot mode?

Well, I recently uploaded upstart 1.6.1-1ubuntu3 into Raring that supports:

$ sudo reboot -f bootloader

That will get you back into fastboot mode.

Happy Hacking everyone!

My laptop is sitting a few meters away from me. I'm behind a desktop in the same /24. I'd like to SSH to this laptop, but don't know its IP address. On this network there are quite a few machines, mostly macs. How do I find the IP address?

Arp and nc to the rescue! First we arp-scan the network, then we find SSH versions.

$for h in $(arp-scan --localnet | grep 10.15 | cut -f1); do echo -ne "$h\t"; (echo "" | nc -w1 $h 22 || echo)|head -n1; done | grep ubuntu
10.15.3.28    SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.9p1 Debian-5ubuntu1
10.15.3.73    SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_6.0p1 Debian-3ubuntu1
10.15.3.158    SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.8p1 Debian-7ubuntu1
10.15.3.185    SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_6.0p1 Debian-3ubuntu1

Of course it was the last one I needed :)

That day had to come. It was just a matter of time. Debian bootstrapped new architecture port using just own tools and packages…

It was long trip. During last few years we saw bigger amount of work spent in Debian/Ubuntu on cross building packages. Then were Google Summer of Code projects on bootstrapping Debian and one for multiarch cross toolchains. And we had Wookey with his ideas, knowledge and abilities to get one thing to work on for months in a way that managers were agreeding that it needs another month and another ;)

And today I found an email from Wookey about AArch64 port. I suggest you to read it as it has a lot of information. You can find ready to use rootfs there which (connected with kernel from OpenEmbedded) boots to fresh Ubuntu 13.04:

Ubuntu Raring Ringtail (development branch) localhost ttyAMA0 localhost login: root Last login: Thu Jan 1 00:07:37 UTC 1970 on ttyAMA0 Welcome to Ubuntu Raring Ringtail (development branch) (GNU/Linux 3.8.0 aarch64) * Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com/ root@localhost:~# uname -a Linux localhost 3.8.0 #1 SMP Wed Feb 20 14:31:07 CET 2013 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux

You need to have patience as Upstart needs to run lot of stuff before it gives login prompt.

Still lot of work required as there are many patches to packaging waiting for being merged but I think that it is a big day for Debian and all distributions derived from it.

Related content:

1. AArch64 porting update
2. Going for FOSDEM

All rights reserved © Marcin Juszkiewicz
AArch64 port of Debian/Ubuntu is alive! was originally posted on Marcin Juszkiewicz website

Now that UDS will be purely online, it’s also moved from using tools for remote participation based in FOSS (such as IRC, icecast, and etherpad (previously gobby) to one requiring use of Google+.  So if the Google+ privacy policy is not your cup of tea, then no UDS for you.

Correction: As Jono pointed out in the comments, there will be etherpad and IRC, just Google+ replacing icecast. I don’t think that changes the fundamental point though.

Big shout out to the awesome community over at XDA Developers who have been getting involved in the Ubuntu Touch Port-o-thon to bring the Ubuntu Touch images to more and more devices. Daniel Holbach kicked off the port-o-thon the day after we released the code and images last week, and we are already seeing fantastic work going on.

When the initial announcement hit their forum it generated over a 100 posts within a day and there is currently 101 pages of posts on that thread. There is also an Ubuntu Touch Subforum which has seen over 4000 posts already. We are just blown away by the level of interest.

As you can see on the devices wiki page we are already seeing some fantastic work going on to port Ubuntu Touch to additional devices. Here are some great examples of this work (click each link to see the XDA Developers thread):

• Galaxy Nexus (toro)
• Galaxy Nexus (toroplus)
• Sony Xperia S
• Sony Xperia T
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
• Samsung Galaxy Note
• Asus Transformer Infinity
• Nexus One
• Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 Wifi
• Asus Transformer Pad TF300T

Awesome work!

I asked David Planella and Daniel Holbach on my team to kick off a regular engagement with XDA Developers to help us grow an great relationship together. The first call was today and we are kicking some ideas around of how to work more closely together. Stay tuned for more!

Some of you may have seen the news about us transitioning to an online Ubuntu Developer Summit and running the event every three months. If you didn’t see the news, you can read it here. I just wanted to share my personal perspective on this change.

For a long time now I have been attending Ubuntu Developer Summits as part of my work, but for the last event in Copenhagen my wife was about to give birth and so I attended the event remotely. As someone who has been heavily involved in the planning and execution of UDS for the last 10 or so events, I was intimately aware of the remote participation features of the event, but I had never actually utilized them myself. I was excited to dive into the sessions remotely and participate.

For the sessions I dialed into I found the remote participation worked well, but not as well as it could. Sometimes it was a little difficult to hear people (despite us alway encouraging speakers to sit near the middle of the fishbowl), and for the sessions I wasn’t able to actively participate in (due to the timezone differences), only some of those sessions had videos available that I could review after the session had ended. As such, this made it something of a challenge at times to get an overall view of the event; it depended on attendees taking good notes (which generally happens), but I missed the specifics of the discussions.

Remote participation has always been a critical part of UDS and I think it worked efficiently as it could, but these issues were primarily due to the challenge of delivering an in-person event to an online audience and the practicalities therein.

Of course, the real challenge is getting you people to eat these things.

The move to an online event effectively solves the majority of these issues: every single session will be recorded and available for viewing after the fact (which is awesome for not only attendees, but also for the press, partners and others), and with everyone in the hangout facing a webcam and a microphone, the quality of the content should be better too.

For those people who can’t join the session hangout video stream, IRC participation is available, and those IRC discussions will be logged too and provided in addition to the video of the session and the Etherpad notes. This provides a great overview of all the content and discussion in the session.

An online event is also going to open up the event to more potential participants. There are many folks who either can’t physically travel or justify the travel expenses or time away from their work and family commitments who can now participate in the event by simply opening their web browser. With the wide focus in Ubuntu across the desktop, devices and the cloud, we need more specialists rather than fewer to guide us on our mission, and the online event will make it easier for those folks to attend. I think that this will result in wider and more diverse discussion, ultimately helping us to do a better job planning UDS.

Some folks have expressed a concern about not having as much face-to-face time as in a physical event. Of course, video-conferencing will never ultimately replace being in the same room as someone, but I think much of that personal connection is still shared via hangouts. As an example, my team at Canonical used to have team meetings on Skype or a Conference Call and ever since we switched to Google+ Hangouts the sense of personal connection and team spirit has skyrocketed. Sure, it doesn’t replace being in the same room, but when we balance out the benefits of an online event for the reasons I mentioned earlier, it seems like a reasonable trade-off to me.

Iterative Improvements

One thing that many folks don’t see from behind the scenes of planning the physical UDSs is that we have always taken an really rigorous approach to improving and refining the event. This not only includes the structure of the event, but we have iterated after every detail to improve room layouts, A/V needs, timing, remote participation requirements, scheduling patterns, and more. Every detail of UDS has been scrutinized after every event, and the survey we send out is reviewed with a fine tooth comb, all with the goal of squeezing out as much efficiency as possible so the time everyone commits to UDS is as worthwhile as possible.

We are still exploring the alleged productivity-enhancing benefits of light ping-pong.

With UDS previously happening every six months this has helped us to build a pretty bullet proof formula for the physical event, and many attendees comment at each UDS about just how efficient it is and how much gets done. This is largely due to this iterative refinement process.

The first online UDS takes place next week and I think we have a pretty good plan for it, but we are going to go through exactly the same process for reviewing how each event goes and buffing off the rough edges so that works better and more efficiently each time. With us now doing a UDS every three months it should not take too long to get us into a winning formula, and our community are an essential part of helping us to refine these different pieces. As I mentioned in the announcement blog, after the second event we are also going to take a general look to see if an online UDS is serving the needs of the project well in terms of how we plan Ubuntu development.

Got Questions?

I am sure many of you will still have questions about the new format of UDS. Tomorrow (Wednesday) at 7pm UTC. I will be doing my usual weekly Q+A videocast on Ubuntu On Air and will dedicate part of the session to covering how the online event will work and answering your questions. Feel free to bring your UDS and any other questions to the session!

Yes, yet another live-coding exercise in Haskell to solve Project Euler problem 89 this time.

I promise that this is the penultimate of these problems. I have one more, based on RSA which I will be doing tomorrow night (and possibly the following night if it’s too hard for 15 to 20 minutes) and then I have another project to go on the channel. Email suggestions please :-)

From the beginning of the Ubuntu project the Ubuntu community has discussed, designed, and planned each release of Ubuntu at the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS), which happens every six months at the beginning of a new release cycle.

The event, organized and funded by Canonical, is designed to get the brightest minds in the Ubuntu community together and develop a rigorous set of blueprints and work items for the forthcoming release of Ubuntu. These blueprints are tracked openly in Launchpad and work items tracked openly at http://status.ubuntu.com.

UDS has had a long culture of openness and transparency, including remote participation features, but Canonical wants to continue improving and refining the openness and accessibility of the event. Furthermore, we also want to open the opportunity for those to participate who cannot travel physically to the event, particularly those who can bring specialist experience and expertise across the convergent goals of Ubuntu across the client and cloud orchestration in the server. Finally with the change and evolution of Ubuntu and the increasing diversity of experience joining the Ubuntu community, we want to be able to have community-wide discussions more often than every six months.

With these goals in mind the Ubuntu Developer Summit is transitioning over to an online event that takes place for two days every three months, and driven by live video discussion sessions, complete with integrated discussion, note-taking, and harnessing social media. This online event will replace future physical UDSs, including the event originally planned in Oakland, California in May 2013.

In the new online format the event will make extensive use of Google+ Hangouts On Air split across four channels, Client, Server & Cloud, Community, and App Developers, with each channel having two video streams totalling 8 potential concurrent UDS topics. UDS sessions will be spread across these channels with integrated IRC, Etherpad, Social Media sharing, and links to blueprints and specs.

As with the physical UDS, the event will also include keynotes, plenary sessions and lightning talks; providing a great online venue for planning the future of Ubuntu as well as delivering news, education, demos and other related material. As with the physical UDS, the new online format is open to all to participate as a contributor or viewer, and we are confident that the online format will open up UDS to more and more people around the world.

The new format of UDS provides an enhanced level of openness and transparency that is optimized for online participants. Unlike the physical UDS where a portion of the agenda is recorded in video form, every session in the new UDS format will be recorded and available from the schedule. Likewise, with the format of the event being online, the audio and video quality of the online experience should be much improved compared to recording a physical room of people with a single microphone and camera and variable sound levels. The full set of recordings will also make reviewing past sessions easier and make it easier for the press, enthusiasts, partners and others to review the details of the discussions.

The event will continue to be scheduled at http://summit.ubuntu.com and due to the lighter nature of organizing an online event as opposed to a physical event, the new UDS format will be scheduled approximately every three months (as opposed to every six months). This will provide an increased level of participation and discussion around how we create and build Ubuntu across the desktop, devices and cloud.

With the fantastic level of interest in the recent phone and tablet announcements, we decided that we couldn’t wait until May to run this new format for UDS, so the first online UDS will be taking place next week from 5th – 6th March 2013 from 4pm UTC – 10pm UTC and the next event will take place around the same time as the originally scheduled physical UDS in Oakland; we will confirm the dates soon. Canonical will review the success of the next two online events and then then assess whether to continue the online format. We look forward to seeing you at the inaugural online UDS next week!

From Jono Bacon.