UDS Notes. part 2

As I sit here and wait for Oneiric to install on this amazingly small Freescale i.MX53 dev board (I won it at UDS! yay!),  I though it would be a good time to finish my second report about my time at UDS. I should have plenty of time as the included microsd is not very speedy so it is going to take a very long time to complete.

These notes are mostly from sessions I attended and may be incomplete,  so consider this an overview;  other blogs hopefully will provide other details and insights.

I have my non-blurry pictures from UDS-P here

At the first Kubuntu session, we got to meet each other and discuss Natty and how that cycle went with Jonathan Riddell away. It actually went fairly well without our favorite Scotsman, and overall we can consider 10.10 a success (once you remove the unfortunately dreadful Kmail2-Akonadi mess) .

With 12.04 being LTS, we won’t introduce a lot of new features, but that does not mean there won’t be new things

On packaging, the focus for Precise will obviously be on KDE 4.8, but some other interesting changes are being looked at:

• Moving from Koffice to Calligra in the repositories
• Switching Libreoffice back to gtk with the oxygen theme as currently there are a number of UI issues with libreoffice-kde
• Replacing the nearly unmaintained Kopete with Telepathy-KDE, which would bring support for many more IM protocols.
• Automating the packaing process to reduce the workload and time required.

The next session involved figuring out which IBus applet to use, so we will be looking at both fixing the problems with kimpanel as well as trying out kimtoy.

On to what Kubuntu may offer in the future, whether in 12.04 or further, some interesting possibilities arise. the kubunt-low-fat-settings concept configurations could be something that is loaded when the system detects lower-spec hardware, much like it detects your screen resolution and turns on the netbook interface. LightDM to replace KDM is a psooibility, but that depends on it working with Qt, providing an on-screen keyboard, language selection, and other things needed for this move to happen.  To eliminate Akonadi startup for non-kmail users, we will also look at disabling it in both Krunner and the calendar applet.

On to bug reporting, we will need to update Kubuntu’s wiki page on this to further focus on getting KDE-specific bugs upstream. This would mean a team of Starship Troopers to ferret out those bugs in Launchpad and send things to bko, and encourage those triagers to obtain triage rights on bugs.kde.org.  Sign me up for that!

On the documentation front, we have finally been able to get our documentation updated, and work will continue on that front.  DarkWing will work on prettying things up, and adding a snazzy online component to the Kubuntu website  with some basic info on using the awesome Plasma desktop. An added bonus is that any KDE documentation we do can be pushed upstream,  which will benefit KDE users everywhere. Sign me up for this, too

On  the session for jontheechidna’s Muon, work will involve making sure it’s documentation is  as well as upstream, looking at integrating codec installation, distribution upgrade notifications, and tweaking the Muon Updater’s ui and adding it as a menu entry. Also planned is investigating the possibility of integrating Ubuntu’s SSO to allow for purchases and reviews from within this package manager.

On the final day, there was a quick lesson on packaging KDE applications, where I realized I know quite a bit more than I thought. Sign me up for Ninja training!

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On a personal note, I was vastly fascinated by the Qt demos, specifically the qml things. It looks to be quite fascinating, and relatively easy to dive into. It will be interesting to watch how Qt factors into Ubuntu’s world as they move into the world of non-pc devices.

I met so many people it is hard for me to remember them all. I was surprised that everyone seemed to value my thoughts on things, even if I am not an expert.

One thing I am NOT surprised at is how much  of the discussion takes place outside of the sessions. What I am surprised at is how well  UDS is run, in particular the pacing. Nothing was too short or too long, never a rush to get to the next session. no one getting bored or distracted.  Amazing.

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So what are my personal plans this cycle?

• Work more on the Kubuntu’s docs, wiki and help pages
• Package some stuff
• Get cracking at kubuntuforums‘ redesign and migration to its new server
• Encourage more of the great people in KFN involved in the community – they make up our bread and butter.

Ok, so Ubuntu is installed is installed now lets see about getting Kubuntu on that puppy!

Go Blue!

My UDS notes, part 1

Honored. Privileged. Amazed.
I like to sum things in a couple of words whenever possible. But that is simply impossible to do in this case, so I think I will break it down into smaller chunks.

Honored

First of all I am honored to have been selected to attend UDS and to help represent Kubuntu. Go Blue! (I just realized that I have been using Kubuntu for almost 7 years now, and kubuntuforums is around 6 years. Wow!)

Privileged

Being on the community side, it has been nice to see so many of us who are less technical here. It is fascinating to watch how the people who do such wonderful work get things done. Surprisingly from the sessions I have attended, it is not as far over my head as I though it would be.

Amazed

I have seen and experienced many surprising and amazing things in only a few days:

• Florida is actually quite nice this time of year, I have not sweat too much
• EVERYONE is so nice and pleasant, I never sit at a meal alone, and there is always something to discuss, hot tubs to lounge in, places to hang out. I even had my belly rubbed by a complete stranger who was discussing cups filters. I may have had my quadrennial adult beverage, details are sparse.
• There are many tablet users present of all shapes and sizes. I lust after them greatly, as it makes my measly Droid charge look puny.
• I won a raffle! A Freescale dev board!! So now Kubuntu have another Arm machine for dev work and testing.
• Somehow I have lost weight, just enough that I need to find a way to put another hole in my belt.

Qt. KDE. Kubuntu.

We also have a nice that there is a good Qt presence here. And a A KDE developer as well. All cool people as well.

Qt’s qml language seem to be drawing some attention, it looks quite interesting to me as a non coder, but I am somewhat biased It looks on the surface to be easy to learn, at least the basics.

Alex’s positive inputs, insights and suggestions from his KDE perspective have been enlightening and well appreciated.

Time to run, I will have another update soon with a more Kubuntu-specific focus.

Slim it down!

An almost-overlooked addition to the upcoming Kubuntu 11.10 is the new Kubuntu Low-Fat Settings package. With this set of new default settings for various KDE bits, it is quite possible to reduce memory usage by as much as 32% and reduce KDE’s start up time by 33%, according to our intrepid apachelogger. This is a boon to those of us with older and slower hardware.

What this package does is turn off desktop effects by default, changes the default window decoration style and tweaks some style-related settings, disables the auto-loading of various KDE modules such as bluedevil, the printer applet,  and some nepomuk bits. It also reduces the number of Krunner plugins that are enabled by default as well.

This does make the desktop look a bit different as the Plastik windeco is not as pretty as pretty at all like the default Oxygen is, but doesn’t have all the animations, shadows and bling .

You can check this all out by installing the package kubuntu-low-fat-settings. However, any existing users you have will not see any of these changes as most likely all the specific config files have already been created in your ~/.kde/share directory. New user accounts will see this immediately, and boy, there is a definite difference! The savings mentioned do seem accurate from a quick check, my new user account was using literally half the ram my normal account does after login, but the fresh one does not yet have any email accounts or calendars set up, so Akonadi was not running. KDE does load at login lickety-split, too.

Here is the list of config files involved (they are locally found in ~/.kde/share/config)

 ~/.kde/share/config/kdedrc
 ~/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals
 ~/.kde/share/config/knotifyrc
 ~/.kde/share/config/krunnerrc
 ~/.kde/share/config/ksmserverrc
 ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc
 ~/.kde/share/config/nepomukserverrc

One could simply delete these files while KDE is not running, but you would loose any other settings you may have changed.

If you are curious, you can download the source tarball and see what the changer are. Most are configurable from within System Settings and other places.

This is a good starting spot for KDE fans who have, as one can then go and tweak some settings (Plastik is sooo KDE3 ) to better fit what one likes and can live without.

Have fun!

Plastique is soooo 2007....

Kubuntu Oneiric progress, kmail2 testing

As it get closer to release day, Kubuntu’s 11.10 is shaping up very nicely. KDE 4.7.1brings further polish on what is already a great desktop. Some things in my opinion aren’t really highlighted enough, things the everyday user might find nice.

The network management widget has received some love and attention. It provides for more options, including being able to choose which connection is the system connection, and the ability to edit. disable, and disconnect the pervasive ‘auto eth0′ wired connection from the gui is a welcome Little Thing.

          

                     

Muon! Software! Center! This should be in the Favorites menu in Kickoff by default!

We should all sing praises to Jonanthan Thomas, it’s creator for bringing usable gui package management goodness to us KDE users. I personally have gotten used to NOT  browsing for fun stuff to try, I was happy to discovered an mail client I had never seen before. Not quite a Little Thing, yes, but but little highlighted.

Since I usually keep my KDE configurations backed up, I sometimes miss the little tweaks, such as what they did to Dolphin’s menu. By turning off the menu bar and adding a separate config buttom a-la Chrome browser and others, it does open some real estate in the file manager’s window. I often use dual panes and terminal in there, the added space makes it nicer while not having to turn off the info pane. A welcome Little Thing, some extra space is.

     

Now to a Big Thing: Kmail2 migration testing.

As KDE 4.7 now comes  with the new Akonadi-based Kmail2, users will either have to utilize the migration tools, or reconfigure their accounts from scratch. The migration needs testing, more on that in another post.

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Kubuntuforums is asking for your help

If you are a frequent visitor to kubuntuforums , you probably have noticed the increasing amount of downtime lately. Unfortunately, this is exacerbated by the fact that the site’s owner, Zack Brantley, is often away due to his military service, and my own work schedule keeps me away from my online home for long periods of time. We often don’t even notice until the downtime has been around for a while. The forum is also hosted either for free or at low cost, and getting in touch with the server’s admin isn’t always a quick thing.

So we have finally decided to procure our own hosting – either a vps or, if costs are affordable, a dedicated server. We also plan to migrate KFN to vbulletin – an anonymous donation of a license for this makes that cost a non-issue many thanks, whoever you are – it is greatly appreciated! While there is little wrong with our current software – SMF, vb seems like it will fit our needs and wants quite well.

We have placed a paypal donations button on the site, and I hope that a few of us KDE and Kubuntu fans will chip in a little bit here and there so we can move this forward.

And yes, the server we are currently hosted on is a Windows server, and always have been. So it is NOT a rumor. ‘Nuff said.

Also note that KFN is a completely independent outfit with no ties to Canonical, Ubuntu, or even Kubuntu outside of forum memberships.

Any suggestions, comments or ideas are gratefully accepted.

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KDE Activities and Virtual Desktops and The Cube

As I mentioned in my last post , I was having trouble figuring out how to assign Desktop Activities in KDE 4.6 to virtual desktops. I like the concept of activities, especially being able to turn them off and on, having titles, as well as the flexibility that they provide. I never have much gone in for virtual desktops, but activities are something I want to make use of as they seem to fit what I want my laptop to do.

I would really like to be able to have these show on my desktop cube, or whichever switcher I end up liking. Unfortunately these switchers look to be virtual-desktop-only

Normally , you can consider a virtual desktop to be a sub-set of an Activity. So each Activity can have a number of desktops. However There is a way to make your desktops into activities – within that main activity.

It is actually pretty easy to set up:

First you turn off all your Activities but your main one. While it isn’t 100 % necessary, it makes things much easier as you won’t inadvertently switch activities, or in my case getting lost as to which activity/desktop I am really in.

Here, I am using the Activity Manager widget, plasma-widget-activitymanager in your favorite package manager. I find it a great tool when playing with activities.

Next, you go to your pager, right-click on it and add the number of desktops you want, in my case I have 4. Now go to System Settings, Workspace Behavior, and make sure that “Different widgets for each desktop” is checked.

Now, you can go to each of your virtual desktops and customize them. You can change the Activity type and background image by right-clicking on the desktop and selecting Desktop Settings.

You can now show off some cool bits of KDE on your desktop cube.

Problem is, they are all still, as far as I can see, handled as virtual desktops. They all have the same name as the parent activity – I know I can label them in the settings, but that doesn’t appear on the individual desktops as Activities do. And you can’t turn them off and on, either. I know this may be a bit much to expect at this stage as Activities are still in my opinion are just recently at what I consider a usable state. What is really missing is a mouse action or better keyboard shortcut to switch activities like there are for desktops

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Re-discovering KDE, sort of ( or What a difference a year or 5 makes)

I was lucky at the end of this year, and was finally able to satisfy my hardware lust with the leftovers of a small-ish fourth-quarter bonus check. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to purchase something new. I was successful, however in getting a fairly recent refurbished off-lease dual-core Dell Latitude D630. According to it’s service tag, the laptop was born on January 2008, but it looks and feels brand new to me. This isn’t too difficult of a feat, as my other laptops are a Pentium 4-M, 1gb ram Compaq Eco N610C (from 2003) built from spares and held together with electrical tape, and a still-running 233mhz Pentium mmx Thinkpad 770 from 1998.

Kubuntu just seems to fly on the new Dell, and it is rather nice to be able to have full access to Kwin’s awesome effects. Especially blur.

Very especially blur

I also now can play with Desktop Activities, which despite all the attempts to describe them, are basically virtual desktops on steroids

Yes, Apachelogger is everywhere and I am a fan, err groupie

Now if I could only figure out how to get Activities to show on a desktop cube I would be in KDE heaven.

Kubuntu Natty also seems to run much better/faster/smoother/efficiently on the old P4 laptops, so much better in fact I began to doubt whether my money wasn’t better spent elsewhere. Until I saw the Blur that is.

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Kubuntu and package managers

Kubuntu has had a few package managers over the years…..

Anyone remember Kynaptic?

Probably not. It’s primary complaint? “It’s not Synaptic”

Adept many people remember from Hardy, though it had been in Kubuntu since Breezy.

It’s lack of Synapticness was still a bone of contention.

And then there was Adept 3, for a bit.

Nothing Synaptical there

Along comes KPackagekit, and much gnashing of teeth due to a complete lack of Synapticity, among other things.

Poor KPK slogged on, despite its’ being reviled by many, often a major item on many peoples’ recommendations for the List Of Things To Replace After Installing.

Now enter the scrappy Muon

We find a spanking new program, full of Synapticality, and more. Created by a Kubuntu developer, to boot .

 

Hallelujah! Now we are nearing the Holy Grail of KDE package managers, at least for Debian based systems. Synapicites rejoice!

But Wait!

What has poor KPackageKit been doing the past 6 months? Not giving up without a fight, that’s what!

KPK arrives in Kubuntu 10.10 dressed for success. With an application-centric interface, new features, tools, and improvements, we finally have a default package manager to be proud of. I sure am floored by it.

Kubuntu users now have two quality KDE-based package management tools tools to choose from. How cool is that?

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Dear lazyweb

With all the talk about the cool products from ZaReason, I am getting a hard case of hardware lust. Not to surprising, as my main system is a seven year old Compaq. After drooling over the choices available, the one thing that always gets me is price, or rather the financing of said price.

How do folks finance their hardware if they don’t have a credit card, other than saving up for a relatively long time? Are there any other options out there for the credit-strapped people out there?

It is probably best I don’t find the funds, really, and learn to control the urges

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New Maine LoCo website

After a significant downtime (and subsequent lapse in the domain registration), we have a new Ubuntu MAINE-iacs loco team website up and running!

It is not much at the moment, but using the fantastic Ubuntu Drupal team’s theme and tools, it sure made setting up a new Drupal site quite a bit less daunting for me and my limited experience with it. Initially I had thought that Drupal might be quite a bit overkill for our fledgling group, but after testing it out a bit, I think it is fine for us, and has plenty of additions that can help us scale as needed.

Now on to the real work of getting folks together in our relatively large and quite rural state

many thanks to Matt L for the logo

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