ken’s blog

After some delays… sorry everyone, the GNOME 2.24 Live demos are available. Come and get them at http://torrent.gnome.org.

After my post the other about the recent addition of the ubuntu platform in rBuilder Online, I had a bunch of inquires asking “What is this appliance creator thing?”  Let me start out by explaining that Appliance Creator isn’t actually a product or service of it’s own, it is a feature of rBuilder.  The goal here is to make it as simple as possible to take your application and create an appliance with JeOS to get it running.  You can import your application from an rpm, deb, or a tar/zip archive (not source), and with a few clicks of the mouse have an appliance that can be downloaded or booted in the cloud.

I have put together a screenshot tour, taking you through the process.  Please note the captions along the bottom, they should help explain what each step is all about.  Another handy hint, you can use the “N” and “P” for next and previous to navigate (using lightbox).

Foresight Kid’s edition is now available for your kid’s enjoyment.  I know my 5 year old has absolutely loved it.

The Kid’s Edition is  for children featuring a number of education and entertainment applications,  a customized GNOME desktop environment and an innovative set of excellent, up to date software applications.

The Foresight Kid’s Edition features the following applications:

Education

• Tuxpaint, an award winning drawing program for children ages 3-12.
• Tux Typing, and educational typing tutor for children.
• GCompris, an educational software suit that includes many different activities for children ages 2 to 10.
• Tux, of Math Command, an education arcade game starring Tux based on the class game “Missile Command”.

Entertainment and Games

• SuperTux, a classic 2D jump ‘n run sidescroller with a similar style to the original SuperMario games.
• SuperTuxKart, a 3D kart racing game featuring numerous tracks, characters and items.
• Foobilliard, a 3D billiards / pool game.
• GNU Chess, a chess game.
• Super Maryo Chronicles, a 2D side scroller game featuring many different stages and levels..

Read more about it.

I’ll bet that sounds confusing! Well it’s true, the base Ubuntu server platform is now available for building application images on rBuilder Online. What does this really mean? The addition of the Ubuntu platform will allow the rBuilder community to build application images based on either rPath Linux or Ubuntu server. The rPath Appliance Platform Agent is also included in the Ubuntu platform.

With this addition, the Appliance Creator has been updated to import debian packages, just like you could already import rpm, tar, and zip binary archives.

To use the Ubuntu platform, you have to either edit an existing product version or create a new one.  There is a drop down for selecting platform:

rBuilder Online is beta, and rPath’s imported Ubuntu platform is currently alpha. Please use them both and help us improve by filing bug reports.

I am very excited to announce the first release of Foresight Mobile, specifically designed for the new class of netbook computers such as the ASUS Eee PC, Intel Classmate, and Dell E netbook and features a customized desktop optimized for smaller screens.

I have to give a big shout out to the great folks at Canonical for their work on the netbook remix project, which is used for the user interface in Foresight Mobile.

For more information and download links, please visit the Foresight Mobile Edition webpage at http://www.foresightlinux.org/mobile.html or you can read the release notes at http://www.foresightlinux.org/releases/mobile-1-0.html.

Because your netbook should be cool.

Conary packaging is easy, but there are times where you hit some harder things and you really need to hit the docs.  There are plenty of docs now on conary, and a few clicks in a web browser generally can get you what you need.  However, there is a very cool command line interface to the packaging docs call “cvc explain”.  I keep running into people that haven’t seen it, so lets get the word out!

You can run “cvc explain [method]” to get the documentation for that method.  Here is an example:


$ cvc explain DanglingSymlinks
Conary API Documentation: PackageRecipe.DanglingSymlinks

NAME
====

r.DanglingSymlinks() - Disallow dangling symbolic links

SYNOPSIS
========

r.DanglingSymlinks([filterexp] || [exceptions=filterexp)

DESCRIPTION
===========

The r.DanglingSymlinks() policy enforces the absence of dangling
symbolic links; that is, symbolic links pointing to targets which no
longer exist.

If you know that a dangling symbolic link created by your package
is fulfilled by another package on which your package depends,
you may set up an exception for that file.

EXAMPLES
========

r.DanglingSymlinks(exceptions=’%(htconfdir)s/run’)

The %(htconfdir)s/run file is a symlink that is intentionally
left dangling within this package, because we know that it will
be satisfied by runtime dependencies at installation time.

Foresight Linux 2.0 has been released, featuring GNOME 2.22. Available for download from rBuilder for both x86 and x86_64 architectures.

Foresight Linux is a Linux distribution for your desktop that features a rolling release schedule that always keeps your desktop up to date. Foresight includes innovative applications that make using your computer easy, including Banshee for music management, F-Spot for photo management, as well as vibrant user and developer community.

New in Foresight 2.0:

The Foresight 2.0 features a new tar-based installer, that should install in less than 10 minutes, including formatting a 200 GB hard drive. Foresight is also developing new editions including KDE and XFCE in addition to GNOME available for x86 and x86_64 processors. Foresight is proud to be the first distribution to ship with:

• PackageKit to help users update their system and add and remove software
• Syslinux, a new bootloader to replace GRUB.
• GNOME-Do: GNOME Do allows you to quickly search for many items present in your GNOME desktop environment (applications, Evolution contacts, Firefox bookmarks, files, artists and albums in Rhythmbox, Pidgin buddies, etc.) and perform commonly used actions on those items (Run, Open, Email, Chat, Play, etc.).

Users should also find it much easier to use binary video card drivers from Nvidia and ATI than in Foresight 1.x. Transmission is also included as the default Bittorrent application.

For more information, please visit http://www.foresightlinux.org/

Because your desktop should be cool.

Updated:

Awesome news… Shuttle released a press release today:

Shuttle Teams with Foresight Linux on $199 KPC
City of Industry, CA., MArch 4, 2008

Shuttle today announced that the newly launched $199 KPC will feature the Foresight Linux operating system. With an intuitive interface and user focused design, Foresight does away with the need for users to be familiar with Linux.

A host of the latest software is packaged with the operating system, giving users convenient and enjoyable access to music, photos, videos, documents, and the Internet. Even keeping up-to-date with the latest features and fixes is a simple process with the user friendly update button.

Foresight uses the revolutionary Conary® Package Manager developed by rPath and distributed as Open Source software under the terms of the Common Public License. With the Conary® Package Manager, the system updates only the specific files in packages which need to be updated so updating takes little time and bandwidth.

Shuttle’s KPC includes many software packages already installed, including the OpenOffice.org® office suite, the Firefox® web browser, the Pidgin instant messenger, the Banshee music player, the Totem movie player, the F-Spot photo organizer, and Compiz for 3D desktop effects. For more details visit: http://us.shuttle.com/kpc

I am fortunate enough to have received one of these little boxes already, and I am pretty impressed. Great value for the $199 price tag. And of course it is linux friendly, Foresight worked perfectly out of the box. All the way from sound, compiz, to suspend/hibernate, all just worked. In fact, this was a pre-release box they sent and it already had Foresight pre-loaded! So exciting, everyone go buy one

More information at Shuttle’s KPC website.

Just a reminder, I will be at SCALE in Los Angeles this weekend, hanging out with Kevin Harriss and Paul Cutler in the Foresight booth, swing by and say hi.

I am also very excited to be doing the GNOME: Ten years of Freedom talk on Satruday at 1:30pm and a Conary BoF on Sunday at 6:00pm.

Joshua Hesketh has written some great documentation on how to use the GNOME Developer Kit. He has covered building, applying/creating patches, and contributing to the GNOME module of your choice . Thanks Josh!

I would love to find a volunteer to document using the kit for translations or documentation.  Any volunteers?