ken’s blog

The Foresight Linux Project is proud to announce the release of Foresight Linux 1.4.1.

Foresight Linux is a Linux distribution for your desktop that features a rolling release schedule that always keeps your desktop up to date; a revolutionary package manager, Conary; the latest GNOME desktop environment and an innovative set of excellent, up to date packages.

Foresight Linux 1.4.1 features the latest GNOME (2.20.1), as well as introducing PackageKit. PackageKit is a system designed to make installing and updating software on your computer easier. The primary design goal is to unify all the software graphical tools used in different distributions, and use some of the latest technology like PolicyKit to make the process suck less. For more info, check out http://www.packagekit.org.

Release notes
Download

You can find more information about Foresight on our website at http://www.foresightlinux.org

We hope you enjoy using Foresight Linux as much as we do. Because your desktop should be cool.

Let’s talk Conary! If you have questions about Conary package
management, or just want to get together to chat with people using and
managing Conary-based Linux systems, join us at the Conary BOF! A BOF
(Birds-of-a-feather) is an informal information swap hosted by
enthusiasts of a particular topic.

Conary Birds-of-a-feather
Hosted by: Ken VanDine, Michael K. Johnson, and Stephanie Watson
Tuesday, October 23, 2007, 7:00 PM EST
rPath corporate office, 701 Corporate Center Drive, Suite 450, Raleigh, NC

We look forward to you joining us!

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I am very excited to report that we have decided PackageKit is ready for wider spread use. Foresight users will all get PackageKit with their next update, and hopefully all future updates will be performed with PackageKit.

I have been extremely pleased with the progress of PackageKit, I really think it is the right solution and other distros should consider including it in the future. Richard Hughes and the other developers have really done a great job with it. For more information on PackageKit, check out the project site.

This was my first year attending the Ohio Linux Fest, and what a great event. I had a chance to meet lots of cool people and have some great conversations. The .ORG Desktop Corner, which consisted of Foresight, GNOME, Fedora and Ubuntu Ohio Loco, was a real smash. We had the first 4 tables near the entrance, and was so much more crowded than the rest of the show. Linux on the desktop was obviously important to people this year.

Kevin did a great job running the Foresight, with some great help from Ryan, and Michael. We had 250 DVDs to give out, which I think ran out after just a couple hours, and lots of stickers.

On Friday night, Jorge Castro and I were invited to give a talk about GNOME on Saturday (another talk was canceled). Obviously with short notice, we had to do a little cramming to get some slides ready and figure out how we would tag team the talk. Fortunately I think both Jorge and I work best under pressure, and things seem to go off well (besides OOo eating Jorge’s work). I hope all that attended enjoyed it as much as I did.

In the afternoon, Michael and I hosted a Conary BoF. We had a pretty full room, and everyone seemed to “get it”. Lots of great questions, and we spent some time to really talking about the stuff we love. We even ran over by an hour, and nobody seemed anxious to leave… which must be a good sign
No question, I will be going back next year!

Michael K Johnson and I just made it into Columbus for Ohio Linux Fest. I am very excited, this is the first show that we will actually have a Foresight booth. Come stop by, we have some DVDs of 1.4 and with any luck will have some stickers to give out.

I will also be giving a talk about rPath built appliances on the Open Source Solutions stage at 11am… so be there or be square!

If I can rally enough interest, we will host a Conary BoF… So look for that or track me down, I will be the guy in the bright green Foresight t-shirt ;-D

PackageKit is still young, not quite complete, and the API is still in the works. However…. It has amazing potential and I am sure it will really rock. As of now, the conary backend is about 80% complete and needs testing. I would love to have some folks try it out and report bugs. If the bug seems to be related to conary, please specify the backend-conary component in bugzilla.

Current operations that are supported include:

• refresh-cache
• seach-name
• search-details
• get-updates
• update-system
• install
• remove
• get-depends
• get-description

To get it:

sudo conary update PackageKit gnome-packagekit

Richard Hughsie has been doing an amazing job on PackageKit, thanks for that! Today I managed to get the first cut of the conary backend committed. Currently only searching is implemented, but we are well on our way to a fully functioning conary backend. Here are some teasers:

Richard Hughsie has been doing an amazing job on PackageKit, thanks for that! Today I managed to get the first cut of the conary backend committed. Currently only searching is implemented, but we are well on our way to a fully functioning conary backend. Here are some teasers:

Yes… you heard right… we are looking for Engineers! Check out our jobs page for a list of descriptions. If you have any questions, curious about the work environment or just want to say hi, feel free to ping me anytime on irc. kenvandine on both GIMPNet and freenode.

Yes… you heard right… we are looking for Engineers! Check out our jobs page for a list of descriptions. If you have any questions, curious about the work environment or just want to say hi, feel free to ping me anytime on irc. kenvandine on both GIMPNet and freenode.