I am always getting asked for Foresight install isos with all the development tools and headers included. I usually just quickly create one off isos for those people using rBuilder. I have now added those development isos to my list of images to create for each release and have published 2.0.6 release images for development. Come and get them here.
Want to learn to package software? We are planning to start a series of IRC based training sessions on the basics of packaging with conary. We will begin with the basics, covering just creating local packages and building them locally for your system. Then next in the series will be slightly more advanced, and will cover setting up your own project on rBuilder, and building packages for others to use with rBuild.
There will be some information sent out to review prior to the class and we will assume attendees are running Foresight Linux either natively or in a virtual machine. The format will be rather informal, for a strong focus on mentoring in a very hands on environment. We will begin with creating a package in a web based editor that everyone can follow along with. Then move on to creating packages from scratch and having mentors available to guide new packagers
I hope to continue both of these on a re-occurring basis for new packagers and for continued practice. Everyone is welcome to attend.
We have put together a survey, to help gauge interest and scheduling. Please fill this out, and let us know if you are already familiar with conary packaging and willing to mentor.
Ashlyn, my 5 soon to be 6 year old, just did a very good deed. She hasn’t had a hair cut in over 2 years, saving up to donate her hair. I am so proud of her, she made the decision to do it herself. This week she got 10 inches cut off to donate to Children with Hair Loss. CHWL is a great organization, they use the hair to cover the heads of children that have lost their hair for medical reasons.
Ars Technica awarded Foresight distro of the year alongside openSUSE. Obviously I am very excited and proud that Foresight was recognized, but I have to send a big congrats out to the openSUSE guys too. They have done some great stuff this year, keep it up!
Ars Technica just posted a review of rBuilder, check it out.
Now that we have all had a few days to digest this, lets get down to business. I have created a wiki page outlining the process and listing the objectives for 2.5 in a table of FITS issues.
Please look over it, if you have other objectives you would like to add, please file issues assigning the fix version to 2.5. That will make them show up in the table on the wiki page. I am setting a deadline of Wednesday, Nov 19 1200 UTC. To find the time in UTC, run ‘date -u’.
Please get your submissions in! We will quickly review the submissions and update the issues to reflect fix version. I want to start the planning stages pretty quickly after the deadline, gathering requirements and designing the solutions. Please include as much detail as possible in the issues, and please review the issues we already have adding comments. The more information the better.
The road to Foresight 2.5 includes you! Historically we have not provided the level of transparency needed to enable more people to participate in Foresight’s core development. I am very excited about the packagers that have joined in to help, but I suspect them and others have trouble figuring out what is needed. They have done a great job of packaging new applications and helping to grow our repositories, and we appreciate that. However, Antonio (doniphon) and I do most of the distro work, and that is our fault. We tend to have a good understanding of what needs to be done, and we just do it. This leaves others either not knowing what they can help with, or feeling like they might step on our toes.
So what do we need to do? Log all issues we are working on, or plan to work on in FITS (Foresight Issue Tracking System) and continually log our progress on tasks. Not only does this provides us a high level view of where we are, and what needs to be done, but it also provides a wider audience a list of tasks they can step up and accomplish.
We are going with short 1-2 month sprints instead of long 6 month development cycles. During these sprints we will continually push features into mainline, continually delivering innovation.
The key for success is maximum transparency, this means using FITS and the foresight-devel mailing list as much as possible. If you would like to participate, please send an email to our development mailing list. You can find information on the lists here.
For a list of objectives we are already thinking of for Foresight 2.5, check out this list
Today the Linux Foundation announced the first beta release of the LSB 4.0 Sample Implementation. This is a very exciting release, in the past the SI has always been based on linux from scratch, for 4.0 the SI is now built using the rPath tools for 7 arches!
The LF folks have done a great job, I really love seeing our tools used to build for some many architectures: x86, x86_64, ppc32, ppc64, s390, s390x, IA64.
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).
