About

What

We held a meeting to boost life back into the ISO and USB project. This due to the fact that development stalled over the last couple of months.

Who

• warddr
• thijsdl (hfsdo)
• jurgentje
• woutervddn

Where

Due to the fact that we needed a central location that was easily accessible, we went to hackerspace brussels for this.

When

2011-09-14 starting around 18h until 21h or so.

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LOG

[ISO] We exchanged views and went over the options. We also made a few choices about how we are going to get this going:

• We don't choose about pristine or persistent yet. We just make an ISO that can also be used on CDs. (so technically we're going pristine)
• We start of making an ISO from the natty (11.04) version. This will be sort of like a DEV version. Because:
  • If there are problems with unity we spot them right away.
  • When oneiric (11.10) launches we are fairly sure we can use the exact same way of producing the iso.
  • We believe that more people are going to be interested in the latest release than the LTS version.
• Because of the fact that you can't run a 64bit system on every machine, we start off using the 32bit version.
• We keep the original iso as intact as possible. (I'm talking about non user stuff here.) Because:
  • We're still Ubuntu, we don't want a totally new branch.
  • It saves us time, which is great since frankly we don't have any.
• We want to have a working natty version before oneiric is out.

[USB] We didn't do that much for the USB project. However we did talk to a guy (jurgen will fill in his name here) who told us a workaround that might actually enable us to get hold of a real usb stick from the suppliers. That way we can both test the actual speed of the stick and testdrive our ISO to see if it's fast enough. Woutervddn has no problem with trying to persuade those suppliers. (As ward searched for the sticks maybe he can point out some that he thinks are best?)

[USB] Jurgen & Wouter talked about "what the stick should look like": we need to keep it simple. Although a penguin shaped one may look cute, it isn't functional. We want people to carry our stick at all times and actually use it on a frequent basis. Therefor a big and bulky physical shape is not what we are looking for. The smaller the better. And I propose to KISS ("Keep It Simple, Stupid"; "Keep It Short and Simple"; "Keep it Simple & Straightforward").

[ISO&USB] warddr pointed out that gparted isn't installed on your disk, yet the program is available on the ISO. this should technically mean that we can add any program we like to the ISO without it being installed on physical drives. This opens possibilities.

[ISO&USB] Putting everything (all settings etc.) in a .deb can solve problems if we ever encounter settings we can't choose on the USBiso.

[ISO] If we want custom artwork and wallpaper and whatnot a PPA is the best way to go. We do however need to keep this PPA running. "We don't want a PPA that in 2 year still has only 1 wallpaper" one of us said. Therefor woutervddn is going to put up a personal ppa (which also is a nice opportunity for him to learn more about PPAs) to test with. If enough people will back an ubuntu-be ppa we can still make it.

[ISO] A few ways to create the ISO that we talked about on the ML were shot down.

• Startup disk creator turns out to be a bad option.

• Remastersys seems to be a better option, yet it wasn't working when we tried.

• We also had a close encounter with oem-config-remaster which states:

  • This script remasters a CD with additional packages and optional oem-config preseed data.

Seems like what we were looking for. I tried this on the way home, also without success. I will try it again with some "online help" though.

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Report

ISO decisions

• No choice pristine or persistent yet
• DEV ISO: natty 32bit
• iso to be kept as original as possible
• DEV ISO must run by the time oneiric is out
• woutervddn makes a test ppa for wallpapers etc
• if enough people back we can make an ubuntu-be ppa (this one MUST be maintained)

ISO remarks

• you can run programs on liveISO without them being installed on system. We need to research this!
• Settings we can't seem to set should go in a .deb; we can install those

ISO 'research' results

• Startup disk creator is a no no

• Remastersys wasn't working but seems better option

• oem-config-remaster seems to be what we are looking for; wasn't working either on first try

USB decisions

• woutervddn contacts some suppliers and would like warddr to name his favorite sticks
• physical appearance of the stick should be sober

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Comments

• We didn't do that much, but it was a nice 'kickoff' meeting. If we want to be ready by oneiric things need to get moving! -woutervddn (2011-09-14)

• comment -name (2011-09-14)

• comment -name (2011-09-14)

• ..