2006-04-05

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(X) This is a log or summary of an Edubuntu Meeting. Please go to the Meeting Page for more information about our meetings.


Meeting April 5, 2006

   02:00 flint        for the assembled masses I would like to re-open with my deathless prose...
   02:00 flint        I would like to re-announce that our plan to keep edubuntu a secret is working perfectly!  No one anywhere at LinuxWorld Boston is advertising, offering, extending or acknowledging edubuntu.  Thus I remain pleased to report that we have succeded!  our secret is safe! Actually, the guys at the LTSP boot told me in private that they had "heard" of edubuntu, but that was off the record, and the sales guy at the WYSE booth wanted to
   02:00 flint        sell me a buncha old xterms...
   02:01 flint        thus concludes my report from Boston LinuxWorld USA.
   02:01 JaneW        thanks flint
   02:02 JaneW        ok who is here for the Edubuntu meeting?
   02:02 flint        JaneW, are you really putting that vast advertising budget the foundation is giving you into pain drugs?
   02:02 flint        :^)
   02:03 JaneW        flint we get no budget what so ever
   02:04 JaneW        despite several requests for a few small promotional and branding items
   02:04 JaneW        there's not much more I can do at this point, besides
   02:04 JaneW        1) Give up
   02:04 ogra         and we dont have many community people in the US that could do such a booth (i only know three)
   02:04 JaneW        2) Fund stuff myself
   02:04 ogra         (two of them regulary attend this meeting)
   02:05 flint        ogra, I am gonna be teaching courses at three symposia in New England this quarter on edubuntu.  Think of the fees that I will garner from this!
   02:05 ogra         JaneW, edubuntu promotion on fairs works well in germany ... withot any funding
   === jsgotangco [n=jsg@ubuntu/member/jsgotangco] has joined #ubuntu-meeting
   02:05 flint        ogra, my fortune is assured.
   02:06 flint        :^)
   02:06 flint        so if JaneW would only share her drugs...
   02:06 ogra         flint, sure, but you are local, so either organize something yourself or stop complaining :P its a job for the LoCo teams, if they fail, complain at them
   02:07 flint        ogra, i am not complaining I am whining... there is a difference you know.
   02:07 flint        but the topic of budget is a dogged one.
   02:07 ogra         edubuntu was at the Cebit, at the LinuxDays in Essen and will have a booth on LinuxTag in wiesbaden, without any intervention from canonical or from me
   02:08 jsgotangco   nor in LinuxWorld Manila
   02:08 ogra         this much for germany ...
   02:08 ogra         oh and i forgot, it was as well on TV with the cebit booth
   02:08 jsgotangco   some people are good self starters :)
   02:08 flint        ogra, but germany is a socialist anarchy.
   02:09 flint        america is a facist state.  we need to bribe the officials in power.  that takes a budget :^)
   === jsgotangco doesn't feel comfortable when money is involved
   02:09 flint        I would propose that a new topic be considered - edubuntu budget.
   02:09 JaneW        ok money whining aside
   02:10 flint        jsgotangco, you just hate politics...
   02:10 JaneW        ogra: everything ok on your side?
   02:10 ogra         yep
   02:10 JaneW        ogra: good
   02:10 jsgotangco   flint: you're saying grassroots advocacy doesn't work
   02:10 ogra         i have not much to say ...
   02:10 JaneW        you mentioned bugs from mdz
   02:10 ogra         we had flight 6
   02:10 JaneW        are they edubuntu related or other
   02:10 ogra         yes, ubuntu bugs
   02:10 flint        ogra, kevin cole found a program that kills the terminals on flight 5
   02:10 JaneW        oic
   02:10 JaneW        how's flight 6 looking?
   02:11 JaneW        Anyone tested it yet?
   02:11 jsgotangco   sorry
   02:11 ogra         i thnik there are 3 or 4 edubuntu bugs among them
   02:11 JaneW        (Note I am going to have to slow down the typing - hurts)
   === jsgotangco tested ubuntu-server and hunted xorg bugs
   02:11 ogra         one is from jsgotangco btw :)
   02:11 flint        JaneW, been playing in Boston...
   02:11 ogra         we need a css for the about edubuntu page ;)
   02:11 flint        have not tested will test for Kevin Coles' bug when I get back to the lab.
   02:12 ogra         additionally highvoltage made this beautiful document: http://jonathancarter.co.za/docs/ed-gs/
   02:12 ogra         i'll replace the contents of edubuntu-docs with it
   02:12 jsgotangco   that's beautiful
   02:12 ogra         else we're still waiting to see some of the designer artwork
   02:13 ogra         thats it so far from the tech side
   02:13 ogra         ohhh
   02:13 flint        highvoltage, where do you find the time?  that page is excellent.
   02:13 ogra         and sabdfl approved that we can get rid of this darn "server" installoption
   02:13 JaneW        ogra: do you have an eta on the designer work
   02:13 ogra         it wont be on flight 7 i hopew
   02:13 JaneW        ?
   02:13 JaneW        highvoltage: nice doc! :))
   02:14 JaneW        ogra: won't?
   02:14 ogra         JaneW, nope
   02:14 ogra         apart from silbs telling me that my colors might get changed fopr the designer stuff i havent heard anything
   02:14 JaneW        ok
   02:14 ogra         (i'm lagging like hell here ...)
   02:15 ogra         grr
   02:15 jsgotangco   its already 2006 and we still experience lag
   02:16 ogra         JaneW, yes won't :)
   02:16 ogra         finally
   02:16 ogra         i was fighting for that since dapper started
   === JaneW is lagged too
   02:17 ogra         so this screen will only have: "install to HD" and "install a workstation" http://jonathancarter.co.za/docs/ed-gs/images/cdboot.png
   02:18 ogra         (above the "Check ..." that is)
   02:19 flint        ogra, yea why would you only install as a server?
   02:19 ogra         flint, "server" actually means "minimal"
   02:19 ogra         that confused a lot of people
   02:20 ogra         but renaming seems to be difficult, so we'll drop it completely
   02:20 jsgotangco   even ubuntu-server has better options
   02:20 jsgotangco   more descriptive
   02:20 flint        ogra, thankfully i am too illiturate to get confused...
   02:21 ogra         flint, and i thought guess you are just too lazy and hit enter for the default selection (the first one) :)
   02:21 ogra         -guess
   02:21 flint        ogra, what you call lazy i call excellent user interface design.
   02:21 ogra         hehe
   02:22 flint        :^)  god I am a suckup.
   === highvoltage arrives
   02:23 ogra         next topic ?
   02:23 highvoltage  flint: i created that page over friday evening and saturday morning :)
   === freeflying-ibook [n=freeflyi@61.190.65.36] has joined #ubuntu-meeting
   02:24 ogra         highvoltage, we'll need to go through it once ... there are still some things in that need fixing ... but i think its the best doc we ever had up to now, thanks a lot
   02:24 jsgotangco   \o/
   02:24 highvoltage  ogra: np, there'll more where that came from
   02:24 highvoltage  (be more)
   02:24 ogra         :)
   02:25 ogra         jsgotangco, does ff open help:// links in yelp ?
   02:25 highvoltage  just on the website stuff, the theming is coming along okay, although not completed yet.
   02:25 jsgotangco   ogra: it doesn't
   02:25 ogra         meh
   02:25 ogra         it would be cool to link it from the ff default page ...
   02:25 highvoltage  we'll be able to finish up when the edubuntu theming is finalised, since we want the website to resemble the system, building better brand assosiation
   02:25 JaneW        sorry I just had an nb phone call
   02:25 jsgotangco   ogra: it doesn't even know irc://
   02:25 olive        it does, if help:// is set in gconf
   02:26 ogra         olive, oh, thats good news, i'll look into it
   02:26 ogra         thanks for the hint :)
   02:27 jsgotangco   you don't want to put it in yelp instead? it'll have a shiny new frontpage
   02:28 ogra         i think it should reside among the UbuntuServer Guide and the other docs in there
   02:28 flint        ogra, I gotta say your idea of a ff link sounds good to me.
   === Lure [n=lure@external-7.hermes.si] has joined #ubuntu-meeting
   02:29 ogra         i'm not sure if we can ship ubuntu-docs at all :(
   02:29 jsgotangco   hrmmm
   02:29 ogra         since i was told it will grow a lot
   02:29 jsgotangco   those are good docs
   02:29 highvoltage  ogra: about the Schooltool link, will we get one in firefox or in the gnome-menus?
   02:29 ogra         highvoltage, i'd prefer ff
   02:30 highvoltage  ogra: me 2.
   02:30 flint        ogra, surely you cannot have space on the CD for jonathans page do you?
   02:30 highvoltage  currently it's about 600k large (which is quite big)
   02:31 highvoltage  but if i save the images as jpegs (which will distort them slightly), it should be able to come down to 200k
   02:31 ogra         flint, highvoltages page will be ~2M with screenshots in the end ... ubuntu-docs might grow to 10M or more
   02:31 ogra         s/will/might/
   02:31 highvoltage  although it's not complete yet, so when the docuemnt is more complete it will probably lean toward 400k
   02:31 jsgotangco   can you optimize the pngs?
   02:31 jsgotangco   pngcrush or something
   02:31 flint        ogra, you are a wizard, get over here and pack my suitcase! :^)
   02:31 ogra         sure you can use pngcrunch
   02:32 flint        ogra, jpegs are always firefox tasty
   02:32 highvoltage  ok, i'll try that instead of using jpegs
   02:32 ogra         we dont ship any language packs in the CD currently ... i'll need to make room before release for at least some of them
   02:34 flint        ogra, got to have european languages.  the chinese have a whole wall at this show (no kidding)
   02:34 JaneW        ogra: how do you select them?
   02:34 JaneW        by most popular?
   02:34 ogra         i guess so ...
   02:34 JaneW        ok, and then the rest will have to be d/led
   02:34 ogra         i thought selecting the same way ubuntu does (which is by most popular)
   02:35 ogra         but we probably should take into account where *we* are most popular
   02:35 jsgotangco   remove OOo then replace it with abiword, gnumeric and magicpoint :)
   === jsgotangco hides
   02:35 flint        JaneW, I recommend the list begin with German and Dutch :^)
   02:35 ogra         flint, these are not very popular
   02:36 ogra         (probably place 15 from the 90 langs we have)
   02:36 highvoltage  jsgotangco: or gnome with xfce :)
   02:36 flint        ogra, I like 'em :^)
   02:36 jsgotangco   highvoltage: aye, the xubuntu flight 6 is pretty solid
   02:36 jsgotangco   still ate 1.2GB of HD though
   02:37 ogra         we dont care about HDs :)
   02:37 ogra         only about isos ;)
   02:37 jsgotangco   true though
   02:37 flint        we care about CD's
   02:37 highvoltage  jsgotangco: i'm running xfce now, it's really come a far way, definately a strong candidate as default desktop in edubuntu, imo. ogra seems to agree there too, so i'm quite excited about that.
   02:37 jsgotangco   and we still get gtk2 love
   02:38 ogra         i dont agree for it as default, but optional :)
   02:38 flint        this is when you say, one language one CD.  Many languages one DVD.
   02:39 ogra         flint, we cant ship only one language on the CD
   === jarufe [n=jarufe@pc-155-140-104-200.cm.vtr.net] has joined #ubuntu-meeting
   02:39 flint        kinda like the mondo mindi layout.  a core iso and options to fill the available space...
   02:40 flint        I did not say which language.  how many lang packs could you get on a CD comfortably...
   02:40 jsgotangco   1
   02:40 jsgotangco   :D
   02:40 flint        jsgotangco, I think it is better than that. Gnome does amazing things with languages.
   === raphink [n=raphink@ubuntu/member/raphink] has joined #ubuntu-meeting
   02:41 ogra         flint, but KDE doesnt
   02:41 ogra         we ship both by default ... the KDE packs eat a lot more space
   02:41 jsgotangco   \o_ K D E _o/
   02:42 ogra         since they contain *all* translations for the *whole* KDE .... while we need translations for 6 apps or so
   02:42 flint        ogra, I never even tried to get to KDE.  It installs by default, oh it must to support kde based apps!
   === pips1 [n=philipp@hsz-hgkz.isz.ch] has joined #ubuntu-meeting
   02:42 ogra         yep
   === flint senses a bitterness from ogra on this topic...
   02:43 ogra         i dont know if we'd have an option to split out kdeedu packs, pitti might know
   02:44 flint        but you cannot get around supporting the KDE apps.  so you need lang packs for both kde and gnome...
   02:44 flint        not to mention the actual console packs.
   02:45 flint        ogra, suppose we attacked the three packs with a spell check tokenizer per language?
   02:46 ogra         ??
   02:46 highvoltage  flint: you'll still be able to run KDE apps, if you apt-get install a KDE app, it will download the KDE libraries too
   02:46 ogra         "spell check tokenizer" ?
   02:46 highvoltage  flint: so it's not like KDE will be completely unsuported
   02:46 ogra         i still want to drop the KDE stuff asap
   02:47 jsgotangco   ogra: you'll be supporting them for 5 years though
   02:47 flint        each language has a spell checker, and if you took each lang pack and tokenized it based on the spell checker crib, you could gain dramatic compression improvement.
   02:47 ogra         yes, but i dont want to have the same issue with the next 5 year release
   02:47 flint        tokenized the lang pack that is.
   02:47 highvoltage  ogra: you mean after release, of course?
   02:48 flint        sadly this is a research project we have neither the time or resources to go after.
   02:48 ogra         highvoltage, dropping KDE ? yes ...
   02:48 highvoltage  ok
   02:48 highvoltage  i think the sooner the better (after release).
   02:48 ogra         else it would already have been dropped
   02:49 highvoltage  heh.
   02:49 ogra         we need replacements first
   02:49 ogra         and apps like kalzium are hard to replace
   02:49 flint        as I understand it there are 6  specific packages that need the kde stuff.
   02:49 ogra         (its winning awards all over the world)
   02:50 ogra         flint, nope
   02:50 ogra         only one package .... 6 apps
   02:50 flint        ok gotcha.
   02:50 ogra         i just talked to pitti in -devel, he said its technically no problem, but it will produce another 100 packages
   02:50 ogra         (one for every lang)
   02:51 highvoltage  geez
   02:51 ogra         i'll need to discuss it with him ...
   02:51 ogra         and also see how much we'd really gain with it
   02:52 flint        I am out of time... thanks for the kind words...
   02:52 flint        sksk
   02:52 ogra         ciao flint
   02:52 ogra         so any artwork/doc/community stuff left ?
   02:53 highvoltage  not for today, from my side.
   02:53 jsgotangco   i can only bughunt/test for this cycle for now
   02:53 ogra         ok, so lets close the meeting then ...
   02:54 ogra         adjourned, thanks all
   02:54 JaneW        when is the cookbook debate going to be resolved?
   02:55 ogra         dunno, Pygi was talking about friday morning ...
   02:55 highvoltage  thanks ogra
   02:55 JaneW        ok friday is good
   02:56 jsgotangco   cookbook debate heh
   02:56 JaneW        except 10:00 - 11:00 UTC - chiro appt
   02:56 jsgotangco   that sounded really bad
   === jarufe [n=jarufe@pc-155-140-104-200.cm.vtr.net] has left #ubuntu-meeting ["Bye..]
   02:58 ogra         JaneW, he taled about 9:00 UTC
   02:58 ogra         *talked
   03:00 JaneW        ogra: ok good
   03:00 JaneW        I appologise for being a bit spaced out
   03:01 JaneW        I agree with flint that we need to focus on getting Edubuntu out there with the Dapper release
   03:01 JaneW        and will need more of a marketing and awareness drive
   03:01 JaneW        we have hung back due to Breezy being a bit limited, but now we need to get people using it and talking about it MORE
   03:02 JaneW        and the documentation is important to achieveing that goal
   03:02 JaneW        IMO
   03:02 ogra         sure ...
   03:02 ogra         but i'm fine with jonathans doc for now ... if we dont get a cookbook, we'll at least have this one ...
   03:03 JaneW        so more stuff like highvoltage's doc will be good
   03:03 JaneW        yes agreed
   03:03 JaneW        it's neat, friendly, easy to read and understand
   03:03 JaneW        that what we need
   03:03 ogra         additionally i'm writing a bunch of LTSP docs, merge them, add some info about the edu apps, and you have a cookbook
   03:03 JaneW        excellent
   03:04 ogra         did you ever take a look at the server guide and the admin guide from dappers ubuntu-docs ?
   03:05 ogra         it covers already most of our stuff
   03:06 pips1        ogra, is that server guide you are talking about in the 'Help' of Dapper?
   03:06 ogra         yep
   03:06 pips1        ok, i shall check it out
   03:06 ogra         there is desktop guide, server guide and packaging guide
   03:06 ogra         and about ubuntu
   03:07 pips1        ogra, I finally got flight6 running with internet access
   03:07 ogra         just open yelp on a dapper machine
   03:07 ogra         yay
   03:07 pips1        the german localisation works ok, as far as I could tell so far
   03:07 ogra         good
   03:07 pips1        I'll do some more testing later
   03:08 ogra         (lest move to #edubuntu)
   03:08 ogra         *lets
   03:08 pips1        i wasn't able to login with my thinpad as client via pxe, though, need to investigate further
   03:08 pips1        ok
   03:09 pips1        --> edubuntu