Ubuntu Wiki

Ubuntu Open Week - Xubuntu - Cody Somerville - Fri, Nov 7th, 2008

(11:02:55 AM) cody-somerville: Hello everyone!
(11:02:59 AM) Intey: hihou
(11:03:07 AM) volo: hi
(11:03:15 AM) knome: hello cody :]
(11:03:40 AM) cody-somerville: For those of you who don't know, Xubuntu is an official derivitive of the Ubuntu project and is developed and maintained by members of the Ubuntu and Xubuntu community. In the recent months, the Xubuntu community of contributors has grown significantly.
(11:04:12 AM) cody-somerville: For example, knome is responsible for our nice new website :)
(11:04:16 AM) knome: o/
(11:04:33 AM) knome: Check it out: http://xubuntu.org/
(11:05:14 AM) cody-somerville: Another accomplishment in the last six months has been the adoptions of a Xubuntu strategy document. We intend to use this document to help us communicate our long term goals for Xubuntu.
(11:05:41 AM) cody-somerville: From the document: "The goal of Xubuntu is to produce an easy to use distribution, based on Ubuntu, using Xfce as the graphical desktop, with a focus on integration, usability and performance, with a particular focus on low memory footprint. The integration in Xubuntu is at a configuration level, a toolkit level, and matching the underlying technology beneath the desktop in Ubuntu. Xubuntu will be built and developed as pa
(11:05:41 AM) cody-somerville: rt of the wider Ubuntu community, based around the ideals and values of Ubuntu."
(11:05:51 AM) pengo_ is now known as newpengo
(11:06:24 AM) cody-somerville: The latest release of Xubuntu provides a more polished experience over Hardy along with a number of new features such as the improved Network Manager 0.7. We had intended to ship the new Xfce 4.6 with Intrepid but unfortunately it was unavailable. Luckily, however, we do intend to provide the recently released Xfce 4.4.3 to Hardy and Intrepid users.
(11:07:54 AM) cody-somerville: For Jaunty, I'm happy to report that a number of new and exciting features will be included - such as samba browsing, metadata and search within Thunar, Xfce 4.6, and of course less bugs! :)
(11:09:11 AM) cody-somerville: Another goal for Jaunty is to improve and expand our community of artists and doc writers. For this, I'll give the floor to knome for the rest of the session to discuss how and why you should get involved in Xubuntu. :)
(11:09:40 AM) knome: Ok, I'm Pasi Lallinaho and I'm the newly appointed Xubuntu Marketing Lead.
(11:10:17 AM) knome: If you have any questions throughout the session, please feel free to ask them @ #ubuntu-classroom-chat, we'll answer them with Cody.
(11:10:36 AM) knome: So, Xubuntu like Ubuntu consists of separate teams.
(11:10:51 AM) knome: One is obviously developers, but there's a lot more to it.
(11:11:20 AM) knome: - Documentation team, which is responsible for the Docs
(11:11:33 AM) knome: - Web team, which keeps the website updated
(11:11:41 AM) knome: A few more words about the web team now
(11:12:26 AM) knome: We've recently appointed Vincent (vinnl) as the new Web team leader
(11:12:41 AM) knome: He's put a *lot* work on the content of the new website lately
(11:13:11 AM) knome: - Artwork team
(11:13:43 AM) knome: The artwork team provides the artwork for the project, including the website, themes, wallpapers, ads...
(11:13:59 AM) knome: We're currently quite short on artist, feel free to join us!
(11:14:06 AM) knome: - Marketing team
(11:14:28 AM) knome: The marketing team is relatively new in Xubuntu.
(11:14:46 AM) knome: This idea was brought up when i joined the project.
(11:15:18 AM) knome: The marketing teams controls and leads the overall branding and promotion
(11:15:38 AM) knome: This includes for example soon to be released Artwork guidelines
(11:16:18 AM) knome: These guidelines explain further what kind of artwork we want
(11:16:51 AM) knome: For example, we have some keywords which should describe the looks of the artwork contributed to Xubuntu
(11:17:11 AM) knome: They're goal is also to keep the artwork and brand consistent
(11:17:16 AM) knome: *Their
(11:18:02 AM) knome: The marketing team (me) works closely with the artwork team (me and a few more) and the web team (vinnl and me)
(11:18:44 AM) knome: Without this close cooperation we couldn't have so nice website now - and released on time!
(11:19:28 AM) knome: The marketing team is responsible for any other advertising we might want: T-shirts, stickers, maybe some giveaway CDs, screencasts... The sky is the limit!
(11:19:58 AM) knome: That was about the teams of Xubuntu
(11:20:55 AM) knome: Now I'd like to emphasize on the easyness to join Xubuntu
(11:21:07 AM) knome: We're a relatively small project, and I can assure you we're very welcoming and warm community
(11:21:43 AM) knome: It was really easy for me to jump in - only after a few months since I joined, we released the new website which was mostly my work
(11:22:06 AM) knome: So you can get quite big part on the project when joining.
(11:22:18 AM) knome: That means freedom and rights, but also responsibility.
(11:23:11 AM) knome: Still I encourage you to join, if you like Xubuntu. We always need more people to help. Even if you didn't know what you could do, just join #xubuntu-devel and tell who you are and that you want to join and we'll make up something.
(11:23:30 AM) knome: < homy1> QUESTION: Shouldn't Ubuntu itself be able to run on lower hardware specs instead of making a special Xubuntu for that?
(11:24:20 AM) knome: Kind of yes and no. Xubuntu has Xfce as window manager and not Gnome, like Ubuntu has.
(11:24:52 AM) knome: So that's already a big difference. Xubuntu is not only for old/low spec hardware, but also for people who want the most out of their PCs.
(11:25:22 AM) knome: It's an another alternative.
(11:25:40 AM) knome:  < popey> QUESTION: I've seen a lot of comments recently about Xubuntu not being as lean and quick as people expect it might be. What is the Xubuntu team doing to rectify this (on top of anything which applies across all of the derivatives like kernel/upstart changes)?
(11:25:53 AM) cody-somerville: :)
(11:25:59 AM) knome: cody-somerville, want to answer?
(11:26:05 AM) cody-somerville: Sure.
(11:27:20 AM) cody-somerville: Xubuntu is not meant to run on legacy hardware. Its intended to run on lower powered machines. People expecting Xubuntu to run on 32mb of ram with a Pentium I simply misunderstand the objective of Xubuntu. However, performance is a concern of ours.
(11:28:12 AM) knome: QUESTION: "maybe some giveaway CDs" - does that mean Xubuntu CDs from ShipIt?
(11:28:15 AM) cody-somerville: As our team and pool of expertise grows, we'll continue to invest efforts into that objective while attempting to maintain a delicate balance. We want Xubuntu not only to be zippy but also usable and productive.
(11:28:37 AM) cody-somerville: Ah, yes. shipit.
(11:28:46 AM) cody-somerville: Unfortunately, there are no plans to ship Xubuntu via shipit at this time.
(11:28:57 AM) popey: cody-somerville: if that's the case then perhaps https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LowEndSystemSupport needs changing - "Some systems with lower memory configurations will be more responsive without the extra eye candy provided by the Gnome interface. To install XFCE, a lightweight alternative to Gnome"
(11:29:25 AM) knome: About the CD thingy:
(11:29:38 AM) cody-somerville: popey, I think thats an accurate statement. :)
(11:29:39 AM) knome: Offering CDs from ShipIt would have some serious costs.
(11:30:27 AM) knome: We don't have the money for that.
(11:31:35 AM) cody-somerville: [11:29] <toros> QUESTION: How much help does Xubuntu get from Canonical?
(11:31:50 AM) cody-somerville: toros, We receive significant support and assistance from Canonical.
(11:32:09 AM) cody-somerville: :)
(11:32:23 AM) knome: True.
(11:32:56 AM) knome: Any other questions?
(11:35:21 AM) Intey: Will you ship persistent USB sticks and the likes with xubuntu on em in the future? I'd need one @ work, alot of old PCs at that place....
(11:35:34 AM) knome: < gta47b> QUESTION: XUBUNTU = Ubuntu -GNOME -other heavy apps + light apps ...is that accurate ?
(11:35:46 AM) Intey: Ubuntu do so with flash drives, which basically are "too flashy"
(11:36:01 AM) cody-somerville: Intey, A lot of old PCs can't boot from USB. However, you can use the new ubuntu tool to create a bootable usb.
(11:36:25 AM) Intey: Well it's broken for me and I fiolled a bug after folliwing the session yesterday ))
(11:36:31 AM) cody-somerville: :)
(11:37:13 AM) knome: gta47b, You're right.
(11:37:34 AM) knome: lordnoid said on -chat that Firefox isn't lightweight.
(11:37:53 AM) knome: That's also true, but we don't want to ship unready apps with Xubuntu either.
(11:38:25 AM) knome: Sometimes we just have to make a choice between a not-so-lightweight and a yet-to-be-finished product.
(11:38:54 AM) knome: < rzr> QUESTION: is today xubuntu more suitable than ubuntu than old distro for old computozors ?
(11:39:05 AM) knome: rzr, can you clarify?
(11:39:14 AM) knome: < toros> QUESTION: What's the main target group of Xubuntu? People with low spec hardware? Geeks, how want better performance? Netbook users? Or all of them?
(11:39:52 AM) knome: It's a common misunderstanding that Xubuntu is only for old hardware.
(11:40:54 AM) knome: "All of them" would be the best answer, though for example Netbook users there is the Netbook Remix.
(11:41:13 AM) knome: As i said earlier, Xubuntu is an alternative for Ubuntu, just like Kubuntu is.
(11:41:47 AM) knome: It might be faster, but everybody has to judge it theirselves.
(11:41:56 AM) knome: < gta47b> QUESTION: Can the recent xubuntu run as well as win95 on the h/w that win95 runs well on ?
(11:42:02 AM) knome: cody-somerville, can you?
(11:42:50 AM) cody-somerville: I doubt it.
(11:43:56 AM) knome: More questions?
(11:44:33 AM) knome: < gta47b> QUESTION: Can you say use ubuntu on recent < 1 year old h/w, use Xubuntu on > x year old h/w, what would you say is "x" here ?
(11:46:17 AM) cody-somerville: It would be tough for me to give an accurate number. However, I'd recommend 256mb of ram and atleast 500mhz for a decent experience.
(11:46:31 AM) cody-somerville: However, Xubuntu can most certainly run on lower specs and does very well on higher specs.
(11:46:37 AM) knome: < rzr> QUESTION: about computozors :) I meant I remember using debian potatoe w/ KDE on a 133 MHz  64MB , this will be probally impossible with today distros how comes ?
(11:47:12 AM) knome: I think this is much the same as Cody said about the win95 machine.
(11:47:32 AM) cody-somerville: Changes to core components have seen system requirements rise over the last decade.
(11:47:45 AM) knome: Ok, any other questions about the Xubuntu community/teams?
(11:48:11 AM) cody-somerville: Xubuntu will run on 133Mhz 64MB if you use the alternative cd but it'll be painful :)
(11:48:37 AM) cody-somerville: I imagine debian potatoe with KDE on a 133mhz 64MB of ram was painful too - but not as pretty :)
(11:49:13 AM) b33r: lol people still use that kind of hardware?
(11:50:39 AM) rzr: cody-somerville: it was less painfull in my memories than using windows today :)
(11:50:49 AM) Intey: by offering a more lightweight distro, ain't there a danger of pushing the plain Ubuntu to a more demanding future?
(11:51:18 AM) knome: There is always people who prefer Gnome over Xfce.
(11:51:24 AM) cody-somerville: :)
(11:51:31 AM) cody-somerville: Unfortunately that is all the time I have for today.
(11:51:36 AM) knome: Yet again: it's your choice.
(11:51:39 AM) cody-somerville: I'd encourage everyone to join us in #xubuntu-devel and to get involved!
(11:51:48 AM) knome: Me too. See you there!
(11:51:52 AM) Intey: OK that sounded weird and almost harsh what I mean is on top of Xfce versus Gnome, they tend to add more and more Eye candy than fixing bugs in recent ubuntu versions
(11:52:04 AM) cody-somerville: Xubuntu is easy to get involved with and there is lots of room to air your creativity :)