fidzu : GNOME

Hi all,

The PiTiVi development team is thrilled to announce a new release of the PiTiVi video editor.

Amongst the new features:

• video mixing/transparency support
• icon view in source list
• smoother scrolling
• modeless splitting
• seek on click
• faster waveforms
• zoom slider
• UI beautifications
• Speed optimisations
• dbus/hal dependency now optional
• translated in 30 languages

More info in the release notes , tarballs available on ftp.gnome.org and should be available on your distros any time soon (will be included in Lucid Lynx).

10 Mar 2010 7:50pm GMT

For as long as I can remember I have found the LWN.net Community Calendar very useful. It would perhaps be nice to have a similar web-based calendar for Fedora events across the world. Currently, the events are tracked by this page. That is nice but doesn't give the visual representation of a month full of events world-wide.

It would be nice to have a calendar that integrates with FAS and, allows someone to post the details of the event. Another group of folks, can take a look-see at the posting and approve it to be listed. The original poster could choose to be the event owner or, add someone who is the actual owner. Since Events etc fall under the ambit of FAmSCo, perhaps they might consider this stuff.

10 Mar 2010 4:53pm GMT

Monday I released Tomboy 1.1.4. Last month's 1.1.2 release was actually the first to feature automatic note synchronization (herein referred to as 'autosync'), but in 1.1.4 the feature is less annoying and you can actually turn it on in the Preferences UI. Here's the only possible autosync screenshot:


Here are some facts about autosync:

• It assumes the server is always right when conflicts occur, so if you actually found Tomboy's conflict-handling UI useful, don't use autosync
  
• When a sync occurs, it desensitizes all note windows, because Tomboy sync is still a bit insistent on believing in transactions.
  
• But in theory this should never be a problem for you, because Tomboy will never sync while you are editing a note. It will wait until *at least* one minute has passed where you have not been editing.
  
• Besides this desensitization of note windows, there is no indication at all that a sync has occurred. Next cycle, I intend to use libnotify bubbles and/or status icon changes where they make sense to let the user know if new updates have been downloaded, or if the sync server appears to be down, etc. Right now this feature is totally silent, though you can get a few details if you run from a terminal with --debug.

It's unfortunate that I've been too busy to publicize this feature until so very late in the cycle. I'd appreciate any testing, feedback, bug reports, etc. At this point all I can say is that it Works For Me.

Other sync-related news:

• Rumor has it that Ubuntu One note sync can no longer mangle your notes, unless you use their web editor, in which case the mangling is much less severe than in the past. I keep getting emails from Launchpad saying that Rodrigo has fixed yet another of the old irritating bugs, to the point that I've lost track and think he may have gotten the last of them! :-) This is great news for U1 users, who previously suffered from a few serious sync bugs.
  
• I've started the ball rolling on deploying Snowy on GNOME servers (this would be known as Tomboy Online, if the marketing team approves...I still need to email them).
  
• We have another Snowy planning meeting this weekend.
  
• Many thanks to Leon Handreke and Sander Dijkhuis for their valuable contributions to Snowy in git.
  
• Tomdroid 0.3.1 is out, and although it doesn't yet include web sync, the merge is impending!

Another feature in Tomboy 1.1.4 makes me very happy, might upset Tomboy old-timers, and could possibly cause Alex Graveley to destroy my very soul:

By default, when you rename a note, Tomboy will no longer automatically update all of the text that used to link to that note. Instead, if other notes link to the renamed note, Tomboy will show you a dialog (lame, I know, I intend to bind GtkInfoBar for next cycle to eliminate all dialogs in Tomboy) that lets you choose what to do. Here's an example screenshot, with the Advanced section expanded:



Some have argued that automatic link renaming is part of Tomboy's magic, but many many users (including me) consider this dark magic to be a serious potential data loss bug. If you've ever had a note called "Linux", and renamed it to "openSUSE", and been dismayed to find that everywhere in your notes where it used to say "linux" it now says "openSUSE", you know what I'm talking about.

In the future, I'd like to allow folks to have more control over note linking behavior. Many users have expressed a desire to turn off automatic linking, or to be able to link arbitrary text to another note (not just text that matches the note's title). Enough people have asked for it that it'll probably happen, though of course patches would make it happen faster.

Next time you hear from me, Tomboy 1.2.0 should be out, and we should be making progress on getting Tomboy Online deployed!

10 Mar 2010 3:45pm GMT

Ladies and gentlemen, God Street Wine is getting back together for a couple of shows this summer and their fan club presale tickets go on sale in a half hour. I was bummed because I was getting on a flight to Austin for a friend's wedding, right before ticketing opened. Well, I am on that flight now and apparently all American Airlines domestic flights have WiFi. Technology can be awesome sometimes (usually when it makes it easier to do every day things). Let's just hope my battery doesn't die before I can snag a few tickets.

Note: Fedora connected flawlessly. Bar none, we have the easiest networking setup out there. Dan Williams has done a kick ass job with Network Manager!

Update: Just purchased six tickets for Friday and six for the Saturday shows! The money goes to a good cause and I have plenty of friends who will come back to NY for this.

[read this post in: ar de es fr it ja ko pt ru zh-CN ]

10 Mar 2010 2:40pm GMT

I've been meaning to follow-up on Shaun's recent bog post about "Explain More" when writing user help. Zonker's blog post this morning on how to write an interview finally motivated me to get this blog post done.

One of my favorite sayings in a work environment is "Plan the work and work the plan". This applies to writing as well.

One of the two major takeaways I had last year after attending the first Writing Open Source conference was the importance of planning. At least for me, almost of all the heavy lifting and hard work is done in the planning phase. (Not that writing and editing are easy either, but the planning for me is where my brain works the hardest).

When I was in school, especially high school, all of my English teachers required an outline when writing a term paper. School was fairly easy for me and I'd just write the paper and then do the outline. Oh, how I wish I had listened to them and learned those skills then!

It's fascinating to me reading novels and then reading about or listening to an author talk about the years they spent researching their book. After last year, it's finally clicked for me. (Having just finished io9's recent book club selection, The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi I found his answers in the book club Q&A session fascinating, especially his research on Thailand and the Thai culture).

Planning your writing will help you connect with your readers, stay on message and help you faster. (Faster isn't always better but you may spend less time getting stuck or if you do get stuck, be able to write the next section that you've planned and come back and finish where you were stuck).

Whether it's user help, a blog post or an interview, spend some time thinking about what you want to write about and who your audience is. Your readers will thank you.

10 Mar 2010 1:56pm GMT

(Public service announcement: I've always hated themes and still wish they'd mostly just go away so we could all just concentrate on building and using the same sexy pixel-perfect GNOME look-and-feel. GNOME branding wins, performance wins, some people complain but don't they always, yadda yadda. Now, with that out of the way…)

I was having a look at this OpenSolaris bug report yesterday. Basic problem: icons from the OpenSolaris Nimbus theme are showing up in some places larger than they ought to. Apparent cause is that the icon theme doesn't provide those particular icons in a small enough size, and the larger versions aren't being scaled down as required. The vinagre toolbar is the example given in the bug report, but I've seen it other places too (e.g. in the Glade toolbar editor).

Having a look at the index.theme file for Nimbus, I saw that all the icon folders were marked as "Type=Fixed", and assumed that was the problem. However, I spent a couple of hours trying every combination of "Type=Scalable", "Type=Threshold" and Threshold=[some-big-number]", and "MinSize=[some-small-number]" that I could think of, and nothing changed. (I regenerated the icon cache after each change, and also tried without any icon cache at all.)

Just what should an index.theme file look like to ensure that (say) the 48×48 icons will always be scaled down to (say) 24×24 when required? Nimbus also has its own engine, could a bug there cause this problem? Or a bug in the gtk+ widgets/applications where we're seeing the issue?

EDIT: Further to Matthias' comment, Type=Scalable is working fine now. Not sure what I was doing wron yesterday…

10 Mar 2010 12:20pm GMT

Many of you have been asking for some correspondence regarding the button position in the window manager.

Here it is.

At Ubuntu we have a golden opportunity not only to make our OS as good as the competition but to make it better. The button position discussion and analysis started with:

- Why do Mac OS and Windows have the buttons where they do?

- What was the functional reason behind the Mac OS choice (or the Windows position for that matter)?

- Why, when most application menus are top left should the window controls go top right?

- Why, when we read left to right is the most destructive action first?

- Are we smoking crack to think that the learning curve for getting used to a new position is ever going to be worth any real or perceived benefit of new positions?

As part of a major theme update it felt appropriate to ask these questions.

After the internal debate and analysis (which went something like the picture below) we decided to put this version in the theme and to use it. I have had it running on my machine with the buttons in this order since before the Portland sprint (first week of February?) and I am quite used to it.

Is it better or worse?

It is quite hard to tell. The theme has been in the alpha since Friday. Now that you have had a chance to use it what do you think?

Personally, I would have the max and min on the left and close on the right.

10 Mar 2010 10:11am GMT

I am currently visiting the Centre for Next Generation Localisation to work on a localisation guide for Amharic. It is part of the subproject for training in the African Network for Localisation. Hopefully we'll have our results on the ANLoc website soon.

10 Mar 2010 6:25am GMT

Just wanted to update everyone who showed interest in the new release of GNOME Developer Kit I announced yesterday. Based on some preliminary statistics I collected in the (less than) last 24 hours, it seems that the VMware image type got the most download, followed closely by the installable ISO format. I guess that was due to VirtualBox being able to use *.vmdk files and some people opting for the free virtualization tool.

Here are the preliminary results so far:

1. VMware image: 42 downloads
2. Installable ISO: 26 downloads
3. RAW filesystem image: 17 downloads

Due to the number of downloads and and comments I received, I felt that I should provide with some background on how to install/remove packages and update your system using the conary package management system. So here you go:

The package management system behind the GNOME Developer Kit is called conary and is considered by many as the next generation package management system when compared to some of the popular options out there. One of the reasons behind this claim is the fact that your entire system is actually completely maintained in a versioned state, and conary is always "aware" of what is installed on your system and what files and dependencies make up the entire "set". This allows for some pretty nifty operations such as rolling back to a specific state of your system.

In order to check for new updates for your system, open a terminal and run the command sudo conary updateall. conary will then check for updates and prompt you to accept the update or not. Please keep in mind that the first time you run conary for the first time, you will experience a delay as your entire system gets analyzed in preparation for the changes that are to take place. All subsequent actions performed will be much faster, I promise. If after a while you don't feel like waiting for the prompt, add -no-interactive to the update command to have your system updated automatically.

Now, let's just say that you decided to install something new, such as Banshee. Easy, just run sudo conary update banshee (remember to add -no-interactive for no-hands updates) and voilá!

Want to know what was actually installed on your system? conary q banshee will tell you what version of banshee was installed. How about what files were installed? conary q -ls banshee will give you a list of all the files that were installed and conary q -lsl banshee will give you the long list with file permissions and modes.

Changed your mind and want to remove banshee from your system? sudo conary erase banshee will take care of that. Want to actually roll your system back to the state it was before you installed banshee instead? sudo conary rollback 1 will rollback your system exactly one transaction. Want to go further back? Just increase that number to represent how many transactions to roll back. Want to rollback but don't remember what point in time you want to go? sudo conary rblist will display a list of all transactions and what was changed. Note that each transaction is preceded by the letter "r", so if you want to rollback to the point r.15, then use sudo conary rollback r.15 (and don't forget that "r" or you'll rollback exactly 15 transactions instead).

How about searching for a package? If it is something that it is already installed on your system, then conary q [package name] will give you the information you want. If the package is not installed on your system yet, then conary rq [package name] is what you need, though since conary does not yet make use of metadata, you'll need to know the exact name of what you're looking for. Now, let's say you want to find out what package provides the command /sbin/service? Use conary q -path /sbin/service to find out that initscripts:runtime=8.81.2-0.11-1 is responsible for providing it (use rq if you want to search the remote repository).

Well, I think this is enough to get you going. You'll probably want to install Flash and media codecs to enjoy browsing some sites and listening to your media, so let's apply what we've learned so far and run: sudo conary update flashplayer group-codecs

If you've stayed with me until now, you may want to read up on what else conary can do or even consider packaging for GNOME Developer Kit. Your help will be greatly appreciated!

10 Mar 2010 4:24am GMT

In the GNOME beer event, I had a nice chat with ebassi about the problems around our build configuration system and how things like CMake, SCons and Waf do not get the full picture and do not cover some of the really strange corncercases that autotools supports and therefore, coming up with a solution would be a 1 year work with a team of really experienced engineers.

As stubborn as I am, I decided to prove him wrong so I give you BuilDj:

The Problem

My main problem with our current Autotools situation are these:

• It is not portable as it encourages strong use of Bash and command line tools which ends up making it really hard to use on a non POSIX system, you know, like that used by 92% of the desktop users, even if the source code itself is perfectly portable.
• It gets on your way, a lot. Sometimes I refrained from writing some testcases just to avoid to add the Autotools boilerplate.
• Really bad documented, still.
• You need to learn M4/Autoconf, Automake, Make and Bash to use it properly, as if learning C, C++ or Vala and worrying about the problem the programmer is trying to solve is not hard enough.
• None extends it because it's hard to extend.
• Its hard to read and understand even if you eventually wrote it yourself, makes code refactoring a big pain.
• You simply can't parse autotools and have an IDE or a continous integration tool to understand what's there.
• The most important one, it scares peoples away, damaging our mindshare, making potential contributors go away. It drains the fun out of our platform.

Requirements

We need a human+machine friendly project description format, that it's pleasant to the eye when you read it, that it's intuitive enough to let you understand what's going on even if you never saw it before.
A format that gets out of your way!

It should support all of the common tasks a GNOME maintainer does (in-line .pc and .desktop file definition, mkenums, gobject introspection support, cross-compilation support, pkg-config oriented, xdg mimetype registration/definition, integration with intltool), but it should suppor them in a meaningful and unobtrusive way.

It should not be a programming language, but support embedable programming extensions with a well documented API, so that IDEs can integrate it.

My Proposal

A JSON description format called BuilDj that is build-system agnostic (although its reference implementation is done with Waf)

{
        "project":
        {
                "name": "BuilDj Test",
                "version": "0.0.1",
                "url": "http://www.codethink.co.uk"
        },
        "requires":
        {
                "gtk+-2.0": 
                {
                        "type": "package",
                        "version": "2.14",
                        "mandatory": "True"
                }
        },
        "targets":
        {
                "my_shared_lib":
                {
                        "type": "sharedlib",
                        "tool": "cc",
                        "input": ["lib.c"],
                        "version": "1.2.3"
                },
                "my_gtk_program":
                {
                        "type": "program",
                        "tool": "cc",
                        "input": ["gtk_program.c"],
                        "uses": ["my_shared_lib"],
                        "packages": ["gtk+-2.0"]
                },
                "my_vala_program":
                {
                        "type": "program",
                        "tool": "vala",
                        "input": ["vala_program.vala"],
                        "packages": ["gtk+-2.0"]
                }
}

I don't even need to explain what that means right? By the way, this stuff already works, check the git repository.

Currently it is implemented as a waf wscript that parses the project.js json file, I'm not really interested in entering the build system wars but focuing on having a reference implementation of the format.
I choosed waf because it was the only one that offered most of the features I want as an approachable API and it only adds python as a dependency.

Implementations of the format in other systems are more than welcome, but current development will stick to waf in the foreseeable future.

I'm planning to propose and mentor this work as a Summer of Code project so that we can implement the missing basic features and support for a few GNOME apps.

There's a lot of work to do, support for C++, library and function checking, system type sizes, full cross compilation support. We already have some mockups and plans for those, and the waf maintainer has shown himself quite happy to accept patches upstream for the general purpose tools and that make things easier.

Despite the missing features, it surprisingly itches some of my own scratches already.

P.S. Anjuta and MonoDevelop guys, if you're listening, I'd love to get your feedback!

10 Mar 2010 2:55am GMT

This blog entry represents the views of me, myself and I, and does not represent the views of my employer (Canonical) or System 76. While I have decided to write a review of this specific machine, there are many vendors out there who ship Ubuntu on their machines and this review does not favor System76 over these other vendors. Heck, I am happy to review their machines too if they want.

Recently I got one of these new System 76 ultra-thin laptops, the Lemur:

System76 are well known in the Open Source community for shipping Ubuntu on their machines, being active community members and for helping LoCo teams with machines too. I have never owned a System76 box so I thought this was a good opportunity to give it a ride and share some feedback.

So first, the specs:

• Display: 14.0″ HD WXGA Super Clear Ultra-Bright LED backlit (1366 x 768)
• Graphics: Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics
• Audio Output: Intel High Definition Audio
• Networking: Gigabit LAN (10/100/1000), WiFi
• Wireless: 802.11 agn
• Expansion: Express Card 34 slot
• Ports: HDMI, VGA, 3 x USB 2.0, Headphone Jack, Microphone Jack, SD Reader
• Camera: Built-In 1.3 MP Webcam
• Security: Kensington® Lock
• Power Management: Suspend & Hibernate
• Battery: Lemur UltraThin Li-Polymer Battery Pack
• AC Adapter: includes one AC adapter
• Dimensions: 13.38″ x 9.09″ x 0.90″ (WxDxH)
• Weight: 3.5 lbs

The machine I got has an Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 1.3 GHz 800 MHz FSB 3 MB L2 (10 Watt), 4GB RAM (DDR3 1066 MHz 1 DIMM) and a 80 GB Intel X25-M Solid State Drive.

Now, in the interests of full disclosure: I don't really do reviews, so this is going to be a quick run through the details, not a 150-picture unboxing and War And Peace epic of every minor detail of the machine. I just wanted to get my experience down as quickly as possible so I could share my feedback with others.

The Machine

OK, let's zip through the summary:

The machine is a really sleek looking bit of kit. The first thing that struck me is how well designed it feels: it doesn't feel like a randomly thrown together collection of components. It is thin and incredibly light, and has a very Apple-ish feel to it. It passed what I am calling the Lost Test: that is, when laid in bed at night watching Lost on Hulu with said laptop rested on your chest (for that IMAX effect), how many episodes can you get though before you feel like your heart is about to overheat and stop working. It's lightness and lack of heat helped it pass with flying colors.

The screen looks great, doesn't seem to smudge easily and is nice and bright. I like the fact it is a widescreen, something I miss with my current Thinkpad.

The keyboard is pretty much ok: it ain't no Thinkpad keyboard, but of all the laptops I have owned and that are buried in my laptop graveyard, the Lemur's keyboard feels better than most. The keys are wide enough and I love the fact that there is no Windows key, but instead an Ubuntu key. I want to see more of that, yes I do.

The trackpad is long and feels pretty good, and the buttons don't look like buttons but instead areas on the trackpad near the bottom where you can push down: this makes it look really sleek. Unfortunately at first the buttons are a little hard to press, but I have noticed that they are getting easier, so I think they just need breaking in a little.

With the current configuration of processor and RAM, this thing is shit off a shovel fast. It zips along like no-ones business, and Ubuntu is up and running in a matter of seconds. While I didn't test any hardcore 3D games on there, it runs Compiz great with the extra effects switched on.

Sounds works great, the speakers sound surprisingly good and the built-in webcam works well too. Finally, the battery life seems fine in terms of life, but not outstanding. Then again, I am used to my extra-long-life Thinkpad batteries.

My only real gripe believe it or not is the packaging the machine comes in: it visually looks cheap with a large generic "notebook" logo and doesn't reflect the swishness of the machine encased inside it. I spoke to Carl Richell, founder of System76 about this and he has acknowledged it is an issue and they are keen to fix it: he said they really want every essence of the System76 experience to feel sleek. Good man.

The Default Install: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

It is just incredible driving back from picking up a computer from the UPS warehouse and knowing that it already has Ubuntu pre-installed. I have never bought a pre-installed Ubuntu computer before, so I was curious to see how it looked. I got it home, switched it on and it threw up the installer's configuration settings: I entered my details and the system was ready to roll. I was left with pretty much a default installation of Ubuntu: there is not the horrible bundled collection of software you don't want and ugly vendor wallpaper that you find if you buy a typical Windows pre-loaded machine. Good work System76 on shipping what I consider a great representation of Ubuntu.

Other than that, nothing much to say: everything just works as you would expect.

Running Lucid

Being part of the Ubuntu development team, I was keen to get Lucid on there. I used Update Manager to update to Lucid and installation was smooth. Once again everything works: any bugs that I have found have not been specific to this machine, but replicated on my other Lucid machine. What is really noticeable is boot speed on the SSD: it is bonkers fast.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I think the Lemur is a beautiful machine, and combined with what I consider a beautiful Operating System, particularly with the new fit and finish of Lucid. When running the Lemur it really feels like great design in hardware and software meeting well. I would happily recommend this machine to others.

10 Mar 2010 2:54am GMT

…that this part of my desktop could feel so sleek:

Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, we are ready for you.

09 Mar 2010 10:25pm GMT

Qaiku, the conversational microblogging service that launched a year ago had a refresh that launched today. While it hasn't yet convinced the twittering masses, it has already proven itself as a lot more thoughtful platform for the Finnish online community, and as a valuable workstreaming tool.

The new version looks quite nice and fresh. Notice the privacy information on the right-hand side, which is relevant as Qaiku allows channels and profiles that are private or invitation-only:

Technically the new version is also remarkable as it is the first major website to run fully on top of the legacy-free Midgard2 platform. So yes, every entry you see there is a GObject. And D-Bus signals fly when you post.

On to the challenge, then

To highlight Qaiku's threading, conversational nature I started a new "On my travels, I have" thread for sharing your most extraordinary travel experiences. This is not on Twitter or Buzz as with Qaiku it is so easy to keep the conversation together and accessible for the future as well.

To contribute, sign up on Qaiku, go to the thread and add your experiences as a comment. If you have a link or picture to include, you can also do so. My first entry was:

seen ice descend from the heavens and provide us with cold beer on a hot day in Lesotho

Will be interesting to see what comes out of this :-)

09 Mar 2010 9:10pm GMT

// Because sometime you just need everything in the global context
var Module = imports.module;
for (i in Module)
    this[i] = Module[i]; 

// note this only works from scripts eval'ed via the C API
// gjs_context_eval or gjs_context_eval_file
// as this == [global object]

[read this post in: ar de es fr it ja ko pt ru zh-CN ]

09 Mar 2010 7:40pm GMT

The slides for my talk about the audio infrastructure of Linux mobile devices at BOSSA 2010 in Manaus/Brazil are now available online. They are terse (as usual), and the most interesting stuff is probably in what I said, and not so much in what I wrote in those slides. But nonetheless I believe this might still be quite interesting for attendees as well as non-attendees.

The talk focuses on the audio architecture of the Nokia N900 and the Palm Pre, and of course particularly their use of PulseAudio for all things audio. I analyzed and compared their patch sets to figure out what their priorities are, what we should move into PulseAudio mainline, and what should better be left in their private patch sets.

09 Mar 2010 6:04pm GMT

UPDATE: Thanks Alberto Ruiz for pointing out that VirtualBox can use .vmdk files, so the VMware image can be used for that purpose.

Thanks to the incredible work of Zhang "Jesse" Sen and Vladimir Melo, a brand new release of the GNOME Developer Kit has been published! "What's new", you may ask? Everything, since all packages are built directly from git.gnome.org! But that alone is not what makes this release so cool, but the fact that the final image went through a dramatic "diet", shedding a lot of its "weight" and going from a 1.4GB monster to less than 700MB of pure GNOME goodness!!!

From Screenshots

Firefox was replaced by Epiphany and codecs and fancy-Nancy stuff was scrapped to make room for a lightweight release for developers and translators!

So go ahead and try the new images today:

• x86 VMware (R) Virtual Appliance 636 MB, SHA1: 4b4266fc1a65189d65efd7f3ac51797396babf78
• x86 Appliance Installable ISO 697 MB, SHA1: c3345cadae9c7338d0b92ba0ad1a187930652357
• x86 Parallels, QEMU (Raw Hard Disk) 644 MB, SHA1: e3dbbff4e65f8e086f422885a24d8ee04bc89f44

09 Mar 2010 5:24pm GMT