UK Linux User Groups

It started off by being a place that everyone could chat and talk about things that were happening in the QA cycles inside CentOS. But things have changed quite a lot - our QA cycles are a lot shorter, there is a lot more automation and there is almost no real security exposure to users.

And I think we can do this better. We can create a better end user experience that gives them direct access, easily, to the state of play within the testing. And we should be able to automate more to get better coverage.

To that aim, qaweb.dev.centos.org is now going away. And we are working on some alternatives. Starting with having a nightly QA cycle, that considers point releases and all updates upto that point. And adding more external tests as well, like the ltp content ( http://ltp.sourceforge.net/ ). If you wish to join in that effort, drop in on the centos-devel list ( http://lists.centos.org/ ) and jump right in. Ref threads: http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2013-March/009098.html and http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2013-March/009099.html

Here is a link to the official announcement that just went out : http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2013-March/019649.html

See you there,

- KB

Notes made on the 22:30 from Euston to Birmingham, whilst returning home to the provinces after treating myself to an evening of presentations and discussion with Dan Hill, Jeremy Till and Wouter Vanstiphout under the title Institutionalised…

Housed in the Black Maria installation at St Martin’s by Richard Wentworth/GRUPPE we were split into eager registrants who’d secured a ‘seat’ and lazy laggards who just turned up to freeload by taking a chair outside the installation and behind the projection screen. Proceedings get underway with the barrier between us raised and the talk show hosts/guests in the middle, then at the appointed moment when sufficient teasing has taken place, the screen falls (to the sound of a jet aircraft landing) and we become the privileged few allowed sole rights to the speaker’s attention and slides that are the right way round, whilst the rest get only sound piped through speakers and reversed images and text. It’s a privilege that is later slightly sullied by the numbness of our arses as they complain about the unforgiving plywood steps we’re sitting on. The fact that Richard Wentworth himself chose to sit on the chairs outside should have told us something perhaps.

It’s a beautiful thing though, and perhaps the very embodiment of what would during the evening be discussed as the conflict between the teaching of craft and ethics. Carefully crafted as it is to disrupt the usual ethics of oratory; thereby straddling both concepts perfectly.

The evening is introduced by Shumi Bose and the speakers are described as one qualified architect (Till) and two people who inhabit the ‘extended field of architecture’ (Hill and Vanstiphout). It’s this extended field that is of course the primary focus for the evening and a topic ripe for exploration in the UK at the moment given the widely discussed/lamented state of the profession and it’s utter lack of direction or worth. How does a mindful awareness of this extended field allow architecture to work within, against or for institutions?

Here are some (crudely paraphrased) sound bites and notes from each:

Jeremy Till – institutional irritant

1) provides a short intro and begins by reading the founding definition of the RIBA (quoted in his book Architecture Depends), part of which can be paraphrased thus: ‘architects are to be the arbiters of taste’ and he then states that this institute’s position is only legitimised by the support of other institutes i.e. universities.

2) he criticises architecture for becoming a spatial projection of imagination (or does he? see footnote)

3) acknowledging his position in the large institute of St Martin’s he describes himself as the institutional irritant that seeks to disrupts from within, but acknowledges that the more effective position may be on the outside

Wouter Vanstiphout – architect as figurehead

4) describing background and past work Wouter talks of his Design as Politics course

5) which leads to later studies on the politics of urban riots and the question of whether the fabric of the city itself is an accessory to the violence with the architect ultimately to blame

6) he proposes that the reason for this is in fact because architecture has merely become the visible garnish/figurehead/tip of the iceberg for the (massive) process of (brutal) urban renewal
beneath or behind it driven by institutions such as the state or the market.

7) underlining the power of the market he shows a picture of a city skyline filled with large buildings by internationally renowned architects, highlighting that their existence/creation is/was
dependent not on the people who inhabit them but the market that requires investment objects

Dan Hill – boundary operator

8) Dan starts by reflecting Wouter’s iceberg by showing Papenek’s triangular diagram with the designer’s share taking only a small proportion of the real problem beneath

9) he questions the ability of yesterday’s institutions to produce the necessary outcome for tomorrow

10) showing examples of projects from his time at Sitra and HDL he explores various examples of the networked city

11) suggesting that activity undertaken by a city’s inhabitants are less important for the actions themselves rather than the ability to make networked decisions about what to do

12) in turn suggesting that the culture of public decision making is the design challenge

13) and that in this networked city the government now has competition

14) thus returning to the question of whether 19th century institutions are capable of facing 21st century problems

15) Dan suggests that the experience he’s had in three different organisations of different roles and scales could be described as inside, outside and (during his time at Sitra) at the boundary of key institutions

16) in summary the goal should be to design the conditions that allow institutions to address meaningful public issues

Each had touched on a question of position relative to the institution or institutions that determine one’s role. Jeremy began by questioning whether it’s better to disrupt from within or beyond, Wouter described the dangers of unwittingly becoming a figurehead for the institution behind you and Dan demonstrated what might be possible at the boundary between the two. I think these positions were further contextualised by comments during the discussion at the end of the evening when Wouter (expanding on his comments about market driven investment objects) questioned the possible conflict of loyalties between the direct source of funding from a client vs. the city in which the work is carried out. How do you maintain the balance between civic responsibility and client loyalty? Following that a question from a planner in the audience about the panel’s view on how the UK’s NPPF and debate on localism might impact the institution brought an acknowledgement of the value of the neighbourhood forum. In there somewhere there were also comments about the market of supply and demand that suggested that the profession concerns itself too much with the supply side, when in fact it should work harder to raise and support the demand.

Neighbourhoods – the demand market – are the boundaries to institutions in which an architect’s loyalties must be invested.

It’s fitting then that the following 24 hours of media coverage in the UK built environment has provided much coverage of a growing interest in the power of self build and co-housing ideas and it’s certainly helping me form ideas about which direction I’d like to head in future with my practice.

Finally, I’d like to end by recording a wonderfully succinct and compelling description of the perils of what Wouter described as the neo-liberal myth of the benefits of rolling back the state. Rather than the space left over being filled by the common man, it’s simply claimed by the private market instead.

Horse meat lasagne anyone?

* Note: I appear to have heard Jeremy’s comment on the projection of spatial imagination entirely differently to the fellow on my left, Charles Holland off of FAT who wrote it down properly:

Ever heard of a CoderDojo neither had I till a few months ago, but they seem to have really taken off in Ireland and it’s brilliant to see happening.  For those unaware what they are : CoderDojo is a global collaboration providing free and open learning to young people, especially in programming technology There are [...]

I am having to fill in a questionaire designed by SecurityMetrics to conform to PCI Compliance standards and am painfully getting fined for non-compliance. I told them I was running Ubuntu Linex and that the ports are closed. They still said I have to complete the questionare to obtain complaince.

The questions I am not sure how to answer are to do with firewall software and the configeration is to the standard they require; whether I need to install anti-virus software: and on what criticial security patches I have.

read more

New blog post: Nokia Lumia 920 Day One @ andrewsavory.com/blog/2013/3227 //cc @Nokia_Connects #switchtolumia #nokialumia920

Earlier this week, Nokia Connects invited people to Trial a Nokia. I’ve not used Windows Phone 8 or the new Lumia devices, so I eagerly volunteered. Here’s what I pitched:

My idea is simply to live with Windows Phone as my primary handset, and to honestly and openly blog about it – like I did for the TouchPad and the Nokia N95 (part one, part two).

I’ll install apps. I’ll run my life from the phone. I’ll take the opportunity to try out the Windows Phone SDKs to get my simple proof-of-concept Tube Status app up and running. I’ll throw an Apache Cordova app together.

But first and foremost, I’ll see if this is finally the phone to bring me back to Nokia. It’s been six years since my N95. I’d like to see what’s changed since then.

The phone arrived yesterday – an incredibly fast turnaround by the Nokia folks. Here’s my first impressions, as they happened, stream-of-consciousness style.

Box is … meh. Same as every other mobile phone box. Nothing to judge, nothing to see here, move along. Opening it up…

OMG YELLOW

 

Actually, I love the metallic yellow plastic finish. It reminds me of a die-cast toy car.

OMG HEAVY. Actually not that heavy, similar to iPhone 4S, but the length of the phone makes it feel disproportionately top-heavy. I’ve also been using a Galaxy SIII recently, 

Plugged in to charge. Turned on! Weird. Powered off by holding down power off button. I like the visual style of the “goodbye”.

Oh, it’s on again.

I tested my other phones. The Samsung stays off when turned off whilst plugged in, but keeps a battery indicator on screen. The iPhone will stays off when turned off whilst plugged in.

I admit to reading about the phone that won’t stay off. Moving on.

Ok, time to do setup. Open up with the handy SIM removal tool. Take a deep breath. Turn off the iPhone. Remove the SIM. Stick it in the Lumia. Power on. Picked up network – good, this Lumia is not network-locked.

I’m not getting the full “first run” experience. That’s a shame – Nokia, you might want to ship these factory-reset.

While searching for “Lumia Factory Reset” I get a text from o2:

“O2: If you’d like to use Wap or Mms on this phone we’ll need to help, so please call us free on 08448090202.”

Urgh. Why, o2? Why not push the configs automatically, provide a URL with handy info, or “text HELP and we’ll call you“?

Found http://www.hard-reset.com/nokia-lumia-920-hard-reset.html

So, how to reset a Lumia:

• On the start screen, swipe in from the right-hand edge. Scroll down to Settings and select.
• In Settings, scroll to about Windows Phone and select.
• Scroll down and tap reset your phone, then confirm by tapping yes.

It took a minute or so to reset. I noticed curiously the phone settings aren’t alphabetical. Since they are a text list, it feels like they should be.

Ok, that’s better. “Let’s get started” – well, alright then! (Minus one point to the Microsoft designers for repetition of Windows Phone on that screen.)

Terms of use. Does anyone actually click on them? Did anyone notice it starts with “Thank you for choosing Windows Phone!“? Aww, the lawyers love me!

I’m on the Setup screen.

There’s lots of information on the “recommended” configuration, but not so much info on “custom”. What does custom mean? It would be nice to have some examples.

Given the dearth of information on the alternative, I select “recommended”.

Next is the Windows Live (or whatever it’s called this week) account page.

There’s a bit of a bug that on the signup page there’s no way to hide the keyboard (unless I missed it). Much scrolling of the remains of the screen to see checkboxes (which, when clicked, hide the keyboard). I had this same problem with Windows 8 on a tablet. Major design flaw. Astounding this hasn’t been picked up in user experience testing.

It’s funny to start with signing in to Windows Live and not setting up WiFi. I feel this will bite me later.

Ok, it’s later. Signing in didn’t work, it seems my mobile data connection isn’t working, so I had to skip adding my account and will then add it afterwards.

I want to fix my mobile data settings. Some googling shows up settings: http://getsettings.o2.co.uk/ It’s as easy as texting o2!

Nope: that’s iPhone only. Strike two for o2.

I find some o2 apn settings online, but decide to contact o2 instead, on the number they texted me. Remember, they said “If you’d like to use Wap or Mms on this phone we’ll need to help” so they should be able to assist. I dial the number. Wait, it’s a generic number. I’m in a menu (“press one for accounts, …”). That’s appalling service. o2 know why I am calling, why don’t they have a custom number that jumps straight to someone handing out APN details?

I’m recording the call (for quality and training purposes), so it’s on speakerphone. I notice the speakerphone is quieter than the S3.

o2 manage to help me by switching my APN from one o2 setting to another.

While I’m in settings, I set up wifi.

So time to add accounts. I add hotmail, google, Facebook, twitter … but then I notice I get an error:

It’s a rather disingenuous error! If you were to read it without thinking, you might assume there is a problem with twitter. There’s not – what it actually means is Windows Phone has a problem connecting to twitter. It’s pretty ugly behaviour to blame a third party service rather than being honest.

The design language of the phone feels familiar … very xbox.

I’m not sure I like the phone network status disappearing from the top-left. I’m too used to having permanent status indicators – the menu bar on my Mac has more than a dozen indicators.

I decide to make sure I’m on the latest and greatest version of Windows Phone. I go into Settings, and click on updates.

Checking for updates … takes … forever … and I lost patience. Time to try something else.

Time to add some apps.

The problem with a search button is it gets confusing when an app has search – like the Windows store.

There’s a big search button on-screen, but then another hardware search bottom-right. The on-screen search is for the store, the hardware search is for Bing. Since it’s always there, I want to use the hardware search in a context-sensitive fashion.

I install apps based on which ones I use on my iPhone.

Foursquare, British Airways, Battle.net authenticator, Flickr, Flixster, Tesco, Ocado, Last.fm, Netflix, RedLaser, The Guardian, Tube Map, Weather: boom. Found it, installed it.

Cyclemeter: http://forums.wpcentral.com/windows-phone-apps/191077-best-running-cycling-apps.html suggests endomondo or runkeeper. I grab both.

As I’m searching for apps, I’m abruptly interrupted by software update. Very abruptly: I’m taken out of the app store and confronted with an update button. I didn’t even know updates had been found.

During the update (which worked, and was painless), I’m shown two reminders of the Windows legacy:

This is rubbish.

Update completed! Update completed! Update completed! Update completed!

Someone at Microsoft should be hanging their head in shame.

Back to the app install.

I’m pleasantly surprised: my bank has an app. It works just as nicely as the iPhone app – maybe even better, as the extra screen real estate allows more information on-screen at once.

Foursquare works, but I don’t get the icons. I miss the textual cues from Android and iOS.

As I’m installing apps, I notice this:

That’s right – the app name isn’t available so the list of apps shows @C:\Data\Programs\….

Muscle memory says the bottom middle of the phone turns it on. I don’t like the switch on the side.

End of day one summary

Key points:

• I don’t hate the phone. I’m actually finding it usable. I haven’t done much with it yet though, so time will tell. It feels like a confident interpretation of what a phone should be. Between iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone it seems there’s now a real opportunity for innovation and differentiation.
• Having said that, so far I haven’t seen any real wow! differentiator over iOS or Android.
• Interestingly, the biggest problems with the Nokia experience so far are the network operator and the operating system provider.
• I’m happy with the smooth and responsive UI (better than Android, though I haven’t tried a stock Jelly Bean device without OEM/Operator cruft), not quite as smooth as iOS, but really incredible when you think this is Windows.
• I don’t like the bad practices carried over from Windows. Poorly-designed software updates.
• I quite like the hardware – great screen, and I love the curved shape.
• I’m puzzled by the UI:
• why is my corporate mail account the very bottom tile on the home screen, while there are other tiles that I’ve never used further up? This is a smart phone … shouldn’t it figure out what’s important to me?
• why hasn’t the phone picked up the photo attached to my live.com account, and used it everywhere to personalise the experience?
• why doesn’t it automatically pull stuff from my xbox account? scratch that – it got the xbox stuff, presumably after the software update.

I think I need to give this phone more time to grow on me.

This is basically a link-post to the Debian Project Leader election email discussions on GMANE’s blog-style interface to debian-vote. After only 3 days of the 21, there’s already a pageful, so if I don’t start collecting links now, I’ll probably miss some. Right or wrong, I’ve grouped these into three topics:

The Job

1. Why do you think you are a good candidate for DPL (10 Mar 2013)
2. How do you plan to represent Debian externally? (10 Mar 2013)
3. about a DPL board (12 Mar 2013)
4. DPL term duration (12 Mar 2013)
5. Work balance and traveling (12 Mar 2013)
6. trying to do awesome and risking to fail (11 Mar 2013)
7. To Lucas: how do you plan to push your ideas (12 Mar 2013)
8. All candidates – quotes for the press if you win (13 Mar 2013)

Money

1. using debian funds for Debian’s hardware infrastru (12 Mar 2013)
2. Usage of Debian’s Money (12 Mar 2013)
3. Debian’s relationship with money and the economy (12 Mar 2013)

Project Management

1. getting new people to Debian (10 Mar 2013)
2. Free Software challenges and Debian role (11 Mar 2013)
3. Development and technical issues and challenges (10 Mar 2013)
4. Are there problematic infrastructure or processes in Debian? (12 Mar 2013)
5. to Moray: encourage teams to take interns (11 Mar 2013)

So, what do you think are the key points or differences? Leave me a comment, or get involved in the discussions. Campaigning ends and voting begins 30/31 March.

My webserver of choice is nginx, it's resource friendly, fast, reliable and versitile.

I have a resource constrained Debian 6.0 "server" at home and wanted to deploy nginx on it for testing. Sadly, the nginx package in the squeeze repositories is very old. Fortunately, the Debian Backports has a fairly current version, 1.2.1 as the time of writing.

To enable the backports repository add the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/backports.list.

deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main

Update the repositories.

sudo apt-get update

Install nginx. All backports are deactivated by default, so the apt-get use is somewhat different.

sudo apt-get -t squeeze-backports install nginx-full

nginx is now installed and can be configured in the usual way.

References

• http://backports-master.debian.org/
• http://packages.debian.org/squeeze-backports/nginx

Great oEmbed component for Adobe CQ from @zaphgod
youtube.com/watch?v=RF-mkF… and code: github.com/ugocei/oembed

Oh o2, where is the love? sdrv.ms/10S3F5V

Windows Phone showing it’s got a rich Microsoft Windows heritage behind it. sdrv.ms/XLsMEx

Windows Phone 8 mini-review:
A phone restart is required.
Goodbye.

Nice: Adobe CQ VLT plugin for Sublime Text 2: github.com/tomalec/Sublim… //cc @CQDev

What’s this? A shiny new toy for me to play with for the next two weeks thanks to @Nokia_Connects ! #switchtolumia http://t.co/qbmuEgnnoX

At what point does “focus” become “burning down the house around you”? I need x-platform feed syncing. Suggestions? googlereader.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/poweri…

Last week we ran our very first virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit. The event lasted two days and gave us an opportunity to try out a new format and to see how well it worked. Generally it seems we got some pretty favorable feedback, but there are definitely some areas in which we want to sand off the rough edges and improve the structure of the event.

I would like us to get the Virtual UDS format so tight and refined that it could be used to organize any kind of ad-hoc online set of meetings. As an example, I can imagine a similar event but focused explicitly on LoCo teams, or documentation, or translations. We want to make the format reliable enough and repeatable enough that anyone in our (or any other community) can use it. This will help our community to plan more regularly and get together more to do cool and interesting things.

We have been keeping an eye on some of the feedback, a combination of observations from comments and feedback send directly to the organizers. We had an initial chat today to discuss this initial feedback and we have a few changes we want to make already:

• Wrap-up Session – Many folks seemed to miss a wrap-up session with a set of track summaries. We want to add this for the next event.
• Remove Launchpad Registration – having to register in Launchpad seems rather futile and doesn’t service much of a purpose. We plan on removing this requirement for the next event.
• After Hours Session – at the last event there was an ad-hoc free for all hangout session at the end of sessions. This was a fun time to just hang out and be social with each other. We would like to do the same again and publicize it more.
• Improve Session Pages – the session pages (where you view each session) look rather cluttered right now. We want to tidy them up and also include features such as upcoming sessions and a Twitter stream so everyone can see what is going on at any time. Chris Johnston is currently working with our Web Development community to investigate better layouts.
• Improve Prep Docs – we discovered lots of useful best practices at the last event such as using the lower third to show the name of the person speaking, checking mic levels, and muting when not speaking. We want to improve and better promote this prep docs for everyone who joins the event.
• Encourage IRC Integration More – we noticed that in some sessions people pay attention to IRC better than others. I am going to update my introduction presentation to emphasize the importance of this more strongly, and we will build more awareness around the importance of doing this.
• Fix Page Reloading on Early Terminations – we noticed that on a few sessions there was a problem with the hangout and the session would need to be restarted but the page would not auto-reload the new feed (as the Javascript stops checking when the first hangout is successfully running). We want to fix this.
• Two Factor Auth! Be Gone! – no-one likes 2FA, it is annoying, so we want to see how we can remove it securely when you access the Etherpad so you don’t need to enter that damn code every-time-you-access-a-session.
• Integrate IRC/Etherpad Into Hangout Console – for those people in the actual hangout, one problem is that you have to constantly flip between the session screen with the IRC/Etherpad and the hangout window where you are broadcasting from. We want to integrate IRC and Etherpad into the hangout broadcast window to make this easier (and make it easier to keep an eye on IRC).

We Want Your Feedback!

Although some of these conclusions presented here are a great start, we want to make sure we don’t leave any stones unturned! As such, I would like to invite everyone who joined the event to take a few minutes to fill in this survey. This will help us get a better idea of your thoughts on the event, what worked well, and what we can improve. Can I encourage everyone to fill this survey in in the next week so we can start putting some solid plans in place for the next event.

I would also like to organize a community meeting on IRC and invite everyone to join and provide further feedback. I think it would be most beneficial to organize this meeting in a few weeks when folks have had a chance to fill in the survey.

You can also join the UDS IRC channel at #ubuntu-uds and discuss the event there; we all hang out in there.

Want to Help Make Summit Rock?

Virtual UDS is a community event and we want to ensure everyone has an opportunity to contribute to making it as good as possible. One definitive area where folks can help is with our increasingly sophisticated summit.ubuntu.com.

The Summit project is Open Source, and always open to new contributors. It is written in Python and Django, with a large amount of HTML, CSS and Javascript work at well. If you have any of these skills, or are willing to learn them, we encourage you to come be a part of it.

You can get the code and look at bugs on Summit’s Launchpad page. The developers hang out in #ubuntu-website on Freenode IRC, and are available there to help you get a local development environment set up. If in doubt, go and poke mhall119.

Thanks, everyone!

Hi,

Over the last couple of weeks, I've spent quite a lot of time online talking with people about various things. Either using software voice over IP or google-hangout or Skype or whatever. I've noticed recently there seems to be a growing trend for people to have more and more expensive and professional Microphones for these conversations.

Awesome.

Except, get a grip. There is a limit to what and how these Mic's are meant to be used. The point at which I can hear a cat crossing the road two blocks away from your house - too much. Either get a proper sound / recording room setup, or just use that mic on the webcam or laptop. Really, its good enough for these chats.

A £250 Sennheiser Mic for this sort of a thing, not needed. Talking about the mic setup and getting the wind-blow from when you mention P, not needed. You neither sound better not look prettier. Stick to that 1bit laptop mic. We'll all be happier for it.

- KB

Last week I had another birthday, which was nice. I'm now all mature, and everything. Honest.

I received a few surprise gifts from friends and strangers alike, which was pretty good. Other than that I didn't do too much.

This weekend I'm going to be using "airbnb" to spend the weekend in Dundee with my partner who is regularly commuting between Edinburgh and Perth/Dundee, to work in various hospitals. With all the commuting time she's not had too much time to explore the actual city, and I've only been there once before so I'm sure it will be a fun weekend.

The templer static site generator got a little bit of pimping on LWN.net the other day, thanks to Martin Michlmayr, although embarassingly I seem to have read the article and repeated the content in the conclusion, and duplicated that in my own comment. Ooops.

Beyond that I've done little coding recently, although I suspect now that nodejs has had a stable release I might do something interesting soon. I don't want to dwell on the failure of Sim City - because I don't run windows and couldn't have tried it even if I wanted to - but I'm pondering the idea of a persistant grid-space where different items can be placed.

I've not tried anything browser-based before, but the popularity of things like minecraft make me wonder if you had an "infinite grid" where folk could store "stuff", and scroll around in a browser you might be able to do interesting things.

Starting small, with a 100x100 grid, and some kind of updated play-by-mail turfwars/drug-war like experience should be simple. But then again enthusiasm is easy to generate until you start working out how you'd interface with the server and what kind of client you'd need.

Now to enjoy some 21 year old whisky and call it a night..