[ubuntu-uk] London Jaunty party

[Alan Bell]

I have tentatively put my name forward to help organise the London 
party. Not sure if Canonical have plans, so I sent a couple of emails 
this morning. I have a few ideas, but any thoughts on a good venue would 
be great. I would prefer something with a bar, but not something that 
excludes under 18s and people that don't want to drink.

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] London Jaunty party

[Alan Bell]

Dave Walker wrote:
> Alan Bell wrote:
>   
>> I have tentatively put my name forward to help organise the London 
>> party. Not sure if Canonical have plans, so I sent a couple of emails 
>> this morning. I have a few ideas, but any thoughts on a good venue would 
>> be great. I would prefer something with a bar, but not something that 
>> excludes under 18s and people that don't want to drink.
>>
>> Alan.
>>
>>   
>> 
> Hi Alan,
>
> Thanks for putting yourself forward.  We touched on this on IRC, but a
> follow up.  I have been trying to get info out of Canonical about the
> party they are organising, and the UK community are welcome to attend. 
> They are looking for a venue to house >200 people, as the last release
> venue was a touch cramped. 
that is putting it mildly! the place was heaving.
>  I have been told i'll get confirmation
> details next week.
>
> One reason the community hasn't wanted to organise in London, is that
> Canonical invariably will - and blow our plans out of the water.  It is
> worth noting that we had a release party before Canonical, and some of
> the top brass turned up to ours :).
>
> I'm expecting the Canonical bash to just be an evening/night event, if
> you are keen enough - it would be great to organise a day time event for
> those that can 'get away' during the working week.
>   
I think evening would be better all round. Daytime parties are not 
really my thing. A daytime installfest somewhere might work. Any takers 
for that?
> For people that don't live in London, regional release parties would
> still be a "total win" - However, I will be inclined to travel to the
> London one (~230 mile drive!), unless they don't clash - which means
> multiple parties!
>
> Thanks again!
>
> Kind Regards,
> Dave Walker
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Jaunty Jackalope

[Alan Bell]

ged byrom wrote:
> Is there any special reason for naming this release after a mythical beastie 
> rather than a real beastie ?
> Are we likely to see the haggis release or the even rarer mirk in the future ?
>
> Ged
>
>   
are you trying to say that the haggis is not a real animal?

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Jaunty Jackalope

[Alan Bell]

well now the Ibex is quite rare, I can't find one in any UK zoo, but 
there would appear to be about 300 in zoos worldwide: 
http://www.waza.org/cgi-bin/search/search.pl?Match=0&Realm=All&Terms=ibex

the haggis is much more common, but again I don't seem to find many in 
zoos. There is plenty of information on the internet about the haggis, 
particularly how to hunt the wild haggis :-)
http://haggishunt.scotsman.com/how_to_play.cfm

Alan.

red wrote:
> LOL OK the name, intrepid Bex wat zoo they live in and wat is one?
>
> Alan Bell wrote:
>   
>> ged byrom wrote:
>>   
>> 
>>> Is there any special reason for naming this release after a mythical 
>>> beastie rather than a real beastie ?
>>> Are we likely to see the haggis release or the even rarer mirk in the 
>>> future ?
>>>
>>> Ged
>>>
>>>   
>>> 
>>>   
>> are you trying to say that the haggis is not a real animal?
>>
>>   
>> 
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Manchester Ubuntu Release Party

[Alan Bell]

BBC sounds like a great location. For a local repo I would suggest 
installing apt-cacher on something and pointing to it as a proxy server 
in synaptic. Works a treat. Caches stuff and collects new packages on 
demand. You can then remove the proxy settings to be pointing back at 
the main repos.

Alan.

Tim Dobson wrote:
> Lucy wrote:
>   
>> Okay, I've spoken to someone at BBC Manchester and it's possible that
>> we will be able to use the BBC bar inside the BBC building on Oxford
>> Road. What do people think of this idea?
>>
>> The advantages are: it will be quiet, it's likely that we will have
>> the bar to ourselves. It has free wifi and projectors should we chose
>> to use them. It's in a central location and very easy to get to. It
>> also has the usual advantages of a pub.
>> 
>
> oh. Very nice.
>
> Whenever I've been to Manchester Werewolf Chapter[1] in the BBC bar it's 
> been very pleasant and seemed reasonably priced. I'm very happy with the 
> BBC.
>
> Maybe we could setup a local repository or something for extra quick 
> jaunty updates
>
> Tim
>
> [1] http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1844563/
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu pre-installed computer prices

[Alan Bell]

Fantastic to see any entry to the market with a non-windows PC. At the 
moment if we want to buy a desktop PC there are only a couple of places 
in the UK we can get one without Windows. The commodity desktop PC 
market is not a particularly nice place to be right now. The big boys 
appear to be playing a game of chicken with their prices attempting to 
put each other out of business I think. The problem is that if you offer 
a package that can be compared directly to a bargain Dell then you will 
always look expensive even though the Dell includes a boat anchor of a 
legacy operating system. We think the trick is to be uncomparable. We 
are in the process of launching a range of little servers that come with 
one of a range of interesting applications pre-installed and a days 
on-site installation and training plus remote backup and replacement. It 
is an inexpensive way to start using something like OpenERP or Moodle. 
For smaller businesses it will cope just fine for production use, for 
the bigger business it is an ideal pilot or proof of concept. We are not 
really targeting desktop users with this even though the hardware is 
basically a desktop PC. It is just too competitive. More details on our 
stuff here http://www.theopenlearningcentre.com/libertus.html

So my advice is add some value and bundle it all together with a good 
overall price tag. That could be training, documentation, installation 
etc. This is a little tricky with a desktop though. Maybe have a minimum 
order quantity of 10 and include a training class for 10 people. A 
minimum order quantity sounds a bit mad - you will be turning away 
sales, but you will have to think a little sideways or you will be 
playing the same game as the big boys and your money runs out before 
theirs does!

Alan.

Eddie Bernard wrote:
> Good morning everyone
>
> First off, a declaration of interest, I'm in business selling desktop
> PCs. However, to avoid accusations of spamming, I won't give further
> details (unless you actually want them!)
>
> My reason for contacting you all is a sort of market research, if
> you'll be kind enough to allow that. I am interested in your opinion
> on pricing for a computer with Ubuntu pre-installed, as it's a market
> I am currently looking into.
>
> I'm looking to offer a base unit, 2GHz dual core Celeron (E1400) with
> 2GB DDR2 PC2-6400 RAM, and a 150GB SATA hdd. Graphics, sound and
> ethernet are onboard. Like I said, I would install Ubuntu 8.10 (and,
> of course, ubuntu 9.04 when it's released!) and run through the update
> utility. I understand there are issues regarding selling a Ubuntu PC
> with non-free applications pre-installed (e.g. medibuntu) so I assume
> I will have to leave them off, but perhaps give advice to those who
> need it.
>
> I have a price in mind for this machine (including UK mainland
> delivery) - but I'm curious to hear what other people think might be a
> fair price for it.
>
> If you can help me I'd really appreciate it. If not, I apologise for
> transgressing!
>
> Thank you for your time
>
> Eddie
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu pre-installed computer prices

[Alan Bell]

Eddie Bernard wrote:
> Tim Powys-Lybbe wrote:
>
>   
>> Surely for the average user a LTS version would be better, such as 8.04?
>> Development versions and upgrades could raise severe antagonisms to you.
>> 
>
> Fair cop, glad you pointed that out. I need to curb my enthusiasm for
> always wanting to be on the bleeding edge...
>
> Eddie
>
> (apologies if this doesn't thread correctly, I messed up my mailing
> list subscription at first...)
>
>   
to offer a contrary view I would always go for the latest released 
version fully updated. The customer is likely to update it anyway, or 
think they are not getting the newest and shinyest operating system 
otherwise. LTS is arguably better for servers or corporate desktop 
rollouts (if you don't have landscape or any management tools) but for 
sellability to geeks and others go for new and shiny. If you can launch 
on April 23rd with Jauny pre-installed you might get a burst of 
interest. (was thinking of doing that myself)

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Squid proxy box with serious IPv6 DNS problem...

[Alan Bell]

I think from the description the squid thing is actually a red herring. 
(to mix a fishy metaphore). It sounds like your proxy server is not 
reliably resolving DNS when using IPV6. You will probably see this 
problem if you run firefox on the server.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/netcfg/+bug/24828

not sure how you turned off IPV6, one way is to edit
/ /etc/modprobe.d/aliases
and edit it to have this line:
/alias net-pf-10 off ipv6

a better solution would be to fix the actual problem, one way might be 
to point your proxy at openDNS which works fine with v6. I suspect the 
DHCP server is pointing your box at a bad router for DNS queries.

Alan.

LeeGroups wrote:
> Chaps...
>
> Over the last couple of days I've been trying to build a proxy box for a 
> load of Windows PCs, using Squid on Ubuntu server 8.04.
> I've had a few problems with it due to the wild/wacky filtered internet 
> connection we have there, but now I've hit a massive brick wall...
>
> Using an upstream proxy config Apt can get out to the internet fine, 
> download and update the OS.
>
> However, Squid can't resolve any DNS loopups... it just fails a few 
> minutes after loading.
>
> Doing a wget of a known file like the Google index page also fails with 
> a unresolved DNS error.
>
> However, (after much much much reading) using the -4 option of wget, to 
> force it to use IPv4, it works fine, resolves the Google address and 
> downloads the index page and saves it.
>
> I've blacklisted the IPv6 service, but wget (and Squid) still doesn't 
> work without the -4 option, so I guess bits of IPv6 are still hiding 
> there somewhere
>
> My question is - How do I fix this bloomin' thing?  I've been googling 
> for hours with only the -4 option to show for it... and I really need to 
> get this this working for Friday afternoon...  Otherwise bad Windows 
> things may happen...
>
> Cheers,
> Lee
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Squid proxy box with serious IPv6 DNS problem...

[Alan Bell]

LeeGroups wrote:
> Alan,
>
> I'm actually using OpenDNS's servers (after using the ISP's), what I 
> really don't understand is how Apt is working perfectly, but Squid and 
> Wget don't...
>
> I saw that post before, it's what I used to supposedly turn off IPv6.
>
> I can't run FF on the server, no gui installed...
>
> Lee
>
>
>   

OK, well I am pretty much out of ideas. You could try plugging it into a 
hub (not a switch, just a cheap nasty hub) and using another computer on 
the hub running wireshark to figure out at the packet level what sort of 
DNS queries it is doing.

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] remote accessing an ubuntu machine (vnc or similar)

[Alan Bell]

Stephen Garton wrote:
>
>
>
> I have used gitso (http://code.google.com/p/gitso/) with a reasonable 
> amount of success, for connecting linux and windows machines in all 
> configurations (i.e. L->L, L->W, W->L and W->W).
>
> I say reasonable amount of success purely because I don't use it very 
> often, but everytime I've needed it it works.
>
> It does require instigating by an end user (i.e. they ask for help) 
> which is different to having full access as and when you want it, but 
> if you are just supporting your brother, it could be ideal.
>
> If you do want access anytime, then +1 to the ssh option mentioned 
> later in the thread to where I have replied from.
>
> Steve Garton
> sheepeatingtaz.co.uk 

gitso is good, as is
x11vnc --connect 
where the supporter is running a listening VNC viewer.
The good thing about doing it this way is that the supportee can be on a 
dynamic IP address (or even if it is static they have no idea what their 
address is or how to set up an inbound connection which amounts to the 
same thing) You just map port 5500 to your PC on your firewall and run a 
listening VNC viewer. The supportee has no black magic to do on their 
router.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu broken, low graphics mode, no sound

[Alan Bell]

so was this using a fully updated Intrepid or a different version of 
Ubuntu? what version of virtualbox did you try to install?

Alan.

David King wrote:
> I got the normal graphics settings back by reselecting the nvidia driver 
> through the system settings, only for it to then remove about half my 
> installed programs!!
>
>
> G...
>
> This is the first time I have had a serious problem with Ubuntu, and 
> this is really annoying. Virtual Box has disappeared, for example, along 
> with Compiz, although I reinstalled that.
>
> When things like this can happen with an OS, I am reluctant to ever 
> recommend it to anyone again unless this problem is prevented by being 
> fixed asap.
>
> I just hope it does not take too long to get my system back to where it 
> was before when it was all working okay.
>
>
> David King
>
>
> David King wrote:
>   
>> I have booted into Ubuntu 3 times, and each time, it only boots into low 
>> graphics mode and with no sound.
>>
>> The only thing different is having installed Virtual Box last night, and 
>> now I cannot get Ubuntu working properly.
>>
>> What can I do to fix it?
>>
>>
>> David King
>>
>>
>>   
>> 
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Upgrade vs Reinstall

[Alan Bell]

doug livesey wrote:
> Hi -- I was just wondering, why it is that the community-at-large 
> seems to think that it is better to reinstall to a newer version of 
> Ubuntu rather than to run the upgrade?
> Cheers,
>Doug.
personally I think the install process is such a pleasure to use it 
would be a shame to waste the opportunity to see it. Seriously though, 
the upgrade worked fine for me on several computers, on others I was 
more interested in doing a clean build with all the default settings.

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] What to buy as an Ubuntu web server?

[Alan Bell]

don't buy hardware, look at renting a virtual private server. You will 
get stacks more bandwidth than you could otherwise afford and you get 
full root access and the ability to do a hard reboot. The processor will 
be very fast but the memory will be a bit limited, perfectly fine for 
PHP apps, but a big tomcat J2EE thing might need a bit more than the 
basic minimum. As it is on shared hardware it is eco friendly from a 
power and size point of view. I have a couple of Bytemark virtual 
servers and I am pleased with them, they have stood up to a couple of 
slashdottings (although I did need to boost the ram the first time that 
happened.) The Amazon EC2 stuff is interesting to play with, you can 
even start on a local Eucalyptus VM and move that to EC2 later which is 
a very interesting concept.

Alan.


Chris Rowson wrote:
>
> On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 12:22 PM, doug livesey  > wrote:
>
> Hi -- I may be looking to buy a web server for a number of web
> apps (RoR served with Passenger & Apache) quite soon.
> Could anyone advise me on what hardware to be looking for?
> I would want decent speed, so good processors & RAM, and I would
> like, if possible, for it to be quite clever about power usage.
> Also (& isn't this always the kicker?) I don't want to spend a
> fortune.
> I'll say a few hundred quids, tops, for now, but I don't want that
> to limit people's suggestions too much.
> & if people have good resources for new & not-so-new machines I
> could buy, that play nicely with Ubuntu, that would be great, too.
> Cheers,
>Doug.
>
>
> Hi Doug,
>
> You could check out http://www.serversdirect.co.uk/
>
> HP Proliant ML*** stuff there seems pretty cheap and servers that I've 
> looked at come with 3 years on site warranty (ymmv).
>
> Just be aware that at that price, any servers advertised as RAID are 
> likely to be using rubbish Windows orientated driver assisted fakeRAID 
> so you'll just be better off setting them up on software RAID.
>
> Your selection of hardware will be influenced by how mission critical 
> your applications are of course.
>
> Hope that helps
>
> Chris
>


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Business with Ubuntu

[Alan Bell]

At this point in the cycle the 8.04 LTS has only a little more support time 
than the non LTS 9.04 so I would go Jaunty and be nice and new. Particularly 
for a desktop to get the notifications and UbuntuOne working

Alan
--Original Message--
From: James Milligan
Sender: ubuntu-uk-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com
To: British Ubuntu Talk
ReplyTo: British Ubuntu Talk
Sent: 27 May 2009 16:01
Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Business with Ubuntu

Oh and just anoter quick poll, presumably we should use an LTS  
release? I remember a discussion a while ago regarding something like  
this and you all saying LTS.

James

On 27 May 2009, at 13:59, Cornelius Mostert  wrote:

>> Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 11:44:31 +0100
>> From: James Milligan 
>> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Business with Ubuntu
>> To: British Ubuntu Talk 
>> Message-ID: 
>> Content-Type: text/plain;   charset=us-ascii;
>> format=flowed;  delsp=yes
>>
>> Wow I must say that's a comprehensive plan of action there. I'm going
>> to print off that email itself and bring it in this Saturday.
>>
>> I was thinking myself of the dualboot option, but I settled on the
>> idea of WINE being OK for most needs.
>>
>> Would it be possible to customize a Linux install disk to already  
>> have
>> these packages installed automatically? Similar to n/vlite on  
>> Windows.
> 
> I found it :-)
>
> From an article someone posted a while back...
> http://tuxradar.com/content/100-open-source-gems-part-2
>
> and
>
> http://tuxradar.com/content/100-open-source-gems-part-1
>
> Look at number 89: Ubuntu Customisation Kit.
> So this should help you setup an Ubuntu distro to your liking... ready
> for distribution alongside your installed system!!
> 
>
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Alan Bell
The Open Learning Centre

Check out our Libertus servers at 
http://www.theopenlearningcentre.com/libertus.html
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] BBC Radio4 'open source' computer software

[Alan Bell]

I found that very strange. They did mention the Free software movement 
at about 7:30

"But the open source concept is not just about Mozilla, it started much 
earlier with the so called Free Software Movement in the 1980s. And it 
was a Finnish student in his early 20s who created the original 
breakthrough, the first major piece of Open Source software. In 1991 
Linus Torvalds, from the bedroom of his flat, published the complex 
computer code for his operating system, the basic software that enables 
a computer to run. By making it Free and Open he allowed anyone to use 
it without worrying about license fees, to modify it, without breaching 
copyright and to write applications that would run on it. He called it 
Linux and soon tens then hundreds then thousands of other enthusiasts 
joined him in developing it across the internet."

Describing Linux as the first major piece of Open Source software is 
revisionist and a factual error. It really wouldn't have hurt to talk 
about Stallman, the FSF, the four freedoms and the GPL. In fact it would 
make a much better story.

Found this when looking for a feedback link:
http://nhsblogdoc.blogspot.com/2008/06/gerry-northam-inflammatory-disreputable.html

mac wrote:
> Dave Walker wrote:
>   
>> And for those that missed it, myself included:
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00kp806/Inside_the_Virtual_Anthill_Open_Source_Means_Business/
>> 
>
> Just listened to it.  An implicit lesson in the difference between 'Open 
> Source' (=pragmatic - better ways to make money and advance corporate 
> interests) and Free Software (=principled - about ensuring individual 
> freedom and enabling sharing communities).
>
> I found it telling that the BBC programme did not once mention either 
> Stallman, GNU, or the Free Software Foundation, despite lengthy 
> discussion of Linux and Torvalds.
>
> A shame that it omitted half of the story.  But then, I suppose, if you 
> construe democracy as a better way to do shopping, as the programme 
> seemed to want to do, it's hardly surprising you find Stallman inconvenient.
>
> mac
>
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] pre installed ubuntu laptops?

[Alan Bell]

http://nakedcomputers.org/category/europe/uk/ is also a good friend, do 
let me know if you find a supplier I don't already have on the list.

Alan.


alan c wrote:
> I know that google is a good friend, however it is also nice to talk
> about such things.
>
> I have a friend of a friend who wants to buy a Ubuntu laptop. She has
> already checked out that the 10 inch mini units have displays which
> are to small for her elderly eyesight, so the question was passed to
> me about a conventional laptop, preinstalled with Ubuntu.
>
> I see that Dell only now offer a netbook (10V) with Ubuntu, or at
> least I could not find anything else and their online sales chatline
> confirmed this.
>
> I asked Novatec sales if they knew of any of their laptops which would
> run ok fully with ubuntu, but they said they did not know and had no
> information, but did know they did not have any linux support
> including any drivers.
>
> I also asked Novatech sales if I would be allowed to try ubuntu on one
> of their display units - I am close to the Reading showroom - but they
> said I would not be allowed.
>
> Sad, because I would have liked to support both Dell and Novatech, but
> I do not want any guessing, I need good information.
>
> I am aware of  www.linuxemporium.co.uk and this is an obvious possibility.
>
> Any comments please?
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] pre installed ubuntu laptops?

[Alan Bell]

Gordon wrote:
> Alan Bell wrote:
>   
>> http://nakedcomputers.org/category/europe/uk/ is also a good friend, do 
>> let me know if you find a supplier I don't already have on the list.
>>
>> 
>
> here's one: (Can't vouch for it...)
> EfficientPC
> http://www.efficientpc.co.uk/
>
>   

already got them http://nakedcomputers.org/efficientpc/ I really like 
the look of some of their hardware.

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] pre installed ubuntu laptops -> now MS refunds...

[Alan Bell]

LeeGroups wrote:
>> Dell will refund the cost of Windows without you having to send
>> anything off. But I guess the OP was looking for an Ubuntu
>> pre-installed machine in order to send a message to the manufacture
>> showing that there is a demand for such a thing.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Andrew
>> 
> Let's be clear here, Dell will only refund your MS license fee if you 
> bought a PC/laptop for home, rather than business.
> I had this problem, as have a few other people.
>
> If you're buying a Toshiba, forget it. The ones I bought last week all 
> came with a dirty great sticker sealing the box stating that the 
> computer/software enclosed come as a complete unit and won't be spilt. 
> If you don't like it tough.
>
> Lee
>
>
>   
hmm, maybe I should start collecting photos of such anti-competitive 
practices in a hall of shame on the nakedcomputers.org site.

I don't suppose you have the box still do you?

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] pre installed ubuntu laptops -> now MS refunds...

[Alan Bell]

LeeGroups wrote:
>> hmm, maybe I should start collecting photos of such anti-competitive 
>> practices in a hall of shame on the nakedcomputers.org site.
>>
>> I don't suppose you have the box still do you?
>> 
> Still, have the box, yes. But I was so angry at the time, I got my phone 
> out and took a photo...
> I've emailed it to you.
>
> Lee
>
>   
wow. That is a very clear notice.

Quality Seal
Importants Notice: TOSHIBA Corporation (TOSHIBA) and/or its subsidiaries 
currently sell personal computers with pre-installed Microsoft operating 
system as computing solution. Please note, notwithstanding anything to 
the contrary in the documentation accompanying your computer, TOSHIBA 
and/or its subsidiaries do not accept the return of component parts or 
bundled software, which have been removed from the PC System. Pro-rata 
refunds on individual components or bundled software, including the 
operating system, will not be granted.


I think that is going on the front page of naked computers shortly.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] pre installed ubuntu laptops?

[Alan Bell]

alan c wrote:
> It is a situation in the shallow end of a probably a much deeper
> populist swing away from Windows. The customer is a friend of an
> elderly non technical friend of mine. My friend found that their
> existing old laptop was grinding to a halt with XP, was happy to try
> Ubuntu in earnest.
>
> This was a remarkable success, and Ubuntu 8.04.2 ran the machine
> reasonably fast. It looked like a different machine. A very great
> difference from the XP experience which was previously moving the
> person helplessly towards a purchase of a completely new laptop.
>
> Seeing the newfound joy of a reincarnated laptop, a friend of the
> friend found that their own fear of failure with Windows was not valid
> with Ubuntu, so that friend is now happily seeking to purchase their
> own and very first computer - laptop.
>
> However, it has to be Ubuntu, not Windows.
> I would gladly install Ubuntu on a new laptop for the friend as long
> as I could be sure that it would all work after the money was spent.
>
> Although there is a strong resistance to paying for a useless Windows
> tax, and also there is an attraction in supporting  the good guys, the
> main factor is simply lack of information about hardware and its
> compatibility with - say - ubuntu 9.04. So just nakedness in a laptop
> is not sufficient for my needs here.
>   

I quite agree, nakedcomputers.org doesn't quite fill your need of 
compatibility assurance with our favorite operating system. The 
advantage of the naked computers site is that it is an easy concept to 
communicate and doesn't introduce things people haven't heard of. 
Imagine the following protest chants:

What do we want?
Ubuntu Linux pre-installed on documented hardware with Free and Open 
drivers for all components!
When do we want it?
Now!

erm, ok, maybe 10% of people understood that, and 2% agree with it. Lets 
try again.

What do we want?
Naked Computers!
When do we want it?
Now!

With that you have won the hearts and minds of 90% of the population 
before you have got to the second word.
 It is a much more campaign-able subject than pure software freedom 
advocacy.

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu One - timescale?

[Alan Bell]

you can bypass the queue by getting someone to share something with you 
. . . you have mail . . .

alan c wrote:
> I recently decided to try the proposed Ubuntu One facility, and got
> myself on a waiting list.
>
> Any ideas of timescales please, anyone?
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] An Ubuntu version that looks like Windows

[Alan Bell]

the only remaining question is who will sue them first? Microsoft for 
multiple trademark issues, Canonical for the horrible bastardisation of 
the Ubuntu logo or the FSF for failing to release source code and 
wrapping it up behind a 16 boot crippleware wrapper.
My bet is on Microsoft to take action first.

Alan.

David King wrote:
> An Israeli company has put together a version of Linux based on Ubuntu 
> and that looks and acts more like Windows, which could be a good way of 
> getting Windows users to switch. It can also switch to a Mac-like 
> interface with a simple mouse click or two.
>
> http://www.affordy.com/
>
> However, if you download it, it is a trial version that runs 16 times 
> only, then you have to pay for it.
>
> But I do like the concept, and the way it can perhaps convert some 
> Windows users who do not want to lose their interface but want something 
> faster and more reliable, and free from viruses.
>
> On the downside, currently the link to their online shop only goes to 
> the shop site main page, which is all in Hebrew.
>  http://shop.affordy.com/pl_product~TITANLEV-ENG~2~0.htm 
> 
>
> There is a link at the bottom of the page to the English site, which is 
> at http://shop.affordy.com/?lang=en and it has the Titan Lev linux 
> distro for sale for only $25.
>
>
> I am going to try out the trial version in VirtualBox and see what it is 
> like. If you have friends who are Windows users, you might want to tell 
> them that they can upgrade to a modern Vista-like OS for just $25 and be 
> free from viruses. The Titan Lev distro as supplied also has support for 
> Windows software like MS Office, probably through Wine.
>
>
>
> David King
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] first edition

[Alan Bell]

More than that to collect, there are server, kubuntu, edubuntu etc

--Original Message--
From: Tony Arnold
Sender: ubuntu-uk-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com
To: British Ubuntu Talk
ReplyTo: British Ubuntu Talk
Sent: 19 Jun 2009 13:38
Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] first edition



Sean Miller wrote:
> I threw out a load of 4.10 CDs when I moved in March... bare
> "offensive" female shoulders and all...
> 
> Damn!!  Never knew they were going to become collectors items...

I wonder if anyone has a complete set of shipit CDs for all 10 releases?
That would definitely be a collectors item.

Regards,
Tony.
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] viso OO.o Draw

[Alan Bell]

alan c wrote:
> JONATHAN TAYLOR wrote:
>   
>> Hi all,
>> as a newbie I'm in the process of switching over to Ubuntu,
>> and as I run a small business I use MS Visio for my site plans . My
>> question is what is the equivalent in Ubuntu?
>> 
>
> I have never used visio, however in addition to other suggestions
> here, do keep in mind openoffice 'draw'. It is a very capable program.
> I used it to plan bathroom and shower rooms easily and after that a
> manufacturing drawing of a 2 meter x 2 meter hinged, lockable, welded
> iron gate which we then had made and fitted. For thegate I used 1/16th
> scale and resolution of .1 mm iirc.
>   
The other alternative that springs to mind is Inkscape, a vector drawing 
package.

Alan.

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[ubuntu-uk] Karmic RAT Party

[Alan Bell]

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KarmicRATParty


   The Real Ale Train

The Watercress Line  is a small 
steam powered railway line in Hampshire. It runs from Alton Station to 
Alresford 
. 
Alton is the end of the line for scheduled services from Waterloo. Every 
month or so they run an evening special, the Real Ale Train, or RAT.


Basically the train turns into a very very long bar for the evening. 
There are several converted bar carriages and plenty of seating (comfy 
old seating in groups of 4). There is a RAT train on the 7th of 
November, a week after the launch of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala. Steam, 
Beer and Software Freedom seems an irresistible combination so we are 
making this one a Karmic Release Party 
.


You need to book your ticket 
 before arriving 
(and fairly soon, they sell out several months in advance), tickets can 
be booked online and cost £10 each. This includes a voucher for your 
first pint. Beer is not "Free as in Beer", but it is just £2/pint


Beards are strictly optional - it may sound like a male dominated event 
(and to be fair, it is) but it has a very friendly atmosphere and all 
are welcome.


Other alcoholic and soft drinks as well as snacks are on sale at the 
on-board buffet. Hot food can be purchased on board the train with 
vegetarian alternatives available. You have to be 18+ to buy beer, but 
there is no age limit (at either end of the scale) for joining in.


The RAT starts at Alton and tootles gently up and down the line a couple 
of times, returning to Alton in time for the 22:44 train back to 
Waterloo. (This is a connecting service, if the RAT is late, the 
mainline train will wait for it)


Dress - something Ubuntu related.



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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Help needed with ssh

[Alan Bell]

Hi John,
ssh is a secure way of communicating with a remote server. At the most 
basic level it is like having a terminal session on the remote computer, 
you can use commands such as "cd" to change directory, "ls" to view the 
contents of your current directory (same as "dir" in dos) "pwd" to print 
your current working directory location. "nano index.html" to edit the 
file called index.html in the current directory.
You can also pass other things over the secure tunnel. If you use "sftp 
j...@remote.host.com" instead of "ssh j...@remote.host.com" then you get 
a secure ftp-like session where you can put and get files to and from 
the server. You can also do this graphically in Ubuntu by going to the 
places menu then connect to server and select ssh from the dropdown. Put 
in your details then you will be able to browse the remote server over 
the ssh session and do pretty much anything on it as if it were local.

Alan.

John Matthews wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> I am so sorry to ask this, but I was wondering if somebody would be 
> willing to give me some help with ssh and commands for running a website 
> via a terminal.
>
> I have been trying to learn from the websites, but I am not finding it 
> easy. If somebody could just start by showing me some basic commands, to 
> start off with, just so I can start, I would really appreciate it.
>
> Thank you
>
> John.
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Live CD - Vista

[Alan Bell]

Greg Herdman wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
> Have just initialised our new batch of Toshiba laptops for our village 
> IT Group. These come with Microsoft Vista 'preinstalled' which has now 
> been completed. When I tried to use our Ubuntu 8.04 disc in Live User 
> mode, the laptop seemed to launch Ubuntu in the usual way, but part way 
> through the routine - when the usual migrating orange bar was showing - 
> it stopped with the following error messages on a black screen:
>
> udevd-event[1543]: run_program: '/sbin/modprobe' abnormal exit.
> Busybox v1.1.3 (Debian 1:1.1.3-5 ubuntua12) Built-in shell (ash)
> Enter 'help' for list of built-in commands.
> (initramfs)
>
> I've used the same Ubuntu installation disc (from Thomas & Sicam's book) 
> on my Windows XP machine without problems, so what's going on?
>
> The new laptops are Toshiba Sarellite Pro L300-26R
>
> Thanks in anticipation.
>
> Greg
>
>
>   

It sounds to me like it got upset loading a module for a new bit of 
hardware you have on these laptops, possibly a bit of hardware that has 
changed since last year. Can you give it a go with a 9.04 CD and see if 
that works. Is there anything you can see that is different in the spec 
of these laptops (maybe a fingerprint reader or camera or some kind of 
integrated peripheral)

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] What would Linus Pauling think about 'Linux Certified'?

[Alan Bell]

who?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds#Linux_trademark

Rowan Berkeley wrote:
> Some of you may recall my white elephant 'Linux Certified' machine.  I
> can't call LC its manufacturers, since they aren't: they just bought a
> batch of Compal JHL90 notebooks and shoved a version of Ubuntu with a
> non-standard interface driver onto them (because they said, it was more
> stable than the standard driver), thus making them non-updatable.
>
> I ran mine with the standard driver, making it updatable, and it went
> dead, with, according to local engineers, a chipset fault, after four
> months. I sent it back to its vendors in California over a month ago,
> with a note saying I didn't want it repaired and returned, I wanted my
> money back. Since then I have heard nothing.
>
> I don't feel too keen on whatever the international version of the Small
> Claims Court is, but I do feel that, given that they call themselves
> 'Linux Certified,' Mr Pauling, who owns the name 'Linux', might be
> interested. How do I contact him, or his organisation, whatever it is? 
>
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] What would Linus Pauling think about 'Linux Certified'?

[Alan Bell]

Rowan - this may be the organisation you wish to complain to - was 
also partly referenced to by *Alan Pope* earlier:


one of the Alans , but not the Popey

Alan.
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[ubuntu-uk] IE6 no more

[Alan Bell]

There is a campaign underway and gathering momentum to show IE6 the door

http://www.ie6nomore.com

this site gives you a banner that displays to IE6 users encouraging them 
to upgrade to a modern browser. If you have any websites you can add 
this to then that would be a service to the world.

Alan.



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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Yahoo login page hang and VirginMobile internet usb dongle

[Alan Bell]

alan c wrote:
>
> Any thoughts about why the problem and how to resolve it?
>
> tia
>   

it is either an evil conspiracy, or there is some kind of image or 
something on the login page that comes from a site blocked by the 
virgin. When you pull out the dongle it stops waiting and just shows you 
what it has got. If you load the page (or post a link) and look through 
it with firebug you will be able to see where the images are coming from.

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Anti-Virus for Ubuntu (Hard Heron 8.04)? Hardwarediagnostics?

[Alan Bell]

Do you want to stop it getting a virus, or do you want it to protect other 
computers from windows viruses?
ClamAV can be used to plug in to a proxy server or email server running on 
Ubuntu to strip out the viruses as they go past. Viruses themselves tend not to 
run on anything but Windows

--Original Message--
From: Alex Birchall
Sender: ubuntu-uk-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com
To: ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
ReplyTo: British Ubuntu Talk
Sent: 14 Aug 2009 12:30
Subject: [ubuntu-uk] Anti-Virus for Ubuntu (Hard Heron 8.04)? 
Hardwarediagnostics?

Hi All,

Would anyone recommend an antivirus product for an Ubuntu Hardy Heron
8.04 server?

Also, I have a suspicion that our server may have a hardware fault.
This is because yesterday the server shutdown when I attempted to
establish a remote session with Secure Shell.  This happened twice in
October last year, but not since.  I could find no evidence of a
run-away process, which I was told could also be the cause of a
shutdown.

I already know about memtest, but can anyone recommend other useful
diagnostic tools?

Many thanks.

Alex

Alex Birchall
Library Systems Manager
The Sheppard Library
Middlesex University
The Burroughs
London NW4 4BT
UK

Tel:  +44 (0)20 8 411 5235
Mob:  07765 237 570





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Re: [ubuntu-uk] I cannot get the wireless to work on Netbook.......

[Alan Bell]

John Matthews wrote:
> This time I think it might have been from an update that I had today for 
> the netbook. Plus amongst all that there wa a box asking for keyring? to 
> be allowed. With all the boxes open, I clicked on it, and I think I 
> might have clicked never, so there are no wireless connections at all on 
> the netbook. Can somebody help please?
>
> Thank you.
>
> John.
>
>   
what netbook? Can you still see a list of wireless networks available 
when you click on the network manager icon? Could it be that you have 
turned off the wireless (fn+F1 on some netbooks)

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Virus/Firewall protection.....

[Alan Bell]

John Matthews wrote:
> I wonder if somebody can hep. I dont have any firewall or virus 
> protection on my ubuntu partitions. I am a little bit concerned about 
> this. I did install one Called Firestarter, which messed up everything, 
> and I had to uninstall it. I just couldnt get around the firewall. I 
> know it was my fault, as I just dont understand the way the firewall 
> works. I also have something called Firewall Builder installed, I dont 
> understand that either, so I'm a bit stumped.
>
> I run my Ubuntu using the admin log in, should I run it via a separate 
> long in that doesnt have admin privileges? Which is the easiest 
> protection system that a thicko like can understand and not break 
> anything with.
>
> Thanks
>
> John.
>
>   
Hi John,
do you mean you log in as "john" and you can put your password in again 
if you want to install stuff? If so that is normal and secure, you are a 
user with sudo rights. If you are logging on as the user called root, 
then you have a problem.

In the IRC channel #ubuntu-uk there is a bot that tells us things, here 
is what it has to say about firewalls and viruses

12:22 < AlanBell> !firewall
12:22 < ubot4> Ubuntu, like any other linux  distribution, has firewall 
capabilities built-in. The firewall is managed using the 'ufw' command (see
   
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Uncomplicated_Firewall_ufw), or 
'iptables' (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/IptablesHowTo). GUI
   applications such as Firestarter/Gufw (Gnome) or Guarddog 
(KDE) also exist
12:22 < AlanBell> !virus
12:22 < ubot4> A/V software is available, however read this to 
understand why Linux does not have a virus problem: 
http://librenix.com/?inode=21


out of the box Ubuntu is secure and you don't need to worry about 
hardening like you do with the dominant proprietary operating system. Do 
keep up with the updates though.

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Virus/Firewall protection.....

[Alan Bell]

John Matthews wrote:
> Hi Alan,
>
> thank you for the e-mail, those two urls are really useful. I did check 
> on both, dont much understand what it has to say, but I do know now that 
> I seem to be secure, and I can make it eve more secure if I want it.
>
> I only asked, because I have a program on windows, that suddenly 
> appeared to develop a virus, just out of nowhere. It was. I contacted 
> the developer, and was told there was actually a virus in the .exe file. 
> which kind of surprised me, since I have used this application for a 
> couple of years, and its the first time that has happened. Its been 
> sorted. I just wanted to make sure, I couldnt get a virus or anything 
> else on Ubuntu.
>   
now this is one of the real advantages of community developed open 
source software. Many different people can look at the source and 
confirm there is nothing untoward in it (including yourself). Many 
different people can compile it, in clean environments and all the 
Ubuntu packages are compiled in a clean environment and the executables 
can be compared and verified as being a true compiled representation of 
the source.
Closed source software developed by one person, or a small team, is 
almost by definition untrustworthy.

Alan
> I am a bit anal when it comes to updates, I check on the updates 
> everyday, and not wait for the update manager to remind me. I am the 
> same with Windows updates, I dont wait, and now my virus guard actually 
> tells me that I have windows updates waiting, if I have missed any.
>
> Thank you again,
>
> John.
>
> Alan Bell wrote:
>   
>> John Matthews wrote:
>>   
>> 
>>> I wonder if somebody can hep. I dont have any firewall or virus 
>>> protection on my ubuntu partitions. I am a little bit concerned about 
>>> this. I did install one Called Firestarter, which messed up everything, 
>>> and I had to uninstall it. I just couldnt get around the firewall. I 
>>> know it was my fault, as I just dont understand the way the firewall 
>>> works. I also have something called Firewall Builder installed, I dont 
>>> understand that either, so I'm a bit stumped.
>>>
>>> I run my Ubuntu using the admin log in, should I run it via a separate 
>>> long in that doesnt have admin privileges? Which is the easiest 
>>> protection system that a thicko like can understand and not break 
>>> anything with.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> John.
>>>
>>>   
>>> 
>>>   
>> Hi John,
>> do you mean you log in as "john" and you can put your password in again 
>> if you want to install stuff? If so that is normal and secure, you are a 
>> user with sudo rights. If you are logging on as the user called root, 
>> then you have a problem.
>>
>> In the IRC channel #ubuntu-uk there is a bot that tells us things, here 
>> is what it has to say about firewalls and viruses
>>
>> 12:22 < AlanBell> !firewall
>> 12:22 < ubot4> Ubuntu, like any other linux  distribution, has firewall 
>> capabilities built-in. The firewall is managed using the 'ufw' command (see
>>
>> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Uncomplicated_Firewall_ufw), or 
>> 'iptables' (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/IptablesHowTo). GUI
>>applications such as Firestarter/Gufw (Gnome) or Guarddog 
>> (KDE) also exist
>> 12:22 < AlanBell> !virus
>> 12:22 < ubot4> A/V software is available, however read this to 
>> understand why Linux does not have a virus problem: 
>> http://librenix.com/?inode=21
>>
>>
>> out of the box Ubuntu is secure and you don't need to worry about 
>> hardening like you do with the dominant proprietary operating system. Do 
>> keep up with the updates though.
>>
>> Alan.
>>
>>   
>> 
>
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] laptops and broadband dongles

[Alan Bell]

Rob Beard wrote:
> Matt Jones wrote:
>   
>> If he is only going to use it a small amount, then Vodafone offer the
>> best deal, top up £15 for 1GB. Then use it until it runs out. With
>> everyone else, your 1GB of data only lasts 30days, even if you haven't
>> used it all.
>>
>> Most of the dongles are plug and play, I'm not sure about the
>> Vodaphone one though, as the field has developed so quickly, then the
>> drivers aren't in Ubuntu yet for the most modern ones.
>>
>> Do you have a link to the laptop?
>>
>> Matt.
>>   
>> 
> I can confirm the Vodafone modem is supported.  Once it's configured 
> (which is just a case of following a wizard and selecting the provider 
> in the case of the Vodafone Pay As You Go modem you'd select "Vodafone 
> Topup and Go") then all you do is simply plug the modem in wait about 10 
> seconds, click the network manager icon in the task bar and select the 
> Vodafone connection.
>
> I can't remember if the Vodafone modems have a money back guarantee or 
> not, if not it's worth at least checking the coverage maps on Vodafone's 
> web site to make sure you are in an area which is covered at least by 3G 
> (ideally HSDPA).
>
> Rob
>
>
>   
The networks don't make dongles, they just rebrand them, and change the
hardware and supplier from time to time so there is no "vodaphone
dongle" as such. The main manufacturers you will come across are Huawei,
Option and ZTE and this will be printed somewhere on the underside of
the dongle in very small faint text. They really are quite simple
devices when they are working. They are basically modems and talk old
school Hayes AT commands. They tend to be seen as a few serial ports,
one for data, one for commands, sometimes some extra ones for reasons
that are not always apparent. The difficulty is that they start out in
useless mode, pretending to be a CDRom drive containing drivers for
defective operating systems that don't properly support them. These
drivers then flip the dongle into sensible modem mode and then carry on.
The crazy thing is that all the dongles have different commands to turn
them into modems and every time a new one comes out a new rule has to be
added to support it. The defective operating systems are fine as the
drivers and rules don't come with the operating system but are on the CD
when it is in useless mode. I guess it would be nice if the CD contained
a little text file in a standard place with the command to flip it, or
if they just didn't do the stupid fake CD thing at all.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Manchester Karmic (9.10) party

[Alan Bell]

well there have been any number of reviews of Linux desktops by
journalists who know about Windows and compare it at every step to
Windows. This just happens to be one coming from the other direction,
which he acknowledges from the start.

I don't think anyone sensible would draw any conclusions from any single
article (on any subject) but this does appear to be a useful
contribution to the mix.

Alan.


Sean Miller wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 8:08 AM, Alan Lord (News)  
> wrote:
>   
>> On 28/09/09 07:56, Sean Miller wrote:
>> 
>>> Hmmm with all due respect he mentions Linux so much I doubt any
>>> impartial reader will take much notice of his comments.
>>>   
>> He is comparing the two. What's wrong with that? There are clearly some
>> problems with Win 7. Unstable updates, iffy text editor...
>>
>> Also, for most users (as it seems so few bought Vista), Windows 7 has no
>> easy upgrade path. If you are currently using XP, you have to format
>> your HDD and start again. That really sucks for "normal" users.
>> 
>
> I didn't say that his arguments were not valid, simply that the whole
> way he writes gives the impression he is "out to get Windows" which
> (for me at least, and I am a Ubuntu user remember - so "already
> converted") makes the whole piece less persuasive.
>
> I suspect that he has not realised he's done it, but I would like to
> read an objective review of Windows 7... the little "bullsh!t filter"
> in my brain starts sending out alarm bells only a couple of paragraphs
> into that piece... he paints a very different picture of Windows 7
> than my experience running it in a VM has given me.   And he keeps
> saying "which, of course, is done far better in KDE..." or whatever.
>
> If the article was called "KDE vs. Windows 7, the Verdict" and had a
> table with comparisons then it would be rather good...
>
> ie.
> Eye Candy - KDE 90%, Windows 7 80%
> Security - KDE 90%, Windows 7 40%
> Compatibility with iTunes - KDE 25%, Windows 7 90%
>
> etc.
>
> Sean
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] [OT] MP3 players

[Alan Bell]

Michael G Fletcher wrote:
> Hi Guys,
>
> This is more of a philosophical question... I'm looking for a new mp3
> player, about 4 - 10GB, but not over the top when it comes to
> features, I have a smart phone (HTC-Magic running Andriod)  .
>
> If I were to buy an Apple iPod Nano, would I be going against all my
> OSS beliefs and values?
>   
It will probably tarnish your Software Freedom halo a bit, however I
wouldn't lose sleep over it. If you want to feel better about it you can
install rockbox (certain models only) http://www.rockbox.org/ which is
very fully featured, but sadly doesn't integrate with Ubuntu quite as
well as the regular firmware - or didn't last time I checked. It just
sees it as a storage device, not a media player. I think there is a file
you can touch to hint that it is a media player, but I can't find what
it is right now.

Alan

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] IBM & Ubuntu - but what about Lotus?

[Alan Bell]

I have been working with Lotus Notes and Domino for 10+ years. I had a
server running Redhat and Domino 5, the first release that ran on Linux.
The notes client was once a C application, with a basic core and a front
end framework that ran on Windows, OS/2, and some Unix. It didn't fit
the platform UI guidlines of any of them, but that was OK, because it
was cross platform. Then they added Windows specific bits and dropped
the other platforms. After a while they realised that Windows was not
the only thing in the world and tried to get it running on the Mac and
Linux, but it was all a bit too windows specific, it had also put on
rather a lot of weight over the years. Rather than actually fix what
they had, someone had the bright idea of stuffing the bits that did work
inside Eclipse, a big fat Java based cross platform UI toolkit that IBM
wrote in the first place and open-sourced. They decided to attack
Microsoft Office too by taking a copy of OpenOffice.org 1.1.6 (a bit
slow and fat) and stuffing that into Eclipse too. OOo was dual licensed,
SISL and LGPL and IBM were depending on the permissiveness of the SISL
to scoop it up, rewrite the UI and stuff it into a framework they call
expediter and then into Eclipse. They have been unable to take a new
branch from OOo because OOo went LGPL only from 1.1.6 and that would
have forced them to LGPL the expeditor framework which they really
didn't want to do. They say they will take a new code drop from OOo 3
but I am not sure how. In theory they could de-couple expeditor and OOo
to such a degree that it would be considered linking like a library, at
the moment it goes way beyond that loose coupling.
So over the years it has had bits bolted on such that now the installer
on Windows for the Notes Client with the Domino Designer(not released
for Linux) and Domino Administrator(not released for Linux) and Symphony
editors (the OOo bit) and Sametime (a single-protocol pidgin) weights in
at an impressive 608MB

Notes is quite a misunderstood application. People think it is an email
client with a poor user interface. By most accounts the email bit
doesn't suck as much as it used to, but for me it never was an email
client. It is a document oriented non relational database. You can write
applications that have forms that people fill in, then route to other
people. The forms can be quite complex and the data from the documents
that result in filling out a form can be displayed in views. These bits
can be pulled together very fast into a coherent and useful multi-user
distributed application. When you have a tool such as that it is trivial
to knock up a little database for each person and allow them to fill out
a form with to,cc,bcc, subject and body fields and then shuffle the
resulting documents about between user databases. You can then call it
email and it will work just fine, but won't be the best email system in
the world.
The really interesting core of Domino is the document oriented database
engine. Damien Katz worked at Lotus for many years then left for a bit
and decided to write a new database, based on some of the core concepts
of Notes, but brought up to date and without the layers and layers of
stuff piled on top of it. The result is CouchDB, which as luck would
have it, is installed by default on every Karmic Koala.

So by all means try out the IBM collaboration suite for Ubuntu, it lacks
Domino Designer so you can't do any of the interesting stuff, but you
can have a Notes client if you want. If you haven't used it before then
I don't think you are going to like it much. For me the future of
collaborative application development is Ubuntu, desktop CouchDB and
python based user interfaces with replication to internal CouchDB
instances and to Ubuntu ONE.

Alan

mac wrote:
> I guess you may have seen this interesting development:
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/20/ibm_canonical_ubuntu_lotus_us_package/
>
> The mention of the Lotus suite made me wonder if any of us have tried 
> it, and could give an opinion.  I've thought about trying it out, but 
> the reviews have been a bit off-putting.
>
> Anyone got recent experiences of Lotus + Ubuntu to share?
>
> mac
>
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] IBM & Ubuntu - but what about Lotus?

[Alan Bell]

mac wrote:
> Alan Bell wrote:
>   
>> I have been working with Lotus Notes and Domino for 10+ years...
>> 
> 
>
> Wow!  I could hardly have wished for a more comprehensive and 
> authoritative single reply, Alan.  Thanks for taking the time and 
> trouble to give such a detailed and informed response.  It sounds like 
> the bits I'd be interested in (essentially, the office suite) are the 
> least attractive parts, and the Notes application (which people who've 
> worked for PriceWaterhouseCooper tell me is used to impressive effect 
> there, in ways you allude to) is not something I have much need for.
>
> Many thanks!
>
> mac
>
>   
If you want an office suite in an Eclipse container that you can
integrate with all your other stuff in Eclipse then Symphony is the one.
If you just want an office suite then OOo is what you want.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu on the BBC!!!

[Alan Bell]

Paul Sutton wrote:
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Linux got a mention on the lunch time news,  well it showed tux, and the
> google and apple logos, as alternatives,  but didn't say much about em
>   
well it is Microsoft's big day (well it is tomorrow, they seem to have 
jumped the gun slightly) so it is natural they are talking about it. We 
too are celebrating the launch of Windows 7 with a special upgrade 
promotion. http://www.theopenlearningcentre.com/windows-7-upgrade-promotion
Next week with the launch of Karmic Koala is the time to talk about 
Linux, hopefully the BBC will join in the conversation.

Alan.
> regarding product placement you notice how you see more macs on TV
> programmes, these days,
>   
also go to any conference on anything. Look at the percentage of Macs in 
the audience, look at the percentage of laptops that get put on the 
podium that are Macs. It is going up. Linux is too, but Macs are more 
spottable.
> Paul
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iEYEARECAAYFAkrfQ8oACgkQaggq1k2FJq3qlQCeObBs+m231CGy3ikumcmOo6G2
> +OMAn3/B735Du3PAulwIEQuxPtOrqS6Q
> =mqu7
> -END PGP SIGNATURE-
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu on the BBC!!!

[Alan Bell]

Thomas Ibbotson wrote:
>
> Quoting from the website:
> -Spend lots of money for Windows 7 for every computer in your organisation,
> -First you will need to take very careful backups of everything (not 
> just files but emails, favourites, settings etc),
> -Format your machine's hard disk and install Windows 7 as a fresh 
> installation,
> -Then you'll have to find those drivers for your hardware (if they 
> exist) and install them,
> -Re-install all your application software (if it still works on Windows 
> 7 and you have the CDs and license keys etc),
> -Activate and register your computer on your network,
> -Copy back all that carefully backed up data and make sure it goes into 
> the right places.
>
> It seems to me that you are suggesting that these steps would not be 
> necessary with Ubuntu, but if you were to migrate to Ubuntu from Windows 
> XP you would still have to perform steps 2,3,5,6?? and 7. With the added 
> problems of trying to import your data to new, different programs and 
> learning an unfamiliar desktop environment.
>
> I'm all for Ubuntu and FOSS, but this just struck me as a bit dishonest. 
>   I'll just go and get my ceramic shield
>
> Tom
>
>   
I don't think we are suggesting these steps are not necessary (well
apart from the license keys), the point is that it is a disruptive rip
and replace upgrade anyway so you might as well spend the price of a
single license looking at an alternative. For £229 you can get a copy of
Windows 7 and a piece of paper telling you what you are not allowed to
do with it, or you can get a copy of Ubuntu and three hours of on site
training.
It is a little opportunistic, but I don't think it is wrong. In fact up
to yesterday Microsoft were advising people with XP not to upgrade
without expert help. Anyone have a backup of this page:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/upgrade-advisor.aspx

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu on the BBC!

[Alan Bell]

Sean Miller wrote:
> Why do none of these programmes ever mention Wine?
>
> It's simply not true that you can't run Microsoft programs on Ubuntu
> -- is the BBC sponsored by Apple and Microsoft or what???
>
> Sean
>
>   
Well I don't think you can blame the BBC for that one. Chris Kenyon is
Canonical's OEM team manager, he most certainly does know about Wine.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] London Karmic launch party - open to all?

[Alan Bell]

Joseph Hughes wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Is the venue open to the great unwashed public, or is it invite only?
>
> Thanks,
> Joseph
open to all. (washing first is advised though)

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Is it today Koala comes out?????

[Alan Bell]

John Matthews wrote:
> Just wondered when Koala was due out. Have tried a forced upgrade using 
> alt>f2 it is still showing a beta version. Is that correct or will it be 
> changed today.
>
> Kojm
>
>   
it will be announced today, which could mean any time, including times
which are tomorrow in some time zones. Personally my guess would be an
announcement just prior to the Canonical crew leaving Millbank for the
London party.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] No output on laptop screen after upgrading to Karmic

[Alan Bell]

do you get anything on screen as it boots? Does it get as far as the
login screen when you have it installed?
you could report a bug in xserver-xorg-video-intel
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel

there are probably clues in /var/log/Xorg.0.log as to what is going on.

Alan.

ian pettitt wrote:
> Hi
>
> I have a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop and have been running 9.04 
> successfully since I bought it a couple of months ago.
>
> I've upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10 and I can no longer use it - the system 
> boots and gets to login screen, but since there is no display I can't 
> use it! I reinstalled 9.04 and downloaded the 9.10 Live Cd, which has 
> the same problem - the display is blank. It does detect an external 
> monitor so I can see the output on that, but that isn't a very practical 
> solution. Changing the display properties for the laptop screen doesn't 
> make any difference, whatever I try I do not get any thing on the laptop 
> screen.
>
> I am not sure how to fix this - i assumed that a Dell laptop would work 
> "out of the box" with Karmic, but this isn't case for me.
>
> Thanks
>
> Ian
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] No output on laptop screen after upgrading to Karmic

[Alan Bell]

I don't think I can take much credit for this one! you looked in the
right place and solved it yourself I think

Alan.
ian pettitt wrote:
> Thanks Alan - I think you have solved it!
>
> Looking through the bugs I found this:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel/+question/85648
>
> Adding i915.modeset=0 to the boot options fixed it!
>
> This is something that is mentioned in the beta release notes
> http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/karmic/beta#Known%20issues
>
> I have spent most of the morning booting it up and checking the 
> /var/log/Xorg.0.log etc., looking at the bugs in Launchpad, check the 
> forums before posting to this list. There are quite a few forum threads 
> on ubuntuforums.org with people posting a similar problem.
>
> Hopefully this will get sorted quickly as the Dell I have is a very 
> "standard" system (you could even get in PC World) and I was 
> disappointed to see the latest Ubuntu not work with it straight away.
>
> However, I asked the question to right people, and got the answer almost 
> immediately - for that you have to love the open source community :-)
>
> Thanks Again
>
> Ian
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Not a good press

[Alan Bell]

Neil Perry wrote:
> I agree with you Ed. They expect out of the box complete working.
>
> Neil Perry
>

this is a perfectly reasonable expectation. When this expectation is not
met the correct response is to file a bug and work with others on fixing it.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Not a good press

[Alan Bell]

an upgrade advisor is an excellent idea, in fact a hardware testing tool
that scans PCI and USB bus and summarises the level of support for each
item by looking it up on the web would be an excellent tool. Thinking
about it there is no reason why such a tool shouldn't be available on
other operating systems too so that people can get a level of comfort
before switching to Ubuntu

Alan.

Tony Pursell wrote:
> On 3 Nov 2009 at 8:13, Philip Stubbs wrote:
>
>
>   
> Also, we should not be expecting users to 'do research' before hitting 
> the 'Upgrade to 9.10' button, or at least there should be some 
> warning, perhaps even some pre-install testing like the 'Windows 7 
> Upgrade Advisor', before users commit to the upgrade.  I myself had 
> a problem because of the new boot methods.  I got round it easily, but 
> it would have really freeked out the sort of every day, non tech user 
> we are aiming for.  We really must aim for 'out of the box' working for 
> all users upgrading from one version to the next.
>
> Tony
>
>
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] GIMP Add-In Maybe?

[Alan Bell]

Ian Pascoe wrote:
> Evening all
>
> I have the pleasant task over the Winter months to start to scan in a few
> thousand 35mm colour negatives.
>
> However, before I start I wonder if anyone knows of anything that will turn
> a digitised colour negative into a colour positive.  I've wandered through
> the GIMP, but really haven't a clue as to what I'm looking for.
>
> Anyone know of any app that will do this conversion and do it well as once
> completed and stored in multiple places, as you do, the negatives are to be
> disposed of.
>
> Cheers
>
> Ian
>
>
>   
Colours - invert
from the menu. However ImageMagick may be more scriptable for you.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fwd: [LUG] [Fwd: Computer for the elderly launched]

[Alan Bell]

Sean Miller wrote:
> Anyone else think £390 for a base unit is somewhat expensive???
>
> Sure, they "build them to order" or whatever but they must be raking it in!!
>
> And the site doesn't say how much memory the things have - let's hope
> it's enough for them to use it as a standard Linux install should they
> decide to do so.
>
> Sean
>
>   
good luck to them. Not sure I would base a product on Mint, but the
hardware looks perfectly good (looks a lot like what I am using right
now) and the price is not the price for a bare bones unit but for the
solution including training materials and support (remember it isn't
being sold to self-supporting geeks) it certainly isn't crazy money. If
it is priced right to support a profitable business based on Open Source
that is great. Valerie Singleton on board sorting out publicity is
fantastic. If people say "Linux, oh yes I have heard about that, it is
that computer thingie that doesn't get viruses and is easy to use" then
I am all in favour!

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fwd: [LUG] [Fwd: Computer for the elderly launched]

[Alan Bell]

Alan Pope wrote:
>
>
> Liam (the guy in the video) is on this mailing list.
>
>   

I wonder if there is a video with Valerie Singleton explaining what
community developed open source software is.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fwd: [LUG] [Fwd: Computer for the elderly launched]

[Alan Bell]

Looks like they have thought about things better and spent more time
preparing than certain Linux powered netbook projects did.
It would appear that they control their own sales process and the full
company is on board with the project, they shouldn't have their own
sales reps selling against it. If they can set expectations right (which
they appear to be doing) then it has a good chance of success. I would
rather they priced too high and spent more time making happy customers
than priced too low and gave poor service to a bigger volume. I don't
think the hardware is junk or will overheat.

Alan.

etali wrote:
> Hopefully that's how it will turn out.
>
> However, if the hardware is poorly constructed, or the support is 
> terrible, it could just as easily go the other way.  I'm concerned that 
> in a few months time we'll be seeing people on Watchdog complaining 
> about how their computers overheated, or how they bought Windows 
> software and couldn't get it to work, or an update stopped their 
> wireless working and support don't help them
>
> Suddenly the perception changes from "Fair play for making a good, safe 
> computer solution with training materials and support" to "This company 
> made overpriced junk, tricked pensioners into buying it, then ran off 
> with their money and left them with broken PCs".
>
> I'm not saying that will happen, just worried that it could. 
>
> I have several friends who bought Linux powered netbooks and have been 
> "put off Linux for life" because they went into the purchase with the 
> wrong expectations.  Most of their issues aren't even down to Linux 
> (e.g. they're annoyed they can't play games on the thing - it's a low 
> powered, low screen res machine, even if it was running Windows it 
> wouldn't play most games), but that's not how they see it.
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Desktop or Server?

[Alan Bell]

I am with the desktop crowd (small as it is)
GDM doesn't consume many resources, if left logged out on the GDM screen
it won't chew memory, processor or open any external ports (neither does
X/Gnome itself by default). When the full desktop is running it will use
extra resources but that is fine. If I am giving a customer their first
Ubuntu server for them to mostly leave well alone I would put the
desktop on it, with Compiz and all the eye candy turned on! I want them
to see that on the rare occasion that they actually log on they have a
better desktop operating system than the Windows XP machine on their desk.


Alan.

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[ubuntu-uk] On becoming an Ubuntu Member

[Alan Bell]

Last Tuesday I was accepted by the EMEA regional membership board as an
Ubuntu Member, which is pretty cool. The reason I finally got round to
putting myself forward is because I wanted to understand the process a
bit better. This is some background and my current understanding of the
process, and some of my previous misunderstandings.

I have been working with others on the #ubuntu-women IRC channel to gain
an improved understanding of the proportion of women in Ubuntu to
establish firstly if there is an underrepresentation that needs to be
fixed. We found lots of anecdotal evidence to suggest there was, but not
much hard data. I was also a little unsure of the objectives of the
group, obviously to increase the numbers of women, but by how many?
Measuring the number of women in a somewhat amorphous community is a
difficult thing, who do you count? Someone who just uses Ubuntu? Do you
count my daughters who do their homework and play Frozen Bubble on
Ubuntu? Fortunately there is the Ubuntu Member process where people who
have made a sustained and significant contribution to the community are
recognised. Those who are accepted are added to a group on Launchpad so
they are nice and easy to identify. I took the list of names from
Launchpad and made a Google docs spreadsheet with the list, everyone on
the #ubuntu-women IRC channel was invited to edit the sheet and help
figure out who was female. Not an easy task, but by looking at profiles,
wiki pages, blogs, flickr photos and asking people on IRC they completed
the list. The final result was 23 women out of a total of 520 members,
or 4.42%. I have subsequently done some further analysis on the dates
people were made members and I started a page of interesting graphs and
statistics at http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/UbuntuMembers personally I
think the most interesting discovery was the distribution of times from
creating a launchpad profile (to file your first bug perhaps) to
becoming an Ubuntu member reveals that the most typical duration is 450
days plus or minus 50.

So the membership process, it starts with filling out a wiki page about
yourself at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/YourName . This is not a comfortable
thing to do. I started mine quite a while ago and kept adding to it when
I did something interesting - this was probably a good idea.

Anything you do can go on your wiki page, the approval board will look
for stuff they want to see and ignore stuff they are not interested in -
more on that later.

I made no effort to do proper wiki markup on it, it was just a list of
stuff. I had no testimonials section, because I felt an empty
testimonials section would look a bit sad, this was an error - if you
have no section then there is nowhere for someone to add a testimonial.
Laura Czajkowski helped me sort this out at the last minute, which leads
me on to:

Get someone to help you well in advance. Ask them if they think your
wiki page is ready. Get them to help find you testimonials (it is way
easier to ask on behalf of someone else than directly)

When your wiki page is looking reasonably full of stuff you can add your
name to the regional board agenda, but when you add your name to the
agenda don't be first in the list, let a few other people go before you.
The approval meeting goes in the order the names are added.

It is not a job interview! There is no job at stake, no money at stake,
nothing of significant value in the list of member entitlements. You are
probably not going to go through it for the incentive of receiving an
IRC cloak. You are not doing it for the published benefits but because
you are a part of the community and the procedure of the community is
that we recognise those who contribute in this way.

It is not a job interview! They are not interested in your background,
technical or otherwise. You are not being interviewed to decide whether
you are *allowed* to join the community, you are being interviewed to
see if you have *already* joined the community. This should affect the
stuff you put on your wiki page and what you say in the interview. If
you help people in IRC channels say so, if you are on various mailing
lists then say so, if you use the forums say so. If you have written
code or done some packaging that is good too, but you may be pushed
towards the MOTU process (MOTU is a nested team in Ubuntu Members)

Rejection is an option, and it isn't final. Rejection doesn't mean "go
away, you are full of fail" it means "contribute a bit more stuff,
document it better, get some more testimonials and come back in a month
or two" it is an easy option for the board to choose, they are not
missing out on the opportunity to accept you, just delaying it a bit.

Attend a few approval board sessions on IRC before you put yourself
forward - like I didn't. Figure out who on the board is the most harshly
critical, figure out what responses they like and don't like.

Make sure you have supporters in the IRC meeting who will speak up on
your behalf and

Re: [ubuntu-uk] OT: Web Collabaration

[Alan Bell]

you are being a little obscure about the context for this and type of
person and organisations involved, but Mahara might be what you are
looking for, it is for managing an individual's learning portfolio and
it integrates with Moodle. You might also want to look at Shibboleth
http://shibboleth.internet2.edu/ for a kind of federated
multi-institution access control and identity system as a possible
alternative to openID.

Alan.

Ian Pascoe wrote:
> Folks
>
> Before I ask the question, my hand is firmly in the air admitting to the
> fact that apart from some HTML coding, I have no web programming experience.
> With that being said, I'm looking for a FOS project, Operating System
> independant, that will allow a number of different organisations to
> collaborate on a single system.  These organisations would be filling in
> data against an individual, and the individual would need to be able to see
> all the data relevant to them only, from each organisation.  The data being
> represented would be one of three different types - membership including
> personal information, current qualifications and when testing is next
> required, and activity scheduling.  Individual's privacy and security is
> paramount, so the system would need to be protected by a secure login -
> OpenID would be a fine option I believe.
>
> If there were modules that would allow, for instance, mailing of upcoming
> activities and training sessions that would certainly be a boost, or even a
> module to allow for printing of such items, or getting really carried away,
> texting.
>
> I have a feeling that Droople falls into this category, and certainly seems
> to have a multitude of modules, but is rather scary for someone like me
> starting out from scratch  Are there other alternatives that would offer
> such a collabaration?
>
> I have no objection to learning more about a particular project, but I don't
> really want to spend a number of months on one project to find out that it's
> limitations or direction don't actually match what I'm looking for.
>
> So, to add to the wish list, something that does not require an in depth
> knowledge of web technologies, but can be merely bolted together, some
> configuration and form design done in a nice GUI environment and is happy to
> reside on either a VPS or an actual physical box.  Lastly, the ability to
> link instances of the project across different remote independant servers
> would be nice.
>
> I've used MS's SharePoint system at a previous job, and this appears to have
> the basics I'm looking for, but it has it's own set of problems, apart from
> the obvious one!
>
> Thanks
>
> Ian
>
>
>   


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[ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu UK Christmas Drinkies

[Alan Bell]

We are pleased to announce the first annual Ubuntu UK sherry and mince
pies evening!

We will sort out the booze, but we would like everyone to bring some
mince pies or Christmas themed nibbles - extra points if you cook them
yourself.

Cost: it will be an integer number of pounds between £0 and £5 depending
on numbers and corporate contributions.

If anyone would like to do a little talk about something interesting
they have been up to recently or perhaps discuss a topic of interest for
Lucid then that would be great. Not formal presentations, but there will
be power and wireless broadband available so if you want to demo
something that would be cool.

Tuesday 22nd December
6PM-9PM
The Hub Islington
4th Floor
5 Torrens Street
London
http://islington.the-hub.net

To make sure we don't under-cater on the sherry side of things we would
like you to sign up for the evening by RSVPing on this Doodle poll:

http://www.doodle.com/4szmpii3prqdia77

Alan

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu UK Christmas Drinkies

[Alan Bell]

Isabell Long wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 10:24:26PM +0000, Alan Bell wrote:
>   

> Will do.  Oh and no sherry (or any other alcohol) for me: 1. I'm not of legal 
> drinking age (yet!) and 2. it's horrible stuff!
>
>   
All the more for the rest of us then! Seriously though, the venue was
chosen specifically so as to not exclude the younger members of the
community, the launch parties are great fun but it sucks that not
everyone can get in to them.
> Oh and my parents (or at least my mother) will be accompagning me.  :)
>
>   
great! Does she use Ubuntu yet?
> --
> Regards,
> Isabell Long 
> [[User:Isabell121]] on all public Wikimedia projects
> Freenode Community Co-Ordinator - issyl0 on irc.freenode.net
> PGP Key ID: 0xEB83C2BD
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu UK Christmas Drinkies - soft drinks too

[Alan Bell]

To add to the sherry I have just ordered a case of Ubuntu Cola
http://www.ubuntu-trading.com/

Alan.

Alan Bell wrote:
> We are pleased to announce the first annual Ubuntu UK sherry and mince
> pies evening!
>
> We will sort out the booze, but we would like everyone to bring some
> mince pies or Christmas themed nibbles - extra points if you cook them
> yourself.
>
> Cost: it will be an integer number of pounds between £0 and £5 depending
> on numbers and corporate contributions.
>
> If anyone would like to do a little talk about something interesting
> they have been up to recently or perhaps discuss a topic of interest for
> Lucid then that would be great. Not formal presentations, but there will
> be power and wireless broadband available so if you want to demo
> something that would be cool.
>
> Tuesday 22nd December
> 6PM-9PM
> The Hub Islington
> 4th Floor
> 5 Torrens Street
> London
> http://islington.the-hub.net
>
> To make sure we don't under-cater on the sherry side of things we would
> like you to sign up for the evening by RSVPing on this Doodle poll:
>
> http://www.doodle.com/4szmpii3prqdia77
>
> Alan
>
>   


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[ubuntu-uk] Choo Choo! Beer, Steam and Free Software

[Alan Bell]

One of my actions from the recent Ubuntu UK team meeting was to organise
a evening out on the Real Ale Train.

The Watercress Line is a small steam powered railway line in Hampshire.
It runs from Alton Station to Alresford. Alton is the end of the line
for scheduled services from Waterloo. Every few weeks or so they run an
evening special, the Real Ale Train, or RAT.

Basically the train turns into a very very long bar for the evening.
There are several converted bar carriages and plenty of seating (comfy
old seating in groups of 4). Steam, Beer and Software Freedom seems an
irresistible combination so it sounds like an ideal evening out for the
Ubuntu UK community.

Firstly we need to decide on a date, we have created a poll to find the
most popular date from the dates far enough ahead to be organised, and
skipping the date when UDS-M is likely to be happening. Please vote on
the poll http://doodle.com/2zse7y4uafih5dpn and we will announce the
most popular date on IRC, the wiki page
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/RAT2010 and on the mailing list on
January 24th. When the date is announced you will need to book your
ticket, tickets can be booked online and cost £10 each. This includes a
voucher for your first pint. Beer is not "Free as in Beer", but it is
just £2/pint. Don't hang about and try to book late, they sell out
months in advance.

Beards are strictly optional - it may sound like a male dominated event
(and to be fair, it is) but it has a very friendly atmosphere and all
are welcome.

Other alcoholic and soft drinks as well as snacks are on sale at the
on-board buffet. Hot food can be purchased on board the train with
vegetarian alternatives available. You have to be 18+ to buy beer, but
there is no age limit (at either end of the scale) for joining in.

The RAT starts from Alton at 19.20 and tootles gently up and down the
line a couple of times, returning to Alton in time for the 22:44 train
back to Waterloo. (This is a connecting service, if the RAT is late, the
mainline train will wait for it)

Dress - something Ubuntu related.


Alan


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Possible Training Events

[Alan Bell]

Overall this is a great idea. I think we need to clarify who this is
aimed at. Off the top of my head I can think of three broad categories:

Individuals wanting to run a proper operating system at home
People wanting to introduce Ubuntu into their workplace
Students wanting to use it in their studies

This affects to some extent the style and content of the event, but more
importantly it affects the amount of time, effort and money people will
be willing to throw at it, and how it would need to be publicised.



Alan.

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[ubuntu-uk] 1 hour Meeting reminder

[Alan Bell]

just to remind you all that we have an Ubuntu-uk meeting on IRC channel
#ubuntu-uk on the freenode network one hour from now at 7:30 this
evening. You can normally join in a browser at
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=ubuntu-uk or using Empathy, Pidgin
or another IRC client.
The agenda is at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeamMeetingAgenda
Minutes of the previous meeting are at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/LastMeeting

see you there,

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] 1 hour Meeting reminder

[Alan Bell]

alan c wrote:
>> 
>
> Alan thanks for the heads up, I was able to look in - very interesting.
>   

that is one way of putting it.

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[ubuntu-uk] Meeting minutes

[Alan Bell]

Hi All,

Minutes of last nights meeting are now available at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/LastMeeting thanks to all who attended
and thanks to Mez for chairing.

One of the action items from the meeting was for me to come up with an
improved format for the agenda, in particular so that action items don't
all end up as separate topics. I ended up with quite a different concept
for the agenda, it is optimised for use with MootBot and easy copy and
pasting. It will no doubt be tweaked further over the course of the next
few weeks and I may add some guidance notes. If you wish to add
additional items to the agenda please feel free to edit the wiki page
and add them, just follow the format of the existing one. This is
experimental, lets see if it works. Any questions please email me or
find me, AlanBell on the IRC channel.

With that here is the agenda for our next meeting to be held in
#ubuntu-uk on the Freenode network on February 7th at 19:30 GMT:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeamMeetingAgenda

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Meeting minutes

[Alan Bell]

Alistair McKinlay wrote:
> Did we not decide to trial using #ubuntu-uk-meeting for the next
> meeting? Maybe I got that wrong...
>
> YaManicKill
sorry, my mistake, will fix shortly . . .

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Tweeta into thunderbirds?

[Alan Bell]

red wrote:
> Hi all
>
> Is there any add ins for thunderbirds that I can collect my twitters 
> like I can rss feeds?
>
> Shalom
>   
Hi red,

yes, there are quite a few twitter related things in the addon directory

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/search?q=twitter&cat=all&advancedsearch=1&as=1&appid=18&lver=any&atype=0&pp=20&pid=2&sort=&lup=
let us know if you find something particularly handy


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Science Museum visit, Easter.

[Alan Bell]

well that sounds like a cracking idea to me :-) Looks like the Easter
holiday dates are from the 1st to the 18th of April. Maybe a doodle poll
would reveal a good date for everyone.

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Science Museum visit, Easter.

[Alan Bell]

Isabell Long wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I haven't forgotten about this, I just haven't yet had a response from the 
> Science Museum!  I rang them on Tuesday afternoon and I had to inform them 
> that their website did in fact say that they did organised *group* tours, 
> then they gave me another number to ring and that went to message so I left 
> a message and haven't had any response yet!  I will attempt to contact them 
> again this weekend sometime.  It's going to be at Easter, anyway.  Does  
> anyone feel it appropriate to create a Doodle poll yet?  Feel free.
>   
yes, if they don't have any specific events on, or reasons why one end
of Easter would be better than the other in terms of what is going on at
the museum then I think you could start a poll to find out what day is
best for us.

Alan.

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[ubuntu-uk] The Real Ale Train - Saturday 21st August 2010

[Alan Bell]

The Watercress Line is a small steam powered railway line in Hampshire.
It runs from Alton Station to Alresford. Alton is the end of the line
for scheduled services from Waterloo. Every few weeks or so they run an
evening special, the Real Ale Train, or RAT.

Basically the train turns into a very very long bar for the evening.
There are several converted bar carriages and plenty of seating (comfy
old seating in groups of 4). Steam, Beer and Software Freedom seems an
irresistible combination so it sounds like an ideal evening out for the
Ubuntu UK community.

We have conducted a poll to find the most popular date for the event and
from this decided on Saturday 21st August 2010. You will need to book
your ticket, tickets can be booked online
http://www.watercressonline.co.uk/section.php?xSec=191 and cost £12 each
including a service fee of some sort but more importantly including a
voucher for your first pint. Beer is not "Free as in Beer", but it is
just £2/pint. Don't hang about and try to book late, they sell out
months in advance. If you didn't vote in the poll you can still come, it
was just to figure out the best date. If you did vote, don't forget to
actually book your ticket.

Beards are strictly optional - it may sound like a male dominated event
(and to be fair, it is) but it has a very friendly atmosphere and all
are welcome.

Other alcoholic and soft drinks as well as snacks are on sale at the
on-board buffet. Hot food can be purchased on board the train with
vegetarian alternatives available. You have to be 18+ to buy beer, but
there is no age limit (at either end of the scale) for joining in.

The RAT starts from Alton at 19.20 and tootles gently up and down the
line a couple of times, returning to Alton in time for the 22:44 train
back to Waterloo. (This is a connecting service, if the RAT is late, the
mainline train will wait for it)

Dress - something Ubuntu related.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Please help.I've lost my partitions

[Alan Bell]

javadayaz wrote:
> The only problem is i dont think the hard drive is mounted, even
> though fdisk -l does show it as /dev/sda.!!
>
you might find IRC is a better way to discuss this and get it sorted out
more interactively than on a mailing list
on a different computer, or on a live CD on the dead one, go to this web
page http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=ubuntu-uk and tell us about
your situation there.

Alan.


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] canonical free cd's

[Alan Bell]

Paul Sutton wrote:
> Are canonical still giving away free cds in multiples for use at
> events etc:
>
> Paul
Put in a request and explain why the event needs them. It may depend a
bit on the timing of the event in the cycle, if it is close to the Lucid
launch then they may be running out of Karmic ones, or alternatively
they may be looking to offload them at any opportunity! The only way to
find out is to ask, and this isn't really the place to do that.

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu UK Team Meeting reminder - Today 7th February at 19:30

[Alan Bell]

The minutes from the meeting today are now available at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/LastMeeting
The agenda for the next meeting is now open at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeamMeetingAgenda
Next meeting is at 20:00 on Wednesday March 3rd in #ubuntu-uk-meeting

Alan.

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[ubuntu-uk] Meeting Minutes from last Wednesday and details of the next one

[Alan Bell]

Hi all,

The minutes from the meeting held on 03/03/2010 are available at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/MeetingNotes/20100303 and you can always
find the minutes of the most recent meeting at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/LastMeeting.

On the 17th of April we have the visit to the Science Museum in London,
if you can make it please edit the page here
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/ScienceMuseumVisit and add your name and
number of guests (not that anyone will do anything with the information,
but it would be nice to know who is expected along.)

The next meeting will be on 7th April at 8pm in the #ubuntu-uk-meeting
IRC channel on Freenode. If you haven't used IRC before please have a go
at joining the main channel #ubuntu-uk and say hi to everyone.
Information on IRC is available at
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InternetRelayChat or feel free to
email the list and ask for help.

One of the proposals from the last meeting was to fix the meeting date
to a regular first Wednesday of each month at 8PM. If you think this is
a great idea, or the most inconvenient time in the world please make
your feelings felt now by email to the list. We will discuss the pros
and cons and vote on whether or not to go ahead with regular meetings at
the next meeting. As the next meeting is being held on the first
Wednesday of the month at 8PM this would make it a bit unfair on anyone
objecting to that time, thus if you want to vote by proxy (for or
against) then please email me off list, I will be chair of the next
meeting and will cast the proxy votes.

Alan

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[ubuntu-uk] Vote Geek

[Alan Bell]

With the budget out of the way it is only a matter of a few days until
the next UK General Election will be called.
So which way should you vote? Who are your candidates? What do they
think about the issues on the the geek agenda?
I knocked together a little website to help you vote geekily, I give you
http://votegeek.org.uk where you can help your fellow constituents find
out what your candidates think by writing to them and asking for their
opinion on a subject that matters to you and share their reply with the
world. Please go and have a look round the site and find your
constituency. It would be great if you could write to your candidates
and help let them know that the tech audience is out there and voting.
If you could help get the word out about the site that would be great
too. I am using the hashtag #votegeek on the microblogging sites.

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] London Ubuntu install party?

[Alan Bell]

that is a great idea and I would love to help with it, however that is
the oggcamp weekend so I think a lot of the willing volunteers will be
up north in Liverpool.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu UK Science Museum Visit - WiFi Available!

[Alan Bell]

Jon Reynolds wrote:
> Well as it turns out, April 17 is my Mum's birthday so not likely I
> could come anyway.
>   
bring her along as a special birthday treat!
> Its funny tho, as just this week I have been wanting to go only to see
> the IMAX Hubble 3D showing in there that's on at the mo. Really
> would like to see it. Its about 50 mins long and should be spectacular
> visually.
>
> I would take my kids for a trip there, but they are a little on the
> young side to enjoy it (22 months and 6 weeks!) 
>
> Hope it goes well for everyone else.
>
> Jon
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Removing OO 3.2 from Ubuntu 9.10 and reverting to 3.1

[Alan Bell]

Gordon Burgess-Parker wrote:
> Is there a "global" way of doing this?
> What's the best way?
>
>   
why?

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[ubuntu-uk] Science Museum visit

[Alan Bell]

It is this Saturday, looks like 20 people so far
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/ScienceMuseumVisit
Weather forecast is Sunny so a nice day to be up and about in London.

Alan.

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[ubuntu-uk] Been to any events? Remember how big they were?

[Alan Bell]

With all the best events, if you can remember it then you weren't really
there.

If you do happen to have attended any of the Ubuntu-UK events of the
past few years it would be great if you could take a few seconds to edit
the wiki page at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/czajkowski/locostats and fill
in your hazy recollections of what it was about and how many people were
there that would be most excellent.

Alan.


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[ubuntu-uk] Radio 4 Click On

[Alan Bell]

I am going on a little adventure to Broadcasting house in London on
Friday to be interviewed for the Click ON programme in relation to the
general election and in particular the http://votegeek.org.uk website.
At the moment it is suffering a bit of voter apathy and I don't have as
many interesting comments on it that I can talk about as I would like.
Please spare a few minutes to email your candidates and ask them all
about their position on an issue that matters to you, and share your
email and responses. It could be anything from the farce that is the
Digital Economy Bill to the Digital Britain agenda, universal broadband,
use of Ubuntu in the public sector, teaching Python in schools, anything
that has a geeky angle and matters to you. Even if you are in a safe
seat and you don't think your vote matters you can join in.

Alan.


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[ubuntu-uk] Meeting Minutes

[Alan Bell]

Thanks to all those who attended the meeting this evening and Matt
Daubney for chairing.

Minutes are now available https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/LastMeeting


The next meeting will be on 19th May to discuss the support guidelines
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/Support_Guidelines that we agreed to
trial between now and then.

The next full meeting will be on 2nd June and chaired by Dan Fish,
please feel free to add items to the agenda in advance of that meeting
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeamMeetingAgenda


In between now and then your actions are:

* write up something awesome you did for the reporting page
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-uk/2010-April/023790.html
* Have fun at a Lucid release party
* Attend OggCamp if you can http://oggcamp.org/
* Vote on May 6th
* Attend UDS either in person or remotely on IRC
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDS-M

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Is the demise of Becta an opportunity for FOSS?

[Alan Bell]

Colin McCarthy wrote:
> Smart Technologys the makers of 'SmartBoards' one of the two popular 
> interactive whiteboards already do a linux client. Its almost exactly the 
> same as the windows version and works perfectly. I have used to many times at 
> our LUG meeting which occasionally meets in a school.
>
> Capita recently bought Ramesys (a large education IT provider) so there is 
> little chance of BFS, Building Schools for the Future, schools to have any 
> local control and choose Open Source software.
>
> FOSS does stand a chance in private or indepenent schools.
>
> Mark Thomas and SiruisIT do a lots of FOSS stuff in schools.  Maybe they 
> could be on the Ubuntu UK podcast to talk about it.
>
> Colin
>   
it is Mark Taylor (@Mark_Antony on twitter, Antony is his middle name)
and yes, he would be a good interviewee for the podcast. Becta have done
some good stuff relating to Open Source, if you look through the 152
downloadable publications they have produced several are advocating open
source technologies and they have made several advisories about the
risks of being locked in to high cost proprietary software. I think they
were influential in getting Microsoft to offer an alternative site
license to the one that means that you have to pay by the total number
of computers in the building, regardless of what they were running
(under the standard scam if you install a media suite of 30 Apple
computers you would have to pay Microsoft for each and every one of them
even if they run no Microsoft software). Becta also set up the Open
Source Schools project and you can read more about the Becta close there
http://opensourceschools.org.uk/bectas-closure.html Ultimately I don't
think Becta did enough to justify their cost, and that seems to be the
view of the new government too.

The interesting question is what, if anything, fills the void. Stuff
like the home access program will go or be managed by the department of
education (no great loss if it goes). Publications and advisories will
be pumped out from all directions. Not sure how good this is going to
be. Schools will have to make up their own minds a little bit more
(which they did anyway, but could just point at a Becta publication to
abdicate responsibility for poor purchasing decisions). Microsoft may
put up their prices in the absence of a collective bargaining point (a
role which Becta tried to do with limited effectiveness) personally I
think Microsoft prices going up would be a good thing, too much effort
has been put to saving pennies in that direction rather than looking
about for real savings.


Just to clarify a few points made:

BSF schools can tell their system integrator what they want and that can
include open source software. A few have done so to a limited extent (I
think just insisting on Moodle).

SIMS is a problem, Capita do not appear to be interested in supporting
open standards at this time. It is a big application, it was big when I
was using it 18 years ago on Novell Netware 3.1.1 and it must be huge by
now. There are alternatives, but I don't think anything with the level
of maturity that would be required for deployment. Schooltool is the one
I would look to, and interestingly enough that is supported by the
Shuttleworth foundation.

RM is quite Microsoft focussed, but they have been around forever and
used to actually build their own computers, remember the 480Z? They also
were one of the largest suppliers of the eeePC running Xandros. I had an
RM branded one for a bit. They are actually less dependent on Microsoft
marketing money than the regular box shifters.


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Is the demise of Becta an opportunity for FOSS?

[Alan Bell]

Jonathon Fernyhough wrote:
> 
>
> I think what I'm saying is that schools are just like any other SME
> and should be treated the same, not as their own special, idealised,
> case.
>   
yeah, they have the same issues as any SME, and we have solutions for
them. We just can't trade with them as easily as we can with other SME
organisations. It is insanely hard to do business with a school unless
you are big.
> Jonathon
>
> [1] http://xkcd.com/743/
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Improving Support

[Alan Bell]

Matthew Daubney wrote:
> Hello,
>
> First of all a brief apology for not sorting this out sooner, moving
> house has taken somewhat longer than I originally intended. I'm hoping
> to start getting things back on track now.
>
> Secondly, thanks to the people who turned up to my (frankly awful) talk
> at Oggcamp on this subject. Next time I have a chance to talk about what
> I'm trying to achieve I _should_ be able to do it better! As a result of
> that I have some notes I'm slowly going through to gain some ideas of
> how to move forward, but this moves me onto point three.
>
> What drives you to help support random strangers for no reward? Someone
> pointed out to me at Oggcamp that understanding this may be the crux of
> being able to actually help drive people to improve. 
>   
well apart from the "because I am nice" kind of answer it is because
they might be nice people and perhaps even potential customers, or
people who may repay the favor in unexpected and interesting ways.

Alan.

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[ubuntu-uk] Meeting minutes

[Alan Bell]

Here are the minutes of this evening's meeting.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/LastMeeting


Highlights included:

A call for volunteers for ISO testing

Exhibiting at non-tech events, such as car boot sales and goat festivals
(there is a link to that but you will have to read the minutes to find it)

Details of an Ubuntu-UK/Canonical event in London on the 13th July
focussed on Ubuntu in Business

Information about a GeekNic in London on the 8th of August

A proposal to revamp the loco team website in line with the lovely new
branding


The next meeting will be chaired by issyl0 and will take place at
20:00UTC (which is 9PM BST) in #ubuntu-uk-meeting. Please shout if you
need any help getting set up on IRC.

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Meeting minutes

[Alan Bell]

Alan Bell wrote:
> The next meeting will be chaired by issyl0 and will take place at
> 20:00UTC (which is 9PM BST) in #ubuntu-uk-meeting. Please shout if you
> need any help getting set up on IRC.
>
>   
that would be on Wednesday 7th July!
> Alan.
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] ubuntu-uk Digest, Vol 62, Issue 7

[Alan Bell]

Roy Jamison wrote:
> What about good a good old English fry-up or fish and chips? Ok, I admit
> it's lunchtime :) 
> Mockup #1 is the best, but I also feel the same, that it is a little too
> commercial. What about going with the new official purple colour? Just a
> thought.
> Great work!! :)
>
>
>   
aubergine is more commercial orange is more community, so it should
really be orange with aubergine highlights or something. dots are for
technical stuff.

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Meeting minutes

[Alan Bell]

pmgazz wrote:
>
>> Details of an Ubuntu-UK/Canonical event in London on the 13th July
>> focussed on Ubuntu in Business. . . . 
>
>> Exhibiting at non-tech events, such as car boot sales and goat festivals 
>> (there is a link to that but you will have to read the minutes to find it)
>>   
> How about VCS (aka NGOs)? I already organise events which publicise
> FOSS in general and Ubuntu in particular for this sector in
> partnership with infrastructure organisations such as LCVS and ELCVS
> Network (am doing some Ubuntu demos for VCOs at City.comm CVS Fair
> next week for example). I do a handout and have racked up a fair bit
> of experience in talking to non-techies about Ubuntu.
>
> I've just got a bit of Lottery funding to set up a portable Ubuntu
> training suite and some free 'taster' sessions for VCOs - which I'll
> be getting together over the next couple of months.
I will do a bit of alphabet soup translation for those wondering why a
Version Control System might also be known as an NGO
VCS= Voluntary and Community Sector
NGO=Non Governmental Organisation
LCVS=Liverpool Charitable and Voluntary Services?
ELCVS=East London Councils for Voluntary Service Network
VCO= Voluntary or Charitable Organisation

The portable Ubuntu training suite sounds very interesting, I look
forward to hearing more about that.

>
> I've done a couple of pilots with VCOs - one with an LTSP and a couple
> with stand-alone desktops. All the 'guineapigs' are still using their
> Ubuntu setups one-year down the line.
LTSP, at least that one is what we would expect it to be!

>
> Skimmed the minutes, but missed the link, can someone save me a bit of
> time and paste the link? Much obliged . . .
>
> Paula
minutes are always at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/LastMeeting the link
to the goat festival is http://akgraner.com/?p=471


Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Improving Support

[Alan Bell]

pmgazz wrote:
> I work with the voluntary sector as a community interest company
> providing paid support (and end up also giving a lot of free support).
>
> Among the networks of orgs who provide MS and proprietary software
> support to VCS (I think I'm one of 2 providers who seriously supports
> Ubuntu) there have been several attempts to set this kind of thing up
> (MS for VCOs) - so far, all attempts have floundered.
>
> I've thought about the IRC approach - but it'd need dressing up with a
> web interface as 'online support' rather than 'chat' as I can't get
> anyone to use an undisguised IRC channel (we have one on freenode).
where? and do join #ubuntu-uk.
>
> Among the problems are not only finding geeks who can work patiently and
> creatively with the general public but also that the people who're
> available to give support often aren't around at the time of day when
> it's needed. Support providers tend to park in the channel then wander
> off - confusing to non-techies who just come in, lurk for a couple of
> minutes and then run away if no-one greets them.
I don't tend to see joins and parts happening, but it is perfectly
possible to have a bot in a channel that greets people the first time it
has seen them. (not sure we want this in #ubuntu-uk but I have seen it
in other places)
It's hard to get
> commitments for 'n' hours per week and, of course, hard to be assured of
> the quality of support offered by random volunteers.

1:1 support from a random volunteer is going to have quality issues.
That is why we don't do it! The IRC based support system works because
there are plenty of people about observing the conversation, not
everyone is an expert in everything, but with enough random volunteers
there is great coverage of subject matter and time. Because the
conversation is in public other people can see it and intervene if bad
advice is being given, or if they have something to add. It really isn't
the same as a call centre type support model but it is better, the trick
is adjusting expectations and allowing people to understand how
community support works.

>
> It really needs thinking through, but it would be such a fabulous
> resource if it could be worked out - I'm interested in this if I can be
> of any help.
>
> Paula

you might also be interested in the Ubuntu NGO project, #ubuntu-ngo on
freenode and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NGO if you are not already.

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Improving Support

[Alan Bell]

pmgazz wrote:
> On 05/06/10 14:32, Alan Bell wrote:
>   
>> where? and do join #ubuntu-uk.
>>
>> 
> #fossbox - but it's not really used
nope, it isn't!
>
> Yes, if one has a bot/time to build, agree and deploy a bot - I used to 
> run channels on Dalnet using chan bots - but 'newbie' IRC users will not 
> understand that they're being addressed by a bot and will become even 
> more confused when they try to continue the conversation and the bot 
> jus' sit there and say nuffin' . . .
>   
yeah, not saying it is a great idea to have a greeter bot, but if the
issue is idle people not noticing a new arrival who doesn't say hi then
that is one solution to that specific issue
>> It really isn't
>> the same as a call centre type support model but it is better, the trick
>> is adjusting expectations and allowing people to understand how
>> community support works.
>>
>> 
> Well, I did think about just sending them to #ubuntu-uk - but I've never 
> had any success in getting VCOs to adjust their expectations around IT - 
> they hate it and want someone else to fix it. If you want to deal with 
> them, I'm happy to send them to #ubuntu-uk but they're pretty 
> time-consuming if you don't have remote access - and it's mostly about 
> recalcitrant printers, corrupted .docx files, file permissions, crashed 
> Evolution inboxes etc. Mostly it's just stuff they actually need basic 
> IT training for. If it's an actual bug requiring CLI intervention, you 
> haven't really got a prayer without remote access.
>   
sounds just fine, send them in.
>> you might also be interested in the Ubuntu NGO project, #ubuntu-ngo on
>> freenode and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NGO if you are not already.
>>
>> 
> I didn't, and I will :)
>
> Thanks,
> Paula
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Improving Support

[Alan Bell]

John Stevenson wrote:
> On 7 June 2010 20:10, Will Bickerstaff  > wrote:
>
> James,
>
> bringing launchpad to the desktop is a really cool idea. When I think
> about what would motivate me more to help, finding things I can help
> with is probably top of the list. There are a hundred different places
> to help out, forums, irc, launchpad etc. And I can spend hours
> trawling
> them all to find something I can help with.
>
> If some small app new what I used regularly and what hardware I was
> using then prompted me with related support questions then I would
> almost definitely be answering a lot more.
>
>
> Isn't there already some bug-buddy application in Gnome if something
> crashes, helping you report a bug?  Could this be extended?
>
that would be apport, which is there in the development cycle but not
installed in the final release (no, I am not quite sure of the rationale
for this)
> I like the idea of something than can gather the basic information of
> the system and ask for some standard information to help with
> support.  However, I know after using certain database companies
> support website that too many questions or unclear questions can be a
> real turn off.
>
> Just having a page on a site about how to ask for support would be a
> big help to many people.
well you will be pleased to know there is such a page!
here http://ubuntu-uk.org/
here http://www.ubuntu.com/support
here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SupportSolutionsGuidelines
here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SupportTeam
here https://help.ubuntu.com/
here https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu
here http://ubuntuforums.org/
here http://www.ubuntu.com/support/services
and now here
http://www.canonical.com/enterprise-services/ubuntu-advantage/overview

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Improving Support

[Alan Bell]

James Tait wrote:
> Alan Bell wrote:
> [snip!]
>
> > well you will be pleased to know there is such a page!
> > here http://ubuntu-uk.org/
> > here http://www.ubuntu.com/support
> > here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SupportSolutionsGuidelines
> > here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SupportTeam
> > here https://help.ubuntu.com/
> > here https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu
> > here http://ubuntuforums.org/
> > here http://www.ubuntu.com/support/services
> > and now here
> > http://www.canonical.com/enterprise-services/ubuntu-advantage/overview
>
> Am I the only person to look at that list and think "Wow, that must
> confuse new users"?
that was indeed the point I was trying to make!

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Improving Support

[Alan Bell]

John Stevenson wrote:
>
>
> I believe I suggested a page on a site where users could find out how
> to ask support questions, so which site would you direct a new Ubuntu
> user towards  ??
>
> Having browsed through a few with a newbie hat on I would have given
> up or just asked a for help without knowing how to discribe my problem
> well, frustrating the people trying to help me.
>
> Thank you
> -- 
> John Stevenson
> jr0cket.com 
> leanagilemachine.com 
>

are you thinking of something like this perhaps
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Feature or Bug: accessing localhost with no networkconnection

[Alan Bell]

Untick work offline in the file menu of firefox

Alan Bell
The Open Learning Centre

Check out our Libertus servers at 
http://www.theopenlearningcentre.com/libertus.html

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[ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu in Business - London, July 13th

[Alan Bell]

Hi all,

One of the LoCo events that we have been talking about and planning for
a while is a event with a more businesslike feel to it, something where
I should be getting up in the morning and not wondering "should I wear a
Tshirt from ThinkGeek or one from shop.ubuntu.com?", but "should I wear
a tie?". We have a great venue provided by James "selinuxium" Thomas,
Canonical have kindly offered to meet the cost of some nibbles and we
have a really strong lineup of speakers and demos. Registration opens
today at http://bit.ly/UbuntuBusiness and as this is about introducing
Ubuntu to new people please bring someone from work along with you,
perhaps the boss, perhaps someone who works in IT and hasn't yet had an
opportunity to use Ubuntu. Finally, please spread the word about this.

Alan.

The Ubuntu UK community and Canonical, the commercial sponsors of
Ubuntu, would like to invite you to a very different type of IT event.
The Ubuntu operating system for the desktop and server has made
significant inroads into UK businesses over the last 5 years. Often it
is driven there by the enthusiasm of individuals from the community who
use Ubuntu for their personal computing and see the advantages it can
bring to the workplace. This event gives those advocates an opportunity
to introduce their colleagues to Ubuntu, Canonical, Partners, community
experts and their fellow IT professionals. Attendees will learn how
Ubuntu is being deployed in the UK and discover how they can introduce
or extend this technology safely and effectively within their organisation.

All are welcome, but if you already count yourself as an Ubuntu user,
please drag along a colleague who has yet to see the light!

*1pm - Welcome *

An introduction to Ubuntu and our community.

*1.20 - Ubuntu in action*

A selection of case studies of companies using Ubuntu to enhance their
business.
*/Oxford Archaeology/*

Chris Puttick, Chief Information Officer, will explain how one of the
largest independent archaeology and heritage practices in Europe, with
over 400 specialist staff, took the strategic decision to adopt an open
source infrastructure with Ubuntu at the heart of it.

*/Emphony Technologies/*

A start-up software company producing engineering project management and
workflow tools for decided to deploy Ubuntu as its infrastructure, find
out how they got on and their plans for the future.

*1.40 - Open Mic*

Ubuntu partners and community members (perhaps including you!) tell us
how they use Ubuntu in a business context. There will be 5 minute slots
with strict timekeeping! 

*2.15 - Demonstrations, food and networking*

Grab some nibbles and see a selection of demonstrations and hands on
workshops featuring:

* Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (Amazon EC2 compatible cloud computing
  wherever you want it)
* Landscape Systems Management for Ubuntu
* Ubuntu Server Edition
* Social Media for the workplace with Wordpress and Ubuntu
* Quick, cheap, easy, low-risk and fun ways to get started with Ubuntu
* Ingres, an enterprise class open source database
* Alfresco document and content management

*4.00 - Ubuntu Advantage*

The new services from Canonical designed to give your business an edge
in its open source strategy.

*4.15 - Panel Discussion*

A panel with members drawn from Canonical, partners and the community
chaired by author and journalist Glyn Moody
 and loosely following the
theme of "The Benefits and Pitfalls of an Open Source Strategy".

*5.00 - Late*

Attendees are encouraged to stay on, sample an Ubuntini

at the bar, have a chat and enjoy the comedy night
hosted
by the venue itself.



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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu in Business - London, July 13th

[Alan Bell]

Alan Pope wrote:
>
>
> When someone organises one?
>
> We had an event in Liverpool last month which - last time I checked -
> is outside London :)
>
> Cheers,
> Al.
>
>   

yup, lets make this one a huge success and then do another one somewhere
else. OggCamp in Liverpool and OggCamp in Wolverhampton were both most
emphatically not in London.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Still having problems with recovery......

[Alan Bell]

John Matthews wrote:
>
>
>
> I have actually asked if I could get some paid help, and all I got was 
> this pre written e-mail sent telling nothing useful.
>
> John
>
>   

Another thing you could do if you want a more interactive conversation
(which the rapid emails indicate that you might) is to get on to IRC and
join the #ubuntu-uk channel. There is a much better chance of someone
walking through a longer procedure (like chroot from a live CD as I see
on an old email) interactively than trying to describe all the steps in
an email. I think we should be more willing to bump people from email to
IRC when a problem needs interactivity to solve it.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/IRC

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Still having problems with recovery......

[Alan Bell]

John Matthews wrote:
> Yes, but unfortunately, that hasnt been a very good option for me 
> either. I prefer the e-mail to be honest.
>
> John
>
>   

Email is good when you just want one answer to a question. If you want
someone to help you do something then IRC is better. People don't reply
to emails saying "I have no idea" because it isn't a particularly useful
response and a few hours later someone else might read it who knows
exactly what is going on.
So your current situation is that you have a working Ubuntu
installation, but if you hold shift to get to the grub menu there is
some kind of issue with the recovery console. It isn't clear to me why
you are attempting to go to the recovery console if the main desktop
works. So far I think you have described the issue with the recovery
console as a total freeze, with no additional information available upon
which to base a diagnosis.

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Still having problems with recovery......

[Alan Bell]

John Matthews wrote:
> It also kind of negates this 'Improving Support' thread really, doesnt 
> it, nothing has really changed has it, the same thing comes across, you 
> are all 'just' volunteers, which you do push down peoples throats. I 
> wish I could something about it, I would like to be able to help, but I 
> cant, I dont know enough, which makes things things kind awkward.
>
> John
>
>   
One interesting effect of the group support vs one on one support is
that with group support if there is some weird problem that nobody
understands (which may be down to the way it is described) then you get
silence as a response, rather than "I haven't got the foggiest idea what
is going on" which you might get with individual support. You can
respond to silence by adding information such as things you have tried
but didn't work. You also get people dipping in to the conversation, I
for example have no recollection of what you were talking about several
weeks ago. Sounds like you have some kind of issue booting though. Does
a live CD work? could you reinstall? maybe install again as a dual boot?
Is there any suspicious hardware involved? (unplug everything that you
possibly can with it still able to boot)

Alan.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Still having problems with recovery......

[Alan Bell]

John Matthews wrote:
>
> What is the point of having IRC chat and this e-mail chat, when nobody 
> is prepared to help. Its kind of really a piss take when you get threads 
> that talk about changing the way support is given, but all you get is 
> those same people can just barely post to take you to task, yet they 
> cant be bothered to post to help.
>   
I am not observing a lack of willingness to help, however I am observing
a lack of ability to help based on the information provided.
> Launchpad, well that is a joke too. You go through, and find out all the 
> things that I have asked about on there, and you will find the same 
> results as here, posts gone unanswered. So you will have to excuse me, 
> if I dont bother.
>   
Can you point me at some bug numbers please which you believe have the
same symptoms as you are experiencing. If you click the me too link at
the top of a bug it helps the developers to understand how common a
scenario is which is important because it indicates how reproduceable a
problem might be.
> The only reason I bother coming back is cause I cant not use Ubuntu, I 
> just cant afford it to reformat everything. Believe me, I dislike doing 
> this even more than you do.
>
> If I could learn I would do it myself. I would even try to help. But I 
> cant. So I am stuck.
>   

I would encourage you to take steps that would lead to more information
being available, the more information you can provide the more likely it
is that someone will understand what is occurring. Installing a small
dual boot partition might provide interesting additional information.

Alan.

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