Suggestion to make remote recovery easier

2008-05-05 Thread Andrew Sayers
very ssh [EMAIL PROTECTED] -p ` 8) The user now has a shell on the newbie's computer, as user remote-recovery. They can then read the password in ~/password, and sudo whatever they need to sudo. 9) Remove the remote-recovery user and delete their home directory - Andr

Making apt-get powercut-proof

2008-05-05 Thread Andrew Sayers
Debian? - Andrew Sayers -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss

Re: Making apt-get powercut-proof

2008-05-05 Thread Andrew Sayers
on to remove the offending package (and any dependencies) before retrying. Of course, this all goes way beyond my meagre shell-scripting abilities, so now we're just developing a feature request to present to someone else. - Andrew Sayers -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-dev

Re: Suggestion to make remote recovery easier

2008-05-05 Thread Andrew Sayers
Milosz Derezynski wrote: > There is IMO no real need for a random password; instead, the user of > the machine to be recovered should be allowed to enter a password which > he then can tell to the user recovering the machine remotely. This > doesn't neccessarily have to be more insecure; a random a

Re: Making apt-get powercut-proof

2008-05-05 Thread Andrew Sayers
Milosz Derezynski wrote: > It could work if after the package is skipped apt recreates the > dependency list; this might be bad to oversee though (especially without > a GUI), however adding a printout a la "These packages were originally > meant to be installed: $PACKAGES Since package $PACKAGE wa

Re: Suggestion to make remote recovery easier

2008-05-06 Thread Andrew Sayers
I've now updated the page that Pedro kindly started at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Recovery/Remote - this includes all the ideas I've got so far. This is my first Ubuntu development thing, so yes, any help very much appreciated! You're quite right that the people you have to worry about aren't the on

Re: Making apt-get powercut-proof

2008-05-06 Thread Andrew Sayers
r much investigation. - Andrew Sayers -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss

Re: Suggestion to make remote recovery easier

2008-05-06 Thread Andrew Sayers
At this point, I'm trying to walk the line between unrealistic "wouldn't it be great if..." type ideas and overly-strict reliance on solving the specific problem I have in my head, so I'd like to go back to first principles for a moment. Please tell me if any of these are false: 1) It's common fo

Re: Suggestion to make remote recovery easier

2008-05-06 Thread Andrew Sayers
Based on this evidence, does anybody object to a bug report being filed against openssh-server, saying that password authentication should be disabled by default? Of course, that leaves all my ideas in serious trouble, but that's a secondary matter. - Andrew -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mail

Re: Suggestion to make remote recovery easier

2008-05-07 Thread Andrew Sayers
(starting a new sub-thread for a new proposal) I'm currently swinging back towards remote recovery and remote help being distinct problems that need different solutions. There are three reasons for that: 1) As I mentioned in a previous post, remote recovery needs to be done in an extremely de

Re: Suggestion to make remote recovery easier

2008-05-07 Thread Andrew Sayers
Justin, I agree that a single solution would be best, but I can't see how to make it work in the case of a system that's mostly broken. However, it looks like it's going to be an evidentiary question - either we can make it work or we can't. How would you feel about the following working arrange

Re: Suggestion to make remote recovery easier

2008-05-07 Thread Andrew Sayers
On the other hand, I'm wrong about that :) I've just discovered a package called socat, which is an extremely general command line tool for creating connections between things - more so even than netcat. It's in Universe, so it's presumably not that much of an ask to have it upgraded to main. I

Re: Suggestion to make remote recovery easier

2008-05-07 Thread Andrew Sayers
Having looked quickly at cryptcat, it seems like some interfaces would be best served by cryptcat+socat, so that you can get security and a pseudo-terminal. To generalise your idea even further, how about a bidding system? For example, say the expert asks for a forward remote shell on the friend'

Re: Suggestion to make remote recovery easier

2008-05-07 Thread Andrew Sayers
We're certainly getting there! I haven't yet given up hope of doing this with a shell script (evidentiary question again). The benefit of a shell script is that it leaves open the possibility of packaging a "lite" version of the program as a single architecture-neutral file, so that we can suppor

Re: Suggestion to make remote recovery easier

2008-05-07 Thread Andrew Sayers
Okay, I've got the auction part of the dash adventure completed. In principle, the rest should be relatively easy. The code isn't vastly useful or commented so far, it's just a proof of concept really. The script doesn't prune unlikely matches (e.g. socat+ssh when ssh is already provided), becau

Extra hand-holding if `mount -a` fails

2008-05-08 Thread Andrew Sayers
When important filesystems (like /usr and /home) fail to mount, Ubuntu currently tries to carry on regardless, leading to confusing higher-level errors. Ubuntu's /etc/fstab uses UUID=blah to make failed mounts less likely, but it also means that it's impossible to mount anything when udev fails to

Re: Bug madness: High frequency of load/unload cycles

2008-05-13 Thread Andrew Sayers
How about a script that does some sort of binary search for the ideal amount of time? So it would start off by setting `hdparm -B 128`, then wait 10 minutes, check whether there's been more than $CYCLE_MAX cycles, do `hdparm -B 64` or -B 192, then start over again. If the script finished with a v

Re: Making apt-get powercut-proof

2008-05-15 Thread Andrew Sayers
If you're amenable to extra scripts being suggested, I'll submit a bug report(s) as and when it's relevant. You're right about requiring a user choice, but I'm a bit concerned that users are going to be confronted with a collection of options that they don't understand, where one of them is known

Re: Strip incompatible characters from Windows partitions!

2008-05-16 Thread Andrew Sayers
This e-mail summarises a discussion in #ubuntu-motu between myself, ScottK and persia. I'll first explain the general problem, then suggest a messy solution to a surprisingly messy problem. Most of these ideas are not my own, and in fact had to be explained to me at some length, so please don't a

Remote recovery suggestion, now with initial code

2008-05-31 Thread Andrew Sayers
We had a discussion in early May about creating a simple mechanism to make over-the-phone tech support easier. At the time, our (and especially my) focus was on recovery from a situation where X wouldn't start. I've put some time into the project since we talked about it, so if there's anyone out

Re: Remote recovery suggestion, now with initial code

2008-05-31 Thread Andrew Sayers
There's one serious security concern I have about the remote help assistant which I'm not sure how to work around: at present, it sends the helper's username in plaintext over the Internet, and strongly hints that they're running an SSH server. That's not a problem if you have proper security in p

Re: Remote recovery suggestion, now with initial code

2008-06-01 Thread Andrew Sayers
Thanks - I've updated that whole page now, including this section. I've removed the implementation section, because it's just out-of-date documentation now there's an actual implementation to refer to. Is there anything else you'd like me to add/remove/change? Because popularity contest data is

Re: Pidgin VNC integration

2008-06-11 Thread Andrew Sayers
There are several people looking into this problem in different ways - mostly building on existing frameworks such as telepathy. From a technological point-of-view, the problem is that securely sharing a desktop when both people are potentially behind NAT firewalls and haven't shared public keys i

Re: No "run" menu item?

2008-07-04 Thread Andrew Sayers
Przemysław Kulczycki wrote: > Recently I've noticed that Ubuntu (or just Gnome) doesn't have a "run > program" menu entry like in Windows' Start menu. > I don't think every user will magically know the alt+f2 shortcut. > I think this menu item should be added to the Applications menu, above > or be

Re: Feature Request: Better partitioning wizard

2008-07-08 Thread Andrew Sayers
Partitioning is one of those topics that you can argue round forever without any danger of reaching agreement about the general case. I'm not sure what arguments you've read about the "/ + /home" approach, but I found a recent discussion on this list fairly interesting: https://lists.ubuntu.com/a

Re: Debugging help

2008-07-17 Thread Andrew Sayers
Could this be related to the infamous bug #196277? To my untrained eye, it looks rather like the issues described by Frantisek Fuka in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/196277 - Andrew -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify se

Re: Disappointed with Ubuntu Server, could be used by such a wider audience

2008-07-31 Thread Andrew Sayers
George Farris wrote: > Lets start again. Yes, contrary to popular "geek" culture, there are > people that would like to: > > A) Install a home server from CD > B) Login and be presented with a list of options for configuring that > server > C) Not have to understand how to run the server at the "

Re: Call for testing empathy

2008-08-08 Thread Andrew Sayers
I've not been following this project particularly closely, but what does Empathy give users that couldn't be achieved by adding Telepathy support to Pidgin? Further to what Onkar mentioned, I'd add: 3. Pidgin is multi-platform, making life easier for those that wish to switch from Windows 4. Unle

Re: Call for testing empathy

2008-08-10 Thread Andrew Sayers
Alexander Jones wrote: > 2008/8/10 Luke L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: >> Pidgin works terrificly, and is stable. Ekiga covers the rest. This would be >> a pretty big switch in terms of volume of users, and Intrepid is only 2.5 >> months away. I believe this should be put on hold. > > Saying that Ekiga me

Re: Call for testing empathy

2008-08-10 Thread Andrew Sayers
Xavier Claessens wrote: > I doubt the contest is meaningful for packages installed by default... > Having pidgin/ekiga installed does not mean actually using it. Or am I > wrong? > > Xavier Claessens. You'd be right if I referenced the list sorted by the number of people who installed the package

Re: Call for testing empathy

2008-08-10 Thread Andrew Sayers
I'm a bit confused about the desired outcome of this proposal. From the discussion, it seems to be an attempt to get more developers looking at a new messaging framework with the potential to do all sorts of weird and wonderful things. If so, then replacing Pidgin as the default IM client seems l

Re: Call for testing empathy

2008-08-12 Thread Andrew Sayers
How about merging with Ekiga? That would give you more developers and a simple route towards being included in the default install, without the amount of disruption that would be caused by completely replacing a frequently-used app. - Andrew -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-d

Re: Call for testing empathy

2008-08-12 Thread Andrew Sayers
Xavier Claessens wrote: > What do you mean by merging? The code is totally different, it's > impossible to merge together. > > Xavier Claessens I'm talking more about merging the projects than the codebases - finding a way that you can all work on a single project that would satisfy users and dev

Re: Automatic fsck

2008-08-12 Thread Andrew Sayers
Matt Zimmerman wrote: > The LVM solution isn't viable anyway; there's no guarantee that the metadata > on disk is in any way consistent while the filesystem is mounted. The > problem in your test isn't only that the filesystem is changing from > underneath it, it's also that it may not have been c

Re: Automatic fsck

2008-08-12 Thread Andrew Sayers
Apologies for replying to myself, but I remembered that Google exists :) Apparently snapshot merging is currently in beta: http://kerneltrap.org/Linux/LVM_Snapshot_Merging Also apparently, LVM2 ensures filesystem integrity when creating snapshots: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/snapshotintro.htm

Re: Automatic fsck

2008-08-13 Thread Andrew Sayers
Phillip Susi wrote: > The snapshot was never mounted in the first place, so there is no need > to unmount it. > > As you mentioned before however, any files changed since the snapshot > was made will be lost when you reboot and merge the snapshot back to the > main volume. > Either I'm not makin

Re: Automatic fsck

2008-08-13 Thread Andrew Sayers
Alexander Jones wrote: > PLEASE redirect your efforts towards online fscking. This whole idea > is absolutely horrible. How so? - Andrew -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listi

Re: Automatic fsck

2008-08-13 Thread Andrew Sayers
Alexander Jones wrote: > Because people are talking about snapshotting a FS in a potentially > broken state, fscking it in the background---whilst continuing to use > it! > > Assuming that using a broken FS doesnt hose it (admittedly it > shouldn't), merging a changeset from a broken state into a

Re: Automatic fsck

2008-08-17 Thread Andrew Sayers
and decide which filesystem errors are really important. I've gone as far as I can go with this idea - if someone with more of a clue is interested, could you suggest the best way of solving this issue? - Andrew #!/bin/sh # Check filesystems without rebooting, using LVM # Andrew Sayers, 1

Re: Minutes from the Technical Board, 2008-07-15

2008-08-19 Thread Andrew Sayers
I think there's an elephant in this room - why are we running fsck at all? a) If it's to detect corruption due to software errors, fsck should be linked up to apport, and reported (semi-)automatically. b) If it's to check for dying hardware[1], it can be disabled for all but the oldest hard drives

Re: Minutes from the Technical Board, 2008-07-15

2008-08-19 Thread Andrew Sayers
Good point - make that: b) if it's to check for dying hardware, it's better replaced by automated SMART tests (or badblocks for drives too old to support SMART), with a nice GUI to tell you when your hard drive's about to explode. - Andrew -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-dev

Re: feedback on new wiki theme

2008-09-07 Thread Andrew Sayers
I don't like fixed width pages personally (my computer should do what I want, not what someone else wants me to want), but you can appease more reasonable people by changing "width: NNNpx" statements to "width: NNem" or "max-width: NNem". Using "em" rather than "px" fixes the width at a certain nu

Re: Configuration Validation

2008-09-12 Thread Andrew Sayers
Could you spell out some specific issues that this would solve? For example, are you looking to avoid two packages overwriting each other's files in ~/? If so, can you give an example of that happening? - Andrew -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com

Re: Configuration Validation

2008-09-12 Thread Andrew Sayers
I think we've all had that idea at one time or another, but sadly it's based on a misunderstanding of how the community works. Steve Jobs stood atop the mountain and commanded that Mac developers jump to plists, and everyone jumped because that's how Apple development works. If Mark Shuttleworth

Re: Configuration Validation

2008-09-12 Thread Andrew Sayers
I like the idea of a FUSE interface to GConf, and I could see extending the idea to some sort of configFS - I seem to remember the ReiserFS guys talking about a similar idea years ago, before recent events overtook them. I think an interface that involves opening ~/.configfs/myproject/version1/num

E-mail file formats [was Re: Configuration masquerading Data]

2008-09-18 Thread Andrew Sayers
This is a bit OT, but you can get e-mails out of just about anything by apt-getting an IMAP server and uploading your old mail from your client of anti-choice. It's not exactly a newbie-friendly solution, but it's how I rescued my e-mails from Outlook back in the day. - Andrew -- Ubuntu

Re: Confusing namespace for git in Intrepid repository

2008-10-22 Thread Andrew Sayers
Scott Kitterman wrote: > On Wednesday 22 October 2008 09:07, Ethan Baldridge wrote: > > You would think that, but the package git predates the existance of Git the > DVCS, so until it's removed/renamed, no. > > Scott K How about changing the package's description so that the acronym for GNU In

Re: Do you really want developers to be on this list was (Re: Very bad status of hardware (especially wifi) support in ubuntu, due to the too many accumulated regressions)

2008-11-11 Thread Andrew Sayers
I think there's some value in approaching this in a more technological way. Users of a program (Ubuntu's collection of online forums) find themselves looking in the wrong part of the program, or unable to understand the UI, or finding it too cumbersome to use. Then they become frustrated and wind

Re: Do you really want developers to be on this list was (Re: Very bad status of hardware (especially wifi) support in ubuntu, due to the too many accumulated regressions)

2008-11-13 Thread Andrew Sayers
Sarah - this should make sense on its own, but it builds on an idea I suggested in https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2008-November/006250.html which you might provide a little background to this post. > 3) There are plenty of other hardware regressions by which I am affected

Re: Do you really want developers to be on this list was (Re: Very bad status of hardware (especially wifi) support in ubuntu, due to the too many accumulated regressions)

2008-11-13 Thread Andrew Sayers
Stephan Hermann wrote: > > On Thu, 2008-11-13 at 11:56 +0100, Markus Hitter wrote: >> >> - Allow downgrades. This should help narrowing potential causes of >> the trouble. > > This is something I don't understand. > When I upgrade to a new release, I always think (or is it knowing): "Ok, > fo

Re: Are file permissions in files on external devices silly?

2008-11-21 Thread Andrew Sayers
I wouldn't normally comment, but I think it's important to put some perspective to the earlier argument about users creating noise on the list. When someone with an @ubuntu.com address responds to a reasonable question with a flame like this, without actually suggesting a solution to the important

Re: Are file permissions in files on external devices silly?

2008-11-22 Thread Andrew Sayers
tchomby wrote: > On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 09:43:16PM +, Sam Tygier wrote: >> The mac os solution is to have a 'enforce permissions on this device' option >> (in the info/properties of the device). maybe this could be implemented in a >> similar way to the .is_audio_player file [0]. > > A chec

Re: Go-OOO.org?

2008-12-29 Thread Andrew Sayers
Speaking as someone with a strictly armchair interest in this topic, I'd like to make a few observations here - The way (non-Sun) people talk about OO.o reminds me of the way people used to talk about the pre-Firefox Mozilla project - worthy and important, but with low developer morale due to an u

Re: Go-OOO.org?

2008-12-30 Thread Andrew Sayers
As I mentioned at the start, my interest in this is rather indirect - I don't expect to ever write OO.o code, and probably don't understand the issues as well as people closer to the situation. As such, I'm evaluating the arguers more than the argument, and trying to work out what sorts of things

Re: Go-OO.org?

2008-12-31 Thread Andrew Sayers
Hi Chris, Thanks for this - it's good to have some definitive information :) Do you know why Sun asked for their branding on a product with a different feature set to their own? It seems to me like this would cause confusion (as evidenced by this thread), and would give some measure of support t

Doing something about signal:noise complaints

2009-01-22 Thread Andrew Sayers
Hi all, Ubuntu developers tend to complain about the ratio of signal to noise on this list - that is, the percentage of posts that take up their time without helping them to improve Ubuntu. Many developers have apparently unsubscribed from the list for that reason. Grumbling developers are never

Re: Doing something about signal:noise complaints

2009-01-22 Thread Andrew Sayers
Loïc Martin wrote: > > While I'm no Shakespeare, I'm confused with the formulation: > >> I'm [somehow confident] that other people would consider these >> examples of noise. > Good point - I've now changed it to "... consider these to be examples of noise". Is that alright? - Andrew

Re: Doing something about signal:noise complaints

2009-01-22 Thread Andrew Sayers
Martin Owens wrote: > > Grumbling developers aren't good, no, but then I've also seen how > developers treat and think of their users in the most distasteful ways > on other lists. I think this gets to an important issue - the survey didn't test the degree to which people would hold back from pos

Re: Doing something about signal:noise complaints

2009-01-22 Thread Andrew Sayers
Markus Hitter wrote: > It's an interesting theory, and should be possible to test if enough developers respond. We could look at the correlation between people identifying themselves as developers and identifying bugs, mistakes, incompatibilities, and differing opinions as examples of noise. I

Re: Doing something about signal:noise complaints

2009-01-22 Thread Andrew Sayers
Thank you for the detailed review. I've made some changes based on it, which I'll explain below. I've made the language in section 1 a bit more subjective. I'm not sure whether you were meaning that the [] boxes should be for numeric input, but I've left them as drop-down boxes because numbers w

What do you think about the signal:noise ratio? A survey.

2009-01-23 Thread Andrew Sayers
I have created a survey looking at this list's signal:noise ratio at http://pileofstuff.org/ubuntu-survey/ - please take a few minutes to fill it in, so we can better decide how to tackle the issue. Ubuntu developers tend to complain about the ratio of signal to noise on the Ubuntu-devel-discuss m

Re: Internet-Teenagers and what Ubuntu can do.

2009-01-28 Thread Andrew Sayers
To be honest, I never really understood the focus on technological solutions to this problem. The user being monitored will always try to fight their way out of the box, and will often succeed (e.g. by downloading a live CD and using that). When you start locking down every avenue for "unauthoris

Re: Thoughts for assisting those with limited bandwidth

2009-02-02 Thread Andrew Sayers
If you just want to disable certain large packages, could you do some sort of pinning arrangement on them? You should be able to configure apt so that it (for example) prefers an older version of OOo to an updated one, but likes a security fix better still. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/P

Re: Fwd: Is disabling ctrl-alt-backspace really such a good idea? - no.

2009-02-13 Thread Andrew Sayers
Fergal Daly wrote: > Anyway, I'm curious, is this really a developer list? I subscribed > because it was the only way to _contact_ ubuntu developers and I've > seen lots of people use it for that. So maybe it has more technical > users than the average but that's not the same thing as being a > dev

Ctrl-alt-backspace - too late for a blueprint?

2009-02-13 Thread Andrew Sayers
I've written up a blueprint for a potential solution to the c-a-b problem. For some reason, Launchpad attaches this blueprint to "loco-drupal" no matter what I tell it, so it's available here: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/loco-drupal/+spec/blue-screen-of-life If someone else would like to tr

Re: What do you think about the signal:noise ratio? Survey results

2009-02-16 Thread Andrew Sayers
There are a few general points that I thought were worth highlighting: There is a gulf between the way that developers and non-developers see the world. This is reflected in their interests, their speech, and their approach to issues. While Ubuntu has many ingenious technologies to improve devel

What do you think about the signal:noise ratio? Survey results

2009-02-16 Thread Andrew Sayers
Hi all, The results are now available for a survey looking at the ratio of signal to noise on this mailing list. I'd like to thank the people that responded, and I hope it kicks off a productive debate. The results are available at http://www.pileofstuff.org/ubuntu-survey/ I generally find it's

Re: High CPU usage applet

2009-05-08 Thread Andrew Sayers
I think this is a really good idea. Making it an applet would let you list "suspects" (programs that have a high CPU load, or use a lot of memory, etc.), then send a STOP signal to processes guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, before asking the user what to do. I once played around with a comman

Put other releases in a chroot (was Re: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools)

2009-05-14 Thread Andrew Sayers
Regressions occur in Ubuntu releases. As mentioned elsewhere, this is to be expected, and may be for the best. But if you've spent 6 months getting Intrepid just how you like it, starting over again with Jaunty can be a pain. So how about we offer the user the opportunity to `cp -l /bin /etc

Re: Current situation of amarok, and of latex tools

2009-05-25 Thread Andrew Sayers
Jan Claeys wrote: > A lot of people run unstable during alpha & beta, but many do it in a VM > or on an old spare system. That doesn't help find regressions that are > hardware-related, of course, and in general those systems might not see > the same sort of use that people's "main" computers see.

Re: Ubuntu Desktop Unit Consistency (LP: #369525)

2009-06-02 Thread Andrew Sayers
Scott James Remnant wrote: > On Tue, 2009-06-02 at 08:57 +0200, Martin Pitt wrote: > >> Max Bowsher [2009-06-01 23:41 +0100]: >>> To my mind, the power-of-2 grouping is sufficiently intrinsic to the >>> nature of bytes, whilst the "kibi mebi gibi tebi" stuff not only sounds >>> and looks stupid, b

Re: Ubuntu Desktop Unit Consistency (LP: #369525)

2009-06-02 Thread Andrew Sayers
... this is yet another strange postfix or unit that users would > have to learn. > > 735.2 MB is not confusing if it means ~735,200,000 bytes. That's a good point for the short form, so long as the UI spells out elsewhere what "MB" means. How about using "million bytes" by default, and "M

Re: Ubuntu Desktop Unit Consistency (LP: #369525)

2009-06-02 Thread Andrew Sayers
Scott James Remnant wrote: > What would you use for the "thousand million bytes" case? :) > > HINT: the meaning of "billion" differs between "thousand million" and > "million million" depending on your location. > > Most people in the metric-speaking world know what Kilo means, and have > proved

Re: Ubuntu Desktop Unit Consistency (LP: #369525)

2009-06-02 Thread Andrew Sayers
Chan Chung Hang Christopher wrote: > > But whatever. Have fun changing age old conventions out of line. Other > operating systems are 'also tending' to use is not enough. Get this into > say the UNIX or POSIX standards first. > FWIW, I have no opinion about anything that goes anywhere near POS

Re: Ubuntu Desktop Unit Consistency (LP: #369525)

2009-06-02 Thread Andrew Sayers
That "grab a friend" experiment is one of those posts where my inner science geek betrays me. I chose "kilo" and "mega" instead of "mega" and "giga" so that I would be less likely to skew the experiment by asking the same exact question twice in a row with different phrasing. A more robust met

A quick note about standards

2009-06-02 Thread Andrew Sayers
A couple of times in recent discussions, It's been asserted that standards should be followed at all times. Without commenting on specific cases, I'd like to explain why it's not generally that simple. A standard is the textual equivalent of a programming library: a tool created by a lot of sm

Re: On apturls and repositories

2009-06-03 Thread Andrew Sayers
"Assessment of PPAs" sounds to me like peer review. That would be a big job to implement, but IMHO benefits would go far beyond a web of trust. Of course, I'm not volunteering to do it :) - Andrew -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify sett

Re: Ubuntu Desktop Unit Consistency (LP: #369525)

2009-06-03 Thread Andrew Sayers
Mike Jones wrote: > This discussion has gone on long enough that I'm no longer able to tell > what we are discussing. Neal posted a GNOME bug report (http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=554172) which I think sums up the issues really well. I agree with Evan that there are two issues: a)

Re: shameful censoring of mono opposition

2009-06-08 Thread Andrew Sayers
Christopher Chan wrote: > These are about 'standards'. Can there really be a technical argument > between using say the metric system versus the foot/yard or the ounce/pound? Yes: 1) state your technical requirements 2) state the relevant properties of each standard 3) argue about which properti

Re: shameful censoring of mono opposition

2009-06-09 Thread Andrew Sayers
Hi Mark, I think I understand now why you and the list have been butting heads so much. I'd like to present my theory, then explain how you can be more productive in advocating to developers. At a Fortune 500 company, I would expect that advocacy is very political - it's important to create (

Re: My Suggestions on ISSUE, MOTD, & lsb-base-logging.sh

2009-06-13 Thread Andrew Sayers
I got halfway through a project that would solve broadly the same problems as your /etc/issue proposal. It faltered when Launchpad kept attaching the blueprint to Drupal and the merge proposal didn't go anywhere. The would-be blueprint is still available[1], the bug in Launchpad has been fixed[

Re: about empathy as the default IM application

2009-06-16 Thread Andrew Sayers
I'm not usually one to stand in the way of progress, but it seems like there are grave issues here for people migrating from other OSes. Migration to Linux from another OS is best done in two stages: first you keep your old OS and switch to cross-platform apps, then you switch your OS and keep

Re: about empathy as the default IM application

2009-06-16 Thread Andrew Sayers
I guess my previous message wasn't clear - I'm not making an argument here from personal preference, I'm trying to file a bug in Ubuntu itself. Specifically, that dropping Pidgin will cause a regression in the user experience for migraters. I'm also not arguing that migraters are incapable of

Re: about empathy as the default IM application

2009-06-17 Thread Andrew Sayers
Peteris Krisjanis wrote: > I think it is quite clear that so called 'regressions' about Empathy > is more like 'We are so used to Pidgin, let it be there'. Yes, there > are bugs and they should be fixed. And I am quite sure they will be. If you're saying that the complaint is about a specific bug

Re: about empathy as the default IM application

2009-06-17 Thread Andrew Sayers
Hi Dan, About halfway through this reply, a compromise occurred to me: get migration-assistant to install Pidgin if it's detected. If that works, it would get rid of many of the issues I've been complaining about, at least for migraters that plan to dual boot. This post covers some underlyin

Re: about empathy as the default IM application

2009-06-17 Thread Andrew Sayers
As promised, this reply will concentrate on working around problems faced by migraters by patching migration-assistant. I would be willing to put programming time into the ideas suggested here. As I stated in another post, the best Linux migration strategy involves two stages: new apps/same OS

Re: about empathy as the default IM application

2009-06-19 Thread Andrew Sayers
Peteris Krisjanis wrote: > > I like this idea. This could be not only limited to Pidgin, but other > software, like Xchat, for example. > > Go ahead, create blueprint for this. > With apologies for the delay, please see: https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/install-programs-from-

Re: about empathy as the default IM application

2009-06-19 Thread Andrew Sayers
Thanks for these links. Now you remind me, I do remember a flurry of activity in August, which I'd put out of my mind when it didn't get any traction. I'll try to listen in during the next UDS, but it looks like there aren't many archives kept around for those of us that want to go in and see

Fallback plan if Empathy isn't ready for Karmic?

2009-06-22 Thread Andrew Sayers
There's currently a big push to make Empathy the default IM client in Karmic, even though the version in Jaunty still has grave issues - for example, MSN doesn't work at all for me[1]. The plan is to make sure that these bugs are all fixed in time for Karmic, but what's the backup plan if there

Re: Empathy is not in line with the much discussed guidelines

2009-06-23 Thread Andrew Sayers
Nicolò Chieffo wrote: > you should use git master before giving points ;) Could you give us some idea of when a testable version will land in Karmic? We've got two months left until the final decision on whether this becomes as significant a part of Ubuntu as Firefox or OpenOffice, so it would

Provide a GUI option in the installer to enable popcon

2009-06-23 Thread Andrew Sayers
This argument must have been had before, but recent events have prompted me to suggest it anyway: The "submit statistical information" page in "System > Administration > Software Sources > Statistics" should be presented during the installation process. The box should

Re: Provide a GUI option in the installer to enable popcon

2009-06-23 Thread Andrew Sayers
Mackenzie Morgan wrote: > On Tuesday 23 June 2009 1:36:21 pm Siegfried-Angel wrote: >> If I remember correctly there is already such an option in the installer. > > I think he wants it to be more prominent, not hidden behind "advanced", that > way it gets more use. I wasn't aware of the feature,

Re: Provide a GUI option in the installer to enable popcon

2009-06-23 Thread Andrew Sayers
Caroline Ford wrote: > 2009/6/23 Andrew Sayers : >> >> IMHO, the best solution would be to enable popcon by default in >> alpha/beta versions, and as Mackenzie says, make it more prominent for >> everyone else. >> >> This could have a transformative effect

Re: Fallback plan if Empathy isn't ready for Karmic?

2009-06-24 Thread Andrew Sayers
Martin Pitt wrote: > Andrew Sayers [2009-06-22 19:04 +0100]: >> There's currently a big push to make Empathy the default IM client in >> Karmic, even though the version in Jaunty still has grave issues - for >> example, MSN doesn't work at all for me[1]. > &

Re: Provide a GUI option in the installer to enable popcon

2009-06-24 Thread Andrew Sayers
Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: > Andrew Sayers wrote on 23/06/09 17:55: > > We're constantly trying to make the Ubuntu installation process simpler. > And explaining the Popularity Contest in an understandable way, in the > installer which is completely out of context, woul

Re: Standing in the street trying to hear yourself think

2009-07-02 Thread Andrew Sayers
Evan wrote: I like this idea in principle, but in practice I'd be worried about messages being pushed back and forth between forums - your sound driver breaks, and the audio forum pushes your question to the driver forum, which pushes you back to the sound forum, ad nauseum. I suspect the ans

Re: Standing in the street trying to hear yourself think

2009-07-02 Thread Andrew Sayers
The Ubuntu community is growing, and as Evan mentioned, our current channels of communication can only support a finite rate of messages. So there are only two possible solutions: increase the supply of meat-bandwidth, or decrease the demand. Other posts have interesting ideas about increasing

Re: Standing in the street trying to hear yourself think

2009-07-03 Thread Andrew Sayers
Evan wrote: > Launchpad is for bug reporting and tracking, beyond that I have no idea > where the actual division of responsibilities lies. Perhaps clarifying > that (ex: Wiki is for Howtos only, forums are only for ...) and then > providing a meta-support page for each topic would help. So some

Re: Standing in the street trying to hear yourself think

2009-07-08 Thread Andrew Sayers
I think the model we're heading towards with the signpost is that the wiki page contains questions that have been asked before, while IRC and the wiki discussion page are for new questions. If it works, I think #ubuntu might want to look at the signpost model. Being able to click "I have a prob

Re: Standing in the street trying to hear yourself think

2009-07-09 Thread Andrew Sayers
I think the FAQ/flowchart/chatroom model could work very well in other places, but the Signpost is just about pointing people in the right direction - providing solutions is outside our modest scope. You've already got a chatroom in #ubuntu, so the next thing is to start writing answers. I wou

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