Archiv des Autors: ccm

Daniel Holbach going to rock the turntables at Ubuntu Hardy Heron release party

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I already told you about our shiny Ubuntu Hardy Heron release party on the 26th of April at the sunken starship c-base right here in Berlin, haven’t I? While the schedule is already a must-come: seven talks/presentations, not only from community members but also from friends like the Free Software Foundation Europe, a live Samba band, the chance to hang around directly at the river bank of the Spree while having free wifi turned on, I am proud to announce that our dj team just got doubled: This time Ubuntu developer and MOTU Daniel Holbach himself will bring his turntables and show us what his interpretation of a drum’n’bass dj set is. He’d just say „rock on“ and so are we. If you want to give his mixtapes a try, just check out the very category at his blog.

Hope to see you Berlin folks this Saturday (German folks even – just enter a train, car or whatever). Feel free to contact me directly there, I am always happy to see new faces.

Why I won’t install Ubuntu on my OLPC XO (for now)

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As you might have noticed, a couple of days ago I finally received my OLPC XO. Of course installing an Ubuntu flavor was one of my major tasks for the first time, but…

… after booting the XO for the first time there is something like a cultural shock: The XO gui „Sugar“ is totally different from what you might have used before. After recovering from that clash you start getting a clue what the small white-green device with the „bunny ears“ called wifi antennas is about. It is about local communities, learning collaboration and creativity. So there is a huge difference between using an EEE Pc and using a XO. The EEE PC came with a Linux gui (Xandros flavor) that was just not what I wanted and as the EEE is actually nothing more than a small and cheap version of a common notebook, installing Ubuntu (yes, even the normal Hardy desktop version) seemed rational and indeed works like a charm.

The XO is different from that: It’s ability to share most applications, the strange network and neighborhood views, the display (that is definitely worse than EEE’s when using color mode but unbeatable when using the greyscale mode in sunlight), the strong wifi antennas invite you to play around with a different approach to work. There are even limitations that enforce not switching back to „normal“: The quite limited ram (256Mb) and Sugar’s limit for only running a specific number of applications invite you to concentrate and focus. Of course you suffer a bit from being forced to use „yum“ on the console when installing applications that are actually not meant to be installed or don’t integrate into Sugar. They are not „Activities“ as Sugar-applications are called. (Besides: „Activity“ is a nice naming convention in my eyes.)

So what about Ubuntu? It’s not only about running it on the XO. You prolly know projects like „It runs doom“ (yes, the OLPC runs doom but somehow you feel wrong about it) trying to run specific software on as many devices as possible. We know Ubuntu will run and it already does. But the task is to take the challenge of providing something different, something focused. There is a blueprint already that gives hints on what is to do: Ubuntu for the One Laptop Per Child Project. It outlines the necessity of providing collaboration software, mesh network support and more of those things you don’t think about in the first when reaching for your notebook. At the end of the day this gives you the possibility to reach an audience you’d never dare to dream of before. So keep on hacking the XO and don’t stop after launching *buntu on it. We can do more.

13 phases for getting sugar: My odyssey to the OLPC XO

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What a journey! It took four and a half month for me to get my OLPC XO. If you are interested in the journey, read on. I just need to tell it somebody 😉

Phase 1: Being an alien

I ordered the OLPC XO quite early through the Give 1 Get 1 program as I thought the idea is fine to support and I was really interested in the device. Not only in the hard- but also in the software and the complete package. So in mid November 2007 I tried to order, but… I live in Berlin/Germany and in the beginning there was no way for me to order. The web form was only able to handle requests from the States (and Canada I think?). Though I already made contact to a friend who was willing to be my delivery address in the U.S. the payment with European credit cards was impossible. But just a couple of days after the start of G1G1 I noticed you could order the laptop via phone.

Phase 2: Being a hero

So after calculating the time zone difference I called the G1G1 support and ordered the laptop by phone. Sounds easy but try to image waiting on a phone for half an hour, ordering in a different language than your native language while having to spell names, addresses and your credit card number. But hey: I was sure to get the device right before Christmas so I could show off with it at the 24C3 CCC hacker convention.

Phase 3: Being a loser

Of course really nothing happened. All I got was an annoying mail at some day telling me about my bad luck and having to wait for an actually unspecific amount of time and and offer of a postcard for youngsters explaining why the laptop will be delayed. So I had to join the hacker congress without gadget while having to see at least ten or more of XOs flying around there. Bad luck, really bad luck.

Phase 4: Being a cheater

In early 2008 a friend showed up who ordered two EEE pcs by chance and asked me if I want to have one of them. As I really yearned for a small device I decided to break my own rule and bought the EEE while feeling political incorrect.

Phase 5: Being a clown

After weeks a hidden link to a form showed up somewhere in the web where you could track the status of your shipment. Something seemed to be wrong with my order. So I took the time of hanging one and a half hour on hold. Afterwards an even worse than me speaking Indian callcenter agent told me that the delivery address was incorrect and we needed half an hour to correct it. No joke.

Phase 6: Being a monk

At least in early March I had given up my hope and tried to think that maybe someone somewhere is happy with one or two laptops funded with my credit card. Really – I started telling people that I did not expect the XO to be delivered and I really did not. I triend to get happy with my EEE, installing Ubuntu Gutsy and Hardy on it.

Phase 7: Being a zombie-child

Then it came. The very mail: My XO has been delivered. FedEx tracking number. I jumped like a child. But hey: Where the heck has it been delivered? My friend did not receive it. The signature from FedEx showed a name like „Jon Doe“ and I started getting angry. FedEx should stated they are out of business when somebody subscribed the package. Maybe I did not get the meaning of the combination of name and delivery address…

Phase 8: Being a child again

A couple of days later the package was found (picked up by a friendly neighbor). It had a totally false name on it, but hey, it has been found!

Pase 9: Being a scientist

Now it was time to manage a shipment from Los Angeles to Berlin while trying to get it fast. Ever tried to order a shipment by yourself? At the very first try you have to be a scientist. Tax rates, duane, weight, shipment type… But I got really nice support from my friend. Delivery price: over 100 USD. Ouch.

Phase 10: Being a driver

While FedEx managed to bring the package within three days (Friday to Monday) they also managed to inform me as late as possible on Monday that I wasn’t at home though I already called them in the morning. Bad luck again. But hey, I called their office in the afternoon and managed to get an address where it was possible to pick up packages manually until 8 p.m. So shortly about 8 p.m. I finally got my package.

Phase 11: Being an opener

So finally: Yesterday evening I’s able to unpack my own white-green-froggy-style thingie and plugging it into…

Phase 12: Being an idiot

… nothing because I could have been smart enough to think of American style power supplies. Guys, you really have crappy power outlets. This looks rather like a hobbie thingie than a serious voltage carrier. But in my bad luck at least the batterie had some power left so I’s able to hack around for at a couple of hours.

Phase 13: Being normal again

Tuesday, the device is still there yearning to be hacked. I picked up a converter for the power supply and that’s end of the story. Being on sugar now.

To give you some totals of this odyssey: I had to wait four and a half month for the XO and spent at least 550 USD for it (400 for the G1G1, 40 for the delivery to the US, 100 for the delivery to Germany and 10 for a converter). That hurts again and again but thats the price for being a first mover if you can say so when waiting that long.

p.s.: This post is not a rant about the delivery process though it really got on my nerves. I appreciate the effort for the project but also I have to state that these guys really need some managing hints. When thinking worldwide you have to make sure you are able to deliver within a reasonable amount of time. Lesson learned, I hope.

EEE updated to hardy

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Well, it got „boring“: After Gutsy worked smoothly for weeks on my Asus EEE Pc with desktop effects, some tweaks for hotkeys, overclocking and stuff I tried to run an update to the latest Hardy Heron Ubuntu version.

After having followed my own small Howto as preparation for the upgrade I noticed that I really got low on disk space. As I just installed the normal Ubuntu Desktop and few additional apps I had only about 28 percent of the four gigabyte which would be just not enough for an version upgrade. So as a work around I used a sd card and mounted it as /var/cache/apt/archives so that the hundreds of packages could be stored there during upgrade.

The upgrade (via „update-manager -d“) went without any disturbances but took about two hours including the complete download process. After reboot I noticed two major issues: Wired and wireless network were down (an uncomfortable combination 😉 ).

Wired network: The fix for the wired network network is the most silly thing I had ever done and after having found the hint for it on a web page I first thought that this *must* be a fools day joke but it was not: You have to plug off power and remove the battery for some seconds. Afterwards wired network is up and running. Yes, trust me.

Wireless network: The fix for the wireless network was nearly as easy (but not as funny) – just a wget/untar/make/make install of a patched driver copy of madwifi:

sudo apt-get install build-essential 
wget http://snapshots.madwifi.org/special/madwifi-nr-r3366+ar5007.tar.gz
tar xzf madwifi-nr-r3366+ar5007.tar.gz
cd madwifi-nr-r3366+ar5007
make clean && make
sudo make install
sudo reboot

So if you thought about upgrading your EEE: Do it. It’s time to find and report bugs for the thingie – in your own interest and as a nice way of contributing to the open source community. Just wondering where to file a bug about needing to remove the battery :)

Invitation to Ubuntu Hardy Heron Release Party in Berlin on 26th of April 2008

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Here it comes: Though the release party of the „Ubuntu Berlin“ user group will be mainly in German we also invite all non native German speaking visitors to attend us. Here is the official English invitation (thanks to ninin for the work on the translation):

Ubuntu „Hardy Heron“ release party on April 26th at 4:00 pm at the c-base in Berlin

Ubuntu 8.04 „Hardy Heron“ is arriving. To celebrate the new release of the popular free GNU/Linux distribution Ubuntu the local user group Ubuntu-Berlin will organize a party. The event will take place on the 26th of April in the rooms of the culture project c-base and starts at 4:00 pm. Admission is free.

There will be a programme of short talks (about 20 minutes each) in relaxed atmosphere. Several features and applications which are integrated into the new Ubuntu version are presented by users, for example the optional 3D-Desktop. Furthermore there will be contributions of associated organisations like the „Free Software Foundation Europe“ (FSFE) and the „Förderverein für eine Freie Informationelle Infrastruktur“ (FFII). A „burning station“ provides visitors with Hardy CDs at cost price of one Euro. For anyone who wants to try out Hardy straight away there will be the possibility to do so on one of the computers there. There will be many experienced users around, who will answer questions.

Flyer for Hardy Heron Release Party
(please note the year 😉 )

Apart from the official programme, the event offers the possibility to get started with the world of free software and to get in touch with like-minded users. Musical entertainment comes from a variety of Bands and DJs who will also play free music. Beverages and snacks are available at the bar at moderate prices. Laptops can be connected to a free Wifi net (visitors could bring a power strip, switch and cable).

Who is „Ubuntu Berlin“?

„Ubuntu Berlin“ is a free group of interested Ubuntu-Linux users. The group sees itself as a local communication platform und organises regular user meetings and release parties. The group has no own legal form but it keeps loose contact with the registered association „Ubuntu Deutschland e.V.“ which supports selected activities.

Place, time and access route

Date: 26th of April 2008
Time: doors open 4:00 pm, open end
Place: c-base, Rungestraße 20 in Berlin Mitte, S+U Jannowitzbrücke
Route: https://wiki.c-base.org/coredump/AnfahrtsSkizze

Contact

E-Mail: [email protected]
WWW: http://www.ubuntu-berlin.de/

Ubuntu Hardy backgound guerilla marketing

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Did I already mention I really like the default background image for Ubuntu Hardy Heron? It is called „Warty Final“ (confusing name scheme) and was created by Feta Kuti. It’s a new fresh style (correct me if it is older and I’s always missing it) apart from all those water-chocolate-thingies (which we have seen enough, haven’t we?). I already got asked about the background from people standing behind me several times. „Warty Final“ already enhances some Windows backgrounds. Ubuntu Guerilla marketing in an artistic way. Nice work!

ubuntu background image

[update]
A comment by user AshCroft (thank you!) stated that Feta Kuti is an „Afrofunk/Jazz Saxophonist whose music was some of the inspiration for the heron and was chosen as the name for the art submission“.

good howto: Bash Pitfalls

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There is a very nice collection of common Bash scripting pitfalls and hints on how to avoid them on Greg’s Wiki: Bash Pitfalls

If you are writing little Bash scripts from time to time or are even a heavy Bash scripter, give it a try – it helps you avoiding errors that might work perfectly under normal circiumstances but suddenly go wrong… A good guide especially for writing server bullet proof scripts.

Having a Hardy day – Ten steps helping you not to have a hard time upgrading

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So just before the first beta I finally updated my production machine to Hardy after feeling bad about not giving enough effort in testing for the last weeks. In one short sentence: It worked! In a longer sentence: It worked quite well, but…

If you plan to update your machine by calling „update-manager -d“ on Gutsy or actually any other Ubuntu upgrade you might have a better time with the update by taking the following then steps before:

  1. Remove all applications you installed for testing purposes but don’t use them. It’s a nice feeling to have a mostly cleaned machine. Removing applications before an update reduces download time, the space needed and dependency calculations as well as the risk of a dependency failure. So just drop all those only once clicked applications, games and even libraries. Take some time for this, it will save you time later. Trust me.
  2. Check that you have enough space left on your device. Hundreds of packages are being downloaded in one step, therefore you should have enough disk space for this. Keep this in mind.
  3. Compiled software by your own? Installed external .deb-files? If possible: Uninstall them, you can later reinstall them if they are not provided by Ubuntu+1.
  4. Added software repositories to /etc/apt/sources.list (or Synaptec?). Disable them for now.
  5. Switched to a server close to you? For an update to an alpha or beta version it might be better to switch back to the main repository server as you are getting probably urgently needed updates faster (correct me if this is wrong).
  6. Of course: Back up, back up, back up. Decide, if a backup of your home directory fits your needs or you also want the rest of your partitions.
  7. Bring enough time: A full upgrade might take two hours and more, depending on your ram, cpu power, network speed and amount of installed applications. Don’t think an upgrade runs automatically – it will ask you several questions during package upgrades and therefore awaits your attention. Make the day your upgrade day or at least the afternoon your upgrade afternoon. A cup of tea might help.
  8. Check for already known caveats that you might take care of. Normally the most important ones are collected on the wiki page to the current alpha/beta release like this one.
  9. Make yourself clear what „alpha“ an „beta“ mean: Take them as warnings and only take the risk of an upgrade if you are not under time pressure for a project (like writing an essay, developing an application or anything with a deadline close to your upgrade day).
  10. Check if you have the possibility to have a second computer around enabling you for checking against discussion boards, wikis and other ressources of useful information. In case of an emergency it is crucial to be online in way because often really simple tricks can save your day.

After these steps, feel free to give „update-manager -d“ a try. Take notes of things that look strange and check launchpad bug tracker if they are already reported. Now it is up to you to help making Ubuntu a better distribution and Hardy a really success.

Good luck!

p.s.: And if you want an example of things that *can* go wrong: After upgrade I noticed my wireless connection was down as the device was missing (no eth1 anymore). After searching the web I found out that the package „linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-12-386“ was not installed though it should have been. An „aptitude install linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-12-386“ over a wired connection solved the problem.

One step forward, two steps back – AOL’s new „openness“

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Great news! AOL finally opens it’s OSCAR protocol for developers by providing extended information through its OpenAIM program with a SDK, tutorials and all you need to build up aim compatible messengers or even bots. But is it that open? I mean, we know the difference between „open“ and „free“, don’t we? So a closer look at the license terms shows things you really don’t want to see and that are just unacceptable:

1. The „choose two from five“ rule:


„Additional Feature Requirements. Any Custom Client or Web AIM Developer Application that you distribute must include at least two of the following features or functionalities („Additional Features“) as an integral part of such distributed Developer Application:
  1. AIM Expressions. Inclusion of the capability for your users to choose and display a Buddy Icon to customize his or her user experience and provide a link to the AOL-Hosted AIM Expressions web page as documented in the AOL Additional Features document.
  2. AIM Toolbar. Inclusion of the AIM Toolbar as a user-selected option during the registration/download/installation process for the Developer Application, as applicable.
  3. AIM Start Page Launch. Inclusion of the launch of the AIM Start Page upon users. logon to your Site or to the Developer Application.
  4. Buddy Info. Inclusion of content provided by AOL that includes information about a user’s online status, including the user’s AIM profile, and AOL-supplied advertising.
  5. Advertisement. Inclusion of an AOL-provided display advertisement („Advertisement“) within your Custom Client, Site or activity window. Unless otherwise provided in a written agreement, all revenue from such Advertisement will belong to AOL.“

source: http://dev.aol.com/aim/license

So let’s say you want to develop a free, non-commercial client. Your best choice’d be choosing to implement „AIM Expressions“ and „Buddy Info“. That might be okay but it might be not. And actually it should be your decision, shouldn’t it? Even more interesting: What about console clients? Yes, they are around and it might be possible they haven’t ever heard of icons. Are they disallowed by default? Aren’t you free to choose a very different style of artwork for „expression“ by dropping the standard set and developing a new one?

2. The additional „hope to be unsuccessful rule“

Okay, this might be pettifoggery, but let’s also assume your client is implemented with the mentioned
requirements, people start to download your client, so it is widely used. Fine? Uh, yes, AOL thinks so too, as they are really interested in that:

„In addition to, and not in lieu of, the above requirements, in the event that the number of simultaneous users of your Custom Client or Web AIM Developer Application reaches a peak level of 100,000 at any time (as defined by AOL and provided at http://developer.aim.com/manageKeys.jsp) you must either: (i) within ninety (90) calendar days also include an Advertisement within your Custom Client, on your Site or the primary activity window of your Open AIM Developer Application, and discontinue any version of the Custom Client or Site/Activity Window that does not include an Advertisement; or (ii) within fifteen (15) calendar days, contact AOL at the following address: [email protected] and reach agreement on alternative arrangements satisfactory to AOL.“
source: http://dev.aol.com/aim/license

So what is this about? If your application is a success, make it commercial in a way. Free software is for a niche, big market shares are for winners? Be afraid of having 100.000 peak users? Stop distributing uncommercial clients if having success?

So, really thank you, AOL, for moving towars openness. But the way you define „open“ is not the way we mean it. It is not even „free beer“ you are giving away, it’s a glass of free beer with a big refund sticker on it. But you already showed that you know what is all about: Just a couple of weeks ago information about a xmpp/jabber aol/aim test server leaked and you might have noticed how enthusiastic people were. Stick to it, be brave! Other big companies already use it by default.

Think about companies forcing developers to implement similar „features“ into mail applications just because they transport mail to a specific domain, with a specific mime type or whatever. You would not like it? We don’t either. Make your protocol open and free. Your users are users – not customers, developers not employees.

using postfix for secure tests with live data

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During web development and quality assurance you sometimes want to test an application with live data (e.g. a web shop test instance with live customer sql data). As your application implements mail functionality you have to make sure that no mail on the test server is sent to a real user but you probably want to be able to send mails to developers and receive all other outgoing test mails in a catch-all account. An easy Postfix tweak for this is using a pcre regular expression virtual map.

So our goal is: All outgoing mails to a specific domain should be delivered normally (e.g. your company domain) while all other outgoing mails should be delivered to one specific catch-all mailbox.

Actually this task can be resolved by adding not more than three lines of configuration code in two files.

1. in /etc/postfix/main.cf add

virtual_alias_maps = pcre:/etc/postfix/virtual.pcre

2. the new /etc/postfix/virtual.pcre should look like

/(.+)@yourowndomain\.tld$/ ${1}@yourowndomain.tld
/(.+)@(.+)/ catchoutgoing@yourowndomain.tld

After having restarted postfix you are already done.

Please note, a ${0} instead of ${1}@yourowndomain.tld did not work for me, so this a tiny workaround which does not look beautiful but really does it’s job.

p.s.: A really nice (but somehow old looking) tool for developing and testing regular expressions is „redet„, a „regular expression development and execution tool“ which knows nearly every important regex syntax depending on the tools you have installed. You’ll find redet in your Debian/Ubuntu repository.