VirtualBox 2.0.0 and Intrepid 2.6.27-3 kernel

Earlier I had mentioned my issues running Intrepid on VirtualBox. After doing some reading, I decided to upgrade from the “latest stable” VirtualBox 1.6.6 to the 2.0.0 version. This seems to have solved all of the issues I was having with failure to boot.

Vbox 2.0 installed Intrepid and ran the .26 kernel ok and upgrading to .27-3 didn’t break it. Thats a good start! Sure, running an Apha OS on a RC VM may not be the optimal solution, but it is working here. My initial feeling is that its looking good, but I’ll keep you updated as more runtime use either validates or invalidates my initial experiences.

Last push for Intrepid documentation

The UI  freeze for Intrepid has been implemented, so now it is crunch time for the Ubuntu Documentation Team. There are about three weeks before the string freeze, so special emphasis needs to be placed on reviewing the documents and fixing them now.

Matthew East made an appeal to the Ubuntu-Doc mailing list last night, now I’m going to make an appeal to blog readers and Ubuntu users at large. If you have Intrepid installed please take a few moments and scan through the documents. If you see an error, omission, or typo please take a moment to submit a bug report. Your bug reports help us make the documentation better.

As a side note, the reason I am making this appeal to folks is directly related to Ubuntu’s 6 month release cycle. The documentation for the newest release is always rushed for time, because it is almost counterproductive to do major work prior to the UI freeze. That leaves only a short window of opportunity before the string freeze. Yes we will continue to improve and fix the documentation as bugs are found, but once the string freeze is implemented, doc patches can’t happen until after release.

Intrepid and VM’s, Planet Ubuntu and WordPress

I just got an email from Oliver Gerlich regarding my post about Intrepid and VM’s. It appears that this issue is indeed an Intrepid problem and a bug has been filed on it. Looking at the thread there are some workarounds that are stable but slow, but I’m hoping that the upcoming kernel patches solve the issue.

In the same email Oliver noted that my Planet Ubuntu Feed was broken. To be quite honest I set it up and never bothered to check on it other than to see that I was listed. For all you wordpress.com users that are also Planet Ubuntu Members, try adding /atom to the end of your feed URL if clicking on your post title sends you back to the planet instead of to your blog post. As an aside I’m also wiping out my planet-ubuntu category because I can’t find an option to hide that categories in the widgets. Thanks Oliver for bringing the bug report to my attention and pointing out the glitch in feed URL handling between planet and WordPress. Although I’ve had this WordPress blog for a little while, I’m an oldtime MT user and haven’t quite got the hang of WordPress.

Empathy strikes out for inclusion in Intrepid. Better luck next time?

Although it is old news to those that follow these things closely, Pidgin has retained its position as the default IM client for Intrepid. Even though people have been praising Empathy, the Desktop Team has decided to delay the switch until the next cycle.

For those that are interested in understanding such things, the Desktop team doesn’t just flip a coin on these issues.  In this case, the decision was made after a usability study was completed by Matthew Paul Thomas, aka MPT. Reading over the study, I can say that even though I am no fan of Pidgin I support the decision and hope that Empathy will be ready for prime time by 9.04 or 9.10.

Having a good unified IM client that actually works as advertised and can do everything the Windows IM clients can do will go a long way toward winning the hearts and minds of new users coming from Windows. Pidgin doesn’t quite qualify but for now its the best we have. So the decision to look into Empathy was a good call. Maybe it will push the Pigin team to polish and improve their product. There is nothing like a little competition to keep people on their toes.

Intrepid and VM’s

My experiences so far with Intrepid and Virtualbox have been less than stellar. I’ve has issues with Alpha 4 and am trying to get Alpha5 working correctly now.

I’m not sure if it is a Virtualbox issue or an intrepid issue, so I’ll most likely try running VMWare to see if I get better results.I have heard through the grapevine that its an Intrepid issue, but until I’ve tried on least VMWare I’ll have to pass on judgment.

Either way I’m starting to get a little antsy because string freeze should be coming up soon, not having a clean VM of Intrepid will hinder my work on the documentation. There is always a chance of epic failure whenever using a alpha OS but when I was working with Hardy I had very few issues overall and certainly none that kept me from booting from a VM or sparate partition.

Ubuntu documentation in shreds | The Register

It appears my earlier posts have stirred up a bit of publicity for Ubuntu, and not necessarily good publicity at that. I had made some simple musings on the less than stellar success of the initiative started by a small group of folks on the Ubuntu Forums beginner team. To make a long story short, my tiny blog seems to have been targeted by the Linux hatersblog and I’m guessing someone at The Register found it there and ran with it.

In any event, my apologies to any members of the Ubuntu Community that may be upset over the Register article title, we all know the docs are not in shreds. I can only hope that after the dust settles and the trolls go back under their bridges, we get a few folks from the community interested in working on improving the wiki.

Ubuntu documentation in shreds | The Register.

Summer of Documentation Ends

Earlier I mentioned an initiative started by the Ubuntu Forums Beginner Team called “The Summer of Documentation”. With the summer pretty much over with the coming of Labor Day in the United States, The results are in and they are really not as spectacular as we had hoped.

27 Wiki pages were cleaned up, expanded and brought to “standard” by 4 people. Another page is basically completed but not finished by another author, and there is still a list of pages left to complete. This list was established as an initial sweep and we had hoped to complete much much more than we have accomplished.

So what went wrong? That’s a pretty difficult question to answer. My thoughts are that the failure of the project can be “blamed” on a few different things:

1. Failure to advertise and gain community support.
2. Not having a good plan to get workers started
3. Lack of clear cut goals and targets
4. Volunteer burnout

These items are common to just about any volunteer project and many of them could have been avoided if we as a team had thought things out a little more. Since improving the Wiki is a colossal but worthwhile task, I am willing to give it another go with a little more thought and organization. I truly believe that given the large pool of potential volunteers that may be reached through the forums, using the forums as the basis for this effort is the way to go. It is also a lot easier to get exposure and coordinate the project on the forums than it would be through Launchpad or IRC.

Stay tuned for further developments as I try to get the ball rolling on the forums. I’ll need some help getting it going, as well as some folks willing to act as points of contact and mentors for the inevitable folks that say “Sure, I’d love to help but have no idea on how to contribute”.

Time to try a clean install of Intrepid alpha 4

Today I tried updating my install of Intrepid and I’m having major issues. This isn’t unexpected since I installed it before alpha1 was released. I guess its time to download the alpha4 alternate iso and install a pristine copy of Intrepid in my VM. The last time I tried installing a daily build it bricked so I’ll go with the slower but more proven method of installing and updating. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed because I intend to gear up my participation in the Ubuntu Documentation Project and having a clean default installation is a must in order to properly do the job.

More later on the progress of the install, and maybe some thoughts on the Ubuntu Documentation Project.

Joining the Unanswered Posts Team and Beginner Team

With the interest so far today about Unanswered posts day on the Ubuntu Community Forums, I’d like to take a moment to plug two groups of helpful forum folks.

The Beginner Team haunts Absolute Beginner Talk and tries to be helpful and welcoming to new Ubuntu users. To get more information on the BT you can pop over to their subforum or check out this stickied thread.

The Unanswered Posts Team strives to help users that have posted on the forums and have not received an answer. Of course this team can always use help and participation since they are volunteers like everyone else on the forums. They can’t answer every unanswered post because:

1. there aren’t enough members

2. not every active member knows everything about everything Ubuntu and Linux related 🙂

For more information on the UA team pop over to their subforum.

Unanswered Posts Day

Just a reminder to Planet Ubuntu readers that today is the monthly Ubuntu Forums Unanswered Posts day. Please take a few moments from your day and see if you can help out users that have unanswered posts.

Edit: I forgot to mention that to access an easy search for unanswered posts you should go to a subforum main page (like Absolute Beginner Talk) and use the forum tools link. My apologies, I use the Unanswered post team’s search tool.