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Foresight

Teaser: Another big announcement

Yes, I’m going to tease you.

Expect another big Foresight announcement in the next 48 hours. And no, it’s not an OEM deal.

But it’s still big.

Stay tuned, and free up your calendar for Sunday night!

Banshee 0.98.2

Banshee 0.98.2 is out! Read the release notes, and check out Planet Banshee for the developer’s comments on the new functionality.

What’s new? VIDEO. Yup, you read that right. Your favorite audio manager is now a full fledged media manager.

I’ve been using the Banshee Preview for a few weeks, and this latest release for almost a week, and it works great. Import your music or video, and watch it right in Banshee. And if you’re listening to music, click the Now Playing button for some great visualizations.

A big shout out to Will Farrington for writing the recipe, which I committed last night to the Foresight repositories. Search for banshee-1 in PackageKit, or install via sudo conary update banshee-1=@fl:2-qa Enjoy!

(And thanks to the Banshee devs for giving me credit for helping write the release notes, but I really didn’t deserve it. I started ’em with a copy / paste of 0.98.1, and some other minor edits, but didn’t get a chance to really finish it). Gotta love the Foresight mention right in the release notes though!

Lenovo Thinkpad T61

My uncle, who’s also my godfather, passed away recently, and unexpectedly gifted me with an inheritance. After a discussion with my wife, I decided to buy myself a new toy.

My current laptop (a Toshiba A135-S4467) is only a year old, but doesn’t support VT, and I wanted something slightly smaller and lighter. It’s had Foresight on it since day one, and I recently just upgraded it from 1 GB memory to 2GB, but resume and suspend has never worked on it. (Thanks Toshiba). My wife’s laptop is about 4 years old, and my old laptop will make a nice upgrade for her. Once I peel the stickers off…

I did a little shopping around, but a number of Foresight developers have Thinkpads, and they just work. I had a little guilt buying from a Chinese company, but let’s be honest. They’re all made in China anyways. What really decided it for me, was the ability to support a company that offers Linux pre-installed, specifically SUSE.

After a quick run to Best Buy to look at screen sizes, I decided to buy a 14.1″ T61online at Lenovo.com. Now it was time to place the order.

The buying experience was so-so. Finding the link on Lenovo’s Thinkpad page to the SUSE option was fairly well buried, and I finally found it on the bottom right of the page, way below the customization options for the different models prominently featured above. (Going back to their site this week, I don’t even see that link or any of the other information under the Special Offers).

To my disappointment, all of the processor options for the SUSE builds were a generation behind (T7400 – T7800). If I was going to buy a new laptop, I thought I might as well do it right, and get one of the new 45mm Penryn processors (T8100 – T9500). But no such luck, and I ended up having to customize one with Vista. I chose Vista Home Basic and as I’m going to immediately wipe it and put Foresight on it anyway. I also ordered less memory (1x1GB) and ordered 4GB (2x2GB) from Newegg, as it was much cheaper that way.

After purchasing it a week ago Sunday, Lenovo showed my ship date as Tuesday, April 8th. That was a little disappointing as their website said available in 1-2 weeks, and that was just over two weeks total. After a slight hiccup with my order being processed (Visa held it thinking it was fraud, more on that below), I got that fixed Monday, and on Tuesday Lenovo showed my status as starting to build the order. I was pleasantly surprised on Thursday, just 4 days later when I got the ship notice from Lenovo. So much for 1-2 weeks! Now that is under promising and over delivering. Of course, I chose the free ground shipping, so I still have a few days to go before it gets here. The waiting is killing me!

I ended up ordering:

  • Intel Core 2 Duo T9300
  • 14.1″ WXGA+ monitor
  • Intel GMA X3100 Video Card
  • 1 GB (1×1) PC5300 Memory (and 4GB from Newegg)
  • 100GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive
  • PC Card Slot and Media Card Slot
  • Intel 4965 A/G/N Wireless
  • Integrated Bluetooth
  • 9 Cell Lithium-Ion Battery

I also ordered, in addition to the laptop and the memory, a Timbuk 2 messenger bag. After taking a few hours trying to decide and building my own, I went with the Blue Whimsy Limited Edition. (No wonder Visa thought there was some fraud going on, 3 quick purchases all online).

Good-bye Toshiba laptop, you’ve served me well. And thanks Uncle John, we’ll miss you.

dsc02199.jpg

Foresight stuff from around the web

I’ve been in Los Angeles for most of the two weeks. I hate traveling, as I feel out of the loop on stuff, so trying to get caught up. A few others have posted some similar links, but here’s what’s going on in the world of Foresight:

  • Shuttle’s KPC launched on Newegg a day or two ago. $209.99 with Foresight pre-installed.
  • Foresight 2.0’s GNOME edition was released 8 days ago featuring GNOME 2.22 and a complete re-design of Foresight’s base infrastructure. Amazingly fast installer, latest GNOME, and some new default settings. A few things left to tweak, but I’m so amazed by the progress Foresight has made in the last year since I started using it. Download it and / or read the release notes.
  • The Foresight Forums are live! I’m very impressed by the number of people who have created accounts already, and the number of discussions going on. Big shout out to Stef for launching the appliance.
  • I booked my flight for the Foresight User and Developer Conference. I’m very excited to see two of our UK devs coming over the pond to join us. Be there or be square!
  • Here’s a great interview with our fearless leader Ken VanDine at fsckin.com.
  • Here’s a nice review of Foresight 2.0. Love the User Guide shout out.
  • Here’s a mixed review of Foresight. The author liked the installation, User Guide, and had some valid concerns about PackageKit, Conary’s lack of metadata, and codec installation. Stuff I hope to work on this weekend. The author does not recommend Foresight at the end, and recommends Ubuntu to new users. I don’t have a problem with bad reviews – it’s good to maintain perspective and gives us developers goals to work towards to keep making Foresight better.
  • Tasque, formerly Tasky, is now available in the Foresight repositories instead of my personal repo. It’s still in 2-qa for testing. Rock!
  • The first alpha of the new Banshee is also available for testing in 2-qa, available as banshee-1.
  • Audacity is now available in 2-qa for the first time in Foresight. GTK-1 apps are a pain to build packages for, and Ken is the man for getting this in. Time to start learning how to podcast!
  • ATI’s proprietary driver, fglrx, is available for testing in 2-devel for the first time in Foresight 2.0. I’m going to install and test it this weekend on my test box. I still need to write the documentation for installing that in the User Guide.

Lots of stuff going on! We still have bugs to fix, packages to add, and updates to documentation that need to be written. If you’ve ever wanted to contribute, now’s a great time. For more information ping me in IRC, pcutler on Freenode in #foresight.

Codecs

A major change from Foresight 1.x to 2.0 (Beta) is the removal of proprietary codecs, which are no longer installed by default.

Depending on where you live and the legality of the codecs, users can install MP3 and DVD support via sudo conary update group-codecs.

You, of course, assume all legal responsibility. 🙂

Banshee Alpha

Will Farrington was kind enough to write a recipe for an early look at the next generation of Banshee, which is an early alpha. I’ve been able to get the recipe to cook locally, but not on rMake, so it’s not available in the repos yet, but we’re working on it.

With the exception of two visual quirks that come and go, it’s running great. Last.fm / audioscrobbling works 10 times better than Banshee 0.13.2, and the new UI gives you the ability to view the browser on top or on the left. (The screenshot below is with the browser on the left).

Best of all, searching overall is much faster. It still has support for Smart Playlists and DAPs, and I’m going to test the DAP functionality overnight. (update – I didn’t read the Alpha notice that pops up every time you start it well enough – no DAP support or plugins yet!) I don’t see plugin support yet, but all I need right now is Last.fm.

Well done Banshee developers!

Banshee alpha running on Foresight 2.0 Beta 1:

banshee-alpha

Foresight News

Here are just a few things going on in the world of Foresight recently:

We have even more news in the works, so keep an eye on Planet Foresight!

Shuttle chooses Foresight for the Shuttle KPC

Shuttle released a press release today:

Shuttle Teams with Foresight Linux on $199 KPC

City of Industry, CA., MArch 4, 2008

Shuttle today announced that the newly launched $199 KPC will feature the Foresight Linux operating system. With an intuitive interface and user focused design, Foresight does away with the need for users to be familiar with Linux.

A host of the latest software is packaged with the operating system, giving users convenient and enjoyable access to music, photos, videos, documents, and the Internet. Even keeping up-to-date with the latest features and fixes is a simple process with the user friendly update button.

Foresight uses the revolutionary Conary® Package Manager developed by rPath and distributed as Open Source software under the terms of the Common Public License. With the Conary® Package Manager, the system updates only the specific files in packages which need to be updated so updating takes little time and bandwidth.

Shuttle’s KPC includes many software packages already installed, including the OpenOffice.org® office suite, the Firefox® web browser, the Pidgin instant messenger, the Banshee music player, the Totem movie player, the F-Spot photo organizer, and Compiz for 3D desktop effects. For more details visit: http://us.shuttle.com/kpc

We’re putting a lot of work making sure Foresight 2.0 is ready and polished as we are excited to introduce Foresight to new users who buy Shuttle’s KPC. A new addition to Shuttle’s family of SFF (small form factor PCs), the KPC features the ability to customize the look of the front of the computer, and features a 80 GB hard drive, Intel Graphics, 512 MB ram, and choice of Intel processors.

Shuttle KPC

More information at Shuttle’s KPC website.

Tasky on Foresight 2

[Tasky][1] is a new task management application for the GNOME desktop. Written by [Boyd Timothy][2] and [Calvin Gaisford][3], Tasky features syncing with [Remember the Milk][4], but doesn’t feature the ability to use RTM tags yet. Tasky is a great way to help implement and use [Getting Things Done][5].

I went on the adventure last night of packaging Tasky for Foresight 2 in my personal repository on rBuilder, the first package I’ve added to my own repo. After some initial hiccups with my build setup, the light bulb finally went off and I think I’ve finally figured out Conary contexts after all this time. I can’t thank Ken enough for all his help last night, from figuring out my setup to troubleshooting the rMake logs on what dependencies Tasky was missing.

Building packages using [Conary][6] is, on one hand, at times frustrating, but on the other hand, exhilarating when it finally works. And though I may say frustrating, I packaged up 4-5 Ubuntu .debs before I switched to Foresight a year ago, and Conary is still ten times easier (at least).

I started with my [recipe][7], this is the final version:

`


This file is distributed under the terms of the MIT License.

A copy is available at http://www.rpath.com/permanent/mit-license.html

class Tasky(AutoPackageRecipe):
name = 'tasky'
version = '0.1.3'
buildRequires = ['GConf:runtime', 'banshee:lib', 'desktop-file-utils:runtime',
'f-spot:lib', 'gettext:runtime', 'gnome-sharp:devellib', 'gtk-sharp:cil', 'gtk-sharp:devellib',
'gtk:runtime', 'mono:cil', 'mono:devel', 'mono:runtime', 'ndesk-dbus:cil', 'notify-sharp:devellib', 'ndesk-dbus:devellib',
'ndesk-dbus-glib:devellib',
'perl:runtime', 'pkgconfig:devel', 'intltool:runtime', 'ndesk-dbus-glib:cil', 'notify-sharp:cil']

def unpack(r):
r.addArchive('http://tasky.googlecode.com/files/tasky-0.1.3.tar.gz') ` When I first cooked it, I didn’t have any of the buildRequires listed. [cvc cook][8] kicked back the recommendations it had to add to buildRequires, and I added them. I was then given a changeset file I was able to install using Conary. And Tasky worked! The first time you run it, and choose RTM, it will open RTM in your browser, and ask you to authorize the application. After that, I had a Tasky icon on my panel, and opening Tasky I was presented with all my tasks that I’ve entered into RTM (which I need to update). Choosing the Foresight tag, I saw: [Screenshot-Tasky][9] Very pleased with myself, the next step was to [rMake][10] Tasky, and commit to my repo. However, rMake would fail. Ken showed me what to look for in the rMake log, and the Conary command to find the missing package and add to my buildRequires in the above recipe. This was the frustrating part, as it became trial and error. rMake would tell me I was missing a package, I’d figure out which one, and then rMake again (And usually pinging Ken for more help). After running rMake seven times and adding the missing dependencies, the 8th time worked, and Tasky was created by rMake in it’s chroot. The pride and excitement you feel when it works is quite the rush. I then did a rMake commit, and now anyone can install Tasky for testing, and I committed x86 and x86_64 versions. From a command line in Foresight 2, type: `sudo conary update tasky=silwenae.rpath.org@fl:2-devel` Leave your feedback on how it works for you! Tasky also features a Tomboy plugin, but I’m not an advanced enough developer to even think about how I would go about patching Tomboy to make it work. More information on the Tomboy patch and plugin [at the bottom of Boyd’s blog post][2]. Now it’s time to make sure my Tasks are up to date. [1]: http://code.google.com/p/tasky/ [2]: http://boyd.musipal.com/2008/02/tasky-cracks-whip.html [3]: http://calvinrg.blogspot.com/ [4]: http://www.rememberthemilk.com/ [5]: http://www.davidco.com/what_is_gtd.php [6]: http://wiki.rpath.com/wiki/Conary [7]: http://wiki.rpath.com/wiki/Conary:Recipe [8]: http://wiki.rpath.com/wiki/Conary:cvc_cook [9]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/silwenae/2297654639/ "Screenshot-Tasky by silwenae, on Flickr" [10]: http://wiki.rpath.com/wiki/Conary:About_rMake

The past week in Foresight

Lots of stuff going on:

  • Alpha 4 was released! Tons of bug fixes, OOo is back in, and still lots to do. Read the release notes.
  • Work is flying on the new website. SpecialKevin and Etank have done a ton of work, Stefw is helping with content, and Nixternal wrote some great Javascript menus.
  • Do you know CSS, HTML and PHP? Help us theme our Planet, a WordPress theme, or our new forums that will be launching soon using the new website’s CSS. Sign up on our marketing list and lend a hand.
  • The second revision to the Foresight User Guide is about half done, and I hope to have it finished this week. Writing it in docbook, and then I plan on porting it back to the wiki. Want to help? Join the docs team.
  • Dateline Fosdem: Ken VanDine, doniphon, Mark__T and more met up this past weekend. I hope they blog about it, sounds like they had a great time.
  • Do you create packages on rBuilder and commit to your own repository for use on Foresight or directly to the Foresight repo? Use your GPG key to sign your packages.
  • Congratulations to Eric Lake, Mark Trompell and Will Farrington approved as Foresight developers; and Matthew West as a Foresight member, who were all approved at last week’s Focus meeting.

More to come soon, and maybe even a really big announcement sometime in March.