Foresight gets a nice review on the latest Linux Void Podcast (about 10 minutes in.) They touch on installing Foresight, the GNOME desktop, the User Guide, and Conary and it’s package management.
Towards the end of the review:
_
“People who want to start using Linux, and may not want to use Ubuntu, should check out Foresight”._
Overall, a good review.
What a week last week turned out to be for Foresight!
In no particular order:
One last note, this week’s Foresight Council meeting has been moved up a day, from Friday to Thursday at 9 a.m. EST in #foresight-council on Freenode IRC.
After months of slacking on my part, I am proud to announce a new issue of the Foresight Newsletter is out.
Now in to it’s second year, this issue gives an overview on the latest releases, including both 2.0.4 and 2.0, community news, a look back at the first Foresight User & Developer Conference, upcoming conferences, and other information. (Considering everything that’s happened, it could have been stuffed with news, but I really needed to push out a release and give myself a kick start).
Next month expected a more detailed in development section, and if my evil plan comes to life, this may even be the last month it’s released via the Foresight Wiki. (Cross your fingers!)
Enjoy the newsletter, and I’m always on the lookout for anyone who wants to lend a hand in writing for it as well.
(Sometimes it’s so weird to see your own name on the interwebs).
Thank goodness I actually updated my blog earlier in the day.
Just a reminder, I’ll be giving a talk on Foresight this Saturday in St. Paul at Penguins Unbound.
It will be more of an introduction to Foresight to existing Linux users (though I hope a few folks who don’t use Linux are there), and I’ll have some install discs to give out.
The meeting starts at 10:00 a.m., hit the link above for directions. See you there!
I’ll be giving a talk on Foresight at the end of July at a relatively new LUG in the Twin Cities, Penguins Unbound.
I’ve met a few Foresight users in IRC that live in the Twin Cities over the next year. I hope you’ll come out and we can meet in person. Hope to see you there!
More information is available here.
In last week’s Focus meeting, the Focus council approved three new members to Foresight:
I’d like to welcome them as official members to the community, and add a few words:
What does it take to become an official Foresight member? Visit the wiki page for more, but we’re looking for contributors who have sustained participation within Foresight for a few months, whether it’s packaging, documentation, marketing or more. Benefits include a customized hostmask on Freenode IRC, @foresightlinux.org email address, and having your blog syndicated on Planet Foresight. But best of all, it’s about the recognition of having helped Foresight and it’s community.
Think you have what it takes? Apply here, and make sure your personal wiki page on the Foresight wiki is updated with a list of your contributions and what you would like to accomplish in the future.
Once you’re a member, you can apply to be a developer, and eventually gain commit access to the Foresight repositories.
I’ve kicked off a conversation on the Foresight development mailing list today to talk about Quality Assurance.
At a high level, the question is what is the processes we need to put in place for testing to provide user’s with the best, most stable Linux OS?
Our focus continues to remain on the user experience. That phrase can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but at the core, it remains about being a desktop experience that “just works”. Users shouldn’t have to worry about updates breaking their system – ever.
The key to that is the beauty of Conary, and it’s ability to manage updates and dependencies for our users. Conary also lets us differentiate Foresight through rolling releases – we can update packages on the fly so users don’t have to wait on a 6 month release cycle. But that also means we have to have the ability to test Foresight, including new packages and the underlying infrastructure, before those updates are pushed to our users.
Do you have thoughts on how it should work? Want to get involved and help define that process or be a part of the QA team? Join the development mailing list and contribute to the discussion. Or join the QA team and test the latest and greatest version of Foresight.
More to come on how the QA process will work!
If you have 10 minutes during the day, and need a pick me up, I highly recommend browsing through Storm Troopin’, a Flickr set of Stormtrooper poses with commentary.
It’s guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.
With Google’s announcement this morning of Google Gadgets being available for Linux, Ken wasted no time in adding it to the QA branch tonight.
To install: sudo conary update google-gadgets (assuming you’re running the QA version of Foresight). If you’re running the standard version: sudo conary udpate google-gadgets=@fl:2-qa
Google Gadgets is meant to be run during an active session, so you won’t see a menu entry for them. Use GNOME-DO or Alt-F2 to run them, and type ggl-gtk, or add it to your sessions to automatically start on login in System -> Preferences -> Sessions (also by adding ggl-gtk).
Google Gadgets are the gadgets, such as stock quotes, clocks, calculators and more that are available on your iGoogle webpage, or desktop gadgets that Windows users can use, similar to widgets on a Mac OS X desktop, or similar in Vista.
They’re fun, but I don’t know if I’d keep them. When running, you’ll see the Google Gadgets icon in your panel (it’s the icon on the far left side):
Just browsing through fairly quickly, I added some to my desktop to take a screenshot (click through to Flickr for bigger sizes):
Running, left to right by row:
Row 1: Weather, Election News, Amazon Search, Youtube Search
Row 2: (Don’t remember)
Row 3: NASA Image of the Day, ESPN News, XBox Live Gamertag, Clock
Row 4: CPU Usage, Stock Ticker, Google Calendar
There are literally hundreds of different gadgets to choose from, including dozens of clocks, many different kinds of news tickers, and even games you can add right to your desktop, such as Pacman, Tetris or Bejeweled.
Thanks to Ken for quickly packaging. Eye candy is always fun.