Busy time at the booth
openSUSE brought lots of fun to FOSDEM in Brussels, Belgium. We’re all exhausted now from selling beer, t-shirts, hats and giving demonstrations of openSUSE with GNOME Shell, KDE, Plasma Active, openSUSE-on-ARM (running XFCE) and countless other things. Yet we did want to tell you about FOSDEM before we go catch up on sleep! (more…)
After the openSUSE 2011 Conference, we run a survey to gather feedback so that we can improve for the next conference. The overall feedback was very positive. Thanks a lot to the 134 people that participated in the survey!
FOSDEM is the biggest event organized by and for the Free and Open Source (FOSS) community. Its goal is to provide developers a place to meet, come together and share and discuss ideas. The event happens 4-5 February 2012 in Brussels, Belgium. And there will again be a cross-distribution mini conference at FOSDEM this year. By organizing a mini conference where all distributions participate in we foster collaboration and cross pollination. You are hereby invited to hold a session.
If you’re interested let your intention be known on the distributions@lists.fosdem.org mailinglist, with the following information and we will factor in your contribution.
Sessions can be talks, round tables, BoFs, or any number of other things that could generally benefit from an audience of distributions developers.
Use this opportunity to bounce ideas, projects and plans off your peers in the Linux distributor community.
Party time!
We’re almost there. In two days openSUSE once again releases a new, improved version of its distribution to the world. Reason to celebrate! And celebrate we will. Currently, about 11 parties have been registered but we know many more are being organized and we call out to you to add your party to the wiki page!
Currently there are parties scheduled and registered in:
A little over two weeks left for openSUSE 12.1 to be released on November, 16th 2011. And there is no better way to enjoy the new release than with your fellow openSUSE peers. So, attend or organize a Launch Party! These events around the openSUSE release can be anything – from a party in a pub to a series of presentations at an office. But there is a common theme: cool people sharing some fun and talks around the latest openSUSE release!
Read more on how to find out if there is a release party in your neighborhood or how to organize one!
(more…)
At the openSUSE conference 2011, there was especially one area that caused us the previous years some trouble and this year nobody spoke about since it just worked fine: Wireless internet access.
So, what have we done right this year? It was basically wiring internet ourselves to the location and setting up the wifi controllers sponsored by Aeroaccess.
Last Friday Dirk Müller send an email to openSUSE-Factory about the status of the openSUSE ARM port. SUSE employees Adrian, Alexander, Dirk and Reinhard had spend their Hackweek revitalizing the initial work by Jan-Simon and Martin by getting openSUSE Factory on ARM to build and work. The current build status on OBS shows that almost 2500 packages are working successfully and the team invites anyone interested to come and help increase that number!
The new openSUSE 12.1 Release is approaching very soon and all you Geekos should not miss the opportunity of becoming a double GPM!
Party time starts this weekend and lasts until November 2011 in all Geeko-towns and Geeko-homes. Gather all your fellow Geekos to the best local pizzeria and let the party begin!
One of the ways SUSE and its developers contribute to openSUSE is through Hackweek: – a week long sprint permitting developers to work on something entirely of their own design or wishes as long as it is FOSS-related. Started in 2007, it has become a regular part of SUSE’s development. This is in keeping in line with the openSUSE Project’s goal of being more than just an organization that benefits itself. We believe in a project that benefits the greater good of free and open software.
Some 150+ developers will have free reign to work on new applications or make improvements to other software projects. Hackweek also permits developers to push away from the grind of deadlines and “must fix” bug fixing (unless it’s a critical customer situation) which can be at times stressful and tedious.
So, how does this relate to the larger openSUSE community? First, some ideas come directly from openFATE, the openSUSE tracker for wish-list items and ways to help guide development of the distro: You can see the list of proposed Hackweek projects here, which will surely grow in the next few days.
Second, nothing blocks people outside the SUSE staff from participating. Most importanly, it shows that SUSE is an innovative distribution whose contributions make open source better for everyone.
And third, it follows openSUSE’s motto: Have a lot of fun ! Hackweek has it’s own motto: “No Motto, do what you want, but do it!”
We asked Jürgen Weigert and Pavol Rusnak, developers from SUSE, to explain how they participate
Q: How does someone from the openSUSE community participate Can they also have their own project?
Jürgen: Yes, they can work together with others (check openFATE for a list) or do their own project.
Pavol: But for doing their own project they don’t have to wait for Hackweek, right? :-)
Q: Can you give some examples of projects which were started from Hackweek ?
Pavol: SAT-solver used in zypper by Michael Schroeder, Fifth Leg font by Jakub Steiner, SUSE Paste by Michal Hrušecký and cnetworkmanager by Martin Vidner.
Jürgen: Polka by Cornelius Schumacher, YaSTroid by Stephen Shaw.
Q: What will you work on during this coming Hackweek ?
Jürgen: Make EyeFI sdcard work with Linux – see Fate#312811
Pavol: Rewrite spec-cleaner into Ruby – see Fate#312823
Q: What other projects are planned for this upcoming Hackweek ?
Pavol: Getting Enlightenment 17 into Factory, various openQA additions, Continuous YaST testing in Jenkins and much much more!
Jürgen: Also hackers need catering and thus we will have food provided in the common area – and the common meal is also a great chance to discuss Hackweek projects face to face. The camera team will go around and record videos and upload those to blip.tv and YouTube. Also, there’s a rumor about some nice surprise. :-)
Q: For developers what is the most satisfying part of Hackweek ?
Jürgen: Switching topics to something completely different and extend my comfort zone by looking at new areas. This year it’s wireless, an area I never touched before as developer.
Pavol: Yeah, I think working on something unknown, unexplored is always exciting and challenging
Q: How does the openSUSE and the larger open source community benefit ?
Jürgen: Quite often it’s scratching my own itches – and if something is successful, it might become a successful open source project. I’ve seen some people interested in projects like Bretzn or ARM support for openSUSE that will benefit openSUSE directly. Some people which are surprised by the late announcement of this Hackweek have said that they will just have a look into the upcoming beta of openSUSE 12.1 – getting familiar with new technologies like systemd, report bugs and improve the distribution.
Pavol: Lots of the projects that are started during Hackweek are directly integrated into the following openSUSE release. Also if they are usable by others they are adopted by other distributions as well or merged directly into upstream which is cool!
Q: Are there any awards or competitions during Hackweek ?
Pavol: Previous years we had a small group of judges that went through the finished Hackweek projects in openFATE and awarded three developers with nice gadgets. I expect it will be similar this year, but I am not sure.
Jürgen: Yes – for those that register their projects in FATE. Details will be announced later.
Q: Is there anything else the larger openSUSE community should know about ?
Jürgen: The infrastructure teams will also participate in Hackweek and thus not make major changes – and also might not review openSUSE:Factory submissions directly. Please let them know if you run into serious issues.
Pavol: If you see a project in openFATE which you like, tell us so in the comments or vote for the feature. Also if you have some nice idea, feel free to put it in openFATE, maybe some undecided developer will find it interesting and implement it.
Q: Thanks for the interview.
Both: Thank you and have a lot of fun!
So, stay tuned for the results of Hackweek where everyone has a lot of fun!
article submitted by Peter Linnell
At the openSUSE conference in Nürnberg almost 400 visitors have shown up for the four tracks of sessions about technical and community matters and the many other events and parties. While a longer article is coming, we’d like to give a taste of the conference here!
(more…)
