Romanian readers:
fir de discutii
There's a CS/informatics competition for high school students being held this weekend in Cluj and it is combined with educational software presentations from software companies for informatics professors.
I asked the organizers if our Free Software Group could hold a short session about the benefits of FOSS in education, with references to Ubuntu, Edubuntu and Kiwilinux and we were given a slot after the ones which had already been planned a while ago - those of Microsoft, Cisco and a local company that sells education software for Romanian schools.
That was two days ago but yesterday we were notified that the Microsoft representative in charge with the education strategy had requested the organizers to pull the Ubuntu presentation because it is 'unfair competition' to hold such a presentation at an event sponsored by them. They are indeed co-sponsors but the conference is organized by the Ministry of Education and its local office, and is being held on the premises of a public University.
It is sad to know they are resorting to this sort of coercing and that they have such influence over the educators but looking on the bright side of it, and that's how I perceived it after thinking a bit about it, THEY ARE SCARED :)
We were also promised to be given the opportunity to present at a later date to a similar group of professors in June.
Nov
4
TextSecure for the Ubuntu phone
If most cryptographers and one prominent NSA whistle-blower are to be believed, Signal by Open Whisper Systems - branded TextSecure on Android before it recently got merged with RedPhone - is the most secure traditional messaging app in use today - that is, not counting those that require Tor, the Bitcoin blockchain or other tech out of the reach of regular users.
I am pleased to say that a TextSecure compatible client for the Ubuntu phone has been in the store for a while, and today it is stable enough to be used regularly. The basics are all working - end-to-end encrypted texts and group chats, photo, audio, video and contact attachments.
Note that this is not a replacement for the standard messaging app as it does not send or handle SMS.
I am pleased to say that a TextSecure compatible client for the Ubuntu phone has been in the store for a while, and today it is stable enough to be used regularly. The basics are all working - end-to-end encrypted texts and group chats, photo, audio, video and contact attachments.
Note that this is not a replacement for the standard messaging app as it does not send or handle SMS.
Mar
19
Docker image for cross compiling go-qml apps
Cross compiling Go packages to ARM is easy unless they rely on C libraries via cgo, in which case C cross-compilers and libraries built for the target are required on the host, and the invocation is not straightforward at all.
Dimitri's post shows a way to do it using armhf chroots, and inspired by it I put together a docker image that does slightly more and can be used as if it were a simple command.
Dimitri's post shows a way to do it using armhf chroots, and inspired by it I put together a docker image that does slightly more and can be used as if it were a simple command.
Nov
4
My first Ubuntu phone app
I have been meaning to try QML for a while, and a couple of weeks ago I managed to finally do it, the result being a simple memory game for small children, a clone of the GCompris railway activity. In this post I'll summarize my short experience with Ubuntu click app development.
TL;DR
QML + Javascript is the easiest way I have seen so far to program a small interactive app. The extra tooling I did not test, I used vim and click from the command line. Documentation is so and so.
TL;DR
QML + Javascript is the easiest way I have seen so far to program a small interactive app. The extra tooling I did not test, I used vim and click from the command line. Documentation is so and so.
Sep
5
Kiwi Linux 12.08 released
After exactly two years of neglect which I will henceforth market as 'LTS cadence' last week I released a new version of the Ubuntu remix with Romanian, Hungarian, German and English languages included by default.
http://kiwilinux.org/en/
It is based on Ubuntu 12.04.1, and keeping in line with the traditional and largely unwritten goals of the project, it targets Linux newbies who find some of the standard Ubuntu apps lacking or who are taken aback by anything too unfamiliar.
http://kiwilinux.org/en/
It is based on Ubuntu 12.04.1, and keeping in line with the traditional and largely unwritten goals of the project, it targets Linux newbies who find some of the standard Ubuntu apps lacking or who are taken aback by anything too unfamiliar.
Apr
7
MongoDB on ARM
With the latest upload into the Ubuntu 12.04 archives MongoDB 2.0.4 builds and passes its smoketests on ARM.Upstream's git master - the 2.1 branch - also supports at least ARMv7 and Ubuntu.
Feb
3
Recent misc likes
Even though some of these tools have been around for years, I have only recently started using them.
* byobu - nicer than plain screen with good defaults, for example key binding for scrolling is like in a regular terminal.
* sbuild - nicer than pbuilder, defaults to overlay directory instead of tarball, hence fast by default, nice colors, build summary. I have heard about it for a long time, but the recent mention during Ubuntu devel week made me curious.
* byobu - nicer than plain screen with good defaults, for example key binding for scrolling is like in a regular terminal.
* sbuild - nicer than pbuilder, defaults to overlay directory instead of tarball, hence fast by default, nice colors, build summary. I have heard about it for a long time, but the recent mention during Ubuntu devel week made me curious.
Dec
2
Lightspark 0.5.3 released
There's a fresh release for the Lightspark Flash player, the third one on an approximately monthly schedule.Most new changes in 0.5.3 are robustness and portability fixes and a working Windows port, the vast majority of it being done by Matthias Gehre.
Coverage of the testsuite from the Tamarin VM is also progressing well.
The source tarball and .exe installer are found on Launchpad
Ubuntu user can get updated packages from the daily PPA for Natty and Oneiric.
Coverage of the testsuite from the Tamarin VM is also progressing well.
The source tarball and .exe installer are found on Launchpad
Ubuntu user can get updated packages from the daily PPA for Natty and Oneiric.
Sep
22
Lightspark 0.5.1 released
After over two months of work since 0.5.0 by a handful of developers, there's finally a new release of Lightspark, the (other) open source Flash player. Unlike Gnash, Lightspark supports the AVM2 virtual machine and the newest versions of SWF files, while falling back to Gnash when it encounters SWF8 or earlier content.
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