After seeing the Ubuntu Down Under group pic that Jorge posted in his blog (we were much younger then), It’s great to see that the Ubuntu community has grown and matured to leaps and bounds in only 5 years after the first release came out. Being a witness and participant to its growth had made me a much better person in attitude and career.  I must also say that the time I was most active with Ubuntu are perhaps one of the most thrilling, if not the best years of my life. Serving the Community Council before was a great honor and seeing a new version of the Code of Conduct only shows that community is a continuous cycle of improvement.

I may have taken a different path and not that much active in community now, but I’ll definitely never forget the lessons of friendship (lots of friends!), hard work and perseverance that Ubuntu taught me as being part of a global community. Onward to the next 5 years of successful releases!

I’m saying this because it seems there is a lot of enthusiasm on reviving Edubuntu as a project. Obviously this is not a bad thing but with the onset of excitement of jump starting the project anew, it might not be able to focus on what the project aims to achieve, if its still intact. There is no need to change its name nor its technology features, but there are some improvements that can be done.

It should also review how it wants to play in the world of technology in education. Before, having it focus on LTSP was a valuable proposition because it enabled organizations with old hardware to still deliver an educational environment. But with the spread of cheap netbooks in the market, and a unique deployment model established by outfits like OLPC and Sugar Labs, a new model of delivery model is available.

I was involved with Edubuntu from the start and did some contributions, but I can say that one of the things that made me inactive to the project is because I felt it has lost focus on what it wants to achieve. Jordan Erickson pretty much summarizes what the community aspect of what Edubuntu should be.

My experience with Edubuntu locally has been mixed; nobody had any use for LTSP because most organizations didn’t even have the budget to have a server and only have decent desktop hardware then. I am not undermining the amazing work that the LTSP folks have done in Edubuntu. But a big majority over here agreed that its all about the mix and matching applications and how curriculum can be enhanced with such. That’s one big reason why there is a growing interest on Sugar and Sugar on a Stick. We’ve had some success in deploying such, but we are still in the process of shaping the learning environment with constant communication between the technologists and the educators. This shaping feature is very vital to us in knowing what will work rather than accepting a boxed solution. Of course, we currently have the tools to do this environment shaping, but there could be a more optimized solution for this that can be used by the non-techs. Other environments may have a use for LTSP and could even be the core feature if necessary.

The last point of argument aside from the delivery model and customization options is of course the educators that would be involved. Edubuntu is a great piece of technology that still attracts a lot of interest from educators (I still receive emails about it, locally and abroad giving suggestions), but it lacks the best practices of educators (which other projects have already established – K12LTSP has tons). There are definitely some things Edubuntu can pick up from other projects and learn.

Surely there should be a better way to sync. That’s been a problem since sync technology started. Hence its a small market. Same with backup. But with cloud storage use growing, Canonical will need to do something more unique for Ubuntu One to stand out (of course they will in due time).

Honestly, the beta is a sleeper. I could not even move assets from one folder to another in the web interface. If its possible, then there is a big UI fail happening. But then, what’s the percentage of people using the web interface compared to the client? Dropbox is pretty much the king of the hill in this arena.

MobileMe almost nailed it, but is disastrously unstable (but they’ve been improving lately). The only reason why people stick to it is because of sync and the other services are just dogs not to mention overpriced. But hey, its Apple.

In the future releases of Ubuntu, expect a notification alert on the first login to sign up to the service (30 day trial for premium service, stuff like that). That’s the only way to have more subscribers outside the usual PR to come out.

Many thanks to teapot we now have a very functional Ubuntu 8.10 implementation for the XO-1 laptop!

I got it installed in a generic 4GB SDHC Class 6 card. I’ve tried it with a Sandisk 2GB SD but it seems the card is not powering up at all, so depending on your card, your mileage may vary. But it seems a fair amount of cards work.

From teapot’s notes:

• Kernel is from OLPC release 8.2.0. USB boot fix in ramdisk is the only change that was applied to OLPC-distributed files.
• Ubuntu packages are properly identified as manually/automatically installed for easier customization, patched files are diverted, so package manager won’t replace them on upgrades.
• Network Manager 0.7 is in Intrepid — there is no need for custom repositories.
• clive package in Intrepid is also up to the latest version, so tubewatcher script is included without clive replacement.
• Firefox default configuration is adapted to screen resolution (larger fonts but no scaling for images), and libraries that come with xulrunner are replaced with ones that come with Firefox 3.0.4 release (for some reason libraries from xulrunner package occasionally replace images with noise).
• syslog is removed — logging to SD or USB takes large amount of resources.
• Power management is by default enabled, “aggressive” power management mode that “invisibly” suspends on inactivity is by default disabled but can be enabled with sudo touch /etc/xo-suspend/aggressive and reboot, disabled with sudo rm /etc/xo-suspend/aggressive and reboot
• GTK theme is adapted to the changes in theme engines that come with Ubuntu — it looks slightly better now, though differences are minimal.
• Splash screen is shown on boot and shutdown.

The installation is pretty straightforward and everything can be done in the XO itself. You’ll need a developer key which can be requested from the Browse activity in Sugar. This is needed to be able to boot to SD. Forum member mavrothal also created a forum entry listing some fixes and other solution hacks for the Intrepid release.

I’m pretty excited about this release because I have an upcoming trip during the holidays and didn’t want to bring a standard sized-laptop but still want to be connected in case I needed to. While I have an HP Mini-Note 2133 on Hardy, I still find it a bit heavy so the XO fits on this!

Note: there are also similar implementations for Feroda and Gentoo. I think an SD card installed with Fedora for the XO is also available at Amazon. Come to think of it, if you’re interested on getting an XO yourself, you might want to consider the Give One, Get One program at Amazon: www.amazon.com/xo

There has been a slew of tech news and blog postings about the Ilumina TV, a prototype unveiled by a local startup here in the Philippines called Inovent Inc. At first glance on the description of the said device, it seems to be like what any computer can do attached to an LCD display, perhaps running some type of PVR software with a modified front-end. What is interesting for me though is that it is claimed to be running a stripped-down version of Ubuntu, so its possible that it could be running MythTV or Elisa with a different interface (I really doubt it if any PVR software here was made from scratch). The company has a blog that shows some pictures and slides but I’m more interested on seeing a movie of the thing in action because all I’ve seen and read at the moment are PRs.

I haven’t seen the prototype in action but one of the people behind the sofware of the said project is a friend of mine so probably I could get a sneak peak of the thing in the near future. Honestly, I would prefer a box that can be attached to my existing TV set than getting a new one, but I’ve already done that with Elisa running in a Shuttle and an AppleTV with Boxee.

I had the pleasure of visiting Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last week to attend the first FOSS.MY conference. It’s been almost a year since I traveled outside the country and it was great to visit Kuala Lumpur again, and being part of FOSS.MY made it a blast!

I arrived a day before the conference and was met at the airport by good friend Colin Charles. Now some Ubuntu people might remember Colin from Ubuntu Down Under way way long ago. I also got to meet memcached and Drizzle contributor Toru Maesaka. First thing we did after leaving the airport was get something to eat, so we went to a popular “Mamak” place at the business district of KL and had some awesome Nasi Kandar!

It was good to see my friends Pia Waugh and Jaya Kumar after a few years even though we get to chat on IRC regularly.

The FOSS.MY conference was the first grassroots-led event about free and open source software. There were 26 tracks in total, majority of them technical in nature, and there were some BoFs as well. The local Ubuntu Malaysia and Fedora communities were also there, but I wasn’t able to catch up with them as the schedule was pretty hectic (there is always a next time!). Attendance was surprising as well, as the organizers only anticapted around 100 people to join but more than 200 registered and attended. Seem to be that the region is well positioned to have regular annual technical events like this similar to linux.conf.au and FOSS.MY did a great start for this. Also with the rise of low cost airline carriers and KL being a nice city with good public transport coverage and cheap food and accommodation make it an ideal city for future events.

More FOSS.MY pics at the Gallery!

The conference ended with some great food and drinks at the Suria KLCC with the Petronas Twin Towers in view.

I woke up very late the next day and had to rush to KL Sentral to take the KLIA Ekspres. Airport check-in at the train station FTW. Good thing the airport train system in KL is very fast and efficient and i was able to catch my flight just half an hour before departure.

It was great meeting new friends (Yoon, Aizat, Ditesh, Abdullah, Pamela Fox, Fajar, James Morris, Preetam, Toru Maesaka, etc. you know who you are) and learning a lot of things. I also thank the FOSS.MY organizing team for taking care of me and the rest of the non-Malaysian speakers during our brief stay in Kuala Lumpur. See you guys at FOSS.MY 2009!

Congratulations to the OLPC engineers and the OLPC community for making XO Software Release 8.2.0 possible! Most notable changes are the improved GUI, the Software Update mechanism, and Power Management. Sugar 0.82.1 should also be available for distros (perhaps even updated) like Ubuntu via Sucrose by the Ubuntu Sugar Team.

We had a lot of fun during the Software Freedom Day celebration at the National Computer Center in Quezon City. Major props to Bluepoint with Engels and Magie Antonio for spearheading the organization of the very successful event!

I didn’t get myself involved with Ubuntu for this year’s Software Freedom Day celebration. Instead, I focused on our small, but thriving OLPC Philippines Special Interest Group where we had a table and placed a bunch of XO-1 and prototype B2 and B4 machines as well as some Ubuntu laptops with the Sugar emulator for people to really appreciate the hardware and the potential of the software.

Harry Harrison also joined us and took time to explain to people about the XO-1 hardware and what OLPC has been doing. There were a lot of questions ranging from “Where do I get this?” to “When is it coming to the Philippines” and other related questions (“Does it run Ubuntu?”. We also had the chance to talk to press people, but since we’re currently a hobby group, we can only point to the right resources and people to get in touch with. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to tell about with regards to local pilots and stuff like that with the OLPC and XO-1 despite the fact that almost all the major UMPC/4P computer brands are readily available in the market quite cheap (you can get an Intel Classmate 1 here for something like $200 USD). But the fact that people are able to really see and use the XO-1 make them realize its difference to the current crop of Netbooks and UMPCs being sold at retail.

Of course, any meetup is not complete with the obligatory group photo. Too bad Harry left early as he wanted to go to the mall early to get a new router. If there is one thing that I enjoyed doing this day is that it was truly refreshing to do something else not related directly to Ubuntu (we’ve grown our local community to a point that others can become resource persons easily).

Some of you are still celebrating Software Freedom Day at this moment – create magic and inspire people! That’s the best result any SFD or advocacy can achieve.

After Ubuntu Love Day Manila 2008, I thought it would be interesting to take the back seat and do something light as a follow-up and still get in touch with the community.  It was also good timing on my part as I got sick for a week (after Ubuntu Love Day) and got swamped with work when I went back. I’ve gotten myself involved lately with grassroots efforts for One Laptop per Child (OLPC) in my community and it is at the early stages of being formalized so I thought this coming Software Freedom Day celebration in my city would be a good place to re-introduce OLPC project, the XO-1 laptop, and even show how we can run Ubuntu with the XO-1 to provide a different computing environment. I asked my friend Rowen Remis Iral of OLPCPH to join as well. There’s also a good chance I’ll be able to get some suggestions to be able to fix the B2-1 unit that I accidentally upgraded (not bricked) weeks ago.

I approached Magie Antonio of Bluepoint Foundation if this was feasible and approved of the idea the same day we chatted about it online. So far we got 4 XO-1 machines as demo units and I’ll also bring my HP Mininote 2133 running 8.04 LTS. Too bad the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 won’t be on sale till next month so I guess that will have to wait.

So if you’re in Quezon City and not doing anything on September 20 and want to check out the OLPC XO-1 with Ubuntu running and even learn some stuff about Free/Open Source Software, join us at the National Computing Center in Quezon City! You can read more about the event at http://bluepoint.com.ph/sfd08

There is also a celebration happening at the same day in Makati City at the University of Makati if Quezon City is too far from your place. Unfortunately, I’m not going there.

PS. OLPC G1G1 v2 is confirmed in partnership with Amazon!

What a week it was for the local tech scene in Manila, Philippines. We had 2 user generated events happening on the same week – what more can geeks ask for?

BarCamp Manila 1 had around 80+ participants with 17 topics ranging from the Boost C++ libraries to thin clients and iPhone app development. Pizza, beer and soda were aplenty and everyone had a rocking good time. We started the 7 minute topics around 7:25PM and upped the ante by reducing the presentation time to 5 minutes an hour after. The last topic ended past 10pm and people still stayed an hour for more high-bandwith networking and discussion.

You can check out more pictures with the tag “barcampmanila” on Flickr. We also have videoclips of the event from BarCamp Manila Ustream.tv channel.

2 days after BarCamp Manila 1, we had the first Ubuntu Love Day Manila 2008 at the University of the Philippines! Initial registration was sold out so we expected people coming early on. But since the venue was a bit hard to locate, we didn’t start on time as the speakers were also looking for the venue (lesson: create maps). When we had 4 of the 6 speakers at the venue, we started and couldn’t ask for more.

50+ people came in attendance and we had some prizes and was even able to treat everyone
for lunch thanks to the Department of Computer Science and the Y4IT organizers.

You can check out the slides of the presenters at http://www.slideshare.net/jgotangco/slideshows and some video clips at BarCamp Manila Ustream.tv channel. I have 9GB worth of video of the whole event, but that would take time for me to edit and place somewhere. Ben Canlas’ has some pictures of the event.

I thank the speakers of the event: Charo Nuguid, Wallen Tan, Rowen Remis Iral of OLPCPH, members of UP Linux Users Group (UnPLUG), Aileen Apolo and Jay Aguilar of Google, and Juan Carlos Torres. I’m sure you guys have more fans now than ever before.

Finally, many thanks to Myra Jill Siason of UP DILC for leading in the organization of this event. Without her, there would be no Ubuntu Love Day Manila 2008 (it was her idea in the first place), as well as the members of the UP Association for Computer Machinery for volunteering on the logistics and organization of the event.

Organizing the two events was well worth it. Unfortunately, I have worn myself out and didn’t took notice of what I was drinking while speaking, so I now have pharyngitis at the moment, but on the way to full recovery.