Foresight Linux Newsletter Volume 1, Issue 9 (December 2007)
Welcome to the December edition of the Foresight Linux Newsletter. This month we take a look at the initial launch of the GNOME Developer Kit based on Foresight Linux, a look back at the year in review, an update on the next alpha of 2.0, updates to developer documentation, and news from Foresight's marketing and infrastructure teams. From everyone here at Foresight Linux, have a Happy New Year!
In this issue:
- Latest version: Foresight Linux 1.4.2
- Introducing the GNOME Developers Kit
- Foresight Linux 2 Alpha 2 released
- Syslinux overview
- Other changes
- Developer documentation updates
- Marketing Meeting recap
- SCALE
Foresight Linux News
Foresight Linux 1.4 released October 19th
Foresight Linux 1.4.2 was released one month after 1.4, on October 19th. Foresight Linux 1.4.1 features the first inclusion of PackageKit, Foresight's new GUI for searching, adding and removing packages. The 1.4.1 release also updates GNOME to 2.20.1, and the latest Conary and GTK. You can read the full release notes here.
Foresight Linux 1.4.1 is available for download on 1 DVD, 2 CDs, or through a number of different virtualization images. Visit the download page for more information.
Introducing the GNOME Developers Kit
On December 11th, Ken VanDine announced the GNOME Developer Kit. The GNOME Developer Kit, based on Foresight Linux, is a tool for those wishing to work on GNOME. The GNOME Developer Kit is alternative to GARNOME, and makes it easy for user and developers to install the latest unstable branch of GNOME to contribute packages, documentation or to help translate.
The GNOME Developer Kit is available as an installable ISO image or a VMWare image, complete with it's own custom anaconda artwork:
For more information, visit the GNOME Developer Kit page on the GNOME wiki.
A Year in Review
Foresight made great strides in 2007. From growing it's userbase to releasing Foresight 1.0 to including a GUI for Conary with PackageKit, 2007 was a year of change.
Here is a brief recap of some of Foresight's accomplishments and highlights in 2007:
January
- After a year in a half in development, Foresight reaches 1.0 and is released on January 26th.
March
- March 15th Foresight 1.1 is released day and date with GNOME 2.18.
- The first GNOME Live Media are released in almost two years, available as a Live CD, VMWare image and QEMU images are built based on Foresight. Images are available for download at http://torrent.gnome.org
- The first Foresight Newsletter is published
April
- A number of stories about Foresight or the GNOME Live Media appear in the press, including three German articles, a story on Linux.com and coverage on Newsforge.com.
- The Getting Started with Foresight Linux User Guide is first published on the Foresight wiki.
May
- Foresight 1.3 with GNOME 2.18.2 is released
- Work begins on Foresight 2.0
June
- rPath announces that graphical desktops such as GNOME or KDE will no longer be available in rPath Linux and recommends users switch to Foresight Linux (which is based on rPath)
- The Foresight User Guide is ported to Docbook and available via Conary. It is soon added as a default package in a base install.
- Ken VanDine, Kevin Harriss, and Paul Cutler attend Barcamp Chicago. Ken gives a talk on Conary and Foresight, as well as a BoF session. The first US based GNOME usergroup meeting takes place headed by Kevin Harriss.
- GNOME Journal publishes an interview I conducted with Ken VanDine about the creation of the GNOME Live Media. [Ed. note - this interview was conducted before I joined the Foresight team. See the June newsletter for more information.]
July
- Foresight gets a new logo!
- Ken VanDine attends OSCon and speaks on Conary
August
- Ken VanDine attends Linux World Expo and helps out at the GNOME booth
- Work starts on adding Conary support to PackageKit. PackageKit is a front end GUI for managing system updates as well as adding and removing software.
September
- Foresight Linux 1.4 was released with GNOME 2.20. GNOME Live Media images are updated with GNOME 2.20.
- The Foresight World Tour continues after being at OSCon the month before, with stops in:
- Michigan LUG where Ken VanDine and Michael K. Johnson spoke on Conary and Foresight
- Kevin Harris and Ryan Kolak man the booth at Ohio Linux Fest and Ken Vandine (along with Ubuntu's Jorge Castro) speak on GNOME. The OLF booth would prove invaluable when new users who were given DVDs of Foresight would later become full time users later in the year. The famous green Foresight t-shirts debut.
- Foresight becomes the first Linux distribution to ship with PackageKit.
October
- The wiki is down for maintenance for most of the month. No newsletter is released.
- Work continues at a frenzied pace on Foresight 2.0.
- A developer meeting is held that focuses on Foresight 2.0 development, and sub-teams are formed to work on tasks, such as marketing, Foresight's infrastructure, QA and development.
November
- The first alpha of Foresight 2.0 is released on November 9th. The new tar based installer is able to format a 200 GB hard drive and install Foresight off a DVD in less than ten minutes.
- Ken VanDine is featured an hour long interview on the Linux Link Tech Show podcast.
- Og Maciel attended Fosscamp and represented Foresight.
December
- A second alpha of Foresight 2.0 is prepared, the first with Syslinux as a replacement for GRUB.
- Developer documentation is updated for developers interested in working on Foresight 2.0.
- The Foresight Marketing team meets and drafts guidelines to formalize the process, including perks for becoming an official Foresight member and / or developer.
GNOME 2.20 Live Media
Foresight Linux is proud to be the distribution offering the latest version of GNOME via a number of different choices of Live Media. Making it simple for users who want to test the latest GNOME release, four images are available for testing GNOME without having to install it directly on your hard drive. These images include a LiveCD, VMWare image, and a Parallels / QEMU image. GNOME Live Media is available for download at http://torrent.gnome.org.
Package of the Month
X-Chat GNOME
Xchat-GNOME, http://xchat-gnome.navi.cx/, is a frontend to the popular Xchat IRC client written in GTK
+ and designed with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines in mind. IRC, or Internet Relay Chat, is a real time chat protocol designed for group chat.
The Foresight Linux project uses IRC extensively for both user support and development on the Freenode IRC network. Popular channels include #foresight for general chat and support, and #foresight-devel for development discussions.
To learn more about X-Chat-GNOME, including:
- Starting X-Chat and setting your nickname
- Joining a network and channel(s)
- X-Chat-GNOME Settings
- Preferences
- Visual settings
- Plugins
Visit the X-Chat-GNOME page in the Getting Started with Foresight Linux Userguide, contributed by Eric Lake. 
Development News
Foresight Linux 2.0 Alpha 2
The second alpha of Foresight Linux will be released in early January. The major change from alpha one to alpha two is the inclusion of Syslinux as a boot manager as a replacement for Grub. While Grub will still be available as an installation option during a user's installation, Syslinux is recommended due to more active development. Foresight is the first distribution to ship Syslinux as the default.
Users who have installed the first alpha will need to re-install a new image to replace Grub with Syslinux.
Other updates to alpha two include GNOME 2.21. updated Xorg, newly built OpenOffice.org, and many package additions and updates.
Developer Documentation
Developer documentation for Foresight 2.x has been updating, including:
Foresight Linux Marketing
Marketing Team
Foresight's Marketing team met on December 3rd, and brainstormed a number of ideas for the promotion of Foresight Linux. You can review the meeting minutes here, or for more information on the Marketing team, visit it's home page on the Foresight wiki. The marketing team also has it's own mailing list at foresight-mktg@googlegroups.com, or visit http://groups.google.com/group/foresight-mktg?hl=en to sign up.
Upcoming Conferences
Members of the Foresight community will be attending SCALE, the Southern California Linux Expo, February 8-10th. Ken VanDine, Foresight's lead developer, will be giving a talk on GNOME, and Foresight community members will be hosting a booth. If you live in southern California, stop by and say hi!
Foresight Infrastructure
Foresight Planet
The Foresight Planet, the aggregator for developer's blogs, is moving. The new URI is http://planet.foresightlinux.org or subscribe to the feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/foresightplanet.
Forums
Jive Forum Software has been chosen as a replacement for the current Foresight forums. Atlassian's Crowd will be deployed to manage single sign on for Foresight's issue tracker, JIRA; Confluence, Foresight's wiki; and the Jive Forums.
The Foresight team is also looking for help with CSS and theming of the planet and forums. For more information please contact feedback@foresightlinux.org.
Get Involved
Join the Foresight Community
Foresight users and developers are active on a number of different social networking sites.
Share your musical tastes and favorite artists with other Foresight users in the Foresight groupon Last.fm. Banshee, Foresight's default music manager, has built in support for Last.fm.
Follow a few Foresight developers every waking moment via Twitter.
Share pictures of your Foresight Linux desktop at the Foresight Linux Flickr group.
Join the Foresight group on Mugshot. Mugshot is a social networking application available as a web service and desktop service that aggregates a number of different social networks, such as Facebook, Digg, Youtube, Flickr, Reddit and many others. Need an invitation to Mugshot? Email pcutler@foresightlinux.org for an invitation. To install Mugshot on your Foresight Linux desktop, from a terminal type:
sudo conary update mugshot
Last, but not least, add http://www.foresightlinux.org/planet to your bookmarks or favorite feed reader, such as Liferea, to read blog updates from Foresight Developers. Are you a Foresight contributor or developer, and would like your blog syndicated? Email feedback@foresightlinux.org with your blog's feed and a brief note about your blog.
Contributing to Foresight Linux
Contribute to Foresight Linux
Foresight Linux Website
With the upcoming launch of Foresight Linux 2.0, the Foresight Linux team is looking to develop a new website as well. We are looking for volunteers to help with both web design and web development. We are looking to update or add new forums, a new planet, a new website layout, including better localization, and a blog for publishing Foresight news. If interested, please stop by #foresight on Freenode or IRC or email feedback@foresightlinux.org.
Foresight Linux 2.0 Testing
As mentioned above in the Development section, we are looking for users to help test the upcoming Foresight Linux 2.0 alpha and beta releases. From testing to bug reporting, all help and feedback is welcome.
For other opportunities to contribute to Foresight Linux, visit the Getting Involved page on the Getting Started with Foresight Linux user guide.
Contribute to the Foresight Linux Newsletter
Have a package or piece of software you want to share in the monthly newsletter? Send it in! We are always looking for more writers or contributors, and building the newsletter is a collaborative process using the Foresight Linux Newsletter wiki. We are also looking for volunteers to interview people in the Foresight and GNOME communities, links to news articles on the web or in print regarding Foresight Linux, and all the other content that makes up the newsletter.
Have thoughts or comments on the newsletter? Email feedback@foresightlinux.org and your letter may be published in the next issue!
Contributors to Issue #9: Paul Cutler (editor), Eric Lake, Kevin Harriss, Ken VanDine
Portuguese translation by Vladimir Melo.
Downloading and Getting Help with Foresight Linux
Download and install Foresight Linux:
Live Media, including Live CD, VMWare image, and QEMU and Parallels images
Help is available in many forms, and you can choose what you're most comfortable with.
- IRC: Visit the Foresight IRC channel, #foresight on Freenode, and ask questions. We have one of the most friendly IRC channels you'll come across with everyone from users to developers reaching out to help answer questions.
- Forums: Our forums continue to grow, and are a good source of information to check if a specific problem or question has come up before.
- Wiki: Documentation on the wiki is growing on a daily basis, with updates often to the Frequently Asked Questions and other how-to's to get you going with Foresight Linux.
- Mailing Lists:
- General List: General discussion around Foresight Linux
- Commits list:(high traffic): All package commits are emailed to this list
- Packagers List: Discuss packaging applications for Foresight using Conary and rBuilder
- Developers List: Discuss topics related to Foresight development projects
- Translation List: Help translate Foresight Linux into many different languages
Foresight Linux Information
Learn more about Foresight Linux at Foresight's homepage, http://www.foresightlinux.org.
Read what the developers are working on via their blogs, aggregated at the new Planet Foresight, http://planet.foresightlinux.org or subscribe via RSS at http://feeds.feedburner.com/foresightplanet.
Subscribe to the newsletter via RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/foresightnewsletter.
Have feedback on Foresight Linux or the newsletter? Email feedback@foresightlinux.org and share your thoughts, we'd love to hear from you!
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