a mug of ubuntu » planet-ubuntu

Ubuntu Power Users: first meeting

toros — Fri, 27 May 2011 13:18:16 +0000

The Ubuntu Power Users Community had a meeting on Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 17:00 UTC in the #ubuntu-meeting channel. This was the first meeting of this new community, and we had many things on our agenda: the organization of the team, the team logo/branding, the overall team goals and purpose, our long term goals and the goals for the Oneiric cycle. Although we discussed many topics, we didn’t manage to talk about everything we originally planned.

We started the discussion with stating our team vision. Our goal is to help power users to get the most out of Ubuntu. We want to provide a place for power users to communicate, document configuration functionality, and provide tools for tweaking the system. Basically, we want to give users the power to expand, adjust, and tweak their system. To achieve these goals we want to create documentation of tweaks and useful tools, with a mind toward safety. We don’t want to suggest tweaks that could cause issues for a user and can not be backed out of.

We talked about what actions can be done in this cycle. A very important part of our mission is to build the Kitchen Sink: a single application that supports multiple plug-in that provides you with a plethora of check-boxes for switching on and off all kinds of different things. This application will most probably be the well known Ubuntu Tweak. The developer of Ubuntu Tweak, Tualatrix Chou has already joined our mailing list.

The Ubuntu Power User Community will focus on making Ubuntu Tweak ready for Oneiric, and push it into the repositories. The next version of Ubuntu Tweak will have a plugin feature, so the problematic PPA part of the program can be a separate install in the next version. First, we need to focus on getting the code in shape. According to Jordan Mantha (LaserJock), it needs some analysis for safety and stability. A plugin for Unity specific settings has to be made. The packaging will fall into place pretty easily once these are done.

An important part of our mission is creating documentation for Unity about topics like keyboard shortcuts, what options exist in CompizConfig Settings Manager and dconf-editor, and what they actually do. We already have a lot of information on Ask Ubuntu, so it can serve as a good starting point. The main problem is that Ask Ubuntu is not a documentation source. Our goal is to create high quality documentation for Power Users based on the information available on Ask Ubuntu and from other sources.

The first meeting of the Ubuntu Power User Community was a very important milestone in the life of the project. We set some ambitious but not unreachable goals for us. If you want to get involved in the Power User Community just subscribe to the mailing list list or join the #ubuntu-power-users IRC channel on Freenode. There is a plenty of room for you to share your power with others.

Ubuntu Power Users

toros — Mon, 23 May 2011 13:49:34 +0000

I bought a coffee machine just before the UDS. It’s a very user-friendly machine: you put in a capsule, pull a trigger, and voilá… latte macchiato (or capuccino, or espresso, or chococino, or whatever you like) is ready. You don’t need to know too much about coffee. You don’t even have to know how to froth milk… and you won’t burn your hand with the steam for sure. This machine provides me the perfect user experience: I can focus on my job which is turning caffeine into text.

Most people have the same attitude towards computers: they do not want to focus on their machine, they just want their job done. Unity provides a perfect interface for those people: they can easily start applications, find their documents, and switch between tasks quickly. But some users are different: there are people who really like to tweak the user interface. They like experimenting with different options and setups. Not because they necessarily need this… they do it because they enjoy it. Those are the Power Users.

I am one of those people. I love tweaking my machine: testing different options and settings, install unstable applications from untrusted PPAs, extend my user interface. Although Unity was aimed at regular users, it is also the perfect environment for me: I can install indicators and lenses, I can easily create static quicklists for my launcher icons, and there are millions of options to tweak in CompizConfig Settings Manager.

I was very excited when I first read about the idea of Ubuntu Power User Community in Jono Bacon’s post on Wednesday evening, and I wanted to join immediately. I subscribed to the mailing list next morning, and some hours later we even had an IRC channel (#ubuntu-power-users). I contributed to the Wiki page. A new project called Kitchen Sink is being planned: a single application that supports multiple plug-in that provides you with a plethora of check-boxes for switching on and off all kinds of different things.

Do you want to be part of this awesome community? No problem: It is very easy to get involved. Are you a Power User? Subscribe to the mailing list list or join the #ubuntu-power-users IRC channel on Freenode and help other users! Are you a Developer? Help us build the Kitchen Sink. Do you want to do something quickly? Then create a Quicklist for your favorite application following these instructions and send it upstream. Join the Power User Community and feel the power!

Hello Planet Ubuntu!

toros — Sun, 22 May 2011 12:03:26 +0000

This is my first post on Planet Ubuntu, so I think I should start with a short introduction. My name is László Torma (toros), I live in Budapest, Hungary. I am the LoCo contact of the Hungarian Ubuntu LoCo. I work on many areas in our community: I post news on our LoCo site (ubuntu.hu), I contribute to our e-learning portal (edu.ubuntu.hu), and I give presentations at conferences. An important part of my job is coordination: I answer people who contact the loco, I help with resolving conflicts on our forums, I lead our monthly IRC meetings. I also have a blog aimed at the Hungarian Power Users: the main topics of the blog are development releases, new features and new ideas in Ubuntu. No wonder I joined the Ubuntu Power User Community immediately after it was announced.