More on WebLive and the Software Center integration

Posted on 2011/03/27 by Stéphane Graber

As Michael mentioned on Friday we now have a pretty well working WebLive integration directly in Natty’s software-center.

All you need is qtnx to be installed and an up to date Software Center.
Edubuntu 11.04 will ship with qtnx installed by default. We want to test the feature with all Edubuntu users first to see how it scales and make sure everything is stable before we consider using it for Ubuntu.

Now, quite a few people have been wondering what’s currently available on WebLive.
The complete package list is available here: http://www.stgraber.org/download/weblive-list.html (generated using the WebLive API)

It’s basically all the packages you can find in Edubuntu 10.10, Edubuntu 11.04 and Ubuntu 11.04 as well as the top-30 from the Software Center.
So if you want a package to appear on WebLive, write a review in the Software-Center and rate it.

Edubuntu WebLive

I also would like to remember everyone that you can still get full desktop session by going at: http://www.edubuntu.org/weblive

If you want to point a friend who doesn’t have the new software center to a single-app session, you can use: http://www.edubuntu.org/weblive/app/gedit (by replacing gedit by anything that’s available on WebLive).

Enjoy !

Posted in Edubuntu, Planet Revolution-Linux, Planet Ubuntu, WebLive | 2 Comments

Introducing the WebLive API

Posted on 2011/03/06 by Stéphane Graber

After working on it for the last two weeks, I’m proud to finally announce the WebLive API.
As a reminder, WebLive is the name used for the daemon, Drupal plugin and scripts used to run http://www.edubuntu.org/weblive
Since last week, all the code is now available here: https://launchpad.net/weblive

The API is exported over JSON and example code is available in the branch called ltsp-cluster-agent-vmmanager in the client directory. When interfacing with python, it’s recommended to use the “weblive.py” module as it’ll be updated should the JSON API change or be extended in the near future.

Exported functions are:

  • create_user(serverid, username, fullname, password, session)
  • list_everything()
  • list_locales(serverid)
  • list_packages(serverid)
  • list_servers()

The following functions are exported over authenticated XML-RPC (for management):

  • delete_user(serverid, username)
  • set_disabled(serverid,status)
  • list_users(serverid,all=False)

The main weblive instance is available at https://weblive.stgraber.org/weblive/json and is the one used by Edubuntu.

The drupal-weblive branch contains the Drupal module which is now just a client to the JSON API.

The first use of that API after the Drupal module is Natty’s software-center which since last week ships with code to connect to WebLive.
If you use up to date Natty, you’ll need to install “qtnx” from universe and then start: software-center –with-weblive

All the packages available in WebLive will then have a “Test drive” button you can click to test that app remotely from a WebLive server.

WebLive integration in software-center

The software-center integration is experimental and will hopefully be improved by the time Natty is released. As Ubuntu doesn’t ship qtnx by default, WebLive won’t be visible in the default Ubuntu install, though it’ll be for Edubuntu.

Note: It can take up to a minute to connect to a server. There’s currently no user feedback during the connection process unless you watch the terminal from which you started the software center.

The current code requires your username and hostname to be ascii lowercase alpha characters only. I posted instructions as a comment to get the development branch that doesn’t have this restriction.

Posted in Edubuntu, LTSP, Planet Revolution-Linux, Planet Ubuntu, WebLive | Tagged | 12 Comments

Edubuntu’s installer ready for 11.04

Posted on 2011/02/22 by Stéphane Graber

After spending the last day or so working on it, I’m proud to announce that Edubuntu finally has its long awaited fine-grained package selection in Ubiquity.

Here’s a screenshot of what will be available in Natty:

Ubiquity fine-grained package selection

With it, users can easily opt out of some of our meta-packages or individual packages.
In the future you will also be able to install extra packages this way (that aren’t installed in the live environment but are present on the DVD).

Other than this installer change, Edubuntu has also been updated to ship with a classic gnome interface by default but offer Unity as an installation option. Unity-2d will also ship by default and we’ll try to have it as fall-back of Unity for these who choose to use Unity as their desktop interface.

Enjoy !

Posted in Edubuntu, Planet Revolution-Linux, Planet Ubuntu | Tagged , | 13 Comments

First ARB-approved application available for Ubuntu 10.10

Posted on 2011/01/31 by Stéphane Graber

After months of reviewing the process and going through applications, the ARB approved its first application, Stefano Rivera’s suspended-sentence.


It’s now available in the Software Center for all Ubuntu 10.10 users who have the extra repository enabled.

Description: Point-and-click adventure game set on a space ship
You wake up to find yourself alone on a broken spaceship headed to a Penal Colony.
The ship seems to want you to fix it, but first you need to get out of the room.

It's an adventure game, you know how this works.
Suspended Sentence was a PyWeek.org entry, a game written in a week.

Website: http://suspended-sentence.org

We’re expecting quite a few more applications to show up on extras.ubuntu.com very soon. Hopefully the process should be a lot faster for the next few applications as we’ve now solved most issues and questions with that first one.

Posted in Planet Revolution-Linux, Planet Ubuntu | 7 Comments

Pastebinit 1.2 released !

Posted on 2011/01/30 by Stéphane Graber

So, 10 months after the last release, I’m proud to announce that release 1.2 of the command line pastebin client is out !

For these who just want to grab the branch or tarballs, that’s on Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/pastebinit

For Natty users, you’ll just have to wait for pastebinit to hit Debian and then be synced, shouldn’t take long.

Here’s a quick overview of the new features:

  • Size limit support
  • Distro-specific default pastebin
  • Pastebinit now respects the FHS
  • Quick a few more supported pastebins (see list below)
  • A LOT of bugfix (over 20 bugs fixed, remaining bugs are mostly wishlist)
  • Updated manpage
  • Test scripts to quickly check that all pastebins work
  • Updated translations (28 supported locales)

Here’s the list of currently supported pastebins:

stgraber@castiana:~/data/code/pastebinit$ ./pastebinit -l
Supported pastebins:
- sprunge.us
- pastie.org
- paste.ubuntu.org.cn
- fpaste.org
- pb.daviey.com
- slexy.org
- paste.ubuntu.com
- paste.kde.org
- stikked.com
- p.defau.lt
- paste.debian.net
- cxg.de
- paste2.org
- yourpaste.net
- pastebin.com

Pastebinit automatic testing
Yay for automated testing !

Thanks to everyone who helped with this release:

  • Dave Walker
  • Jan Urbanski
  • Nitesh Mistry
  • Rolf Leggewie
  • Soren Hansen
Posted in pastebinit, Planet Revolution-Linux, Planet Ubuntu | Tagged | 5 Comments