lubuntu-desktop team mailing list archive

[Jonathan Marsden <jmarsden@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Julien,

On 02/11/2011 07:17 AM, Julien Lavergne wrote:

>> Is there any documentation on the LUbuntu CD image build process 
>> anywhere?  If so, where?

> Nothing for now, because I still hope that the ISO will be build with
> the official infrastructure. I don't want to spend too much time on
> something that could be obsolete shortly. I also prbably know where is
> the bug (same that the same time), I just need to spend some minutes
> to focus on this.

I'd love to see that happen too.  When I ask Phill about Lubuntu's
"officialness", I am told something like "we are treated as official by
Canonical already" -- but in important ways for developers, at least, we
are not yet really being treated as equals.

And it shows, in things like the Lubuntu Alpha2 ISO checksum test, and
in the lack of a 64bit (amd64) ISO, etc.  Small stuff, in a sense, but
stuff that others (other-than-Julien's, like me) could help out with, if
the current process was documented and repeatable.

In the interim, last night I played some with live-helper and was able
to create an LUbuntu-like ISO image with it.  I need to check my package
list against what is on the LUbuntu Alpha2 ISO, but it's somewhat close,
at least :)

Pro: My "nearly-LUbuntu" ISO boots fine in Virtualbox, which the real
Lubuntu ISOs don't seem to want to do, for me at least, on Lucid in
virtualbox 4.0.2.  This is a huge deal for me, since virtualbox is how I
do most of my experimentation and testing.

Con: No pretty graphical bootloader and menus, just a older-fashioned
looking Debian-style boot.  There's probably some parameters to "lh
config" I can use to fix that, it just needs more work.

>> It is mildly frustrating to want to help, have the necessary tech
>> skills to help, but be unable to help -- because existing processes
>> within this team are either not documented, or the docs are not
>> readily discoverable. How can we, as the LUbuntu team, improve in
>> this area?

> Yes, sorry about that. I'm the one to blame :-/

Well... maybe the team as a whole is "to blame", because the principle
of documenting its processes, so others can understand them, repeat them
and work with them, is not yet an established part of LUbuntu culture?
Let's agree it is a current weakness, and do what we can to fix it.

> I try to document the wiki for all the maintenance stuff here :
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/Developers/

Ah... that one I had seen before, but now I also clicked on
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/Developers/TODO which has more specific
items listed.  Is this TODO page reasonably up to date?

> I also work a lot with Launchpad to follow bugs :
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/~lubuntu-packaging/+packagebugs
> 
> I also planned to push the packaging work on git (with the debian
> one). It's something that I always postpone because I was the only
> packager. If you plan to work on this, I can push them during the
> week-end.

I was hoping to find a few smallish things I can do to help, such as
create amd64 ISOs, maybe fix the ISO checksum issue so that it *stays*
fixed for all future LUbuntu builds that follow our project-agreed and
documented build process, etc.  I may not have much time this weekend,
but yes, do please go ahead and publish the packaging tools/work if you
can :)

> I hope I'm complete enough, just ping me on IRC or on the mailing list
> during the week-end if you need more information.

Thanks!

Jonathan