Fedora Project Insider

User who follows Life: Infinity, Freedom and Voice.

Dear Fedorians!

The Insight team is looking for help, aid, we would like to grab more people for the development of the project called Fedora Insight[1].
But what is that Insight? Those who don’t know this project here is an short description:

Fedora Insight is a Drupal-based website that serves as a place to publish and share news, articles related to Fedora and Fedora marketing materials in various formats. Insight makes it easy for users, developers, and journalists — people who aren’t yet a part of the Fedora contributor community — to keep up with recent highlights without following a dozen different blogs and mailing lists.

We believe you can help us in Insight development. Currently we are looking for the following people:

1. Theme creator

Knows the combination of HTML, CSS and a little bit of PHP. To this you need only some Drupal theme docs [2][3] and you could successfully contribute, to be available an Drupal 7 theme for Insight. If you are interested, you’ll find our wiki [3] how can you make contact with us, and where you could find the Drupal theme (sample) files.

2. PHP (+Drupal) developer

If you know PHP, but would like to learn Drupal either, then you’re our perfect candidate.
Currently we have an actively maintained FAS auth module [4] for Drupal 6, what we would like to update to Drupal 7. Also we could provide an documentation [5] for this, what is available on drupal.org. We use the Feature module, what makes easy the development flow. More about this – check at [6] here.

3. Testers, Use case testers

It’s important, that we must test it out every piece of code, an we do it as we could. Sadly, sometimes some bugs are appearing when it’s unwanted, or it’s stays hidden, or we haven’t met. Therefore we appreciate anybody who could help to discover and report bugs. Tester can be anybody from the community, no need any special knowledge. We need also people who help to test out the mentioned FAS auth and Drupal 7 Mediawiki modules, the calendar module, and the site itself. All this can be done on our testing site [7]. But here pre-registration is required, because the FAS module has been temporarily disabled.

To be able help our work, please send an mail to our mailing list [8], with an short introduction that includes FAS, and the job that would like to help us. After this you’ll receive the necessary access rights, if the work needs that. (eg. like you would like to make an theme).

Also, you as a future important contributor of the project, we awaiting you – and everyone else online at Fudcon Blacksburg 2012, where we’ll put great emphasis to the calendar module [9], and we ask you to share any kind of idea, critics around it, or just contact with us through the IRC – at fedora-mktg channel. We gladly help your first steps.

[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Insight
[2] http://drupal.org/update/themes/6/7
[3] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_work_on_the_Insight_theme
[4] http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/?p=drupal6-authfas.git;a=summary
[5] http://drupal.org/update/modules/6/7
[6] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Insight_development_using_Features_module
[7] https://insight02.dev.fedoraproject.org
[8] https://lists.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/logistics
[9] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Insight_use_cases_for_calendar

We would like to promote us at Hungary – to have an Fudcon at Budapest.

Our team true old wish to conquer new white spaces, and paint it again to blue. I know that the Hungarian team is still growing, but all three ambassadors are working hardly to grow this area, and around our country.

We have awesome circumstances, and an beautiful city that worthy to visit and hack at Fudcon. We are under preparation, and we awaiting here the hungarian drupal community, guys from Brno – and many-many others. Please vote for Budapest and ask for it!

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:EMEA_2012_Bid_Budapest

I have an good news to everybody – if somebody wants to visit Hungary – from now on should not stay at BUD if he/she wants to visit other regions inside Hungary. As it seems Malev, the main HU airline company has kept their promise, and everybody could directly book an filght and direct transfer to/from other cities (5 different regions of Hungary):

• DEB (Debrecen),
• QGY (it’s my city, Györ – whohooo!),
• MCQ (Miskolc),
• QPJ (Pécs),
• QZD (Szeged)

Also includes to the service that if you miss the plain, then they ensuring that you get an room in one of the Marriot hotels. So, how it’s works? Well, after you had booked the flight, they directly transferring between the target city and back to BUD airport too. No need to train, rent a car or anything – and the transfer is included to your air ticket (even for groups). Neat, right? Oh, one more thing: The same rules are accepted for the transfer as on the plain: you get food, drinks – and so on. Ah, yeah, and after take off you could move freely inside the cabin

I think if this will go smoothly, then is no more blocks to to bring/bind together Fedorians at Hungary.

Cheers,

Zoltan

Greetings Fedora Users and Developers,

We are working heavily to bring something awesome for us forward that what we call Fedora Insight[1]. Fedora Insight in long term is not just an RSS feed as it’s right now, else we plan an events module, a calendar[2] module for scheduling and better coordination, microblogging, FWN and many-many more – an integrated system that improves our community.

But, Fedora Insight is nothing more yet, just an series of drupal modules, and a series of ideas[2][3] that will aid us in long term within Fedora, and will improve our community life as we do improvements. We have high hopes before this devel site, so – that’s why we start here, where you could see improvements, articles about how we work, live with the content, and as we do flaws. Of course, if you are interested you could easily join to the Fedora Insight team, and play around with our newest toys. Just check it on the right of the page, drupal lists for you already few of them. We gladly accept anybody who wants to even just make a test run or write a review to us, or curse out that something not really works so as it’s expected . You know, we die for hear your voice, because we do it for YOU.

Rock’n'roll guys and girls!

[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Insight
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Insight_use_cases_for_calendar
[3] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Insight_use_cases_for_status_and_microblogging

“…or the world how small can be.” – as I could add this as sub-title for this blogpost. I know that I have not much time to blog – but after this Fedora Round Table BUD – was an truly awesome event – something has happen with me and I would like to share the story:

After my train hasn’t arrived in time, I had to buy an another ticket to Railjet that heads to my home city, Győr. But it seems, that was my fortune – because when I have stepped on the train, never expected that I’ll meet someone who want keep in touch and work with me. Here is how begun:
The man and his wife, came from Vienna to Hungary to visit some of their (business) friends (as I heard this from their english conversation) – and his wife asked in English help to type an reply sms in Hungarian back to their HU friends. It was really hard, because I never liked Blackberry, with my huge thick fingers always hated to type anything on shrinked tiny keyboard – and I have told this concern to the women.

“Oh, really? You don’t like Blackberry phones, then witch is your favourite? Mine is my iPhone, and my new iPad”…. Umm, well, my open source heart and soul has felt the pain, and I replied so:

“Indeed, the iPhone, and the iPad are nice devices – but I much more like sharing, open source hardwares, and softwares”. I think this was the point, where the man begun to pay attention to our talk – and joined to the conversation and asked me:

Man: “Really? Then what’s that I am using on my laptop?”
Me: “Well, of course an Linux operating system, called Fedora.”
Man: “Oh, I see – that’s why this text written on your blueish t-shirt: Fedora Ambassador, but what’s that Ambassador on it?”
Me: “We are the heart of our community, and keeping the contacts with contributors, with newbies, company CEO’s, and so on… we also fight for freedom.”
Man: “Really? That’s nice… Then I’m sure you have met with bunch of people already. Do you know the name Miguel de Icaza?”
Me: “Sure. The early Ximian and later Mono developer. Why are you asking?”
Man: “Because of he is my cousin. I’m just live here at Vienna, and lead my business. Let me introduce myself (handed over his hand to shake): my name is Ronan Le Bras from CTBTO, head of the International Datacenter Division from the International Centre Vienna.”
Me: “Unbelievable! That’s a surprise, nice to meet you!”
Man: “Do you have an business card?”
Me: “Of course.” – and we have exchanged the business cards….

After this we have begun to talk more deeply, passionately about linux, free softwares, and Red Hat as origin of Fedora, and he told me that he is also using in his business RH and Fedora sometimes either as client (but mostly as servers). I suggested to keep in contact, and if it’s possible – look for me if he want to meet with us, or need some help. Just in case I have given few freshly received F15 media too I have told about my job at Nokia, and he suggested that if I ever need help for arrange an meeting, just search him, and he will see what could I help for me (for us).

About an half an hour has passed quickly, but sadly I had to finish this conversation here, because the train has arrived to my home city. But we promised that we’ll keep the contact -
and I said farewell to them…

That was happened…. So, I think you could never know who sits down nearby to you, as on the internet – you never know who is on the opposite site of the line or inside the network…. I hold here his business card, and I hope that we will meet again. So it wasn’t a dream, and we have an another friend for Fedora. I think maybe we once again create such a great slogan, we should place FRIENDS to the first place. Without that we couldn’t create Freedom, Features, and every time – as First….

Never was bigger hope before, that the small community can hold an release party for our newest proud release – Fedora 15 Lovelock. I have made to call together all the Fedora users, and gain more acquainted, and introduce our newest (under mentoring by Pierros) ambassador Gergely Rakosi. First we didn’t expected many people just around 10, but at the end we closed the event with success: almost 16 people has attended. We have also created new swags for our users, like a fedora mug, and micepad – and even given out few new and several old discs either. And no release party is fully complete without an huge Fedora cake But here are the pictures.

And here is more:

It was fine event, and we meet again at July – to make an strong heartbeat.

Guys, girls we are here, and we are prepared!

Hi Guys and Girls,

It was a long time again that I have written an blog post, but after survived my ISP change, and the base supporting site regained some health to it’s DB, I’m back again to the keyboard to tell the changes – what things are happening lately.

To this year I have decided to gather the hungarian Fedora fellows under one event, and I have begun to collect the still answering addresses, and get counted the active ones. I happily could report that the Hungarian Fedora community is healthy, and to be creative – and lately I have only one, single dead mailing address. The member counter stands on 15 people, witch is significantly more then the last year, but some members are not included in FAS system – but I try to suggest to them to be included. Most of us are working on translation, due that our beloved mother language is the blocking barrier between the international communities and us. Yes, still problem to find good, active, english capable contributors, but as I feel there are members who can – but I have to find the way to them, in a very heavily fragmented Hungarian community. However, right now we have an bunch of members who are actively working together with us in another SIGs, like Peter Borsa, who is signed in Fedora Insight, and he is an pro drupal developer. But we have also serious security developers and testers; like Peter Czanik, or FreeIPA developer Gyula Sipeki, or an active C++ hacker Adam Banoczki (very talented, very young programmer) – but there are more, but needs time to melt together community pieces. Also, I gladly report that one more ambassador is preparing from our community – he is living nearby to BUD, and he currently under mentoring process by Pierros Papadeas. With him together are also preparing two complete FAD and also an release party for F15 at BUD.

Furthermore, we inside the team preparing an bigger conference – last year was called as V-Day – because mainly has focused to virtualisation, but this year will be complemented with other themes, and I would like to call anybody if has interest – and I will update in details. Furthermore, we are also gathering several companies, and building up new contacts. By the way, still hard to find the right and correct way to open source, licensing, and right contacts who are able to move forward freedom with us together. Yes, life of the Ambassadors never was easy. But we have huge belief front of the Gates of Freedom.

I’m really prepared to everything. We have 2 talks, and over 400 people are officially registered – and it seems that we’ll have an awesome event. 4 workshops, tons of extra talks until 18-19:00. So, it will be loooong day. I have prepared the booth stuff, and I hope Robert – my ambassador escort – also prepared to long driving to the event place. We’ll try to do our best.

Pictures coming later!

Cu

Zoltan

I know, I haven’t written any line lately (approx. since one month) but my real life has turned upside down, and wasn’t easy to solve it – but this is an another story. Now, I’m back, and change isn’t a bad thing if results improvement.

Well, dropped the old blogspot blog (fed up with the site limitations), moved everything to the shiny new WordPress 3 on our Linux Empire (HULUG) server with an sub-domain and I could tell everybody that makes peace in my heart. Partially. I had a plan earlier to have new and possibly cheaper swag to our contributors, and more tools to our Fedora desk. Now, it seems that after few (3-4) weeks, it’s realising in samples: t-shirts, baseball hats, and more. For our desks I have created desk flags – now I with Kital tryin’ to to find out that how many we need for event owners – to see fedorians and more new contributors around our desks. This makes us more serious, and new contributors could find us faster. See the picture below.

Also there will be other swags too, just be patient. Sure, we feel that everybody wants one, but in the first row will be only the recent event owners….to have one set. So, if you’re an Event Owner, and you would like to see such on your event box, then drop an private mail. Don’t forget, this is only for first calculations, how many we need. For other regions: I could put anything on flags, LATAM, or FAMNA things too. The target is to have this set spread all regions. I thought on that I ask regional ambassador leaders to help me in to measure the needs, and we will see it. Opinions?

PS: I know snail-mail not an option, because the costs from here to there could be too much. Another solution is FUDCON, But for first i want to hear your thoughts guys and girls…

My trip to Vienna at 5. May to Linuxwochen was interesting, and took only 1,5 hour with train to Vienna Station South (Südbahnhof). The first surprise was the train station is under full reconstruction together with the bus station (they will be one huge building), so by foot tilll the next U1 subway stairs was a bit longer than I expected. I headed to “Schwedenplatz”.

I haven’t seen long time the in Vienna the “Hohenmarkt”, but it was great to see again. I have a bit looked around before I have went to our hotel Marc Aurel. Between the baroque buildings, and many of the statues, squares the man could feel himself in a time travel, and it remembers me why could I love this city basically. The hotel itself is it a bit tiny, bit old, but clean – for the time of the event was alright. I have eagerly awaited my fellow ambassador Fabian at the hotel room, because we never met before, but Kital has told a lot about him, and Timea. After 18:00 we met, and we went out together to eat. I was really happy to had on my side as help.

The “Altes Rathaus” is really an exceptional building, it is like an king’s residence, with a lots of baroque motives, gold, red carpet, huge doors, wide stairs. The event itself was on the first and the second floor. We had place at the first floor, where else got the room for other 5 projects, and for the another five commercial booth’s (eg. locally known companies like DiTech, or bigger like IBM, aso.), and an small coffee shop – in not so big room. We have shared the place with openSuse guys, and later on the next day also with one man of FreeBSD.

Mostly in all three days I have manned around the booth, and cared the lots of questions about Fedora, until Fabian has prepared, and polished his talks, slides with assistance of Kevin Kofler (He was for me an unknown guy, he was one of the surprises, didn’t expected him). Also I have met and talked lot with our contact Daniel Jahre who is an really special guy, because he lives in rollchair. (Respect, and thanks for him, and to their assistant!)

I really enjoy to feel the pulse of the interest on our visitors, and talk with the exhibitors. I have noticed of the growing interest in Fedora, and lots of people has questioned about the upcoming Goddard release. Gladly we had an beta installation at desk, so I made a lot of short “what”s new” talks, and features of Fedora. I have seen that the bigger part of the visitors were newbie to linux, and the rest is quite a mixture. This part has made lot of questions about BFO, our spins (made several times some introduction about our new upcoming spins – just to gather people to our talks), and several who running servers received some info about Spacewalk, and some security spin tools like Sectool. One man has asked for Red Hat products specially for RHEL, and Satellite, but sadly I couldn’t answer him about the name of the precise contact person, but suggested the next Red Hat office at Brno. So await new customers too. By the way – it could be great if have an list about contact persons from each office, so it could be directed there immediately at such events.

In silence times, when no guests were front of me, I have talked lot with openSuse guys, and mostly with Pavol Rusnak and gathered several ideas also. One of it has an truly great potential. We have seen the Smolt profile has only one way usage in both system, where the system gathers data about hardware usage. But after talks, we have both agreed that could use this “backward”: as an personal machine footprint, where you could not just store the successfully loaded, and working drivers and settings, else reload them after OS install if you once created such profile, and tidy up the drivers in kernel, and unload the unnecessary ones. With this option I think we could gain lot’s of users, speed and driver QA feedback, and in return with many profiles, lot’s of hardware info too. Maybe along with driver information – storing the most used, and installed applications names per profile could be a good option for restoring  the settings (backup) for several applications too, or even for fedora user apps customisations. If anybody has interest to work out, I gladly tell more about this.

Really enjoyed the whole event, but there was not many visitors in view of relations of 3 days. Mainly I feel this an small event for local groups, and a good target for austrian ambassadors to get in touch, and keep contacted through this event. For first day there wasn’t many, but the rush in next two days has arrived, so I estimate about 300 visitors. However, I have given away all (!) around 110-120 Fedora 12 discs (LiveCD’s, and DVD’s), lots of stickers (on a third day also really old non metallic ones from Fabian’s event box, because we had almost nothing has left on desk except of buttons), and splash T-shirts. The last one of it was our decision to give out as trophy for the event game, and I gladly congratulated for the winner. I felt myself between crossfire of camera flash really curious, but 5 minutes of fame for Fedora could be well worthy.

I’d like to to thank you for everyone their help, and work, specially for my roommate and Fabian Affolter, who made the successfull talks, had told a lot about his country, his life, and about Fedora. I really missed Timea, but maybe next time when time allows that. I have loved the night walks, passing through the “chinese town” restaurants searching for real “Wiener Schnitzel”, and eating in Ristorante Firenze. I just hope that we meet again, some event partners too – maybe at some of our hungarian event Budapest or Szeged.

Zoltan