[X2go-dev] new to the list, offering support

[Heinz-M. Graesing]

Am 25.06.2010 19:23, schrieb Mike Gabriel:
> Hi there,
> 
> my name is Mike Gabriel and I have recently taken a closer look at x2go.
> I must say, it is a fabulous project/product and as I will probably have
> needs for a SBC/TC environment like x2go I would like to offer support,
> skills and resources:

Hello Mike - Thank you!

>   o vhosts for testing (on root servers, available sometime in
>     September/Octobre)
>     this year)

This is interesting for public testing environments. There are some very
intersting desktop project which should be seen by the world (cream
desktop environment, sugar,...) of cause the world should also see
x2goplugin. We are looking for sponsored public testing environments.

>   o skills in Perl, Python, PHP

The next administration interface will be build on a JSON-RPC api. We'll
build an ajax interface, but there will sure be the need for other
flavours of administration gui and some php examples (which we'll won't
build).

>   o genuine skills in communication (at least I hope I have them)

This might be the most needed help at the moment. As the discussion is
already moving towards the help with the topic "ubuntu" I'll try to
inform you about what is and was going on.
We are developing on debian and we are building packages for debian
(i386, aamd64, ppc). As we are administrators of x2go systems too, we'll
go on building those packages as we'll need them.
After some people wanted to use x2go on ubuntu, we've asked them and
some ubuntu members, how to build packages for ubuntu. There where some
guidlines we should (needed to) follow and so we've developed a own
version of x2go for ubuntu. This version was based on the unchanged
nxlibs and some other changes to the normal branch of x2go. We've
released those packages on launchpad and started a rfp.
Then there where a lot of discussions about how to proceed - which all
would have lead to a totally incompatible version and to a lot of work
on the webguis of canonical.
We've stopped the development of this version and added ubuntu
compatibility to our debian version. Later we introduced a meta package
named "x2goserver-home" which should contain all needed modifications on
x2go to work on ubuntu. We are testing x2go with the most recent ubuntu
versions but we are no ubuntu users.
Besides the packaging for ubuntu there was an rfp for debian - which is
in our eyes very important to x2go. It is now closed and Jonas will
start his work on x2go - thank you Jonas - thank you Skolelinux!
If those packages will reach unstable, they will be accessible to ubuntu
too.
So why I answered this on you lines of "skills of communication"? This
is, because the described development caused a lot of emotional
reactions. We receive a lot of emails of ubuntu users and they describe
(some times not only polied) us their needs.
I wan't to add, that we've started the project with a lot of
communication possibilities(forum/list/bugtracker/...) which lead to a
lot of work and a lost focus. We reduced the communication to this list
only and now everyting works fine despite the fact that there a some
people who are afraid of "mailing lists". There will be a forum for
newbies soon too (operated by somebody involved in Linux4Afrika). To get
back to ubuntu: At the moment there are packages for Arch, Gentoo,
Mandriva, SuSE,... all those ports a build with maintainers. We think
this too would be a good idea for ubuntu. The packages could be build
right out of our *tar.gzs without changes (they are prepared for debian
package building). The maintainer could do this on launchpad, earn karma
and do whatever the ubuntu folks wan't to see as success of a project.
I don't think, that those packages will make their way into ubuntu, but
a ppa reduced to the ubuntu compatible packages will help accepting x2go
with ubuntu. Maybe it is a good idea to talk to LUG Ottobrunn  which is
very activly promoting x2go for ubuntu (they too have some experience on
the topic "communication/ubuntu").

> I live in Kiel, Germany and currently I am working on a SBC/Opensource
> concept for a couple of grammar schools herearound.

As x2go is used in bavarian schools and with skolelinux in
Rheinland-Pfalz, please contact me on this topic.

> During the testing of x2go I have stumbled over quite some issues that I
> would like to report to the current developer team. As I have found no
> bugtracker with the project, I guess addressing the x2go-dev list will
> be best, won't it?

Yes and thank you for your contributions!

best regards,

Heinz