Edubuntu

Back at UDS in Dallas, TX we decided that one of the focus for Edubuntu in Lucid would be to to make menu customization a lot easier.

So we wrote a specification covering most use cases for menu customization, editing and sharing.

After a few months of work, mostly done by my colleague at Revolution Linux, Marc Gariepy, we now have a working tool, that's in Edubuntu's default installation.

You can install it on a regular Lucid desktop by doing: sudo apt-get install edubuntu-menueditor
A PPA is also available here (Lucid and Karmic).

Or download Edubuntu's latest daily build here.

It'll install you two different tools:

• The menu editor itself in Applications => System Tools => Menueditor
• The Profile manager in System => Administration => Profile manager

The first can be run by any user, it shows you a window like this one:

There you can create new sub-menus, copy items in them and hide items from the existing menu. Then save it (as a .tar.gz archive).

With this archive, you can either share it with your friends/colleagues/general community or directly start the Profile manager to import it and assign it to a group.
On login, all users in that group will see that new menu you assigned them.

As every new open source projects, it's not bug free, so if you find a bug or have suggestions, please go to Launchpad and report them here.

Now it's your turn to start creating and sharing your menus for your region/country/school system or for your company.
And if you aren't using Ubuntu in English, you can go on Launchpad and help us by translating it to your language !

NOTE: It's currently "branded" as Edubuntu-specific, that's done because it's initially an Edubuntu project but it'll work with every xdg-based menu (that's why the Lauchpad project is called "menueditor").

Following the very successful Bug day we had last week, the Edubuntu project will be having an Edubuntu Wiki day tomorrow.

Wiki reorganization information can be found on this mailing-list post.

As for the Bug day last week, we'll be discussing on #edubuntu (irc.freenode.net), going through wiki pages, moving them, setting redirections and deleting these that shouldn't exist anymore.

Jonathan Carter will be coordinating that on IRC, I'll also be around during the day.

Looking forward to having a clean wiki and discussing with you tomorrow.

On Tuesday the 12nd of January, the Edubuntu project will have its first bug day for the Lucid development cycle.

It'll be coordinated by Scott Balneaves, our dear LTSP developer, Sabayon developer and most recently Edubuntu council member. The event will take place all day in #edubuntu on irc.freenode.net.

At least Jonathan Carter and I will also be around during that day (as part of our work for Revolution Linux).
We will help these interested in looking for education software bugs in the most recent daily image and confirm/close the various bugs we have on Launchpad.

It's also a very good opportunity for everyone interested in Edubuntu to come and discuss in #edubuntu.

The announcement from Scott can be found here, bug suggestions can be sent to the Mailing-List.

Looking forward to talking to you in #edubuntu.

On this Thursday 29th of October, the Edubuntu community is extremely pleased to announce that the 9.10 release is out !!!

Some may have thought Edubuntu was kind of dead, especially after changing its name to become an Add-on, these days are over and we are happy to announce that it's now a full distribution again and is provided as a DVD image.

The biggest changes for this release are:

• Moving to a DVD image
• LTSP installation working from the DVD (text mode)
• Live (ready to use) environment with possibility to install
• LTSP-Cluster is now packaged in Universe
• Sabayon is working again

The release announcement can be found on the Edubuntu website along with download information: here.

It's now time to celebrate Ubuntu's and its derivative's latest release, then we can start thinking of what to work on for 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) which will be a Long Term Support release.

I'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone who was involved in creating that great release and helped getting Edubuntu back to what it was if not even better. I'm sure that in the next 6 months, we'll achieve a lot more.

An Ubuntu OpenWeek session is planned on Thursday the 5th of November at 19:00 UTC on IRC (#ubuntu-classroom) where I'll try to explain how to get involved in that great community and what are our plans for the release to come.