13 | December | 2013 | Steve Woods

Canonical forks Gnome Control Centre*

13/12/2013 Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech

Robert Ancell of Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, has announced on the Ubuntu desktop mailing list that Canonical is forking the Gnome Control Centre.

Robert’s email is reproduced in full below.

Hi all,

Ubuntu makes use of a heavily patched gnome-control-center (61 patches) and we will in future move to the new Ubuntu System Settings [1] once we achieve convergence. We are already running an old version of gnome-control-center (3.6) and the value for Ubuntu in upgrading this is low since it would take a lot of work to update our changes. Running an old version until convergence blocks those who do use GNOME (i.e. Ubuntu GNOME).

For these reasons it has been discussed that we should fork gnome-control-center 3.6 for Unity into unity-control-center [2].

To be very clear, this is a fork with a limited lifespan. We don’t expect to make significant changes to it outside of stability and security fixes.

This change affects a number of packages, and I have attempted to find and fix all the side-effects (See bug 1257505 [3]). The proposed changes are in a PPA [4].

Please test this PPA and post any problems in the bug report. I’d like to land this change into the archive if there are no reasons to block it.

I also have a fork of gnome-settings-daemon for the same reasons which I am running successfully, I will do a similar call for testing when we have landed the control center changes.

Thanks,
–Robert

[1] https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-system-settings
[2] https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-control-center
[3] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-control-center/+bug/1257505
[4] https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-desktop/+archive/unity-control-center

* = Spelling in title and author’s text localised to EN-GB! 🙂
How Linux is built

13/12/2013 Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech

This Linux Foundation video is over a year old and some of the figures may be out of date and relate solely to the USA. Nevertheless, it still gives a valuable insight into the collaborative working that goes into putting the Linux operating system together.
Felix Road Adventure Playground – latest

13/12/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics, Social Media

I live not very far away from Felix Road Adventure Playground, which for four decades has provided opportunities for play for inner city children in Easton.

Felix Rd Adventure Playground

As regular readers will be aware, the playground has been under threat of closure ever since Bristol City Council made a mess of outsourcing play facilities around the city.

In response to this calamitous cock-up, local Easton residents organised a petition to save Felix Road (posts passim).

According to the Save Felix Road Twitter account, a debate on the playground will be held at a full meeting of Bristol City Council on 17th December as the petition has gained more than the required number of signatures to trigger a discussion in the council chamber.

I’ll await developments with interest as it’s not right that children in one of the most deprived parts of the city suffer when Bristol City Council cocks things up.
Bristol Open Data meet-up next month

13/12/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Open Data, Politics, Tech

There’s an open data meet-up taking place in central Bristol next month.

It will be held on 30th January 2014 at the Watershed, 1 Canon’s Road, Bristol, BS1 5TX (map) from 7 pm to 10 pm.

The few details that are available at present can be seen here.

Topics to be discussed will include licensing, linked open data, open data and open government.

Speakers are due to be announced in due course and I’ll keep readers updated of developments as the event gets nearer.

Hat tip: Jukesie

Originally posted on Bristol Wireless.

Canonical forks Gnome Control Centre*

How Linux is built

Felix Road Adventure Playground – latest

Bristol Open Data meet-up next month