• Issue type: Feature request

Short Description

Since the generator branch is the master one, so it contains all the packages and most of them are not required.

Expected behavior

The idea is to remove them.

Actual behavior

We can even remove each unnecessary metapackage but the fear is that it may disturb the MD5 configs, so I thought to remove the installation line of metapackage from the build.sh

Use case

This will remove unnecessary metapackage from the event-os.

Description

Thus at the end of the day, we will be left with a lightweight event-os.

Few applications need to get default as

• vlc as default player
• chromium as default browser

If we made any changes in meilix-default-settings metapackages, it need to rebuild to get the packages working.

Document files and folders to customize browsers

• start page
• search engines
• amazon search

Document how to customize desktop

• background
• sound

Meta Package

• Propose, build and document how to build a meta-package, that changes the distro accordingly.

References:

• https://code.launchpad.net/~lubuntu-dev/lxde/
• https://code.launchpad.net/~lubuntu-desktop/+junk/lubuntu-tools

Deployment on master branch is not working. Bad credentials are the cause of the error. Maybe something happened with the API key,
@mariobehling can you check the API key please?
Thank you.

I will make a P.R which makes changes in the readme about the branch policy and Licence agreement .
Any more information you think which must be included?

As far as I can see, creating a meilix amd64 requires the following:

• add the file image-amd64.tar.lzma
• do not install i368 packages
• add amd64 variants of the i368 packages

meilix$ ./build.sh amd64
./build.sh: ERROR: data file /home/coderdojo/meilix/image-amd64.tar.lzma not found

Questions:

• Is it possible to use the same image files for amd64 as for i368? Answer: Yes, it is. But EFI boot does not work.
• Could we just copy the files for the amd64 image from the Ubuntu amd64 iso? No: Does not work.

The goal is to keep our files on our own server and have our own repository. What is the simplest model to get this for now?

There is an issue with the zesty that it doesn't boot directly into the GUI rather it boots into CLI.
And since meilix is going to use for the event like purpose, I think it's better to rely on LTS version and roll-back to xenial (16.04).
@mariobehling @niccokunzmann @abishekvashok @xeon-zolt

Short description

by using mksio and squash tools instead of rebuilding whole iso which takes time we can create changes in iso and repack it

The readme.md of the repository needs improvement.

This would give a regular branch policy and good results as we could even host it online. This could be achieved by Travis easily though a custom user account bot has to be created.

The script aptRepoUpdater.sh uses a bot to push the changes [new metapackages] back. To push changes back (i.e, to update the gh-pages branch via a commit) it (@apt-bot) would need write access to the meilix project so please add @apt-bot as a collaborator to the meilix project.

@mariobehling this one is for you sir.

The new update for 17.04 has been released in the market. I will make a P.R for its update for Zesty.

Sometime iso released by generator branch of meilix get drafted rather than getting into release.
And email doesn't send to the user unless until there is a deployment of iso.
#94

Seems like my access from the repo has vanished somehow and I can't write to it, as a coincidence the build is also failing because my personal token was used for pushing out releases.

NB: I also lost access from some other repos where I could merge PRs also, and I think i haven't done anything with my acc or experimented anything in the near past, so I am confused of how my accesses have been lost :(

We are using Travis to trigger the build of meilix but now in a forked repo here since we made required changes in our master branch.
The idea is to make a new branch as generator which will contain the required changes.
@mariobehling @niccokunzmann Help us in this matter.

This issue will focus on making the concept clear of the different branches in meilix i.e, master and generator.
master: all the development goes into the master branch
generator: this is the branch which is used by meilix-generator for generating the iso and hence the requirement changes will be made here.

Chroot folder contains sources.list file which needs to be updated to zesty.
The user that locks a file or directory is the only one that can edit and push their changes back to the repository where the locked objects are located.

The task is to auto-building of the webapp from the readme.
LIke this

The generator branch is made for the webapp basically. So we need to clean up the branch to make it suitable for customization.
The cleanup include: meilix-default-settings/debian/changelog should be edited to version 1.0

This is the copycat of fossasia/labs.fossasia.org#135 (comment)
We created this so we can checkmark the boxes.

• Use LXQt
• Switch off notification
• Switch off screensaver and sleep modes
• Switch off system sounds
• Disable bookmarks in browser
• Install ownCloud and Dropbox
• Pre-set start system without password
• Install Gtalk/Hangout
• Install Firefox, Chrome, Chromium
• set Chromium as default
• set custom start page and set "restart with last opened tabs" (in case laptop is crashing)
• Install git
• change desktop background with custom image
• Update to latest version (without password)
• Switch off screen dimming
• switch off power management saving features
• link to the slide folder from the desktop (edit "make a link")
• autohide panel
• Install local language keyboards
• Install VLC and set as standard video player
• Install LibreOffice, Gimp, Inkscape
• set search engine
• distro referrals

This should be implemented in generator branch of fossasia/meilix with the maximum of these features

We want to add

• gedit

We can make a separate repo for apps and use it as a sub module so that managing and updating apps and managing build script can be simple

• Update script to latest ubuntu version 16.10 and compare to lubuntu version (http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~lubuntu-dev/ubuntu-seeds/lubuntu.yakkety/view/head:/desktop-qt)
• Create a meta package for the distro (some useful documentation https://blends.debian.org/blends/apb.html)
• Add additional language packs and fonts for Asian languages
• Add skype
• Substitute qupzilla browser with Google Chrome in meta package
• Define specific search engines
• Substitute SMPlayer with VLC in meta package
• Substitute nomacs with lximage-qt
• Take out 2048 (Qt) - Sliding block puzzle game
• Take out nobleNote - Application to take notes
• Take out usb-creator-kde
• Add our repo as additional PPA
• Create and define
• Krita
• Enhance and and change lubuntu-qt-desktop for use in community distro

Optional: * instead of using LXQT from launchpad use LXQT from github repo https://github.com/lxde/lxqt (more info also here: https://github.com/selairi/compile-lxqt-ubuntu)

Various flavors of linux exist. Ubuntu has a lot of derivatives for different use cases: education, office, low-memory, … . How can we allow the average users to customize their own linux distribution?

The User Interface

A simple user interface can be a website as prototyped by codersos/create. The users can choose among different flavors of the UI, programs an packages. Next, they submit their customization to a server and get feedback about the build. When the build is done, they get notified or download the file automatically.

Architecture

The architecture consists of several components:

• The website for the user
• The logic (proxy) to create a build
• The build services (Travis, self-hosted, gitlab-ci, …)
• The repository with the linux build
• The meta packages to keep older builds updated
• Picture of the Architecture

Walkthrough

(1) Customization

The user goes to the github pages served website. A specification is created. This spec can be downloaded, loaded, sent to the proxy. A proxy is chosen by the website based on availability.

(2) Build Server is Chosen

The proxy chooses a build sever to send the spec to.

• Travis and Gitlab-CI
• In these cases the proxy passes the specification to the repository by creating a commit with a tag and pushing this.
• Heroku
• This is an own build service.
• A way to recognize whether a build was successful/which state it has, … is communicated back to the website.

(3) Image Build

The repository is built by the build service. The correspnding image and output is pushed to a release somewhere.

During the build, the meta packages are used. They allow updating the resulting distribution in the future.

Collaborating

Questions are discussed in issues.

In order to spread the knowledge, students can not merge their own pull-requests but those others. (Inspiration)

The APIs are defined and discussed first:

• We keep the architecture clean
• development details do not creep through several repostories and increase required expert knowledge for contribution
• The development speed is constant
• We document and talk which is a basis for collaboration

Possible Customization

• Hotel - See meilix
• Events
  • connect to wifi
  • turn notifications off
  • browser start page is event
  • presentation tools like libre office are installed
  • owncloud/nextcloud to share files and slides, authenticated
  • onedrive, dropbox?
  • same user/password
• Programming clubs?
• environments and languages
  • see CoderDojoOs
    Home & Office
• not sure if this is important as there is so much

Related Work

Tools like customizer exist as a GUI and can be automated using continuous integration servers such as Travis. The pager about the live-addon-maker provides further research.

Original: http://niccokunzmann.github.io/blog/2017-04-19/customized-linux-distribution-by-click

We achieved to get the user the email but it doesn't contain the link. Need to be solved

CNAME for meilix.fossasia.org

Settings

• Switch off notifications
• Switch off updates
• Deactivate sleeping mode
• Deactivate Screen Saver and Lock with Password

Browser

• Set up loklak wall on start screen and as start page

File Exchange

• Set up Dropbox for File Exchange
• Add Skype

Possible definitions at Installation

• Enter loklak wall link
• Enter Open Event link
• Enter Dropbox Account or Public Folder

Please add the topics of the project below the description line.
Tags like: os, linux, lubuntu, zesty or anything else.

The system lock is developed on another repo it would be nice if we could do an auto update from it to here. @mariobehling your views on this pls.

Codacy doesnot support bash and its doing nothing here, so can we commit it out? @mariobehling

• Issue type: Feature

Short description

lxqt is a desktop environment and we need to use it for next part

Usecase

it is a lightweight DE so it can run on low spec PC too plus after adding this we should be working on configuring it for presentations

Cooperate with the SUSI.AI hardware project to offer a dedicated Kiosk Meilix version with SUSI.AI for Raspis and Magic Mirror

@mariobehling, we went through your feedback and now in need of your help to understand the terms to start working on this.

We are at zesty with trusty metapackages which are broken for the update by PR #41 which updated the base to zesty, we need to update the metapackages to move forward.

The webapp should configure the meilix build.

When Travis builds, the environment is configured.
This environment can contain a variable, e.g. CONFIGURATION_SCRIPT_URL.
This url should point to a script which can be downloaded, e.g.
CONFIGURATION_SCRIPT_URL=https://meilix-generator-test.herokuapp.com/configurations/TAG_NAME.sh

The travis build looks for such a variable. If it is present, it downloads the file and marks it as executable.
In the chroot of meilix, the file is executed.

This approach does the following:

• it is extensibe: Different web apps can use different configurations
• if is fast to make it work
• It can be changed later to bootstrap different types of configurations, e.g. a json configuration

Related:

• The meeting https://pad.freifunk.net/p/hangout-01

Although skype metapackage is included in the root directory of meilix but it is not found while searching for skype in the OS.

Here's the problem:

As you can see at line no 2479-2482 there are some errors namely:

Errors were encountered while processing:
 libpam-systemd:i386
 systemd
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

As you can see there was an error in processing the libpam package which belonged to systemd.

Note: PAM = Pluggable Authentication Modules. Basically, it is a flexible mechanism for authenticating users and we can't omit it so please deliver a fix.

@mariobehling since we lack contributors can we create a task for this?

Similar to chromium, where is the .config or .json file for the firefox browser to edit the preference of the browser?
Is there any way for the configuration?
@Abhi2424shek @xeon-zolt

Although meilix master branch is based on lxde but when I implemented the change in build.sh script to remove all the packages of lxde and included the packages of lxqt. But after booting the iso, it shows no change at all, even the desktop environment is shown to be of gnome.

While testing on mobile i found that the sources repositor's home page which is made the official page of the meilix sources is not well padded. Assuming low priority for this one!

The average build time is around 27mins or so, it would have been better if we could investigate faster CIs and move the build function to there and keep the Content Delivery with Travis (metapackage pushing to gh-pages). What are your thoughts?

#84
This PR actually removes few lines from the build.sh which install metapackages.
The task is to include those lines and tests the iso for the metapackages.

There are metapackages in meilix. These meta-packages can help to define details of a distro including which packages are included, start page and search engines of browsers etc.

Please check out the existing meta-packages and update them. Find out what needs to be changed in order to change browser search engines etc. and update your findings in the Readme.md

Next steps would be to make a list of items that we will include in the meta-package.

A format for proper issue creation and making a pr.

We don't have a license yet for the meilix project so shall we go for one, if yes let us all express our views here in this issue.

Adding of metapackages of a
File Manager (Nemo)
Gparted
Cheese (for webcam)
Trash
thunderbird
gnome-terminal
gnome-calculator

Please help if you want to cut some options or add more.

Github releases are not working because the API token has been changed in a recent PR, we need to get it back.

Here is the list of the configuration that we have to shortlist to need in the LXQt version of meilix
#67

The domain for the sources hosted on the gh-pages branch has been changed so as to continue serving from the updated domain we have to update the sources.list.d file.

• Enhance travis
• Add codacy