Need to update the "About Us" page with more useful information

[Paul Grinberg]

Hi folks,

I have been rather actively looking for mirror providers that would be willing to host Unity Linux's repos to improve our local access. The search has been going rather well. However, one of the very first questions I almost always get is "Who are you guys and what are you providing?" In other words, the contents of what should really be readily available from http://unity-linux.org/about/about-unity/ . I would like to propose that that page be updated with details similar to how I responded to those inquiries over email. Please see below for my verbiage.

Also, I feel that we need to advertise which projects out there are currently based on the Unity Core. This information should be available either from the same About Us page or some other page accessible from the same menu. Can someone please look into both of these items?

Paul.

Let me try to elaborate on the goal of our work. Unity Linux, in itself, is not a full distribution. What our group provides is set of "core packages" (i.e. kernel, firmware, toolkits, Desktop Environments, etc) and the tools which make it very easy to remaster the core into a distribution of your liking targeting specific functionality (i.e. educational software, graphics editing, etc) or localizations (i.e. translations into other languages). These remasters are driven by our community groups and it is our job as Unity Linux developers to make the job of remastering as easy as possible. Our group is also responsible for ensuring interoperability between the various core packages to provide a reliable paltform for the remasters. In other words, we do the "dirty" work to make the remaster process and easy and transparent as possible.

Currently, we have several community driven remaster projects which are based on the Unity Linux core. Among them are

• TinyMe Linux, a somewhat minimalistic distribution targeted towards older hardware. This project already has a release based on the Unity Core - see http://tinymelinux.com/doku.php/latestrelease:test
• Synergy Linux, a distribution targeted for the EeePC platforms. This group has had a number of releases based on Unity core - see http://synergy-linux.net/
• Granular Linux, a distribution targeting new Linux users. This group has also had a release - see http://www.granularlinux.com/
• numerous localization projects into French, Spanish, Chec, German (probably others that I am forgetting now)
• Unity based distribution targeting elementary school age kids
• Unity based distribution targeting video and photo editing

As our user base grows, so will the number of Unity-based remasters. However, since all remasters effectively use the Unity RPMs, this also presents us with a need for new mirrors so that we could support this growth.

I hope this addresses your question. Please feel free to email me if you have more. Again, thank you for your reply.

[gri6507]

On Feb 17, 11:02 am, Paul Grinberg <gri6...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I have been rather actively looking for mirror providers that would be
> willing to host Unity Linux's repos to improve our local access. The search
> has been going rather well. However, one of the very first questions I
> almost always get is "Who are you guys and what are you providing?" In other

> words, the contents of what should really be readily available fromhttp://unity-linux.org/about/about-unity/. I would like to propose that

> that page be updated with details similar to how I responded to those
> inquiries over email. Please see below for my verbiage.
>
> Also, I feel that we need to advertise which projects out there are
> currently based on the Unity Core. This information should be available
> either from the same About Us page or some other page accessible from the
> same menu. Can someone please look into both of these items?
>
> Paul.
>
> Let me try to elaborate on the goal of our work. Unity Linux, in itself, is
>
> > not a full distribution. What our group provides is set of "core packages"
> > (i.e. kernel, firmware, toolkits, Desktop Environments, etc) and the tools
> > which make it very easy to remaster the core into a distribution of your
> > liking targeting specific functionality (i.e. educational software, graphics
> > editing, etc) or localizations (i.e. translations into other languages).
> > These remasters are driven by our community groups and it is our job as
> > Unity Linux developers to make the job of remastering as easy as possible.
> > Our group is also responsible for ensuring interoperability between the
> > various core packages to provide a reliable paltform for the remasters. In
> > other words, we do the "dirty" work to make the remaster process and easy
> > and transparent as possible.
>
> > Currently, we have several community driven remaster projects which are
> > based on the Unity Linux core. Among them are
>

> >    - TinyMe Linux, a somewhat minimalistic distribution targeted towards

> >    older hardware. This project already has a release based on the Unity Core -
> >    seehttp://tinymelinux.com/doku.php/latestrelease:test

> >    - Synergy Linux, a distribution targeted for the EeePC platforms. This

> >    group has had a number of releases based on Unity core - see
> >    http://synergy-linux.net/

> >    - Granular Linux, a distribution targeting new Linux users. This group

> >    has also had a release - seehttp://www.granularlinux.com/

> >    - numerous localization projects into French, Spanish, Chec, German

> >    (probably others that I am forgetting now)

> >    - Unity based distribution targeting elementary school age kids
> >    - Unity based distribution targeting video and photo editing

>
> > As our user base grows, so will the number of Unity-based remasters.
> > However, since all remasters effectively use the Unity RPMs, this also
> > presents us with a need for new mirrors so that we could support this
> > growth.
>
> > I hope this addresses your question. Please feel free to email me if you
> > have more. Again, thank you for your reply.

Since we clearly have people listening in on this group, do we have
someone who can take actions also? I don't want this item to get
dropped ...

Paul.

[Kaleb]

Anybody can. The WordPress login details are on the wiki. 

[Paul Grinberg]

Does WordPress allow us to make changes to the page content? I thought it was just to publish blogs and posts and stuff ? (sorry, I'm not too literate in all this)

Paul.

[Paul Grinberg]

• I have updated http://unity-linux.org/about/about-unity/ - please review and, if you find any errors, please correct them.
• Does anyone have any screenshots to post on http://unity-linux.org/about/screenshots/ ? We desperately need to put something up there BEFORE the next ISO release :-)
• What is this page supposed to contain http://unity-linux.org/about/reviews/ ? It's currently empty ...
• What is http://unity-linux.org/downloads/branches/ supposed to be about? Are we officially calling "remasters" as "branches"?
  
• I have updated http://unity-linux.org/downloads/unity-base/ - please review and, if you find any errors, please correct them.

Paul.

[Custom Processing Unlimited]

I believe remasters have been considered to officially be called "branches" and that page, I think, should remain "empty" with a general posting that branch descriptions and links to homepages, forums, issue trackers, etc will be added as more branches are developed.  Synergy and TinyMe could probably drop some info there right now to fill in a little blank space, but the end of the page (or the beginning) should have such a statement that speaks of an ongoing process of adding and updating branches and that it will be a central location to find out the basics about (and where to go for) the branches that make up the Unity Linux Tree of meta-distros.  This makes the most sense to me.

I give you permission to use the screenshot I posted in the screenshot section of the forums... I'm sure Agust wouldn't mind a couple of his e17 theme screenshots there as well. (with notes that they are from an e17 branch in the works or something to that nature)... as far as default screenshots, I would probably suggest hounding Gett or Matt for some of those (only people I can think of that would have vanilla versions that they could take screenshots of to post on that page).  To be honest, I can only really see maybe 2 shots being of the vanilla core, and pretty much everything else be custom desktop screenshots from varios DEs, WM's and branches (with notes saying such attached and highly visible :P)...

I will review the pages you mentioned first chance I get and try to offer feedback on what I see.

--
"Custom" is NOT mass produced... then it's just a product line.
Custom Processing Unlimited

[dillj]

Note to all translators... update those pages... ;)

[Custom Processing Unlimited]

yes, please... we are counting on you guys!

[Jeremiah Summers]

I would translate to English, but I don't even know that language well enough ;)