Where has dev.unity-linux.org gone?

We had a catastrophic fail in the raid group where our SVN was hosted.  Since this SVN was only a copy of our Build Server we didn’t really need it that much but just the same, we liked giving users the ability to see what was in the distribution and what was coming down the pipe at them.

We took the opportunity to move all our SVN items (except our Unity only and Branded channels) over to Mandriva.  Not only does this eliminate our second layer of complication (possibility for human error) but it allows our fixes to be applied DIRECTLY at the Mandriva level…which helps out our parent distribution right along side of helping us out.

All projects from dev.unity-linux.org (like mklivecd, unity-install) are now hosted on github.  We’ll probably move these to a more generic location at a later date but for now, those projects are available for anyone and everyone to contribute to.

Bug reporting has moved UPSTREAM to Mandriva’s bug tracker since we’re using packages directly from there.  However, problems/bugs with Unity projects like mklivecd and unity-installer can be reported directly to the Unity Developers Mailing List.

So, now that we’ve moved away from having our developer website, what’s next?

We’re currently working on providing a web interface to our branded channels and hope to have something working on unity-linux.org soon.  We’re also working with Mandriva on helping them form a community around their distribution as well as updating many of their package stacks/desktops like gnome3 and e17.

So when is Unity Linux 2012 going to be released?

We’re waiting to see what Mandriva and Rosa do first.  Honestly, there is a lot of churn in the background and there is plenty of development going on despite the churn in those businesses.  Our 2012 Alpha ISO can be updated to current Cooker and you can continue to work with that ISO for your remasters.  When things sort themselves out and a full stable ISO from Mandriva/Rosa is released (or a LTS release from Rosa) we’ll work on getting an ISO out based on that release for our remasters to work with.  Until then, we, like you, continue to wait and see what happens.

One thing is certain, we’re behind Mandriva 100% as long as they keep using rpm5.  Unity Linux is so invested in this concept that one of our developers has been working on upstream work at rpm5.org.  We’re committed to the Mandriva community…and if there isn’t one…remember that Unity has a community and we’ve been around for 4+ years now.  We’ll welcome anyone to our small band of Linux users.  So keep that in mind and thanks for using Unity Linux!

The developers at the Unity Linux project are pleased to announce a new alpha snapshot of the upcoming 2012 release in both 32 bit and 64 bit versions.  This release is the first in a while due to the fact that we have migrated all our repositories over to utilize the Mandriva ones.  Much work has gone on to make sure that Unity and Smart work with upstream repositories at Mandriva.

This ISO is based on Mandriva Cooker and we utilize our own repositories for packages not available upstream.  As we noted in our previous Alpha release in 2011…we are aiming to provide JEOS (Just Enough Operating System) to give users a core to build upon.  We’ve worked closely upstream with Mandriva to shrink down our ISO size and we’ve broken the 100MB barrier with this release which has a size of less than 100 MB.

This release comes in a command line only format (No X11) and can be installed with the command ‘cli-installer’.

Installation of a desktop environment can be accomplished by following the Unity Linux Getting Started Guide.

Changelog

The 2012 alpha 1 brings the following to Unity Linux core ISO:

• Kernel 3.2.7
• Revamped cli-installer
• GCC 4.6.3
• RPM 5.4.4
• mklivecd updated
• Moved to Systemd
• Overlayfs replaces aufs
• Perl 5.14.2
• Major DE and core updates as well as numerous package updates

Here’s what we’re working on for the full 2012 release:

• Switch from GDM to LightDM [IN WORK]
• Release a GUI version of Unity with Openbox [IN WORK]

The 2012 alpha 1 release is a snapshot release based on Mandriva Cooker. We have developed an in-house script (create-basesystem) to easily and reliably recreate snapshot ISOs of the Unity Linux package repository at anytime. The idea behind this is that using the create-basesystem script along with Unity metapackages one could easily recreate reliable and good branch ISO.  Using <BRANCHNAME>-desktop metapackages would allow distribution developers to MAINTAIN A SINGLE RPM SPEC file to create their entire distribution.  We aim to keep it simple.

Unity Linux 2011 Alpha 2

The developers at the Unity Linux project are pleased to announce a brand new alpha snapshot of the upcoming 2011 release. The 2011 alpha 2 release provides a few big updates to core packages, but the emphasis on the 2011 release continues to be maintaining stability during structural changes that will accommodate a move toward Mandriva repositories.  This release shows our new aim which is to provide JEOS (Just Enough Operating System) to give users a core to build upon.  The Unity developers are aiming for an Arch-Linux-Like approach to things with future releases:  Provide a stable core on which users and developers can build while keeping updates rolling.  Therefore, Unity will only be released in a cli only version (command line interface) from this point on.

Installation of a desktop can be accomplished by following the Unity Linux Getting Started Guide.

Changelog

The 2011 alpha brings the following to Unity Linux core ISO:

• Kernel 2.6.35.8 – version preserved for stability – other kernels available in testing/unstable repositories
• Major DE and core updates as well as numerous package updates

The core structural changes slated for the 2011 release (previously noted in alpha 1 notes):

• All dynamic dkms kernel modules to be converted to static kernel packages. [DONE]
• NetworkManager to completely replace drakx-net [DONE]
• Fully implemented unity metapackages [DONE]
• Removal of HAL, and updating Xorg [DONE]
• Move to rpm 5.3.x [DONE]
• Move to python 2.7.x [DONE]
• Update toolchain to GCC 4.5.x [DONE]
• Update kernel version to 2.6.37.x or higher for better KMS support [IN PROGRESS]
• Move toward Mandriva Repositories [IN PROGRESS]

We’ve also fixed bugs with create-basesystem, our script for ISO creation:

• Guest account bug fixed
• Finish Install bug fixed

The 2011 alpha 2 release is a test release to show the viability of the new direction of development for Unity Linux. As mentioned above, we have developed an in-house script (create-basesystem) to easily and reliably recreate snapshot ISOs of the Unity Linux package repository at anytime. The idea behind this is that using the create-basesystem script and unity metapackages, while also creating a <BRANCH>-desktop metapackage, one could easily recreate reliable and good branch ISOs.

The past practice has been to take a fully loaded ISO install it and go about customizing the packages installed to your liking, then create an ISO with mklivecd. While this is a great option for people that would like do their own remasters, for branch distribution developers, this option is not very clean nor is it very repeatable. Especially for branches that want to offer both i586 and x86_64 ISOs. The create-basesystem script along with unity metapackages and <BRANCH>-desktop metapackage will simplify and streamline the process for branch developers making it even easier to create your own distribution of Linux based on Unity.