C’est avec une grande tristesse que nous apprenons que notre cher ami Hatem S’hel nous a quitté jeudi dernier (17/06/2010) suite à un long combat avec la maladie. Hatem est un des membres fondateurs de notre LoCo et un fervent défenseur des logiciels libres en Tunisie.

A mon nom et au nom de tous les membres de notre communauté nous adressons nous sincères condoléances à toute sa famille.

Plus d’infos à propos de Hatem : Son Blog et son interview.

It is with great sadness that we learned that our dear friend Hatem S’hel died last Thursday (06/17/2010) after a long battle with illness. Hatem be a founding member of our LoCo and a strong supporter of free software in Tunisia.

On my behalf and on behalf of all members of our community we extend our sincere condolences to his family.

More about Hatem : His Blog and an his interview.

RIP Hatem… is a post from: Pourquoi pas !!

Ubuntu Warty WARTHOG (4.10)

The first version of the Ubuntu distribution. For the history it was during a discussion between Robert Collins and Mark Shuttleworth that Mark has launched the name that will be adopted and adapted to any future versions of Ubuntu. Thus each version will have a code name composed of an adjective and an animal name.

Ubuntu Hoary HEDGEHOG (5.04)

Ubuntu Breezy BADGER (5.10)

March 2006 – The first time I heard about Ubuntu: One of my students brings me a bag with two original CDs, an installation CD and a live CD, and he tells me he got the CD free and they are sent home by mail at no charge.  I take the live CD, I  go  home, but I can not find an equivalent to my very useful “Drakecenter” to configure the settings for my PC. I give up and I return to my sweet Mandriva.

Ubuntu Dapper DRAKE (6.06)

Many first time for this version. The first version with a long-term support.  The first version that lags behind the initial schedule of release (a release every six months). The first version that takes the name of a bird :p All the following versions will follow in alphabetical order.

November 2006 – The first time I install Ubuntu: I am in training in France, I was given a PC and allowed  to install my own OS. I take my Mandriva DVD and begin the installation, but can not complete the installation … the system does not detect the SATA disk of the PC. A colleague hands me a CD written on “Ubuntu 6.06″ and asks me to test it.  I install the system and presto, SATA disk detected and I find myself with my new GNOME desktop, all in brown and orange icons while. My colleague tells me that tomorrow will bring me the CD of the new version just released a few days ago and tells me that the new version brings a huge number of improvements.

Ubuntu Edgy EFT (6.10)

November 2006 (continued): My colleague brought me back the CD, and presto new installation within 24 hours. During the installation my colleague introduced me to a spirit of this new distribution, its history, its advantages over others, etc.  The installation is complete, the hard work starts: how to configure my machine and how to install my applications without my famous “Drakecenter”?  With an internet connection available, my first (good) reaction was to ask my best friend (at that time – I mentioned google) to help me and obviously I found the website of the Francophone community. There a very big surprise…  the documentation  is freely available,  forum registration is possible and it is free… (I say it was a surprise because at that time subscribing into the official forum of Mandriva was not free) long life to the free spirit, I am fascinated by this community and I joined it directly. Since that time I have not left my Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Feisty FAWN (7.04)

April 2007 – Community: I’m getting my bearings in this new distribution after years spent with Mandrake and Mandriva, and my “Drakecenter” (yes I repeat: p) don’t miss me more.  Thanks to the forum and the documentation of the Francophone community all my questions (or almost) are answered. I discovered the concept of community and of course my first question was is are there a Tunisian community? Yes there is one, and it is two months old, but with no apparent activity (for now).

Ubuntu Gutsy GIBBON (7.10)

October 2007 – The community (bis): More and more e-mails circulating on the mailing list of our community and IRC meetings are held from time to time.  Few days after the release of Ubuntu 7.10, ubuntu-tn  community participates in the biggest FOSS event in Tunisia “Software Freedom Day – SFD”. Our community is within the landscape of FOSS communities in Tunisia and became one of the main actors.

Ubuntu Hardy HERON (8.04)

The second version with a long term support, as the first LTS version the code name uses a name of a bird. For me it is the version that has the most beautiful wallpaper by default but not only that.

April 2008 – Purpose, approval of the community: Our community turns on more and more and we set a common goal: become an approved local community.  The goal was reached July 22, 2008.

Ubuntu Intrepid IBEX (8.10)

Ubuntu Jaunty JACKALOPE (9.04)

The Jackalope, an imaginary animal, had to find it

Ubuntu Karmic KOALA (9.10)

Ubuntu in the clouds.

and the story history will continue with:

Ubuntu Lucid LYNX (10.04)

Ubuntu Maverick MEERKAT (10.10)

The Meerkat light and social.

—-

To review and use older versions of Ubuntu: The Ubuntu Museum

A free adaptation of the article “A Look At All Ubuntu Mascots (Code Names)“.

Ubuntu, the family album is a post from: Pourquoi pas !!

At night I connect to #ubuntu-tn IRC channel to get the Drupal and NetBeans presentations from RachedTN, who unfortunately was not able to attend to to ISIMa event after a last time change at work. Well I got the presentations that I tried to prepare a little before going to sleep.

Awake early the morning, I went with Goldenscorp to join nizarus on the way to Mahdia where we met Mr Imed Hamouda, Dr. Tech. Adjunct Professor at Tempare University of Technology, who came from Finland to give a conference about Open Source. In fact, it was a good opportunity for him to see a part of the Tunisian Free and Open Source community in action.

Received by ISIMa staff, Mr Salaheddine, we joined the other ubuntu-tn members (tarekDJ, Akira and his friend) who was already there and we had a little talk with ISIMa’s director Mr Hammadi Ben Naceur. After, LPI Maghreb joined us few minutes later, we started with ubuntu and free software introduction presented by nizarus in front of more than a 100 students and few professors and staff from ISIMa and LPI Maghreb.

The presentation was very interesting introducing the software freedom philosophy. How easy, reliable, stable and secure to use ubuntu. I think it was very useful to the present students, they learned about a different operating system.

The next conference was about certifications, presented by LPI Maghreb who introduced it very well as they talked about it’s importance, the different available certifications, how to prepare for it, how to pass the exam as they talked also about the importance of certifications for enterprises and business not only for students and professionals.

With the impressive interaction between the presenters and the present people asking and answering questions, TarekDJ took a little reward from LPI Maghreb for his great effort designing the event’s poster before we took a little break.

In that few minutes I connect my laptop to the data show to check everything is fine and I played a little with my lamp installation before I started the Drupal conference.
I introduced the new concept of web CMS and how easy it is now to make a website comparing to how people did it few years ago, presenting the basics of free software and web CMS I showed them some examples of what Drupal can do based real web sites developed using Drupal. When we talk about Drupal we have also to talk about web servers and implementing their websites, so I also talked about LAMP and how they can install it and use it on their computers.

Finally the last conference was about NetBeans IDE that varied from the basics to some advanced talk. I showed them how to install it on their systems as I talked about it’s portability and availability on other operating systems. The interaction was quiet good with both of Drupal and NetBeans conferences.

Losing a lot of energy presenting and following all the conferences, everybody got hungry so we had to go for lunch in ISET’s restaurant where we had an interesting talk.

The last thing we have to do now is to make the first step of practice. It’s the install party where nizarus had to show them how to install ubuntu in practice assisting few students who wanted to install ubuntu on their laptops and distributing ubuntu install CDs to some other students who wanted to install or try it on their computers.

In the end of the install party, the famous GNU showed up, so we had a nice time taking pictures with him before we say good bye to Akira and TarekDJ.

After having some coffee in Al-Mashmoom, we went back home with nizarus who took me and GoldenScorp to Monastir before going back to Sayada, then I left GoldenScorp to take the Metro back to Sousse.
The event was really good for me, for ubuntu-tn and for ISIMa as I have seen some of ISIMa’s students connecting to our IRC channel and subscribing to ubuntu-tn forums. I just hope the impact of the day is beyond this and it ends with future ubuntu users and even contributors, who knows

Report by Ahmed alias Neo31.

Photo album : http://ubuntu.nizarus.org/v/isima1004/

Linux & Certification Day @ ISI Mahdia is a post from: Pourquoi pas !!

Plus de photos dans l’album : http://ubuntu.nizarus.org/v/mygnu/.

A suivre…

A few months ago I spoke about the project move your Tux / GNU who consists in making a world tour for a Tux and a GNU. Today, and after a long flight, the GNU arrived home at Monastir in Tunisia and it gets ready to make its Tunisia tour. If you are interested to relay it you can register in the project forum.

More photos here : http://ubuntu.nizarus.org/v/mygnu/.

To be continued…

En fin... je respire de l'air frais...

Coucou c'est moi...

Move Your GNU en Tunisie is a post from: Pourquoi pas !!

Karmic Koala CD.

Karmic Koala Tunisian LoCo pack is a post from: Pourquoi pas !!

SFD Tunisia 2009

For the third consecutive time our LoCo was present, on October 31th 2009, in the biggest celebration of free software  in Tunisia, the  Software Freedom Day 2009. This year our LoCo was directly involved in organizing this event as our friends Wajih and Mohamed were active members in the organizing committee.

SFD Tunisia 2009

As usual our LoCo took the opportunity to speak about the ubuntu distribution, about our community and to distribute dozens of ubuntu 9.04  CDs and disk images of the latest ubuntu 9.10. Two members of our LoCo ensured the animation of two workshops. The first workshop, led by Rached, was a presentation of free CMS Drupal. The second workshop, led by Mohamed, took place around a presentation of WaveMaker tool.

WaveMaker workshop.

Drupal workshop.

LoCo members in action.

When visiting the different workshops and booths of FOSS clubs, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the majority of members PC run with ubuntu. To these people I offered, on behalf of the LoCo, the stickers “Powred by ubuntu” to replace another obsolete sticker .

During this day two competitions was held for Tunisian FOSS clubs and communities. The first contest for “the best work of promoting FOSS in Tunisia” and the second for “the best idea for promoting FOSS in Tunisia”. At the last minute the organizing committee decided to cancel the first contest as  our LoCo was the unique candidate. But we won, brilliantly, the first prize in the second competition with our idea that we have implemented since our approval in 2008 which is: visiting academic and educational institutions in different Tunisian cities to promote FOSS  alternatives and provide assitance for migration projects like the one we made at the Engineers National School of Sfax.

Family photo.

The photo album: http://ubuntu.nizarus.org/v/sfd09/

ubuntu-tn in the Software Freedom Day Tunisia 2009 is a post from: Pourquoi pas !!

In Arabic we write :

عيـــد ميــلاد سعيـــد أوبونتــو

Happy Birthday Cake from ubuntu-tn LoCo (1)

The list of ubuntu versions :

1. Warty Warthog (4.10) released 10/20/2004.
2. Hoary Hedgehog (5.04) released 04/08/2005.
3. Breezy Badger (5.10) released 10/13/2005.
4. Dapper Drake (6.06 LTS) released 06/01/2006.
5. Edgy Eft (6.10) released 10/26/2006 -> My first ubuntu
6. Feisty Fawn (7.04) released 04/19/2007.
7. Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) released 10/18/2007.
8. Hardy Heron (8.04 LTS) released 04/24/2008.
9. Intrepid Ibex (8.10) released 10/30/2008.
10. Jaunty Jackalope (9.04) released 04/23/2009.
11. Karmic Koala (9.10)  to be released 10/29/2009.
12. Lucid Lynx (10.04 LTS) planned for April 2010.
13. M…. M…. (10.10)

And here is the ubuntu museum.

(1) Original image from openclipart.org. Adapted image in SVG here.

Write it in your language is a post from: Pourquoi pas !!

What?
Tunisian LoCo’s First Global Jam

When?
Sunday, October 4th, 2009 from 10:00AM (10h00) until 7:00PM (19h00)

Where?
Salon International de l’Informatique, Bureautique et des Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication « SIB – IT 2009 »
Parc des expositions – Le Kram – Tunis – Tunisia

Why?
To learn about Ubuntu, how to work with Ubuntu and how to contribute to Ubuntu.

Who?
All visitors of the SIB-IT 2009 and the Ubuntu Tunisian LoCo Team.

Schedule

• 10h00 to 12h00 :
  • Drupal the fee CMS, by Rached Aleya.
• 16h00 to 19h00 :
  • Virtualization in ubuntu with VirtualBox, by Wajih Letaief.
  • Ubuntu, Best Parctices, by Wajih Letaief.

Ubuntu Global Jam – Tunisian LoCo is a post from: Pourquoi pas !!

fglrx-modaliases Identifiers supported by the ATI graphics driver
linux Generic complete Linux kernel.
linux-generic Complete Generic Linux kernel
linux-restricted-modules Generic Linux restricted modules.
linux-restricted-modules- Non-free Linux 2.6.28 modules helper script
linux-restricted-modules- Restricted Linux modules for generic kernels
nvidia-173-modaliases Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org driver
nvidia-180-modaliases Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org driver
nvidia-71-modaliases Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org driver
nvidia-96-modaliases Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org driver
tangerine-icon-theme Tangerine Icon theme
unrar Unarchiver for .rar files (non-free version)
Reason: Modifications problematic

12 non-free packages, 0.6% of 1848 installed packages.

So I’m at 99.4% can I do better ?

I can’t remove linux packages, we can’t get an operating system without a kernel. tangerine-icon-theme package is in direct dependency with ubuntu-desktop so I prefer to keep it for future updates. Some times I have to manipulate rar archives  so I have to keep unrar package too. The modaliases packages are installed to find the sweetest proprietary driver for the graphic card, and In my case I don’t need them as my ATI X1300 Pro works as a charm with the free driver.

My final result :

7 non-free packages, 0.4% of 1843 installed packages.

So Mr RMS what do you think ?

Are you a 100% free user ? is a post from: Pourquoi pas !!

During this first year we focused our efforts on the presentation and promotion of ubuntu in schools and universities. Our LoCo visited different Tunisian cities to present and to talk about ubuntu and free softwares in general. At each visit we distribute many ubuntu CD , give talks about ubuntu and we animate install party for participants. One of our pilot project was the migration of the computing center of the ENIS (National Engineering School of Sfax), where we have installed ubuntu on 150 PC (10 class rooms). Thus the majority of practical work will be done with ubuntu and with free software equivalent to proprietary software used before this migration.

This last year 13 events was held in 5 towns, 8 high schools, 1 international event etc… All our events with reports usually in French and in English (the complete report or an abstract) are grouped here : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TunisianTeam/Events. Our talks and presentation, manly in French some of them are translated in English, given by our LoCo members are grouped here : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TunisianTeam/Presentations. There is 22 presentations given by 11 ubuntu-tn members where 4 of them are ubuntu members.

Also, the number of members subscribed to our online resources has increased. Actually there is 182 members subscribed to the ubuntu-tn launchpad group, on July 2008 we was 63 (+288%). In the mailing list there is now 376 subscribed member and last year we was 108 (+348%). To be closer to Tunisian people we have also created a group on facebook to promote our LoCo activity and 560 Tunisian facebook uses joined this group.

For more informations about our activity and our future road map, visit our approval application wiki page. And here is a photo album with a little collection of photos taken during our past events.

ubuntu Tunisian LoCo ready for reapproval is a post from: Pourquoi pas !!