Second part for the abbreviated transcript of the elementary OS Get Involved Q&A hangout

gistfile1.md

[WIP!]

UPDATE: Transcipted up to 1:33:45. More coming soon.

This is the second part for the abbreviated transcript of the elementary OS Get Involved Q&A hangout, covering the second hour of the entire Q&A session.

The first part is available here.

The entire video of the hangout is available here.

I'm trying to keep it on the same format as the original, but at the same time I'm also trying to set up a cleaner format for the entire transcript.

Legend:

• Actual quotes inside "quotation marks".
• Notable events are written on italics.

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Will you change the Appstore in Isis (instead of Ubuntu)? (cont.)

Daniel:

• Appstore probably won't appear in Isis.
• Might look into GNOME Software.
• "It looks really cool [...] really similar to what we want to do with AppCenter [...]"

Are there any hardware makers that will have elementary installed by default? *cough* System76 *cough*

Cassidy:

• "No, not yet."
• No official, upfront talks about that right now.
• Tell them [System76] that you want elementary.

Daniel:

• "Send letters, email them, post at their G+, tweet at them, show up outside of their houses and ask them to ship with elementary."

Cassidy points out he's dual-booting Luna and the current Isis dev preview on his Galago UltraPro, and everything works perfectly.

Cassidy:

• First step before shipping is to talk about software software
• "So yeah, go tell your favourite hardware manufacturer [...]

Who came up with the name Isis?

Daniel:

• elementary's naming scheme is based off of deities
• Isis is the Egyptian mother goddess of the throne

Cassidy:

• "She's a cool goddess... thing"

Are you using Ubiquity as the default installer for Isis? Any new improvements from Luna?

Cassidy:

• That's still the plan
• Comparing 14.04's Ubiquity over 12.04: "...lots of encryption stuffs...", also some other improvements.

Are all of you guys running Luna?

Cassidy:

• Dual-boots Luna and Isis developer build.
• "I need to be in stable for our hangout, so I'm currently running Luna."

Avi:

• "It works."

Daniel:

• Dual-boots OS X and Isis dev build.
• Needs to run on OS X during the hangout because he has no available drivers for his webcam.
• "Kill me."

Can you list third-party elementary-centric apps on the website?

Cassidy:

• "We don't necesarrily want to publicly endorse a specific app..."
• Not until they're actually screening apps on their AppCenter.
• "That's one cool job that the elementary community has been doing, with these little fan sites and the G+ community..."

Mentions Vocal, an upcoming podcast app that can be found here.

• Should you come across these cool apps, let people know.

Avi:

• "There are a lot of them. We like them, we privately talk about them on Twitter and stuff..."
• Mentions Birdie, a Twitter client designed for elementary OS.
• "Feel free to contribute to the list."

Any plans to leave Ubuntu to something more general like Debian?

Cassidy:

• "No, not at the moment."
• Maybe a path that could be taken in the future.
• Depends on which direction Ubuntu moves in the future, but currently no concrete plans.

What do you think about PPAs as an app delivery method? What would you like for third-party devs to publish their elementary apps on?

Cassidy:

• "AppCenter, when it comes out!"
• Adding PPAs is convenient but risky.
• "If you do not trust them, do not add their PPA."
• Having elementary's own repository of screened apps might help.

Daniel:

• "We want to have our own central repository. That's the best way for devs and users to get elementary apps."
• If you want to make sure your apps are available, submit to Ubuntu's repos. Debian is also available.
• The safest method is going to Ubuntu or Debian.

David asks again about the elementary update PPA.

Cassidy:

• Again, elementary doesn't endorse this.
• They did a great job compiling all these unofficial elementary apps into one single PPA.

[Ed. Note: Source code is still available on Launchpad.]

Daniel:

• Added some new softwares to the Isis PPA.
• "We want to make sure we have the newest version pf PiTiVi available..."

Cassidy:

• "We'd rather want to make awesome stuffs than PPAs for everybody."

Where do you see elementary in the future with wearables becoming more popular?

Cassidy:

• "Well we see elementary being in your laptop and desktop."
• No plans to make any elementary wearable watches.

Daniel:

• Feel free to develop an app that pushes elementary notifications to something like Pebble.

Is Vala as easy to learn as Avi describes it especially for people who just started to learn coding for the first time?

Daniel requests to answer this question first.

Daniel:

• Yes.
• "I am not really a developer at all. I submitted a couple of one-line merge requests [...] Development is not my thing."
• "Vala is SO cool and SO easy and SO legible that yes, I can open up a file and understand what's going on..."
• Refers to the guide on the developer site.
• "We wanted to make sure that people that don't code to be able to go through it."

Avi:

• "I learned SO much just by hanging by at the IRC."
• Points out most people on the G+ community will be able to help too.
• "Yes, learn Vala."
• "The best way to learn to program is to program."
• The elementary community is so friendly and helpful for newcomers.
• Just ask one of them, they'll be able to help you out.

What exactly is Vala for in the first place? Is it to write the OS itself or the apps? Also what is GTK?

Avi:

• Vala lets you write software using a framework called GTK.
• GTK lets you write desktop apps and software.
• The core OS, the Linux kernel, is written in C.
• Every elementary components is written in Vala.
• "GTK is what you implement, Vala is how you implement it."

Daniel asks if it's the same like as Bootstrap is in web development.

Cassidy:

• "If you know JQuery, GTK is kind of like JQuery UI."

Will you add a Mac OS X boot sound?

Cassidy:

• "No."

Should I wait until Isis comes out before I start?

Cassidy:

• "If you want to get familiar with elementary, install Luna."
• If you're interested in developing, hit up Launchpad, start getting involved in the dev community.

Avi:

• "The reason we don't have a public beta is that we don't exactly need the help testing it right now. We know what's broken."
• Isis still takes a pain to install, took him 8 hours to do actually set up on his Macbook Air.
• "You would not want to install Isis right now."

Daniel:

• If you're a third-party developer, go for GTK 3.12.
• Beta's coming soon, but it depends on the development flow (bugs, etc).

Will we get Search implemented in Files?

Cassidy:

• "There is a bounty out for that."
• ~$150 bounty available for this issue - consult the Bountysource page here.
• "We know it's a huge feature that everybody wants."

Avi:

• How Bountysource works: Associate $ with bugs, if you can fix it and it's confirmed, you get the money.

Why use Isis rather than Ubuntu, Windows, or OS X?

Avi:

• "It's better?"

Cassidy:

• "Our initial audience is the open-source community."
• It's open source, meaning the code is available for anybody to look at, download, redistribute, and contribute.
• Another target audience: Young folks getting into development.
• "It's cool to see the code of the platform you're developing on."
• Difference between elementary and Ubuntu: "We always have a hardcore focus on design."

Daniel.

• elementary needs to deliver a consistent experience.
• All default apps need to look and behave like each other.
• "Consistent, native desktop environment is really, really important and what sets us apart from other open-source OSes."

Cassidy:

• "All of our apps use the same language and libraries, so we can ensure that consistent experience."

What do you think about Nathan Dyer's new podcasting app, Vocal?

Cassidy:

• "It looks really awesome. I'm excited."

Daniel:

• Hopes he could get a sneak peek of it.

Cassidy:

• Listening to a podcast isn't the same as listening to music.

What sort of things do you have for improving Pantheon's portability to other distros like Arch?

Daniel hands question to Tom.

Tom:

• Is able to run Pantheon on Arch, "...but it's not as pretty as we configured it".
• Possible main problem could be some components which haven't been completely ported to Arch.
• "If I get the time, I will investigate [...]"

David:

• "Installation of Pantheon on Arch doesn't look that bad."
• The Arch community helps a lot in fixing issues on porting Pantheon to Arch.
• A port for Gentoo is also available.
• "Sometimes, these great people just come in and port everything to many other distros [...]"

Cassidy:

• "Our whole shell is open source, it's pretty modular."
• Porting to other distros is not elementary's main focus.
• Feel free to branch it out to make it work better on other distros. "If it's clean code, then we're more than likely to accept that."

Daniel reqests the revenue model to be discussed next.

Cassidy:

• "Good call, but after this one."

Will the transparency transition in Wingpanel when changing backgrounds be smoother by the time the beta comes out?

Cassidy:

• "Yeah." *laughs*
• It's a work in progress right now.

Daniel:

• "I think the panel waits untilGala finishes its transition on the background"
• Make sure both of running at the same time and speed.