Comment on A technical overview of the Kolibri app for GNOME by Anonymous

That is spectacular work. Thanks. I like how You try to cut application privileges. Usually flatpaks are allowed to read everything, because almost no one writes applicatioms with those limits in mind.

Comment on GUADEC 2022 by A technical overview of the Kolibri app for GNOME – Dylan McCall

[…] been floating around as a draft for several years. It eventually split off into a presentation at GUADEC 2022, titled Offline learning with GNOME and Kolibri (YouTube). In that presentation, Manuel Quiñones […]

A technical overview of the Kolibri app for GNOME

This blog post has been floating around as a draft for several years. It eventually split off into a presentation at GUADEC 2022, titled Offline learning with GNOME and Kolibri (YouTube). In that presentation, Manuel Quiñones and I explained how Endless OS reaches a unique audience by providing Internet-optional learning resources, and we provided an overview of our work with Kolibri. This post goes into more detail about the technical implementation of the Kolibri desktop app for GNOME, and in particular how it integrates with Endless OS.

In Endless OS, way back with Endless OS 4 in 2021, we added Kolibri, an app created by Learning Equality, as a new way to discover educational content. Kolibri has a rich library of video lessons, games, documents, e-books, and more; as well as tools for guided learning – both for classrooms, and for families learning at home. The curation means it is safe and comfortable to freely explore. And all of this works offline, with everything stored on your device.

Making this all come together was an interesting challenge, but looking back on it with Endless OS 6 alive and well, I can say that it worked out nicely…

Comment on GUADEC 2024 by Sam Thursfield

I would love to see more photos of the train ride :-)

GUADEC 2024

I attended GUADEC 2024 last month in Denver, Colorado. I thought I’d write about some of the highlights for me.

It was definitely the smallest GUADEC I’ve been to, and it was unusual in some other ways too, such as having several hybrid presentations, with remote and in-person presenters sharing the stage. That took some adjusting, but it worked well, even if I missed some of the energy of past events. (I shared some thoughts about hybrid GUADEC on a Discourse thread).

I felt this GUADEC was really defined by the keynotes. They were great!

First, we had Ryan Stipes from Thunderbird telling us all about Thunderbird’s journey from a somewhat neglected but well-loved side project and on to a thriving self-funded community project: Thunderbird, The Death and Rebirth of an OSS Project (YouTube). He had a lot to say about the value of metrics to measure the impact of certain features and target platforms, which really resonated with people. (It is interesting to note, for instance, there appear to be more Thunderbird users using Windows 8.1 than Linux). He also had a lot to say about the success Thunderbird had just being direct and asking usersfor money…

GUADEC 2022

I spent a week at GUADEC 2022 in Guadalajara, Mexico. It was an excellent conference, with some good talks, good people, and a delightful hallway track. I think everyone was excited to see each other in person after so long, and for many attendees, this was closer to home than GUADEC has ever been.

For this event, I was sponsored by the GNOME Foundation, so many thanks to them as well as my employer the Endless OS Foundation for both encouraging me to submit a talk and for giving me the opportunity to take off and drink tequila for the week.

For me, the big themes this GUADEC were information resilience, scaling our community, and how these topics fit together.

Stepping into the Guadalajara Connectory for the first time, I couldn’t help but feel a little out of place. Everyone was incredibly welcoming, but this was still my first GUADEC, and my first real in-person event with the desktop Linux community in ages.

So, I was happy to come across Jona Azizaj and Justin Flory’s series of thoughtful and inviting workshops on Wednesday morning. These were Icebreakers & Community Social, followed by Unconscious bias & imposter syndrome workshop. They eased my anxiety enough that I wandered off and missed the follow-up (Exploring privilege dynamics workshop), but it looked like a cool session. It was a brilliant idea to put these kinds of sessions right at the start…

Comment on My tiny file server with Ubuntu Core, Nextcloud and Syncthing by wagonli

Hi there, I set up the same kind of stack. Using nextcloud as a front end for photo gallery and document editing. Syncthing is the tool to backup all my files across different locations seamlessly (my backups are a simple rpi+hdd+syncthing). So if you want to cherry pick fille you use nextcloud, otherwise use syncthing. I think you should not mention at all using plain http protocol. The only way to go is https, especially when the gui you will be accessing do basic auth. You can give hints toward the very easy to use letsencrypt configuration tool.

Comment on My tiny file server with Ubuntu Core, Nextcloud and Syncthing by bwoah

In reply to <a href="https://dylanmc.ca//-/blog/2018/05/05/my-tiny-file-server-with-ubuntu-core-nextcloud-and-syncthing/#comment-214915">Dylan McCall</a>. I run both Nextcloud and Syncthing on my home server (Ubuntu 16.04 server). I love Nextcloud, but find Syncthing to be faster and like being able to do things such as set up a one-way "sync" to easily send files from my phone or laptop to my server.

Comment on My tiny file server with Ubuntu Core, Nextcloud and Syncthing by Dylan McCall

In reply to <a href="https://dylanmc.ca//-/blog/2018/05/05/my-tiny-file-server-with-ubuntu-core-nextcloud-and-syncthing/#comment-214918">Woodcarver</a>. That sounds nice! Thanks for sharing. A fanless media PC sounds fun :)

My tiny file server with Ubuntu Core, Nextcloud and Syncthing

My annual Dropbox renewal date was coming up, and I thought to myself “I’m working with servers all the time. I shouldn’t need to pay someone else for this.” I was also knee deep in a math course, so I felt like procrastinating.

I’m really happy with the result, so I thought I would explain it for anyone else who wants to do the same. Here’s what I was aiming for:

• Safe, convenient archiving for big files.
• Instant sync between devices for stuff I’m working on.
• Access over LAN from home, and over the Internet from anywhere else.
• Regular, encrypted offsite backups.
• Compact, low power hardware that I can stick in a closet and forget about.
• Some semblance of security, at least so a compromised service won’t put the rest of the system at risk.

I dabbled with a BeagleBoard that I used for an embedded systems course, and I pondered a Raspberry Pi with a case. I decided against both of those, because I wanted something with a bit more wiggle room. And besides, I like having a BeagleBoard free to mess around withnow and then…

GNOME Break Timer: Final report

Well, it’s September, so I guess it’s time to call it quits with that whole “summer” thing. This has been a really nice few months. I’m very grateful that I could participate in Google Summer of Code this year with my project to build a shiny new Break Timer application for GNOME 3.

So, where am I leaving you? With GNOME Break Timer 1.1, of course! (And I’m not leaving). I think my project over the summer has been successful. At times I have had the unmistakeable feeling that I was trying to spread too little butter over too much bread, but we always found something interesting to work on (including a nifty and GNOMEy side project that I’ll talk about really soon, but mostly on Break Timer itself) and I think we have some good quality code as a result — and a lovely little application, too!

• Source for version 1.1 (build it with ./configure; make; make install)
• Stable builds for Ubuntu
• Daily builds for Ubuntu
• Source repository on git.gnome.org
• Break Timer’s

GNOME Break Timer: Week 13

I’m nearing the end of a very busy few weeks, and getting very close to that soft pencils down date! With school starting up again this hasn’t been my most productive week on the GNOME Break Timer front, but I’m pretty happy with what’s been done.

First, most importantly, Jasper and the GNOME admins helped me get to set up on gnome.org’s infrastructure! This is really exciting to me, because hosting and bug tracking looked like a crazy jumble throughout my project, and they got it all sorted out very efficiently. This feels a lot more real now, somehow, and I feel like I’m in a better position to continue maintaining this for a long time.

So, here are the important links:

• Source code: https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-break-timer/
• Bug reports: https://bugs.launchpad.net/brainbreak (Bugzilla eventually, I hope)
• Daily builds for Ubuntu: https://code.launchpad…net/~brainbreak/+archive/experimental
• Translations: