Summer Coding 2010 proposal - KDE Netbook Remix

Draft!
This is a draft. I am still working on it. :)

About Me

1. Name: Aditya Patawari
2. Email: adimania@fedoraproject.org, adimania@gmail.com
3. Wiki User Name: Adimania
4. IRC Nick: adimania
5. Primary Language: English
6. Location: India, +0530
7. Open Source Experience:
   • I have packaged kfilefactory and kmyfirewall. My spec files are up at http://adimania.fedorapeople.org/specs/ and you can find src.rpms at http://adimania.fedorapeople.org/src.rpms/
   • I have deon informal reviews for thomasj's vor (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=592388#c4) and for Kevin_Kofler's koffice-kivio (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=592388#c6)
   • I am involved in developing of KDE ownCloud. It is a cloud based application to share the entire desktop at some point. Till now I have contributed some patches and some documentation. I am working on a sync client for ownCloud which will synchronize the files over the network.
   • I regularly add stuff to fedora wiki from time to time.
   • I have been a Fedora Ambassador for more than an year and have organized several workshops on Fedora and open source. I have organized several install fests in past and troubleshooting sessions and seen Fedora working on a lot of hardware.
   • I am appointed as a Fedora Campus Ambassador recently and will work with my Linux User Group to promote Fedora in my college.
   • I have also customized Fedora, creating a live DVD, for better usability and including some packages which are not included in Fedora to encourage newbies to use Linux.

About My Project

1. Name of my project : Fedora KDE Netbook Spin
2. References : KDE Netbook Spin
3. The KDE Netbook Spin is aimed to the operating system of choice for Netbooks. It will be made to work smoothly with smaller hardware specs. The existing spins do not address netbooks specifically. With KDE Netbook Workspace this spin can be a huge success. Already other major Linux distributions are releasing spins targeting netbooks, its time that we do it better than them.
4. Timeline
   • Week 1: Get ready with Package Splitting and packaging methods. Pick up packages to be split and repacked.
   • Week 2-Week 5: Split the packages. Check the dependencies.
   • Week 6-Week 8: Loop {Build the distro; Strip the Distro;}
   • Week 9-Week 10: Check for updates and ensure that they are not broken. Fix any Bugs.
   • Week 11: Create documentation. Fix Bugs. Start talking to FESCo to get the spin approved.
5. I have remastered Linux before. I have created Live DVDs out of Fedora Live CD to help beginners get started with Linux by including a few packages that are not included in the original distro. Usually it takes me at most a couple of days to do this. So I think striping the the distro is not a difficult task. My main focus will be:
   • To help KDE SIG people to split the packages.
   • To get everything done without any GTK dependencies (or at least minimize them).
   • Try to involve KDE upstream and report them in case any problems are faced.
   • To get the spin with minimum possible install foot print. To decide a maximum limit for the footprint me and Ryan Rix (my mentor) have agreed that I will strip down a live CD and check the install footprint.
   • To get the spin approved from FESCo
   • To ensure that updates do not brake the distro.

You and the community

1. If this project is completed successfully, we will get a robust spin which will run on netbooks smoothly. Ideally, it will have no GTK dependencies. Since it will be designed for smaller hardware specs, some older computers might also be able to run on it.
2. What will you do if you get stuck on your project and your mentor isn't around?

If I get stuck and my mentor is not around then I will turn to community for help. I will use IRC as well as mailing lists to ask for the help regarding my problem. I will not limit myself to Fedora community only. Being a KDE spin, I will also try to get help from KDE community too.

1. In addition to the required blogging minimum of twice per week, how do you propose to keep the community informed of your progress and any problems or questions you might have over the course of the project?

Apart from blogging and mailing to the mentors, I will idle on relevant irc channels. Shooting occasional mails to mailing list is also another option. Apart from that I will create a wiki page which will describe the work I am doing and the progress itself including the problems faced.

Miscellaneous

1. I can set up the packaging and distro building environment easily. I have done it before so it is not a big issue.
2. I have talked to Ryan Rix (rrix), the mentor for this project. I have told him about my plans approach to the project. I will be in constant touch with him and/or any other mentors assigned. Apart from him I have also talked to Jaroslav Reznik (jreznik) and rdieter about the project workflow. I will put up the relevant logs on http://adimania.fedorapeople.org/logs very soon.
3. My T-shirt size is M.