| mether | * Live CD or DVD's |
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| mether | * Regular installation images |
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| mether | Fedora itself does both |
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| mether | as you can see from <a href="http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora">http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora</a> |
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| abby87 | i hope to see a fedora live cd-cum-install cd...would |
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| that be a good idea instead of a plain install cd?? |
| generalBordeaux | abby87, i think there are live cds now .. |
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| mether | The live cd's in Fedora have the option to install to |
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| hard disk if that's what you mean |
| generalBordeaux | i mean i downloaded one for F10 Beta .. |
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| abby87 | mether: yes as in ubuntu |
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| mether | knoppix, mempis and so on |
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| mether | the concept itself is not new |
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| abby87 | in ubuntu u 1st use the live cd and then install it |
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| abby87 | that gives users chance to try and see if it works well |
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| 4 them |
| mether | right. the same thing works for Fedora as well |
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| abby87 | and then they can proceed with installation |
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| mether | Prior to Fedora 7, the tools that does the composes (ie) |
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| turn a set of RPM packages into a regular installation image or live cd |
| were internal to Red Hat |
| abby87 | afaik install cds and live cds are diffferent |
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| mether | abby87: not sure what you are referring to. Can we |
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| discuss this later? |
| abby87 | mether: oh sure sure |
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| mether | I will be only covering livecd-tools in this session |
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| mj0vy | mether: does it include revisor also? |
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| mether | there are two other tools |
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| mether | pungi which creates regular installation images - either |
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| cd sets or DVD's |
| mether | Revisor which is a graphical frontend that combines the |
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| functionality of livecd-creator and pungi |
| mether | Those we will cover in a later session |
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| mether | Though ideally, if you are using revisor, you don't need |
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| much of additional hand holding |
| * generalBordeaux is currently using revisor to embed media |
| players in F9 |
| mether | From Fedora 7 onwards, livecd-tools and pungi are used |
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| to compose the actual distributions so they are well tested and |
| incrementally gets more features over time as well |
| mether | At present, both of them use the kickstart file format |
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| mether | Kickstart files have been used to automate the |
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| installation tasks for quite sometime |
| mether | so it is a well understood format |
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| mether | If you do a yum install livecd-tools |
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| mether | you will find a number of them |
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| mether | in /usr/share/livecd-tools |
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| mether | We have the desktop, kde, base desktop ks files etc |
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| abby87 | does it have a graphical frontend?? |
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| mether | abby87: the graphical frontend is called revisor |
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| abby87 | ok |
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| mether | The interesting new feature introduced for live media is |
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| the concept of inheritance in kickstart |
| mether | The gnome and kde live cd's share a number of packages |
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| and package groups |
| mether | so both of them inherit the same base desktop ks file |
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| mether | Recently we have a new repository of such kickstart files at |
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| mether | <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/spin-kickstarts/">https://fedorahosted.org/spin-kickstarts/</a> |
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| mether | so if you do a git clone of it, you can find a number of |
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| them |
| generalBordeaux | awesome |
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| mether | inheritance is pretty simple |
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| mether | you just add a line similar to %include fedora-live-base.ks |
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| mether | at the start of the kickstart file |
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| mether | this is the canonical repository of all kickstart files |
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| used to create the spins - custom distributions that we promote |
| mether | and host in Fedora |
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| abby87 | that would be as good as making a whole new distro ! |
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| awesome .!! |
| mether | these include xfce, electronics live cd, games and many |
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| others |
| mether | packages can be included by merely listing their name in |
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| the kickstart file |
| mether | groups can be included by using @ in front |
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| mether | for example, if you want to create a live cd that uses |
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| hindi by default |
| mether | it would be very simple |
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| < mether> |
| <a href="http://sundaram.fedorapeople.org/spins/livecd-fedora-8-desktop-hindi.ks">http://sundaram.fedorapeople.org/spins/livecd-fedora-8-desktop-hindi.ks</a> |
| mether | here, I am inheriting a common file at top |
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| mether | defining the default language using the language code |
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| mether | timezine and including the hindi-support package group |
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| generalBordeaux | damn simple .. :) |
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| mether | similarly you can do that for all the different Indian |
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| language. it is so simple that i have done it all |
| mether | <a href="http://sundaram.fedorapeople.org/spins/">http://sundaram.fedorapeople.org/spins/</a> |
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| ankurs | but we need to have all the packages with us!!!!! |
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| mether | yes, of course |
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| ankurs | ok |
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| abby87 | mether: is it legally ok to distribute our custom live |
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| cds to other ppl?? |
| mether | abby87: I will come to that |
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| abby87 | ok |
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| mether | with inheritance, not only can you include packages, you |
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| can remove them too |
| mether | for example, |
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| mether | -foo would remove the package named foo |
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| mether | Unfortunately you cannnot remove package groups after |
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| inheriting them yet |
| mether | -@foo won't work |
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| mether | if it is a single kickstart file, you can merely comment |
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| out or remove that group itself from the kickstart file |
| mether | The package groups themselves are defined in a xml file |
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| called comps |
| mether | which is used by the Anaconda installer and other tools |
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| mether | More details at |
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| <a href="http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/CompsXml">http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/CompsXml</a> |
| mether | So far, I have talked only about using the official |
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| Fedora repository but you can very well use third party repositories as well |
| mether | You can also define a custom comps.xml file and redefine |
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| existing packages or include new package groups |
| mether | when doing a compose, the different xml files will be |
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| merged together |
| mether | by livecd-creator |
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| mether | does that make sense? |
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| generalBordeaux | yeah.. |
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| mether | several such custom derivative distributions already exist |
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| mether | mythdora combines Fedora plus other third party |
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| repositories to provide a simple out of box solution for mythtv users |
| abby87 | ohh thats splendid |
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| mether | Not only can you include multiple repositories but also |
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| introduce configuration changes |
| mether | kickstart format include many configuration directives |
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| for common usages |
| mether | for example, disabling or enabling the firewall |
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| mether | if you need additional changes, you can include any |
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| shell scripts in %post section |
| mether | Here is another example |
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| mether | <a href="ftp://ftp.infradead.org/pub/spins/omega-livecd-desktop.ks">ftp://ftp.infradead.org/pub/spins/omega-livecd-desktop.ks</a> |
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| generalBordeaux | mether, can i write custom scripts in any |
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| language ..? |
| generalBordeaux | in that %post thingy .. |
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| mether | yes |
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| abby87 | thats so cool |
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| generalBordeaux | :O |
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| mether | kickstart doesnt care |
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| mether | it wont parse it. it will let whatever is on your system |
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| handle that |
| mether | so if you want to include python scripts, as long as you |
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| have a python interpreter, it will work fine |
| generalBordeaux | yeah |
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| mether | traditionally, using anything other than simple bash |
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| scripts can quickly become unmanageable if you are not careful. So dont |
| go wild too much |
| mether | livecd-creator is itself in python |
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| mether | and uses yum API and pykickstart |
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| mether | to do some of the core tasks |
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| generalBordeaux | that may be a nice trick to place root kits ;) |
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| mether | If you do a compose of Fedora and any custom packages, |
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| you cannot call the end result Fedora anymore |
| abby87 | that would resemble a MS product\ |
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| generalBordeaux | abby87, lol |
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| mether | We are now working on new trademark guidelines which |
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| would give you more flexibility. Details at |
| <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Pfrields/New_trademark_guidelines">https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Pfrields/New_trademark_guidelines</a> |
| mether | meanwhile, we have two packages that allow you to |
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| rebrand the distribution very easily |
| mether | these are generic-logos and generic-release |
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| abby87 | that is soooo ubercool ! |
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| mether | If you replace fedora-logos and fedora-release with |
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| these packages, you wont see the Fedora branding anywhere |
| mether | We already dont brand the default theme with Fedora |
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| items to facilitate derivative distributions |
| mether | so this process is pretty easy |
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| mether | of course, if you want your own logos and name, you have |
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| to create your own rpm packages as well |
| mether | Additional troubleshooting tips: |
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| mether | If you are trying to compose a live cd with SELinux |
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| enabled, put the host system in SELinux permissive mode |
| mether | This is fixed in the very latest rawhide but previous |
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| releases |
| mether | you still need it in permissive mode to actually work |
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| mether | This is because, livecd-creator basically installs rpm |
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| packages in a chroot, wraps it up in a ext3 filesystem image which is |
| then compressed by using squashfs |
| -!- mj0vy1 [n=mj0vy@123.239.220.46] has joined #fedora-india |
| mether | Since the SELinux policy in the compose can be differnet |
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| from the host system, this results in conflicts |
| mether | so you might have permission issues |
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| mether | Basically boot with SELinux is enforcing mode |
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| mether | but just before doing the compose, run setenforce 0 |
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| mether | and then livecd-tools |
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| mether | There is a howto with more details at |
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| <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/LiveCDHowTo">https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/LiveCDHowTo</a> |
| mether | also when running livecd-creator |
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| mether | make sure you specify a cache directory |
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| mether | otherwise, every instance will use a different cache |
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| directory by default resulting in redownloads of packages |
| mether | livecd-creator |
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| --config=/usr/share/livecd-tools/livecd-fedora-minimal.ks |
| --cache=/home/foo/liveimage-cache |
| mether | for example |
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| mether | If you have a local mirror, a compose takes about 30 minutes |
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| error: 110 (Connection timed out)] |
| mether | now, questions time: |
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| generalBordeaux | hmm |
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| abby87 | that is like lego for linux |
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| mether | true. you can rearrange existing components and get |
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| something new pretty fast |
| mether | OLPC, Mythdora, many of the custom spins use similar |
|---|
| tools to get something new out of Fedora |
| mether | if you create a live cd or dvd, you will automatically |
|---|
| find a |
| abby87 | mether: will this work for creating a complete kde live cd?? |
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| mether | install to hard disk icon on the desktop |
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| mether | clicking on that will call Anaconda to do the installation |
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| mether | the difference is that, it dumps the entire image to |
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| hard disk |
| mether | there is no option to select packages |
|---|
| mether | it is also pretty fast because of that |
|---|
| mether | takes about 3 or 4 minutes to complete the entire |
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| installation |
| mether | with regular installation images, you have more |
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| flexibility but it also takes a bit more time |
| mether | abby87: yes, we already provide kde live's created using |
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| livecd-creator |
| mether | <a href="http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora">http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora</a> |
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| mether | also xfce as ell |
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| mether | well* |
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| mether | You can find a list of custom spins at |
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| <a href="http://spins.fedoraproject.org/">http://spins.fedoraproject.org/</a> |
| abby87 | excellent |
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| mether | any other questions |
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| mether | ok. we will wrap up then |
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| mether | see you all next week. I will post the agenda to Fedora |
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| India list |
| abby87 | thanks |
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| mether | np |
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