The last community project was a success and it resulted in the creation of the mintCast podcast, hosted by the very talented Charles Olsen. You can still join and contribute to this project by visiting this link: https://launchpad.net/~linuxmint-podcast-project
I come to you today and the community of Linux Mint users, to find more people interested in joining in and contributing to the distribution. I’m going to start two new projects, and I hope you’ll be excited about them, and that some of you will step up, not only to give us a hand but to actually drive these projects.
The Linux Mint Screencast Project
The first project is called the “Linux Mint Screencast Project”. You can probably see the similarity with the Linux Mint Podcast Project here. The goal is to set up a team of people who will produce high definition screencasts for Linux Mint. Novice users will enjoy watching tutorials on how to use Linux Mint, experienced ones will be interested in watching tutorials about our tools and specificities, others might like to see promotional videos and general overviews of our distribution.
The goal of this project is to:
- Make it easier for people to use Linux Mint
- Raise user awareness about the Mint tools, what they can do and how to efficiently use them
- Promote the distribution
For this project we’re looking for:
- People who can produce high definition screencasts
- People who can produce ideas and scenarios for the videos
- People who can produce audio and speeches to illustrate what’s seen on the screen
- Web designers
- A project leader
To follow this project, register on launchpad.net and join the following team and its mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~linuxmint-screencast-project
To join the project, start talking on the mailing list, follow discussions and start to get involved.
The Linux Mint Community Repository Project
The second project is called the “Linux Mint Community Repository Project”. It consists in opening the “community” section of our repositories to the Linux Mint Community. Basically this will be a repository maintained by and for the community. We want to set up a team of packagers who will create and import packages into “deb http://packages.linuxmint.com xxx community”. The goal is to broaden the set of available packages and to bring more up to date versions to the users. This repository is present in /etc/apt/sources.list but disabled by default. Users will be able to opt-in by activating it in their sources.list and after some testing is done packages will eventually migrate to the official sections of the repository.
The goal of this project is to:
- Bring an opt-in repository with a wider selection of packages and more up to date software
- Facilitate the introduction of new packages in the official repositories
For this project we’re looking for:
- People with experience with DEB packaging (to some extent we can also transfer competence and help interested people acquire that knowledge)
- People who can test software and report on how well it works (ideally for Mint 5 Main, Mint 5 x64, Mint 6 Main and Mint 6 x64)
- A project leader (likely to be Merlwiz)
To follow this project, register on launchpad.net and join the following team and its mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~linuxmint-community-repository-project
To join the project, start talking on the mailing list, follow discussions and start to get involved.
If you feel like it, don’t hesitate
Quick note about the Community repository project. The community repository is already in place, it’s already in your sources.list and we already have a way for packagers to upload packages into it. Cathbard and Merlwiz should be quite active in providing packages. I’m not sure whether Exploder will stay focus on testing our ISOs or if he’ll test packages as well. I really hope some of you will step up and help us test and package as many applications as possible.
Nothing has been done for the Screencast project. At this stage it’s just something we want to do and we’re hoping you’ll bring your best ideas with you.
Don’t hesitate to get involved. You can join both teams and mailing lists just to follow what’s going on if you want. Whether it’s the screencasts or the community repositories, these two projects are going to make Linux Mint a better distribution by bringing more services to its community. We receive emails from people who want to contribute on a regular basis and we never really know how they can fit in… now is the time to do just that. We’ve got two really good ideas and I hope you’ll be numerous in joining us and helping us to make them a reality.
Note about Launchpad mailing lists: These projects (registered as Launchpad teams) are brand new on Launchpad. We applied for mailing lists and they should become available shortly. Please be patient if they’re not yet available.
Second note about Launchpad mailing lists: To reply to a message sent to a Launchpad mailing list, make sure to hit the “reply all” button… otherwise your answer will only be sent to the author of the email.
