———–
– 2.4.5 –
———–
* Frontend:
* new languages (zh-hans/zh-hant) are now correctly handled.
Fixes #770810
* hybrid image generation support was added to uck-gui (#830146)
* oneiric language packs support was added
* Backend:
* /etc/fstab is not mandatory in the squashfs file system (#808506)
* /var/run is now a symbolic link to /run (#812418)
* Oneiric alternate support was added (#842487)
* mkisofs calls were replaced with genisoimage (#836350)
* isohybrid support was added (uck-remaster-pack-iso -h) (#830146)
* manifest diff now checks if manifest files really exist
* lxterminal support was added (#865295)
* mksquashfs now uses XZ (lzma) compression if available
(squashfs-tool => 4.1 and guest kernel => 2.6.30)
(#654234)
* gfxboot-theme-ubuntu download method was rewritten
(question #157847)
* firefox locale auto-remove workaround was added (#886838)
* Package:
* suggestion for syslinux (isohybrid) installation was added

Download UCK 2.4.5 or use our stable PPA.

———–
– 2.4.4 –
———–

* Frontend:
* Fixed usage message in uck-remaster to match the parameter handling
that was already implemented.
* Start message now contains output of uname and lsb_release. This
should help to better diagnose problems.
* customize script now outputs kernel and lsb_release info. This
should help to better diagnose problems,
* uck-gui now gives proper usage message and outputs uname and
lsb_release information.
* uck-gui now passes REMASTER_HOME to uck-remaster. Necessary for
changed behaviour of sudo in Natty. Fixes (#748209). Answer
questions #151311, #151108, #150223
* Backend:
* Extract proxy environment variables in uck-gui and pass them on to
the chroot environment around sudo calls. Solves (#111253)
* Modified customize_iso to correctly use REMASTER_HOME if SCRIPT_DIR
was not specified.
* Documentation:
* Fixed uck-gui man page: uck-gui does not accept a customization-dir
parameter.

Download UCK 2.4.4 or use our stable PPA.

———–
– 2.4.3 –
———–

* Backend:
* uck-remaster-prepare-alternate and uck-remaster-finalize-alternate now
support all architectures (and not only i386)

———–
– 2.4.2 –
———–

* Backend:
* Added code to remember kernel update state (shared /var/run
issue). (#682108)
* yaboot dep was added (only for ppc)

———–
– 2.4.1 –
———–

* Backend:
* Applied patch to handle changed named of syslinux config file.
Thanks to Tom Freudenberg for this patch. (#681032)

Download UCK 2.4.3 or use our new PPA.

Our great developer Wolf introduced an experimental feature (disabled by default) to use unionfs mounts instead of extracting the full ISO/squashfs, it’s a great new approach and really speeds up the first phases of a remastering operation (the squashfs/iso packing is still the same and can’t be optimized anymore). The point is that we DO NOT suggest to use this feature because it relies on some experimental versions of unionfs that are still a bit buggy and not completely released at the moment.

We also implemented a few methods to allow the installation of particular software in the remaster ISO, like MySQL and deamons requiring the deamon itself to start right after the installation.

Here you’ve the complete changelog

* GUI:
* GUI now uses kdialog, zenity, dialog or builtin (in that order) if
available. (#577197)
* Updated uck-gui to accept parameters for loopback/unionfs mounting
and added the possibility to specify a directory different from ~/tmp
for remaster-dir. Change is backward compatible to uck-2.2.0.
(Question/Answer 110374)
* Backend:
* Sequence of actions in uck-remaster changed so that initrd is
unpacked/customized/packed after the changes to the root file system
and the ISO have been done. This avoids problems when customize_iso
installs a new Live-CD kernel and initrd (which would previously be
overwritten by the contents of the old initrd, causing a mismatch
between the kernel (new) and the initrd (old)).
* Extended remaster-live-cd.sh by two procedures to perform
loopback+union mounts. (#72727)
* Added a -m option to uck-gui, uck-remaster, uck-remaster-unpack-iso
and uck-remaster-unpack-rootfs that uses a combination of loopback
and unionfs mounts instead of copying. This is an experimental
feature as of now and not activated by default. It also depends on
the packages fuse-utils and unionfs-fuse or aufs-tools, which are not
(yet?) pre-requisites for UCK. Documentation for these commands
updated accordingly. (#72727)
At least unionfs-fuse 0.25~hg.20100315-1 is required (Currently
only available from https://launchpad.net/~aakef/+archive/ppa )!
Thanks to Bernd Schubert for the superb support in fixing the
problems encountered.
* Added two new commands (uck-remaster-mount and uck-remaster-umount)
and documentation. These commands are used to do the loopback/
unionfs mounts/umounts required by the -m option described above.
(#72727)
* Added code to library for union_umount to kill processes still using
files in the mount. This happens when updates start daemons in the
root fs.
* Updated all manual pages to reference the source / bug reporting URLs.
* initctl is disabled (replaced with /bin/true) during chroot sessions.
With this change is now possible to install mysql/apache and other
services in the guest system.
* update-grub is disabled (replaced with /bin/true) during chroot sessions.
With this change is now possible to upgrade kernel in maverick too.
* host’s fstab/mtab are copied to the guest so that chrooted “df” can work.
* Backend now checks for kpackagekit as packaging tool, too.
Note: This requires that packagekit ist installed on the hosting
system – otherwise the dbus queries to packagekitd will fail.
FIXME: Running packagekitd on the host will give wrong results!!!
–> We need to change the strategy here! Upstart has similar issues
–> need to start “private” dbus system bus instance?!?
* Added error checking for arguments to uck-remaster-mount.
* improved error checking and handling for union mounts: either all or
nothing now; imply -m if tell-tale directory (-cache) is found;
made reentrant for use by uck-flow; pointless check for
uck-remaster-mount removed; fallback to copy if union mount not
possible; do not remove target when using mounts.
* uck-remaster-remove-win32-files now removes usb-creator.exe which
was added in maverick
* Fixed immediate umount in uck-remaster-unpack-{iso,rootfs} by trap
EXIT handling when using -m.
* unmount strategy (after chroot) was rewritten to unmount every mountpoint
found inside remaster-root.
* Package:
* gfxboot-dev dep added for maverick
* Internal:
* New target updman in Makefile to update manual page version numbers.
* Updated localbuild.sh procedure to patch the debian/changelog file
so that a local unsigned test version can be generated correctly.

Download UCK 2.4.0 or use our new PPA.

Last saturday I went to the Drupal Camp in Turin, it was a sweet event, with a great organization, but that’s another story :) Going back home I thought about the fact that our beloved Ubuntu does not have a camp initiative, there is the Linux Day, which is wonderful, but an Ubuntu focused Camp would definitively rock!

I wrote Mark about my idea and he gave me a positive feedback, later I wrote the Ubuntu trademarks team to understand how to register the ubuntucamp domains (remember you should not register an *ubuntu* domain without the authorization of the Ubuntu trademarks team), they gave me positive feedback telling me they wanted me to work with the LoCo team to do that, wrote the Italian LoCo team council, now I’m waiting for their answer.

Working since 10 years in the FLOSS world I have a few contacts interested in participating, I had some talks with a few of them and got some other contacts for places and sponsorships so things are already moving fast! I’m not going to tell you everything right now but I’m sure it will be great.

The first Italian Ubuntu Camp? I want it to be for natty release, we’re 6 months to get everything done, I think it’s a great timing, not too long and not too short.

I’m committed to make this thing work out and be a success, it will create more audience for Ubuntu itself and more work opportunities for all the great professionals who work with Ubuntu, it will be awesome!

If you want to be a host, be a speaker or be a part of it please drop me a line!

So go on and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:uck-team/uck-stable

and you’re done :-)

Actually we opened another PPA, that’s for brave people who want to test absolutely UNSTABLE snapshots of UCK, it’s names uck-unstable (same command as above but with “uck-unstable” instead of “uck-stable”). I’m not going to write the full add-apt-repository command for the unstable PPA to avoind some copy&paste troubles :-)

Have a great day everyone!

Ubuntu Mini Remix 10.04.1

Changelog:

* Backend:
* Brasero style checksums support was added (#575825)
* bugs with virtual packages for languages packs were solved
(#580578, #525635)
* workarout for portuguese (pt_PT) language management was implemented
(#582200)
* GUI now uses kdialog, zenity, dialog or builtin (in that order) if
available. (#577197)

Download UCK 2.2.1 now!