Click to enlarge

Thomas Krenn and Intel honour the m23 project ‐ and seven other projects ‐ as "especially convincing Open Source project" by giving the projects a "Low Energy Server". At this point, we would like to thank them again for the price :-)

You can see who the other winners are in the press release of Thomas Krenn.

As you can see, the "Low Energy Server" is a real "dwarf" with interesting inner workings. In the small box, a Z510-Atom-CPU with 1,1GHz, 1GB RAM and a 40GB SDD are working. There are 3 USB and one HDMI receptacles lead through the casing.

The "Low Energy Server" now serves us as an m23 client for m23 test installations and will later be turned into an m23 server. We will also show this small m23 server at fairs and hope to attract the visitors' attention with it ;-)

Even though, inherent to its functional principle, m23 cannot be boring, we have prepared a Linux / OpenSource / free media / m23 - advent calendar for you this year. Of course, it doesn't contain dull chocolate, but presents you - after you have found and clicked the right number (you need to move the mouse over the penguin) - with a BAfH pretext and something worth knowin, interesting or creative from the subject area of Linux, Open Source, free media or m23. Although it is in German, you might find the linked information useful.

We will start, following tradition, at the first of December - and from the 25th on, you will again have to rely on the BAfH pretexts in your m23 server ;-)

Hint: Just reload the iframe (where the penguin is located), if the number for the current day will not open in your browser. Then it should work :-)

Have fun :-)

The 10th Kieler Open Source und Linux Tage (Linux and Open Source fair in Kiel, Germany) will take place on October 26th and 27th 2012. Beside talks about different Open Source topics - from A as in Apps to Z as in Zarafa - there will also again be workshops and an exposition featuring Open Source projects and enterprises. As a special feature we - as part of the organizers' team of the Kieler Open Source und Linux Tage - have prepared a 'Linux Lounge' for you, where you can try out Linux multimedia applications and other Linux software. For those keen on education we offer discounted LPI Exams on Saturday.

Of course we will also be present with the m23 project itself at the fair. On the computers of the Linux Lounge, we will demonstrate the software distribution system m23 in addition to the other applications. Hauke Goos-Habermann will - when he is not currently holding a workshop about an introduction to bash programming or busy with the organisation of the fair - be available for you to answer your questions and give tips.

Maybe you asked yourself, why, in the last three months, it was so silent around m23. You see, the preparation and planning for the Kieler Open Source and Linux Tage have taken up a big part of our free time. Nonetheless, we have been pottering around on m23 in the background. For example, we are currently working on an IP and MAC management for m23 which will make it possible to block IP addresses and IP address ranges for m23 or to assign dynamic IP addresses from these ranges. With this new tool, the administrator can also create an overview over the machines which are not administrated by m23. Moreover, we are also refashioning parts of the basic m23 code - a work that will not change much on the outside, but which will simplify working with the code and which is therefor necessary.

If you happen to be in Northern Germany, we would be delighted to welcome you at the 10th Kieler Open Source und Linux Tagen!

You can find the complete programme here (in German).

Overview about the workshops and registration (The number of places is limited! Be one of the first to register! (Workshops in German only)

If you would like to support the Kieler Open Source und Linux Tage, you can volunteer as a helper here or embed a banner in your website.

LightDM (Click to enlarge)

With m23's new version 12.3 rock, you can now also install and administer Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. We also added different desktop environments which should suit everyone's taste. Ubuntu's new standard desktop environment Unity is included in its 3D and 2D variants. Those who do not like Unity, are confronted with the agony of choice and have to decide between a classical Gnome environment (which is optically based on Gnome 2), Xfce, KDE (now with a brighter theme), LXDE or the pure text mode ;-) . The new login manager LightDM accompanies the list of new desktop environments .

In addition to the main feature Ubuntu, we made many changes and improvements: The first thing to notice is the output of the m23 client monitor in the client's realtime status of the web interface implemented with AJAX. This way, you can always keep your client in view, even without using an SSH direct connection. When adding a new client, m23 now automatically suggests an unused IP address, which saves you the work of the tedious trial-and-error method or the invention of an algorithm to find free IPs. For German-speaking administrators (or all those who would like to become one), there is now the integrated BAfH daily excuse, that conjurs a new, humourous excuse into your web browser every day, which provides a plausible and absolutely logical reason, why the user's problem (unfortunately, regrettably) cannot be solved right now ;-). Besides this really useful (and possibly life saving) tool, a simple calculator has also found its way into the interface.

Client's realtime status (Click to enlarge)

The internal, VirtualBox-based virtualisation of m23 was improved massively: Now the newer VirtualBox 4.x (as it is contained in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS) can be used as a basis and for the first time, the hardware acceleration (PAE, NX and "Nested Paging") of the processor is used (if available), to install 64-bit operating systems or to allow the operation of virtual guests in virtual machines. In a graphical VNC session, the restart (e.g. when restituting a client) or the shutdown of a virtual client work now. The boot method is now changed automatically after the installation of the operating system is finished, for example from network boot to boot from a virtual harddrive.
For use with other virtualisation solutions like KVM, the script VirtualBox-networking-setup.sh (which was originally created for use with VirtualBox) for the creation of network bridges was modified to be able to run in Ubuntu 12.04.

The m23-xorg-configurator for the setup of the graphic card was upgraded by the ability to run in Ubuntu 12.04, this ability also has benefits for other distros. New upstart scripts ensure that the m23-xorg-configurator is executed before the login manager and that no X11 session is running. Otherwise, problems with the detection and recognition of the hardware could occur. A correction now makes sure that the configuration made by XOrg is found in the correct directory.

Some details of the m23 interface were improved to accelerate and facilitate your work processes. When searching for packages in Debian and Ubuntu, you can now choose if you would like to see the complete package descriptions and sizes or the faster short variant of the descriptions in the result.
After preselecting packages for (de)installation, you can now still modify your selection by using the new comfort functions. The packages can now - in addition to the old single choice method - also be selected and deselected as a whole or the selection can be inverted. Besides discarding tasks, their priority can now be changed, for example to make sure that they are run in a specific order. These priorities can even be saved as a package selection, so that they can be deployed to many clients. When you want to install several packages during the base installation of the clients, you can now choose as many package selections as you like, which are then installed automatically after the installation of the operating system. Special packages are now listed in a sorted fashion and a correction ensures that the list also contains special packages which are symbolic links.

Behind the scenes, there has also been a lot of change: For example, the access method for the MySQL database has been changed to permanent connection and the configuration of the network boot Linux kernel was adapted to be used with device names of the type /dev/sd* for IDE drives.

The new version is available as update via the m23 interface, via APT, as ISO to burn the m23 server installation CD/DVD or as preinstalled virtual machine (the last two can be found in the Download menu).

Have fun!

Unfortunately we didn't manage it to publish the new m23 version before the LinuxTag (23th - 26th of May 2012, Berlin) :-(

But if you want to have a glimpse on the upcoming m23, you have two opportunities: First you can install the m23 testing packages to get an m23 server with the latest stage of development and second you can make us happy and visit us at the m23 booth (No. 102 in hall 7.2a). There we will show the new features too.

Highlights of m23 12.3 rock:

• Installation and management of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
• Many new desktop environments
• AJAX output of the client's screen in real-time
• Package prioritisation
• Extended virtualisation

Have fun and maybe we will meet in Berlin!

PS. We have some free tickets left ;-)