turnkeylinux-users

[turnkeylinux-users] new project builds Ubuntu based appliances for specific niche roles

[Liraz S. <li...@tu...>]

Hi guys,

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Liraz Siri and I am one of 
the developers behind TurnKey Linux, a new opensource project that 
builds Ubuntu based Live CD appliances to serve specific niche roles.

We've recently released public betas of our first three Live CD 
appliances (TurnKey Drupal, TurnKey joomla and TurnKey LAMP).

As described on our website: http://www.turnkeylinux.org/

* Based on Ubuntu 8.04.1 (hardy LTS).
* Minimal footprint (typically around 150MB) - each appliance is
   carefully built from the ground up with the minimum components needed
   to serve its role with maximum efficiency and security.
* Packaged as an installable Live CD (I.e., bootable ISO) that can run
   on real hardware in addition to most types of virtual machines.

TurnKey Linux has the potential to bring Ubuntu to a wider audience by 
optimizing it to better serve specific jobs with minimum hassle.

Basically we are aiming to become a specialized extension of the Ubuntu 
community, in much the same way the Ubuntu community has become a 
specialized extension of Debian, which is why I am writing to you guys 
at the Ubuntu community marketing list.

I am interested in receiving feedback on our project and to get your 
ideas on ways in which we could collaborate with the Ubuntu community to 
spread the word, get people involved in our sub project, and basically 
jumpstart a real community effort.

Note that TurnKey Linux is not officially sanctioned by Canonical. We're 
  an independent opensource project that is trying to take Ubuntu in 
some new directions.

What do you think?

Cheers,
Liraz

Re: [turnkeylinux-users] [ubuntu-marketing] new project builds Ubuntu based appliances for specific niche roles

[Corey B. <cor...@gm...>]

On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 8:14 AM, Liraz Siri <li...@tu...> wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> First, let me introduce myself. My name is Liraz Siri and I am one of
> the developers behind TurnKey Linux, a new opensource project that
> builds Ubuntu based Live CD appliances to serve specific niche roles.
>
> We've recently released public betas of our first three Live CD
> appliances (TurnKey Drupal, TurnKey joomla and TurnKey LAMP).
>
> As described on our website: http://www.turnkeylinux.org/
>
> * Based on Ubuntu 8.04.1 (hardy LTS).
> * Minimal footprint (typically around 150MB) - each appliance is
>   carefully built from the ground up with the minimum components needed
>   to serve its role with maximum efficiency and security.
> * Packaged as an installable Live CD (I.e., bootable ISO) that can run
>   on real hardware in addition to most types of virtual machines.
>
> TurnKey Linux has the potential to bring Ubuntu to a wider audience by
> optimizing it to better serve specific jobs with minimum hassle.
>
> Basically we are aiming to become a specialized extension of the Ubuntu
> community, in much the same way the Ubuntu community has become a
> specialized extension of Debian, which is why I am writing to you guys
> at the Ubuntu community marketing list.
>
> I am interested in receiving feedback on our project and to get your
> ideas on ways in which we could collaborate with the Ubuntu community to
> spread the word, get people involved in our sub project, and basically
> jumpstart a real community effort.
>
> Note that TurnKey Linux is not officially sanctioned by Canonical. We're
>  an independent opensource project that is trying to take Ubuntu in
> some new directions.
>
> What do you think?

I love the idea of applicances. What scares me with them is the
security issue. You seem to have neatly solved that problem by basing
your appliances on an actual distro, not some home-brewed stuff.

However, I would be careful with your website, as Alan points out,
uses the official template (or a close facimile of). Also, you host
iso files on sf.net without any coressponding source. The easiest way
to solve both these problems is to help the server team and make your
appliances with them.

Corey

[turnkeylinux-users] integrity of turnkey appliances + website template + collaboration with server team (Re: Re: [ubuntu-marketing] new project builds Ubuntu based appliances )

[Liraz S. <li...@tu...>]

Hi Corey,

Thank you for taking the time to look at our project. I appreciate your
concerns and would like to attempt to address the points you raise.

1) Regarding the security integrity of TurnKey appliances...

    (From our FAQ on the website...)

    Why should I trust the security integrity of a TurnKey appliance?

    In a nutshell: trust, but verify.

    The long version: since TurnKey appliances are built almost entirely
    from unmodified Ubuntu binaries, it is possible for anyone who wants
    to keep us honest to verify the integrity of the binaries that make
    up our appliances against the original package signatures from the
    official Ubuntu repositories.

    There are minor exceptions. When required, an appliance may contain a
    few modified or new packages. All such packages are appropriately
    labelled in the package management system, and full source code is
    available on Launchpad and/or http://code.turnkeylinux.org/

    In other words, users should be able to trust a TurnKey appliance as
    much as they trust a normal general-purpose installation of Ubuntu.

2) Regarding the website template

    I thought the reason the Ubuntu Drupal theme templates were released
    in the first place was so they could be used by Ubuntu sister
    projects (e.g., loco teams).

    We're promoting Ubuntu too, just not in a geographical sense.

    We intentionally monkeyed the online tools and stylings of the Ubuntu
    community because we view ourselves as an extension of the Ubuntu
    community and wanted to avoid reinventing the wheel.

    I don't think we went as as far as trying to mislead anyone regarding
    any official affiliation with Canonical/Ubuntu.

    Just to be on the safe side we did our best to contact the an
    official Ubuntu/Canonical representitive (Jono Bacon and Daniel
    Holbach) to give them a heads up a couple of weeks before we launched
    and asked them for feedback. We also asked about partnership programs
    for opensource projects. Jono couldn't reply because he was on
    vacation, but Daniel Holbach pretty much gave us his blessing and
    offered to help us collaborate with Ubuntu developers and merge any
    changes we made back into mainline Ubuntu.

3) Collaboration with the server team

    That would certainly be an interesting option to explore in the
    future, assuming non-Canonical developers could be given unfettered
    access to the relevant Ubuntu infrastructure and tools required to
    develop Ubuntu derivatives. Besides our project there are a few other
    projects (e.g., gNewSense, MythBuntu) that might benefit.

    On the other hand, developing by proxy through the server team
    probably wouldn't be very practical. On their side it would
    significantly add to their workload and on our side it would slow
    down the development cycle dramatically.

Cheers,
Liraz

Corey Burger wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 8:14 AM, Liraz Siri <li...@tu...> wrote:
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> First, let me introduce myself. My name is Liraz Siri and I am one of
>> the developers behind TurnKey Linux, a new opensource project that
>> builds Ubuntu based Live CD appliances to serve specific niche roles.
>>
>> We've recently released public betas of our first three Live CD
>> appliances (TurnKey Drupal, TurnKey joomla and TurnKey LAMP).
>>
>> [ .. snip .. ]
>>
>> What do you think?
> 
> I love the idea of applicances. What scares me with them is the
> security issue. You seem to have neatly solved that problem by basing
> your appliances on an actual distro, not some home-brewed stuff.
> 
> However, I would be careful with your website, as Alan points out,
> uses the official template (or a close facimile of). Also, you host
> iso files on sf.net without any coressponding source. The easiest way
> to solve both these problems is to help the server team and make your
> appliances with them.
> 
> Corey
> 

Re: [turnkeylinux-users] [ubuntu-marketing] new project builds Ubuntu based appliances for specific niche roles

[Liraz S. <li...@tu...>]

Hi Alan,

> I think you have a nice idea here...

Thanks!

> I'm not sure how Canonical will feel about the look of your website - it 
> does look "very similar" to Ubuntu's...

Canonical published the theme for the official Ubuntu website and we
used that. The theme is also used on other Ubuntu related sites (I think
that was the point).

Just to be on the safe side we also contacted a couple of Canonical
employees (Jono Bacon and Daniel Holbach) who are liaisons to the
community to give them a heads up before we launched.

> One question that immediately springs to mind is how do you plan to 
> finance your project?

Right now thats not an issue. Thanks to resources like sourceforge and
Launchpad opensource projects don't really have to worry that much about
financing for their supporting infrastructure (e.g., otherwise paying
for the bandwidth for the downloads could be an issue)

It also helps that our employer has an enlightened attitude regarding
opensource (you can't just take, you have to give back too!)

>  From my own perspective, I'd love to see a couple of other appliances 
> added to your portfolio:
> 
> * Asterisk
> * A Tomcat platform with optional installs of Alfresco (Ubuntu will be 
> adding this to their repo soon) and or the Cosmo Calendar sever and/or 
> the Zimbra server (although I am not sure about the license terms for 
> Zimbra so this one might not be possible).
> * Also, how about a development server appliance? (SVN, Git, Bzr...)

Great ideas! After we work out the kinks with our current beta
appliances (see our project blueprints for details), we'll probably do
all of them. Anything that has an opensource license is fair game.

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Cheers,
Liraz