Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

foxbunny · 2007-10-27 23:02:40

TheBodziO has started a discussion about the (Arch) linux graphics community. That gives me an idea. It would be nice to create an online (sub)community dedicated to graphics, DTP, and photography centered around Arch Linux. For now, I can only offer some ideas, my experience in graphics and DTP, and lots of hosting space on a non-dedicated server.

The ideas for the (sub)community:

* an open forum for discussion, not just Arch-related but 'graphics on Linux' in general
* a wiki for Linux artists
* a gallery (d'oh!)
* an Arch LiveCD for graphics artists
* a dedicated graphics repository

If you have suggestions and/or are interested to participate, please post below.

kanim · 2007-10-27 23:08:36

TheBodziO has started a discussion about the (Arch) linux graphics community. That gives me an idea. It would be nice to create an online (sub)community dedicated to graphics, DTP, and photography centered around Arch Linux. For now, I can only offer some ideas, my experience in graphics and DTP, and lots of hosting space on a non-dedicated server.
The ideas for the (sub)community:
* an open forum for discussion, not just Arch-related but 'graphics on Linux' in general
* a wiki for Linux artists
* a gallery (d'oh!)
* an Arch LiveCD for graphics artists
* a dedicated graphics repository
If you have suggestions and/or are interested to participate, please post below.

it is an nice idea but...

i think it should only be arch related i mean otherwise there are sites like gnome-look and co, which are DE WM related but do offer much more

foxbunny · 2007-10-27 23:15:04

This is a wider concept. Not jsut artwork like whatever-look.org, but a whole community sharing experience, ideas, tips & tricks, and communicating with the Arch dev community to imrpove the graphics/DTP/photographi support in Arch Linux. At least I would *like* to see that happen.

kanim · 2007-10-27 23:57:29

graphics/DTP/photographi

aren´t these things artworks ?

however i would also like to see this

bones · 2007-10-28 03:33:28

Sounds like a good idea, count me in

foxbunny · 2007-10-28 15:02:39

Kanim, no, they are not just that.

Anyway, here's a mockup of the home page. It's nothing definitive, just there so you can see what it will be about.

p.s.
Kanim, don't pay attention to the LiveCD. It's a... uh... 'bonus content'.

Last edited by foxbunny (2007-10-28 15:03:40)

Mikko777 · 2007-10-28 15:22:25

foxbunny wrote:

Kanim, no, they are not just that.
Anyway, here's a mockup of the home page. It's nothing definitive, just there so you can see what it will be about.
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/1251/homemv8.th.png
p.s.
Kanim, don't pay attention to the LiveCD. It's a... uh... 'bonus content'.

Guess you really have some mad skillzzzors ^^

foxbunny · 2007-10-28 16:57:59

One more idea:

Collect and republish important news from the graphics apps devland. I've been doing that before, and that can really help the users, as they can get some clear idea about where the development is going.

kanim · 2007-10-28 17:09:09

the hole project reminds me on deviantart...

still i like the idea of the community but don´t think it should be anything official something like kdemod

<off>
fox you always use your logos in artowrks like these, wanna spread them over the world maybe i should do that to
</off>

foxbunny · 2007-10-28 17:45:39

If you meant that KDEmod is unofficial, then yes, definitely like KDEmod. And yes, kind of like deviant, but a little bit less personalized.

<off>Yes, but I don't use them in avatars. Maybe I should.</off>

Last edited by foxbunny (2007-10-28 17:46:11)

kanim · 2007-10-28 19:16:53

If you meant that KDEmod is unofficial, then yes, definitely like KDEmod.

yes this was what i ment

again to the livecd

somthing came up to my mind what about if you are able to chose on the install step which DE and so on with help of an script with simple questions like yes or no or gnome.... and than it´s not copying the whole content from the cd but download it from offical mirrors so there would be an updatet system with atleast some configuration ?

TheBodziO · 2007-10-28 20:23:20

For start I want to say that I'm content that the new thread have been started to discuss the matters of cooperation of designers and developers communities. It's a good sign.

As foxbunny said the whole idea is *much* more than another art repository. I thought about creating a common ground - a meeting point - for both developers and designers. Developers have the skills to code. Designers have needs and ideas how to speed up/ease their work. Developers create tools that designers use and designers provide feedback and ideas. What I think free software world lacks is an organized way to provide the pan-project and pan-distro connection between these groups.

To illustrate the whole thing on a simple example: let's assume that I'd love to have a possibility to lock some operations on elements of my project with password. It's because my work will be given to someone else who will be responsible for placing a text in proper places on the design. I don't want to see him to move or delete something accidentally. It's possible that also some other designers will find that feature useful too. Then maybe some developer will be willing to implement that. The trouble is, that if I propose that feature and encourage its implementation in gimp, I would have to repeat the same process for scribus for example. But the idea is common. I want to state it once and see who will catch the bait . To some extent it will promote deeper integration between different projects.

Today graphic designers have the tools for editing vector graphics, raster graphics some page design tools. These tools often use the same methodologies! There are bezier curves in gimp, inkscape, scribus... whatever yet they are implemented redundantly. Perhaps thanks to one thoughts sharing panel it will be possible to come with some common solutions. Maybe some common libraries or platforms will emerge in time? I think that mentioned meeting point will keep us close to unix philosophy: do it for a single purpose and do it well. In other words I think that it will allow us to have powerful building blocks on which something even better than today state of the art apps could be build.

I want to at least start some discussion about the issue. Hopefully this will be only a beginning.

First I want to ask: do you believe that a subcommunity of archers that would be responsible for communication between the developers and designers would be useful? If so then we could more precisely state our goals and code of conduct.

Designers experience is of the essence if we want to make free software usable for demanding "art" community.

Last edited by TheBodziO (2007-10-28 20:35:15)

TheBodziO · 2007-10-28 20:31:33

Of course other activities of such group would also be possible like:
- sharing tips or tutorials about specific tools,
- providing some information about using one tool in connection with another (scribus + inkscape or gimp + inkscape + ConTeXt/LaTeX/TeX),
- maintaining news from the graphics world (not only a gimp, krita and other free software but from time to time also a proprietary world - let's be open ).

Last edited by TheBodziO (2007-10-28 20:31:59)

foxbunny · 2007-10-28 20:37:55

Hm, now I get your idea, TheBodziO. It's actually good, but I don't think that is possible. Most developers are rather busy, and I don't think they would like to hang out in 'just another place' for discussion. I will try to think of a more workable idea.

Meanwhile, I mentioned that there could be some sort of collection of news items about development in various open-source project. We could probably feature interviews with some of them, to better explain the goals, etc. Users may want something or not, but they may also not be aware of latest developments in the cvs/svn branches.

As for the specialized repo, we could have repos for both stable *and* development branches so that we can see where the software is headed, and maybe someone who tries it will be able to publish a report for the rest of us.

Anyway, I think there is much potential here to spice things up.

TheBodziO · 2007-10-28 22:01:17

foxbunny wrote:

Hm, now I get your idea, TheBodziO. It's actually good, but I don't think that is possible. Most developers are rather busy, and I don't think they would like to hang out in 'just another place' for discussion. I will try to think of a more workable idea.

Well... I still believe it as long as the information will be valuable for developers or a "task force" to interact with specific projects will be designated. I hope that it will become true someday as I lack such solution every single day.

Anyway. If the idea is good it'll gain some interrest and with some luck and spreading the word it'll work. If not... that's the freedom for ya

foxbunny wrote:

Meanwhile, I mentioned that there could be some sort of collection of news items about development in various open-source project. We could probably feature interviews with some of them, to better explain the goals, etc. Users may want something or not, but they may also not be aware of latest developments in the cvs/svn branches.

I agree as long as we speak about developers tools.

foxbunny wrote:

As for the specialized repo, we could have repos for both stable *and* development branches so that we can see where the software is headed, and maybe someone who tries it will be able to publish a report for the rest of us.

I'm not sure if a new repo will be neccessary yet it won't hurt if it proves it will be useful.

foxbunny wrote:

Anyway, I think there is much potential here to spice things up.

I think so too. First I hope to recognize if there's a need for such project. Then I'd love to see some people forming a subcommunity (as nicely called before ) in archlinux. And then... we'll see .

*Any* movement towards making designers community more alive around free software world is a good thing and I personally will be happy to be involved.

Last edited by TheBodziO (2007-10-28 22:04:09)

TheBodziO · 2007-10-28 22:15:18

I want to kindly ask if maybe it's time for us to try to collect some declarations? Who wants to take active part in archlinux designers subcommunity?

That's +1 as long as it comes to me.

After we'll create an initial team (still open) we could state our goals, code of conduct and assign the roles. Of course as long as it's okee with the rest of co-forumers...

foxbunny · 2007-10-28 22:45:27

kanim wrote:

again to the livecd
somthing came up to my mind what about if you are able to chose on the install step which DE and so on with help of an script with simple questions like yes or no or gnome.... and than it´s not copying the whole content from the cd but download it from offical mirrors so there would be an updatet system with atleast some configuration ?

That is a good idea, but I can see at least one problem with that. If we package a LiveCD with packages from AUR as well as from the main repos (which was how I planned to do it), it may lead to broken dependencies after such an update... It would need to update from both AUR and main repos, and, of course, we can't be sure if the AUR updates are always on time... This is definitely interesting. I have to think what would be the most logical way to handle such situations.

skottish · 2007-11-01 03:36:34

foxbunny wrote:

I have to think what would be the most logical way to handle such situations.

Find some server space somewhere to host everything that's not in Core/Extra/Community. Maybe someone here can either afford the space, or knows of a place that will allow it for free. The repo won't end up being that big, and initially wouldn't generate a huge amount of traffic.

foxbunny · 2007-11-01 11:55:57

Yes yes, that is one of the things. The custom repo for stuff that's not in the main repos. But the problem is how to keep the LiveCD updatable during the install. Like a FTP install. The problem is the possible breakage of dependencies between the custom and main repos...

PJ · 2007-11-01 12:22:32

foxbunny wrote:

If we package a LiveCD with packages from AUR

Interesting, got any special packages in mind?

Anyway, I like the overall idea and I hope I can help in someway to bring this up and running.

foxbunny · 2007-11-01 12:28:12

vigra (lprof dependency), lprof, Ghostscript-GPL, some fonts, gimp-plugin-separate, just to name a few.

Not all of the packages from AUR that I'd include build successfully, so unfortunately I had to drop a few nice ones. Anyway, I don't have time to deal with this right now, but I hope it will roll out by next year's summer. I have to get used to larch scripts, wait for its final release (just to be sure it works every time), and try to build as many packages as possible, test the thing... After that, I hope it will be a smooth ride on the update road.

PJ · 2007-11-01 13:10:15

foxbunny wrote:

Anyway, I don't have time to deal with this right now

Neither do I have...

foxbunny wrote:

I have to get used to larch scripts, wait for its final release (just to be sure it works every time), and try to build as many packages as possible, test the thing... After that, I hope it will be a smooth ride on the update road.

I have never tried larch scripts so I don't know how easy/hard they are to use. I guess archiso could be another option, saw it a couple of weeks ago on the arch-dev-public mailing list.

Basically it's a set of scripts that can be used to generate Arch
liveCD's. They're very, very, (did I say very?) simple. Both by design
and to use. They are also very powerful. Pretty much any liveCD system
you could imagine can be molded out of them with little effort. They're
lightweight, and they're designed to use plain old arch packages to form
the system.

Last edited by PJ (2007-11-01 13:10:49)

foxbunny · 2007-11-01 13:12:53

Yes, I've seen the ArchISO thread there. I'm hoping it will be released soonish, so I can test that out. Meanwhile, I'll set up the portal and try larch.

phrakture · 2007-11-01 17:22:45

foxbunny wrote:

Yes, I've seen the ArchISO thread there. I'm hoping it will be released soonish, so I can test that out. Meanwhile, I'll set up the portal and try larch.

Please check it out from git and try it. The more testing we get, the faster it gets released. 8)

foxbunny · 2007-11-01 17:25:21

Uh... errr... you want me to do what?

Arch Linux

#1 2007-10-27 23:02:40

Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#2 2007-10-27 23:08:36

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#3 2007-10-27 23:15:04

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#4 2007-10-27 23:57:29

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#5 2007-10-28 03:33:28

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#6 2007-10-28 15:02:39

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#7 2007-10-28 15:22:25

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#8 2007-10-28 16:57:59

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#9 2007-10-28 17:09:09

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#10 2007-10-28 17:45:39

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#11 2007-10-28 19:16:53

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#12 2007-10-28 20:23:20

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#13 2007-10-28 20:31:33

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#14 2007-10-28 20:37:55

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#15 2007-10-28 22:01:17

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#16 2007-10-28 22:15:18

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#17 2007-10-28 22:45:27

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#18 2007-11-01 03:36:34

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#19 2007-11-01 11:55:57

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#20 2007-11-01 12:22:32

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#21 2007-11-01 12:28:12

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#22 2007-11-01 13:10:15

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#23 2007-11-01 13:12:53

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#24 2007-11-01 17:22:45

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

#25 2007-11-01 17:25:21

Re: Arch Linux (and general Linux) graphics and artists community

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