[NBLUG/talk] Modularize Ubuntu Netbook Remix UI (netbook-launcher)

Jordan Erickson jerickson at logicalnetworking.net
Wed Jun 23 14:17:15 PDT 2010


I've been doing some research the past couple of days on:

- UNR: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UNR  and
- EasyPeasy: http://www.geteasypeasy.com

I really like the UI (which I believe is simply a Gnome applet that
takes the screen over and replaces Nautilus as a file manager). The
sheer simplicity of the design seems like it'd be a big hit on normal
desktops, whether they are touch enabled or not.

IANAP - and I run Debian. UNR is a Canonical project. It seems that
EasyPeasy got the UI from it and rolled their own distro, but it's still
very tied to Ubu releases. Therefore, it's my assumption that the code
for netbook-launcher is not incredibly modular toward other distros or
use cases.

My vision (self-proclaimed visionary here) is to see netbook-launcher
and friends become their own installable package in Debian, and specific
tweaks that would make it more interesting as a general-use graphical
user interface in places such as schools (things like user/group
customizations, application restrictions, customizable favorites and a
nice configuration interface that would be easy for non-techy teachers
to be able to use).

Is anyone willing to look at the code for this and tell me, generally,
whether this is a feasible project? Is the code "too tied to Ubuntu" ?
Is it too messy? Would it only take a few hours to port to Debian and
strip out the netbook-specific parts?


The code itself is here:
https://edge.launchpad.net/netbook-remix-launcher


Any insight would be greatly appreciated!!


Sincerely,
Jordan



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