Ulteo Application System Release notes (Sirius Beta)
Preamble
Ulteo is a new innovative project aimed at simplifying the use of computers for both invividual and corporate users by bypassing installation of applications, and bringing mobility features.
It's an hybrid, network-oriented, computing system. It's using network services intensively.
Currently, Ulteo consists of:
- Ulteo Online Desktop (version 1): it lets users store their documents online, and open them with a choice of applications that run within their web-browser (Firefox, IE and others).
- Ulteo Application System (Ulteo AS): is an installable version of Ulteo, for the local PC, that ships with hundreds applications and innovative features.
The basic version of the Ulteo AS provides a choice of applications for the daily userlife such as Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org..., but can be easily extented with an extended set of applications, from the Ulteo panel. It also provide by default document and panel content sychronization capabilities betwen the local installation of Ulteo and Ulteo Online Desktop.
Features
You can have an overview of Ulteo AS features here (still under construction)
Applications
Many applications are provided with the Ulteo Application System base-install (CD-R size), that include Firefox, OpenOffice.org and many others.
Additional "application balls" (desktop apps, games...), with hundreds more apps, can be added from the Ulteo panel once authenticated. They will download automatically from Ulteo servers. Extra language support can be added this way as well.
Release notes
- Date of release: March, 17 2008
- Form: downloadable CD ISO file.
- Download: mirror page
Notes & Known Bugs
0 - Recommended hardware
Ulteo Application System should be able to install on most x86 CPU-based hardware, with CPU speed > 800Mhz and memory > 512MB (1GB recommended).
1 - installation
- When booting the liveCD, press F2 at first to select your language! Then start the liveCD. Once the desktop is available, you can start to use Ulteo (without global auth nor automatic upgrades), and start an installation.
- DO NOT install the system with a separate /home or /boot partition (for now). Or it won't work. You have to install Ulteo AS on two partitions: / on one partition and swap on another partition.
2 - using the system
- it's better to have registered an account on Ulteo.com prior to use the AS, so you can benefit from online services, automatic data sync, etc. Registration is available at: https://www.ulteo.com/main/accounts/?p=login
- once the system installation is completed, boot Ulteo AS. At login prompt, use the password you set during installation
- once the "ulteo-aa" window is showing up, provide your Ulteo Online Desktop login name (this is your email address), and your Ulteo Online Desktop password. Starting from now, always authenticate with your local login and your web password!
- check your Ulteo panel, and go to "My settings" for a discovery course! Select "test" in Other Settings->Suite if you want that your changes take effect.
- for now, you have to check the /boot/yuch/ directory to see if new squashfs files download have been completed. If you have some .part files, it's not finished, so do not restart.
3 - known bugs
- If not network is available when the Ulteo AS is starting, your clock will not be synced immediatly from the network (with NTP). As a result, if your PC clock is not accurate, it's likely that you can't authenticate using ulteo-aa. Reason: kerberos refuses to distribute a ticket if client and server clocks are synced (with a 10min window tolerance). Will be fixed (if not already at beta release time).
- "My Settings" in the panel doesn't detect that global authentication has already been performed, so you currently need to click on the "authenticate" button in "My Settings".
4 - how to report bugs & suggest features
As Ulteo AS is really something new, we have many new developments that probably contain some bugs.
So please report your bugs at:
http://bugs.ulteo.com
You can also suggest features here.
You can also join the "devel" Ulteo mailing-list.
http://mailman.ulteo.com/mailman/listinfo/devel