As KDE software (be it the Frameworks libraries, the Plasma 5 workspace, or the Applications) develops during a normal release cycle, a lot of things happen. New and exciting features emerge, bugs get fixed, and the software becomes better and more useful than it was before. Thanks to code review and continuous integration, the code quality of KDE software has also tremendously improved. Given how things are improving, it is tempting to follow development as it happens. Sounds exciting?

Except that there are some roadblocks that can be problematic:

• If you want to build the full stack from source, there are often many problems if you’re not properly prepared;
• Builds take time (yes, there are tricks to reduce that, but not all people know about them);
• If things break… well, you get to keep the pieces.

But aside personal enjoyment, KDE would really benefit from more people tracking development. It would mean faster bug reporting, uncovering bugs in setups that the developers don’t have, and so on.

What about noble gases?

Recently, an announcement about a gas used in fluorescent lamps generated quite a buzz in the FOSS community. Indeed, such an effort would solve many of the problems highlighted above, because part of the issues would be on the backs of integrators and packagers, which are much better apt for this task.

But what, am I telling a story you already know? Not quite.

A little flashback

For those who don’t know, openSUSE has a certain number of additional repositories with KDE software. Some of these, since many years, have been providing the current state of KDE software as in git for those who wanted to experiment. This hasn’t been done just for being on the bleeding edge: it’s also been used by the openSUSE KDE team itself to identify and fix in advance issues related to packaging, dependencies, and occasionally help testing patches (or submit their own to KDE).

So, in a way, there were already means to test KDE software during development. However, there was a major drawback in adoption, which involves the fact that these packages replace the current ones on the system. For technical reasons, it is not possible to do co-installation (for example, in a separate prefix) in a way that is maintainable long term.

So, what now?

After hearing about the announcement, we (the openSUSE KDE team) realized that we had already the foundation to provide this software to our users. Of course, if you got too much neon, you’d asphyxiate ;), so we had to look at alternative solutions. And the solutions were, like the repositories, already there, provided by openSUSE: the Open Build Service and the KIWI image system which can create images from distribution packages.

But wait, there’s more (TM)!

openSUSE ships two main flavors: the ever-changing (but battle-tested) Tumbleweed, and the rock-solid Leap. So, one user would ever want to experience the latest state of many applications, or just be focused on KDE software while running from a stable base. So, if we could create images using KIWI, why not create two, one for Leap and one for Tumbleweed? And you know what…

Lo and behold, in particular thanks to the heroic efforts of Raymond Wooninck, we had working images! We also like noble gases, so Argon and Krypton were born!

The nitty gritty details

These images work in two ways:

• They work as live images, meaining you can test the latest KDE software without touching your existing system, and like that, not worry about something that breaks;
• You can also install them, and have a fully updated Leap or Tumbleweed system with the KDE:Unstable repositories active. Use this if you know what you’re doing, and want to test and report issues.

Bugs, bugs everywhere!

Chances are that you might run into one or more bugs. This is software from git, and code review/continuous integration can only do so much. What should you do in such a case?

1. (NOT recommended) Kick and scream and demand a refund ;)
2. If your bug is in the distribution stack, like drivers or packaging, file a bug on openSUSE’s bugzilla with enough details so that it can be looked at;
3. If your bug is instead in KDE software, turn to KDE’s bugzilla.

And of course, like the openSUSE login text says, “have a lot of fun!”

Yesterday the Khronos Group with participants from all segments of the graphics industry - including big players like AMD, nVidia, Samsung, Sony, Valve, Intel and many others - has anounced the availability of the first final and open specification of the Vulkan-API. It is comparable with Microsoft's Direct3D and Apple's Metal and planned as the successor to OpenGL.

The Vulkan-API is based on large parts of the AMD exclusive and closed source Mantle-API. Therefore it's no big surprise that A...

Built openSUSE Leap based Sugar test images on SUSE Studio, get it from here.

If you wish to get involved with the project maintaining packages, fixing/reporting bugs, follow the links on the X11:Sugar build service project page.

Version 0.11.0 of the Ixion library has been just released. You can download it from the project’s home page.

Here is the full list of changes since 0.9.1.

• C++11 is a hard requirement.
• implement R1C1 formula name resolver.
• remove boost dependency from the public headers (except for boost::thread).
• fix incorrect life-cycle management of pooled string instances.
• make it buildable on OSX.
• other general code cleanups.
• python
  • correctly catch and translate general_error into python’s, for Document.append_sheet() method.
  • make python module build configurable.
  • add ixion.column_label() to convert numeric column indices into column labels. A1 and R1C1 are supported.

You need to deploy your OpenStack infrastructure with ease and without interruption. Audit your OpenStack environment for known vulnerabilites and quickly remediate them. When your growth creates a necessity to fine tune your storage, compute, and control resources you need to quickly determine your bottlenecks and easily...

https://www.openstack.org/summit/austin-2016/vote-for-speakers/presentation/7837

Manila is the OpenStack shared filesystem service that was announced September 2013. In January 2015 it was labeled as an officially incubated OpenStack program. Now with the current stable release in Liberty, Manila is providing the management of file shares (for example, NFS and CIFS) as a core service to OpenStack. Manila currently works with a variety of vendors, including NetApp, Red Hat Storage (GlusterFS), EMC, IBM GPFS, Hitachi, HPE, and on a base Linux NFS server...

https://www.openstack.org/summit/austin-2016/vote-for-speakers/presentation/7927

https://www.openstack.org/summit/austin-2016/vote-for-speakers/presentation/8261

I’m pleased to announce the availability of mdds 1.1.0. As always, the source package can be downloaded from the project’s home page.

This release includes the addition of 2 new data structures – trie_map and packed_trie_map, significant performance improvement on sorted_string_map, general bug fixes on some of the existing data structures, enhancement on multi_type_matrix, and support for user-defined event handlers for multi_type_vector.

Huge thanks to Markus Mohrhard for sorted_string_map’s performance improvement as well as the bug fixes and the enhancement on multi_type_matrix’s walk() method.

In addition, thanks to David Tardon, we now use automake as our build system which will simplify the process of package generation and integrity check among other things.

Here is the full list of changes since version 1.0.0:

• all
• switched our build system to using automake.
• packed_trie_map (new)
• new data structure that implements a trie also known as a prefix tree. This implementation requires all key values be known at construction time, after which its content is considered immutable. Internally it packs all its nodes in a single contiguous array for space and lookup efficiencies.
• trie_map (new)
• new data structure that implements a trie. It works similar to packed_trie_map except that this version is mutable.
• multi_type_matrix
• added a variant of walk() that takes the upper-left and lower-right corners to allow walking through a subset of the original matrix.
• multi_type_vector
• fixed incorrect return values of the increment and decrement operators of in-block iterators. They would previously return a value_type pointer which did not conform to the behaviors of STL iterators.
• added support for custom event handlers for element block acquisitions and releases.
• flat_segment_tree
• fixed incorrect return values of the increment and decrement operators of its leaf-node iterators as in multi_type_vector’s fix.
• sorted_string_map
• significantly improved the performance of its find() method by switching from using linear search to using binary search. The improvement is especially visible with a large number of elements.

Documentation

I’ve also added Doxygen documentation for this library for those who are more used to the Doxygen style comprehensive code documentation. The official API documentation has also received some love in the code examples for multi_type_vector. I plan on adding more code examples to the documentation as time permits.

I recently had a discussion on Facebook in the openSUSE users group at Facebook about the reasons why we prefer openSUSE over other distributions like Ubuntu.

An almost complete list of openSUSE's benefits

Installation

One of the first benefits of openSUSE you will recognize is the Installation process. You can easily hit the Next button a few times, give some basic inputs like the username of your account and end up with a fully featured and functional copy of openSUSE on your hard...

Juggling between homework, working on my part time job and searching for a full time sums up my life. As I try to balance my life, there are slumps when I wished I had someone to vent out my frustrations to. But then, everyone is so busy that no one has time for anyone. If a friend has time to talk to you, can I be sure that they won’t judge you for having this super awkward conversation which no one wants to talk about? I can not be sure about this. I wished to have someone to talk outside my peer group, hopefully immediately without scheduling an appointment and without getting judged will provide a bit of support when I needed it the most.

After talking to my peers, I found out that I was not alone. A major portion of undergraduates and graduate students alike report mental stress or related issues because of increasing workloads. As they combat these mental and emotional stress, they want an outlet to vent out their feelings without being judged by their peers. Campus resources are inadequate as they are coupled with long waits. Students have to wait for weeks before making an appointment with the campus psychological services. During these wait times, if the issues are not solved, they get exacerbated.

This was when I was came across 7 Cups. 7 Cups is an on-demand emotional health and well-being service that connects people anonymously with trained listeners. By using this service, people can

• talk to someone who will not know them
• talk to groups of people anonymously who have faced the same problem regulated by a listener.
• talk on various topics ranging from mental disorders to daily activities like College Life.
• can get some help when they are waiting to be counselled by a professional counselor.

The ability to talk to people about various stress sources / mental disorders was incredibly useful. To validate my hypothesis that the application might be useful, I tried it a couple of times and spoke to a listener. I felt lighter and better after our conversation. So, I spoke to various students around the campus and see what they felt about handling stress. Out of the 18 students I spoke to, I received at least 3 or more students who shared that having an outlet will be useful.

Students quoted

[…]the times when I can’t get over the hump on my own, I wish I had someone there to give me just the motivation I needed.

It would  be nice to talk to people, but maybe not here

“Sleep helps, talking to people helps, putting things in perspective also helps.”

Help yourself section

7 cups also provides a set of resources for its users when they do not want to talk to anyone but are looking for specific strategies or resources that can help them manage their problems on their own.

The Help Yourself section provides

1. a set of exercises that the users can use for self improvement
2. forums where they can ask questions
3. self-help guides that students can refer when they want to

Customized Portals

7 cups has customized portals that identifies the needs of specific communities. Identifying their needs is important as different communities will have different problems. Couples running households will have different problems and invariably face stress in a different form than teenagers. While the categories address that, 7 cups of Tea has extended the same notion beyond categories and come with customized portals.

They have launched a customized portal for startups where startups can talk to list for listeners who are trained to listen to entrepreneurs. Along with that,  they have customized resources where they can look for help that can improve their daily lives, relationships with families and friends across.

Directly quoted from their website, we find that even when entrepreneurs go through depression and other problems.

The ups and down of startups are often compared to a roller coaster. The downs can be really rough. Talking to others who have gone through what you are going through can really help. – JESSICA LIVINGSTON, Partner, Y Combinator

Most of my life I have struggled with depression. I’ve written about it, talked about it, coached and listed to others fighting with it. It’s a horrible isolating and debilitating condition. – Zak Homuth, Co-Founder & CEO, Upvert

My wish – Customized portals for Universities

Over the past few months, I have spoken to over 30 students by conducting formal interviews or randomly surveying them in the hallways, I have realized that there is an urgent need, and universities create a unique environment that contribute to stress for students.  Having customized portals for universities can go a long way in helping students combat daily emotional and mental sources of stress.

Research at the University of Michigan suggests that different student population react differently to stress. A study led by Prof. Daniel Eisenberg, approximately one-third of college students experience a mental health issue at some point. However, only 10 percent of student athletes with depression or anxiety take advantage of mental health resources – as compared to 30 percent of students overall.  Students at campuses often face different kind of stress that can be because of their academics, gender, sexual orientation, race etc.

Repeatedly, from the user interviews I conducted, I found that students needed an outlet to share their feelings. Customized portals for Universities will not only make listeners aware of the issues at the University, but will also help them tailor their conversational skills for the community groups. Additionally, universities can provide more training opportunities for students who are enrolled in their Social Work program to make them better future counselors.

Not only does it makes sense for 7 Cups to have separate portals for Universities, research shows that it makes business sense for Universities to trial run new emotional well being and mental wellness services. A revenue model developed by Prof. Eisenberg shows the potential loss for students who drop out of college because of stress and the loss in revenues. The example table at the end of the post shows that student productivity is lost valued at $3,125,000. The university fails to make an additional $ 1,562,500 revenue per year because of students dropping out.

There are other products like Breakthrough which provide confidential counselling, however 7 Cups differentiates themselves from other competitors by

1. Pricing their product for free and opening up premium features at a very low cost (7.99$ / month for a year’s package).
2. They provide active listening services and in no way a replacement to real counselling. The listeners are explicitly asked to not give advice, prescribe medicines to their clients and refer their clients to a counselor / psychiatrist in such cases.

On a concluding note, I find 7 cups a very interesting product in an interesting space, and is trying to solve a much needed problem that is often not realized or talked about in public spaces. By leveraging technology, 7 Cups can potentially change a lot of interactions in the mental health community.  Despite all of the positives, products like 7 Cups should be used with a pinch of salt. Users might not realize and start seeing their listeners as mental health providers. In this process, the users might start avoiding mental health providers and their issues can get worse. 7 Cups and other services should make it exceedingly clear that they are not professional mental health providers but an individualized support system where they provide help to their users. Coupling these services with professional counselors and mental health providers can go a long way. Services like 7 Cups can provide a stand-by when users wait to seek help from experts.

Appendix

• Example Table (ref from Prof. Eisenberg’s revenue model)

• Thanks to Nick Sands and Mitchell Boldin from School of Information, University of Michigan who helped me with the user interviews.
• This blog post is part of the application process for KPCB Product Fellows
• This blog post was posted on Indian Standard Time.
• I will be working with 7 Cups over the next 2.5 months to test their products at the University of Michigan as a Product Management Intern. The research has been done independently and has no association with 7 Cups.