2018 is over and 2019 starts. This is a great opportunity to look back, reflect and to try to look into the future. I predict that 2019 will be a very good year for privacy, open source and decentralized cloud software. Maybe even the mainstream breakthrough of federated and decentralized internet services!

Let me explain why:

The mainstream opinion about centralized services started to change in 2018 and I think this trend will continue in 2019. More and more people see the issue with large, centralized data silos that control more and more of our private lives, democratic processes and society as a whole. Some examples from 2018 where bad news hit the press include:

• The never ending list of Facebook scandals: Wired
• Twitter election meddling: BostonGlobe
• Amazon Alexa is listening to private conversations and is leaking the data: Heise and  BusinessInsider
• Dropbox is leaking private date: TechTarget
• Google Plus is insecure and will shut down: CNBC

This year, Europe introduced the GDPR to regulate the collection of private data. I believe it is a good start and think we ultimately we need rules as described in the User Data Manifesto
I expected that people in the US and Asia wouldn’t take the GDPR seriously and make fun of Europeans tendency to ‘over-regulate’. So I was surprised to see that the GDPR was widely praised as a step into the right direction. People in Asia and US are already asking for similar regulations in their markets, California has already announced its own variant of the GDPR with the California Consumer Privacy Act.

This clearly shows that the world is changing. People realize more and more that extensive centralized data collection is a problem. This is an opportunity for open source and decentralized and federated alternatives to enter the mainstream.

At Nextcloud we have become widely recognized as one of the major alternatives. And this year was big for us, with three big releases introducing new technologies the world needs going forward. Let me name just a few:

• End-to-end Encryption. In 2018 Nextcloud launched support for full end 2 end encrypted file sync and share.
• Nextcloud Talk. Beginning of 2018 we launched Nextcloud Talk as a fully integrated self hosted, open source and decentralized chat and audio/video call solution
• Just a few weeks ago we launched Social with ActivityPub support to integrated with Mastodon and other projects of the Fediverse.
• Simple Signup. In summer we launched the Simple Signup feature to make it possible for new users to sign up at one of the Nextcloud providers directly from the Mobile and Desktop apps.
• We launched our unique Video Verification feature to become the most secure file share platform.
• In summer we announced the initiative to ship Nextcloud preinstalled on millions of NEC routers, something that will take off in 2019, you might have seen the prototype devices on social media.
• This fall we launched the Nextcloud Include program with funding from the Reinhard von König Preis for innovation. I’m happy we run this project together with my old friends from KDE.

In 2018 I traveled to more events and countries than ever before. It’s great to see how the Nextcloud community is growing all over the globe. On the company and business side we also have good news. The Nextcloud company is growing nicely in all areas. There will be separate news about this soon.

Of course it’s the mission of Nextcloud to not do everything alone. This is why we launched a lot of integration projects in 2018. For example with Rocket.Chat, Moodle, StorJ, Mastodon and others. I’m really happy to see that other open source and decentralization projects do as well as Nextcloud.

I think 2019 could be the year where open source, federated and self-hosted technology hits mainstream, taking on the proprietary, centralized data silos keeping people’s personal information hostage. Society becoming more critical about data collection will fuel this development.

If you want to make a difference then join Nextcloud or one of the other project that develop open source decentralized and federated solutions. I think 2019 is the year were we can win the internet back!

Notes:
I always write note in my laptop and put it somewhere either on disk or cloud when I think there is an interesting experience. I found this 7 years old note when I try to clear some space in my disk, and before I wipe it out from my disk I think it is an interesting story to share with you. This happened in 2011, at that time I was working to build Linux based computer labs for 500 elementary and junior high schools in Yogyakarta Indonesia. No it is not about computer and other geeky stuff. So here it is. 
Well, it is very out of topic everyone, you've already been warned 😁

During my busy weeks in implementing openSUSE Li-f-e for schools in Yogyakarta Indonesia (see the pictures below), me and one of my colleague use our free time in a Sunday afternoon to visit Borobudur, the biggest Buddhist temple in the world. One of the World Heritage preserve by Unesco. 85% of Indonesia population are Moslem and this make Indonesia the biggest Moslem country in the world. We are tolerant people and respect diversity. Our national motto is Bhinneka Tunggal Ika means "Unity in Diversity". That's why the biggest Buddhist temple stand still here. In Indonesia, kids learn about it in history and culture subject in middle schools. I still remember my history teacher told the story in front of the class and I was very amazed at that time. She said that the temple was build by Princess Pramodhawardhani the daughter of King Samaratungga from Syailendra clan who ruled Java Island in 8th - 9th century. She also told that the temple rising in the middle of the lake (when it was built) and form a lotus flower and leaf in the center of a lake. Wow .......

Busy weeks:






Some Yogyakarta city pics:






It was light rain and a cloudy afternoon. To go there we must passed the bridge in Kali Putih river (literally "kali" means river in Indonesian language), after Mount Merapi eruption in October 2010 this location always damage by the massive cold lava and volcanic material from the last eruption. We saw some very big rocks and large volume of sand beside the street. That's explain why sometime we find a big rock in the middle of flat land. The cold lava was very huge, maybe there are plenty of archaeological sites around this area still buried beneath the surface because this happened also in the past. Around 4 PM we arrived in Borobudur, parked the car, and run to the sites around 1 km to the top. It was light rain and cloudy, not a perfect condition to take some pictures and we will miss the sunset 😞
Everyone should wearing "kain/sarung batik" that we can borrow (for free) after entering the main gate. We were a bit late, the temple will close on 5 PM. Huh..... 😟

Some pics:










This time I want to search Manohara in scuplture/stone relief in level 1. Borobudur consist of 3 level and the first (named Kamadatu) and second level (named Rupadatu) are full of stone relief. Manohara is a Kinnari, half woman and half bird creature while Kinnara is half man and half bird. The stories, where she roles as a heroine, is compiled in the Dvijavadana anthology (from sanskrit word means Glorious Heavenly Acts, wow .....). Manohara married with the Prince Sudhana in that story, the story about how to act heavenly.
I took some pictures here and there but I'm not sure that was Manohara 😀
In the end I'm not sure I found Manohara because I'm not well prepared, belief me I enjoy reading epic, history and cultural literature. I'm not just a linux freak 😅
My colleague told me that better I took photograph of stewardess because they usually pretty and always fly (like Manohara) 😆

Actually I never found this "Manohara" stewardess maybe because I'm not a prince. I found a woman that give me a magic feeling though, but she can't fly for sure 😂

Sculpture - Stone relief:








In 5 PM, the site guards ask everyone to leave Borobudur because they will closed. I asked one of the guides there how to transfer the rain water from the top to the ground below, the drainage system of this temple. Borobudur lie in the hill, beneath the rock surface there should be the hill. How to avoid the water not  infiltrate to the hill behind the relief-rock? If the water go directly to the hill inside the rock then Borobudur can collapse. This can be a really challenging task. Restoration team engineers found the solution and make a drainage system beneath the temple floor and transfer the water from the top to the ground outside the temple. Originally the rain water was transferred using gargoyle in the corners but now it is not use anymore because it can damage the temple.

Drainage and wall section:





 

These are some of my suggestions if you visit Borobudur:

• Early in the morning, so you can see the sunrise. I think it is not possible because the sites open at 8 AM. But maybe you can arrange it for special condition. Well, I don't know.
• Do not visit it between 11 AM - 2 PM becuase it can be very hot. It is located in equator area 😀
• Try to be there between 2 PM- 3 PM, so you have time to explore the relief/sculpture in Kamadatu and Rupadatu.
• If possible visit it in dry season between May - September, don't go there in rainy season you can miss the best moment to see the sunset.
• Because the site is closed in 5 PM, you should ask the guides or the guard if you can wait a little longer to take some pictures.
• Don't forget to bring your hat and umbrella. It can be very hot or very wet 😅
• If you like photography bring your wide-angle lense.

So everyone, when do you visit Yogyakarta? I can show you how we implement openSUSE in schools and as a bonus you can see one of the greatest world heritage 😃

Additional notes;
After openSUSE.Asia Summit 2016 in Yogyakarta Indonesia, we had one day tour to Borobudur temple and Prambanan temple. Prambanan is a Hindu temple on the east of Yogyakarta, it is also a beautiful Unesco World Heritage. We had a lot of fun!



 

Churches generally have no budget for technology and frankly, I don’t think that a church should really avoid spending on technology as much as possible. I’m sure this isn’t a view many people share but it is my view. I believe it using whatever is available whenever possible and only making upgrades or purchasing new … Continue reading openSUSE Linux on a Dell Inspiron 3646 | Low Budget Multimedia Configuration for a Small Church →

Year 2018 is a remarkable year for the Indonesian openSUSE community. There are quite a lot of our achievements as a community that make us proud. As a long time person in this community, I feel that there are quite a lot of young people who can be role models for future generations. Even though the dominance of "you again" cannot be denied, because the same people are also activists in BlankON, LibreOfficeID, Glib, and other communities, it does not reduce my admiration for their militancy towards the spread of FOSS use in Indonesia.



One of openSUSE community friend once said to me, the first step is the most difficult. When I started using Linux in 1997 no one used it at my workplace. I have been using Unix for about 2 years and it happens that many GNU software is also used on both operating systems so the commands are not so weird for me. But it is very difficult to find people to have direct discussion at that time. At present the obstacles that I felt before seemed to be gone. There are many places for people to ask as long as there is intention.

It is also quite encouraging about the openSUSE translation. Unlike some other language versions, which are some of it translated by SUSE, the translation into Indonesian language is purely community work. Many thanks to the translation team, I have to name a few here, Arif Budiman, Kukuh Syafaat, and "primbon ijo" (green sacred book) bot manager, Yan Arief. Of course thank you also for all members of the translation team, there are 30 people. I don't mention them one by one, nevertheless you are all great 🙂.

There are some people who were accepted as openSUSE members in 2018, which I remember were Kukuh Syafaat, Dhenandi, Estu Fardani, Yan Arief. Some more people have applied for membership registration applications, I am sure they are eligible, and just a matter of time to be approved. If you are interested, please submit by following the instructions on the wiki page.

The saddest day for the community in 2018 is when we lose Muhammad Rafi in February 2018. I do not know him closely, but I've met him a couple of times, on the August 2017 Bekraf Habibie Festival, openSUSE 42.3 release party and some other events. On that occasions I knew him as a passionate and very humble young man. All our prayers for the late Rafi.

On March 23-25, ​​2018 Indonesia openSUSE Comunity / openSUSE received an invitation to open a booth at the Indonesian LibreOffice Conference. Thank you to the LibreOffice Indonesia Community for giving us the opportunity to participate in the event. openSUSE has always supported LibreOffice since the start of the project. Furthermore, please read how go-oo has been stopped and integrated into LibreOffice.

On May 21, 2018, we made a ticket in openSUSE progress to improve the status of community-managed repos to become openSUSE official mirror repository. On May 22, 2018, Per Jessen, one of the openSUSE Heroes Team members replied and said our repo officially entered the official openSUSE mirror repo. Hopefully this can help provide a fast and up-to-date update for the Indonesian openSUSE community.

openSUSE Leap 15.0 was released on May 25, 2018 during openSUSE Conference 2018 in Prague. KLAS Surabaya was the first to hold a Leap 15.0 release party in Indonesia on June 2, 2018. Thank you Darian Rizaluddin and friends for the initiative. We can count on you 🙂. In collaboration with Glib, openSUSE Indonesia also held a release party in Bogor on July 1, 2018. You are all cool!

openSUSE.Asia Summit 2018 was held in conjunction with GNOME.Asia Summit 2018 and COSCUP in Taipei 11-12 August 2018. In 2018 there were quite a number of colleagues from openSUSE Indonesia Community who attended the event both as speakers and participants. Good to you all. If you want to go abroad and to be paid up to 80% of your travel cost, don't hesitate to join the community and submit a proposal, who knows if you are selected 🙂.





During openSUSE.Asia Summit 2018, registration for Call for Host for a similar event in 2019 also opened. India and Indonesia volunteered to become candidates for the host. Finally, after the voting was held, on October 5, 2018 Bali, Indonesia was appointed as host of the openSUSE.Asia 2019 Summit.



The core committee for openSUSE. Asia Summit 2019 has already started the preparation work, there are Kukuh, Dhenandi, Ary, Yan Arief, Estu, Rania, Rifki. They have conducted a survey in Bali and the plan is openSUSE.Asia Summit 2019 will take place in the Information Technology Department, Faculty of Engineering, Udayana University in October 2019. Thank you for Putu Shinoda, our community member who also a lecturer in Udayana University who has been willing to become the host. The committee will definitely need a lot of help and support, and awaited the participation of all the Indonesian openSUSE community members.

The Indonesian openSUSE community contributes to the design of mugs for openSUSE GSoC mentors. There are 3 people who submitted the designs, Ahmad Romadhon (Rania), Pramasta, Tamara. Pramasta's design was finally chosen. Aris Winardi also made a poster for the openSUSE Board Elections that will be held in February 2019. Thank you all.

There is one thing in 2018 that Indonesian openSUSE community cannot fulfill, namely participation as student for Google Summer of Code under the openSUSE organization. I and Ana (openSUSE Board member) since 2017 have planned to promote GSoC to attract more students from Indonesia to this event. Unfortunately, from 3 people who expressed their interest in 2018 they could not go further. I noticed the weakness of our young people was not to start by doing research on the project in the first place, even though the openSUSE project that is included is very open, it can be seen on github! Also they're waiting until the last seconds to submit the proposal. You should prepare as early as possible, do PR if you see an opportunity for improvement, make it as exercise and warm up while showing your abilities to the mentor, and at the same time preparing your proposal. Well, some of them did a good job but the selection process sometimes is way too hard.

For GSoC in 2019, let's try again, there's still a chance, although from what I heard it is not sure yet that openSUSE will participate in GSoC in 2019. There are already 2 students who expressed their desire to participate. Prepare yourself from now on. For others if you are interested, stay tuned!


Thank you openSUSE Indonesia community for remarkably year 2018. Hopefully in 2019 many new young people will come and join to contribute to openSUSE, disseminate the use of FOSS and spread goodness to others.

Have a lot of fun! 

MX Linux is a distribution I have heard many good things about for several months. It even ranks high on the arbitrary DistroWatch.com site (3rd as of late December 2018). Having had a fantastic experience with BunsenLabs Linux on old hardware, I wanted to give MX Linux a spin. The latest version, MX-18 has been released … Continue reading MX Linux | Review from an openSUSE User →

Christmastime is my favorite time of the year but I am not so much a fan of the cold and the darkness. Regardless, I love all that Christmas is supposed to be about along with some of the trappings of the pop culture effect on Christmas. Growing up, much of the Christmas time celebration with family didn’t … Continue reading Just a Christmas Day Blathering | Linux Makes it Better →

GNOME merupakan DE (Desktop Environment) terbaik pilihan saya setelah KDE, walaupun agak berat untuk ukuran DE yang ketika idle memakan banyak RAM dan terkenal bahwa GNOME 3 adalah DE yang berat, tapi saya santai saja karena RAM saya gede jadi ya santai :D. GNOME memiliki tampilan yang bisa dibilang asik dan indah,tapi asik dan indah itu menurut saya tidak akan muncul jika user GNOME tidak menambahkan beberapa extension GNOME yang keren – keren, karena tanpa extension ini GNOME adalah DE yang sedikit membosankan.

Oke kita lanjut ke extension rekomendasi saya beberapa bulan terakhir ini, oiya sekedar info disini saya menggunakan openSUSE Leap 15.0 yang berjalan di atas mesin ThinkPad T460. Oke kita lanjut ke beberapa extension terbaik pilihan saya yang bisa diunduh pada halam berikut

1. Dash to Dock 
   Dash to Dock, ya itulah namanya, dimana extension ini berguna agar dapat memindahkan Dock yang biasanya ketika kita menginstall DE GNOME 3 itu terdapat Dock disebalah kanan, ketika kita menginstall Dash to Dock ke extension GNOME kita maka dock dapat dipindahkan sesuka hati.  

2. User Themes
   User Themes, GNOME tanpa User Themes tentu seperti nasi yang tidak ditambahkan apa – apa di nasi tersebut. Ya User Themes ini berfungsi agar tema di GNOME bisa diterapkan dengan mudah diterapkan, dan untuk temanya dapat diunduh di alamat berikut
   
   

   User Themes

3. No Topleft Hot Corner
   Ini juga merupakan salah satu extension yang cukup membantu, karena di GNOME yang ter-install default pada openSUSE ini sendiri, jika arah pointer mouse diarahkan kearah pojok kiri maka akan langsung masuk kearah efek yang sedikit mengganggu, karena saya sendiri sering tidak sengaja mengarahkan pointer ke arah tersebut. Dan tentu saja extension ini sangat membantu menghilangkan efek tersebut :D.
   
   

   No Left Hot Corner

4. Extensions
   Tanpa extensions ini mungkin kita akan bolak – balik ke pengaturan untuk menontaktifkan extension yang kadang belum terlalu kita perlukan. Ya fungsi extension ini adalah untuk menjadi jalan pintas agar kita dapat mengaktifkan atau menonaktifkan extension yang kita mau.
   
   

   extension yang sudah terinstall

5. Refresh Wifi Connections
   Default-nya pada GNOME tida terdapat tombol untuk me-refresh Wifi, dengan extension ini hal tersebut dapat diwujudkan dengan menampilkan tombol refresh yang akan muncul ketika kita melihat jaringan yang tersedia. 
   
   

   Tampilan Refresh Wifi

6. TopIcons 
   GNOME yang terdapat pada openSUSE Leap 15.0 ini adalah versi 3.26.2, yang mana system tray tidak akan mucul yang tempatnya biasanya terdapat di pojok kanan, itu sedikit meresahkan bagi saya, karena saya adalah pengguna aktif Telegram yang memakai Telegram Desktop di Laptop saya. Extension ini sangat berguna karena akan memunculkan system tray pada tempat semestinya.
   
   

   TopIcons

7. Sound Input & Output Device Chooser
   Pada GNOME ketika konek dengan Bluetooth, memindahkan sumber suara di pengaturan itu memakan waktu yang cukup, maka extension ini membantu untuk cepat memilih input dan output suara yang akan keluar pada GNOME.
8.  Simple Name
   Sesuai namanya, Simple Name akan menampilkan nama user pada panel GNOME di sebelah pojok kanan dengan nama user tersebut. Simpel tapi keren :D. Kayak MAC kan  .
   
   

   Simple Name pada panel GNOME

9. Dash to Panel
   Extension yang berguna untuk memindahkan aplikasi yang berjalan pada panel atas GNOME. Ya fitur ini sangat fungsional seperti ini jadinya tampilannya :
   
   

   Tampilan pengaturan Dash to Panel

 

 

Semoga bermanfaat, sekian.

Sumber : https://www.gnome.org/

Until last Saturday (15 Dec 2018), I hadn’t heard of the BunsenLabs Linux distribution. Immediately, I like the name as makes me think of one of my favorite Muppets. I was immediately intrigued by this distribution for the system requirements. RAM minimum is 256 MiB with 1 GiB recommended. Storage requirement is only 10 GiB. It is … Continue reading BunsenLabs Linux | Review from an openSUSE User →

Recently the German computer magazin C’t posted an article about file sync solutions (“Unter eigener Regie”, C’t 23, 2018) with native sync clients. The article was pretty positive about the FOSS solution of… Nextcloud! I was wondering why they had not choosen ownCloud’s client as my feeling is that ownCloud is way more busy and innovative developing the desktop client for file synchronization together with community.

[caption id=“attachment_943” align=“alignright” width=“338”] Code lines changed as of Nov. 10, 2018[/caption]

That motivated me to do some investigation what the Nextcloud client actually consists of (at due date Nov. 10, 2018). I was looking into the NC desktop client git repoository grouped the numbers of commits of people that can be associated clearly to either the ownCloud- or Nextcloud project, or to “other communities” or machine commits. Since the number of commits could be misleading (maybe some commits are huge?) I did the same exercise with numbers of changed lines of code.

When looking on the changed lines, the first top six contributors to the Nextcloud desktop client are only active in the ownCloud project. Number seven is an “other community” contributor whos project the client was based on in the beginning. Number eight to eleven go to Nextcloud, with a low percentage figure.

[caption id=“attachment_944” align=“alignnone” width=“666”] # of commits to the Nextcloud Desktop repository as of Nov. 10, 2018[/caption]

As a result, far more than 80% of the changed lines of the Nextcloud client is actually work that ownClouders did (not considering the machine commits). In the past, and also today. The number would be even higher if it considered all the commits that go into the NC repo with an NC author, but are actually ownCloud patches where the original author got lost on the way by merging them through a NC branch. It looks like the Nextcloud developers were actually adding less commits to their client than all “other community” developers so far.

No wonder, it is a fork, you might think, and that is of course true. However, to my taste these numbers are not reflecting a “constructive” fork driving things forward when we talk about sync technology.

That is all fine, and I am proud that the work we do in ownCloud is actually stimulating two projects, with different focus areas nowadays. On the other hand, I would appreciate if the users of the technology would take a closer look to understand who really innovates, drives things forward and also fixes the nasty bugs in the stack. As a matter of fairness, that should be acknowledged. That is the motivation that keeps free software contributors busy and communities proud.