FOG Project call for engagement

[Sebastian Roth]

Dear FOG users and folks,

as most of you know FOG is a community based project and needs people to thrive.

Development has been slowing down a lot over the last year or two as there are not many developers actively working on it. We try to keep up with fixing bugs and make things work with new hardware and Linux versions coming up. But that’s not enough
to push things forward much. For personal reasons I will have even less time to work on FOG and eventually will drop
out all together.

There are many different topics to work on: Web UI and services (PHP), installer (BASH scripts), fog-client (.NET C#), FOS kernel and inits (compiler and BASH scripts), documentation, …

So if you enjoy using FOG you might think about joining in or finding people (in your university, business, …) who are keen to work on this project. Please get in touch with us!

Cheers
Sebastian

[Sebastian Roth]

@dreN Great! Are you currently using the dev-branch version? Testing/using the latest dev-branch and reporting issues if you can. As well you are more than welcome to help on the documentation. Please send me a private message to discuss further steps.

[dreN]

@sebastian-roth Hello, we’ve been using FOG in our env for several years. I’d like to help where I can maybe with testing and front-end (CSS).

[Sebastian Roth]

@nitair Welcome to the FOG forums. Great to hear you want to get involved! Probably good to switch to chat (speech bubble in the top left corner)…

[nitair]

@sebastian-roth I’d like to assist as well. I’m a multi-faceted SysAd, SysOps Lead, and DevOps Engineer with a decent amount of programming experience. Open to assist in getting this project back off the ground. I think there is plenty of room left for improvement in marketing and potentially revenue stream as well(maybe a premium option that doesn’t limit your everyday user?) Anyways, I’m open to assist in my free time for sure!

[Sebastian Roth]

@danuel Yes FOG can be installed on a Pi and also deploy images to ARM64 based machines.

About testing: You might take a look at this topic and test those kernels: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/16508/enable-or-disable-speculation_mitigations-in-the-linux-kernel

[danuel]

hello friends, i know to much time out.

Just to say i can contribute on testing.

abouts this, FOG runs in ARM64/arm/raspberry pi platform?

best regards

ps: time to reduce watts consumption and i have shared fog on my twitter

[Wayne Workman]

@cire3 said in FOG Project call for engagement:

Do you have any ability to know how many fog users are out there?

I don’t know how many users there are, but I do know there’s 776 FOG servers operating on the dev-branch. There’s an unknown number of FOG servers out in the wild running on a version older than October, 2020.

[brakcounty]

I can say that we aren’t constantly imaging and reimaging PCs in our environment. The FOG server does a lot of idling. I do the most because I’m always working on golden images and testing. But that’s about it. I don’t think I could make a solid proposal to my employer to pay a small team full-time for full support of FOG. It wouldn’t be feasible. If anything we need to get more people using FOG instead of other very expensive imaging solutions. If the community grows then you’ll have a higher chance of gaining a few more volunteers.

[Cire3]

I have donated a couple times and love the fog project. However, I’m not to speed to help with development. However, I would be willing to help in testing. I put many models on fog and have access to a lot of hardware. If I can be of any help, please let me know. I also wouldn’t frown to a small fee every year. Do you have any ability to know how many fog users are out there?

[Sebastian Roth]

@jmeyer said in FOG Project call for engagement:

What kind of documentation is needed ?

We are working on moving all our documentation from the wiki to https://docs.fogproject.org/en/latest/ - lots of work to do. Help is highly appreciated.

Is there still any plan to make a ready to use VM ?

Not from my side because it would mean keeping another part up to date and support it in the forums. But if you are really keen and want to have a go, your call.

[jmeyer]

@sebastian-roth I am not good enough on coding to work on the project and work on something that already exist need time to understand the process before making any update (unless you need me to crash the OS during the setup ! lol).

What kind of documentation is needed ?
Is there still any plan to make a ready to use VM ?

[Sebastian Roth]

@jmeyer See the initial post:

There are many different topics to work on: Web UI and services (PHP), installer (BASH scripts), fog-client (.NET C#), FOS kernel and inits (compiler and BASH scripts), documentation, …

[jmeyer]

@sebastian-roth I am not sure if I can help. I am a beginnner in from of Thomas. And I am very busy between work and personnal life since few months but if it’s to build a data base of script for software, maybe I can help a bit, yet it will take time to make one and need reactivity to keep it update.

What are the need in the project ?

[Sebastian Roth]

@jmeyer said in FOG Project call for engagement:

As i nearly don’t use FOG anymore at work, I think i’ll install my own server at home for making Windows install easier and faster on friends computers.

Are you saying you are going to help us work on FOG?

[Florent]

@jmeyer
We often ear that on FOG need many images for brand or model.
But here we use only 1 image for each OS (Windows, Linux).
And on postdownload scripts, we do all the others operations. For example wget of the WAPT Agent who is installed then by the Windows SetupComplete or Sysprep, personalize the sysprep in terms of this or that parameter.
Idem for drivers, bitlocker etc.
And our Windows image is only a fresh install of Windows 10, easy to update.

Here the most worry is about Windows 11 and Secure Boot.

[jmeyer]

@wayne-workman What is missing is already packaged install script for drivers and apps (as WAPT for software). We have move to KACE at work just because we wanted to stop using two servers (not for the price ! lol).

Most of colleagues used FOG with one image for each brand and each model and was deploying software with WAPT.

If we could have integrate driver install from FOG, maybe we could have stay using it.

I have worked a lot on my side to create an image that wasn’t link to any hardware installing drivers and most used apps after deploy (everything from samba share on the FOG server) but no one took time to look at it at my work. I end running only one image for 6 years making new one every 2 years for OS version update when colleagues had 5 or 6 images.

As i nearly don’t use FOG anymore at work, I think i’ll install my own server at home for making Windows install easier and faster on friends computers.

[Bristow 0]

@lemeunier said in FOG Project call for engagement:

PS: j’ai la flemme de traduire ça en anglais…

Pourtant, cela prend 3 s avec https://www.deepl.com/translator

Hello Sebastian, Hello Tom

First of all, I would like to salute your work which is very helpful for us on a regional scale (Hauts-de-France, France).
The development of FogProject systems is unquestionably irreproachable and indispensable for large structures such as ours.

Have you thought about switching to a business model geared towards professionals, like WAPT?
We would be delighted to collaborate with you in this context, and this would allow you to recruit developers in a paid way.

Best regards.

(Ne compliquons pas la vie des développeurs)

[Lemeunier]

Bonjour Sebastian, Bonjour Tom

Tout d’abord, je tiens à saluer votre travail qui nous est salvateur à échelle régionale (Hauts-de-France, France).
Le développement des systèmes FogProject est indiscutablement irréprochable et indispensable pour des grosses structures telles que les nôtres.

Avez-vous pensé à passer à un modèle économique orienté vers les professionnels, comme WAPT.
Nous serions ravis de pouvoir collaborer avec vous dans ce cadre, et cela vous permettrait de recruter des développeurs de manière rémunéré.

Bien cordialement.

PS: j’ai la flemme de traduire ça en anglais…

[lukebarone]

@sebastian-roth I’ll help whereever I can.

I’m a jack-of-all-trades SysAdmin, can write tutorials/documentation, and do some simple bash scripting.