Linux Brochure Project: Home

Linux Brochure Project

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Mission Statement

Our overall goal is simple; document essential Linux information on the two sides of a single letter- or A4-sized sheet of paper which is Z- or C-folded into six mini-pages of a brochure that LUGs and other Linux organizations can use for publicity. The LBP data and scripts required to build the brochure are released under the GPL which means the information collected and organized here cannot be hijacked by proprietary interests. See here for more details about the LBP.

Customized Results

Below we give access to the "Linus" version of the LBP brochure. The available formats are a thumbnail image; a medium-resolution (300KB) screenshot (click on the thumbnail to view the screenshot); HTML (text suitable for BabelFish translations); and downloadable, high-resolution, printer-quality PostScript and PDF files. Other customized versions (for different languages and both letter- and A4-sized paper) are available here.

HTML

PostScript

PDF

Implementation

Choosing the contents of a Linux brochure is not simple because the space we have to work with is extraordinarily limited. Fortunately, we could build on the long-term brochure-making experience of the Victoria Linux Users Group (VLUG) to help deal with this problem.

The technical implementation of a Linux brochure using open-source software is also not simple because there are many different combinations of software that potentially could be used to help build the brochure. It's been satisfying that we have been able to find a particular combination of software that builds our brochure with absolutely no compromises on the technical quality of the result. We have built the icons and watermark images using skencil (previously known as sketch). These vector-graphics results look good at any resolution. The graphics have been combined with text using the graphicx package of LaTeX to obtain high-quality PostScript results. Equivalent high-quality PDF results are created using ps2pdf.

News

2007-03-23: We have converted our SourceForge repository from CVS to SVN.
2006-06-15: Release of version 1.4.0. This version includes a Spanish translation of the brochure that has been kindly donated by Daniel Vicente Lühr Sierra of Chile. Thanks, Daniel!
2006-05-29: Release of version 1.3.0. This version has been modified so it works both with traditional e-TeX and next-generation pdfeTeX versions of LaTeX. The html results have been substantially improved as well.
2004-12-29: The LBP logo has been created. In honour of this logo, we have also redesigned the colours of our website and also updated the information on our website including a much-improved html form of our example brochures.
2004-12-23: Our second translation (French) was donated. Our thanks to the team lead by Nicolas Pettiaux.
2004-01-11: Release of version 1.2.0. This version has a simplified build process, Western European language build support, and an improved look for the generated brochures.
2003-11-04: Our first translation (Italian) was donated. Our thanks to Fabrizio Pollastri.
2003-10-11: Release of version 1.1.0. This version allows making brochures suitable for both letter- and A4-sized printers.
2003-10-05: Release of version 1.0.0 final. This features a few minor tweaks of the second release candidate. We are ready for prime time! :-)
2003-09-20: Release of version 1.0.0-rc2. This second release candidate features improved artwork and two customized versions of the brochure.
2003-07-24: Release of version 1.0.0-rc1.
2003-07-18: Proof-of-concept committed to CVS. We can now build PostScript and PDF versions of the brochure of outstanding technical quality using open-source tools. Work on the content of the brochure still required before we can release version 1.0.0.
2003-07-11: SourceForge approves hosting the LBP project.
2003-06-30: The VLUG Board of Directors votes to release the language of their brochure under the GPL as encouragement to start the Linux Brochure Project. Thanks!

Translations of LBP

The translation effort has now resulted in three translations of the "Linus" form of the brochure. Thanks to Fabrizio Pollastri for donating an Italian translation, a team lead by Nicolas Pettiaux for donating a French translation, and Daniel Vicente Lühr Sierra for donating a Spanish translation. The results can be seen on our examples page.

Artistic Input into LBP

Our thanks to Larry Ewing (artistic inspiration), Simon Budig, and Anja Gerwinski for the vector graphics Tux icons that can be found here and which were used in slightly modified form for the Tux icons and Tux watermarks used for our brochure. Our thanks also to the developers of skencil which makes it so easy to modify this prior art.

Webmaster for LBP

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