Alan Kay writes:
 > Just curious as to why this would be an issue. Squeak works fine on any 
 > number of Linux systems, why would there be any special difficulties with 
 > Ubuntu?

Hi Alan,

Squeak when manually installed works fine in Ubuntu. What I'd like is
to see Squeak installed from the Ubuntu distribution working
well. This is so people with minimal Unix expertise and no prior
Squeak experience can get started easily in Squeak while running
Ubuntu.

Imagine you're a non-technical teacher running Ubuntu (yes Ubuntu is
targeting educational use), you've heard of Squeak and feel like
trying it out. Having it properly included in the distribution would
mean that you just need to ask the package manager to install Squeak
then start using it. The package will create the appropriate menu
items and desktop short cuts.

Ubuntu tried to install Squeak in Breezy Badger, their last release.
They forgot to add an image to their packages. This meant that Squeak
didn't work. People did try Squeak because it was in Breezy. I know
this because some of them asked on #squeak-dev about how to get Squeak
running. Many more probably just gave up without saying anything.

The Ubuntu packagers are convinced that Squeak should be included
because of it's educational value. But the packagers are not Squeakers
or even Smalltalkers which means working with images is foreign to
them. The Squeak install just needs to be tested while there's still
time to fix bugs, and if there are issues they may need help resolving
them. We have less than three weeks to make sure it works before their
next release will be frozen. 

The issue is about getting Squeak running flawlessly in a major Linux
distribution. It's about reducing the barriers to join our community.
We now have a great opportunity to get Squeak included and working in
a major Linux distribution, let's make the most of it.

Bryce