Planet Ubuntu

After upgrading Wine to 1.1.12, I tried installing AutoCAD Map 2000i again on my Intrepid box. Lo and behold… it worked! This is the first time I got ACAD Map working with Wine. I’m glad Wine has matured enough to run ACAD, even if it’s an older version, without hacks or cracks involved. Oh, and it runs fast and is very responsive on my Wind.

Below is an unordered list of thinks I did last year

• Went to FOSDEM 2008
• Got snowboard gear and first falls
• Got my LPI level 1
• Sold my Suzuki GS500 bike
• Got a new used Kawasaki KLE 500 bike
• Got an used VW Golf4 Variant
• Ubuntu Hardy Release Party in Cluj-Napoca
• Document Freedom Day 2008 in Romania
• FLOSS Camp 2008 in Păltiniș
• Firefox 3 Release Party in Cluj-Napoca
• Fedora 9 Release Party in Cluj-Napoca
• Be part of Reacție în lanț - Cluj-Napoca
• Fortech Internship 2008
• Become an Ubuntu member
• Got my 10 year USA tourist visa
• Attended UDS Jaunty
• Started Launchpad Translators group
• Celebrate my 25th anniversary plus all my friends anniversary
• Be part of a bachelor party
• Saw a friend married
• Found out about another one getting married soon
• Got a GameBoy Advanced and DS Lite
• Got a RC 4×4 Monster Truck
• Got 2 RC Mini Heli
• Got a RC Lama 4 Heli
• Got a lame RC boat
• Got a new server for all free software projects in Romania
• Got a 22” monitor and switched from bed based computing to desk based computing
• Quit my previous job and moved to Sighișoara -> now unemployed and happy

I’m a lazy ass and I did not add links in the above list. Almoust all events can be found on the internet, except from that strage bachelor party night whose event still remains a myster for me and the groom, and I deny all stories invented by the other friends present at the party.

My very first post!

That's my entry inside this great planet, and it's the first post in english as well! I'm very excited about that, cause I've a chance to talk about things I care, be seen by the whole Ubuntu community. The work done by anyone could acquire a great grow due to comments, contacts and people reading about it. More than this, I love this Planet cause I always thought it's the right mix of technical and prosaic arguments. That's awesome!

Well, go on fast on something serious, something I'm interested in: QA tools and automated procedure to check the shape of packages, to get automatically lists of bugs. The first tool I wrote some time ago is the reverse NBS page, a script which looks at the classical NBS page from a reversed perspective.

NBS in reversed mind...

...like mine . NBS are packages that are going to be removed from the archive. The classical page is a simple list of links that represent each NBS, and inside each of those, a page with a list of all packages that depends on the particular NBS package, divided by architecture. Those packages in particular need attention, as they are the packages to fix. I wont talk about how to fix NBS related bugs, as it too various, and I'm not so experienced in this. Instead, I'll point out a couple of thing (told in -qa mailist list some time ago) that are IMHO convenient compared to the classical NBS page:

• The original list don't show clearly which NBS packages has no more packages that depends on it. Ok, it could be easy with some runs of curl, but still no automated thing for this.
• The philosophy I like of Harvest: I can look at some particular packages, so I can bring them into the best state possible. At a glance each entry could tell me if packages still have (other) unresolved issues (and more work for me), or the package is ok (and I can have some beer|coffee).
• The debian page shows in a single page and in a more clear way what should be removed and why. It's more complex, yes, as it handles different cases for packages removal (this perhaps explains better). But it looks much more clear here, than the Ubuntu one.

Well, guess what? Jaunty has been supported for a couple of weeks now, and the reversed page is in a kind of usable state again. \o/ ( ok, it passed more than two months from the beginning of the development cycle, it's a little late, but could be still useful )

:wq!

Over two years ago, the FSF started its BadVista campaign with the goal of educating the public on problems related to software freedom, DRM, and more, with Microsoft's latest operating system. Today, the FSF is declaring victory; the name "Vista" is synonymous in the public eye with failure.

The real credit, I suppose, should go to Microsoft. Vista's design put the desires of big media companies, software companies, and Microsoft itself ahead of the desires of users. Vista defeated itself.

But the FSF's campaign drew a huge amount attention to the problems with Vista --- especially early on --- and provided a central location aggregating and amplifying criticism of Vista. In doing so, the FSF played an important role in helping the whole process along and in balancing this criticism with a more positive message about free software alternatives.

Gratitude is due to the FSF staff, members, and supports who made BadVista a success. Please read the announcement, Digg the article, support the FSF, and follow its other work in its other campaigns so that all the FSF's work can be as successful as BadVista.

Yes? No? Tell us what you think

(Update: Add the before and after, as requested)

Launchpod: the Launchpad team podcast!

Host: Matthew Revell.
Theme: Obscurity by Barry Warsaw.

Launchpad will be open source on the 21st July this year!

Karl Fogel joined the Launchpad team recently as the Launchpad Ombudsman. Find out what that unusual job title means and hear Karl talk about the Launchpad team’s plans for going open source, our new development wiki and how we’re planning to build a community process around the newly open source Launchpad.

Download ogg vorbis file.

Podcast feed.

That happens to be our own Craig Eddy posing!

Audio files are coming soon.

Some topics discussed on episode #16:

• Interviewing Jorge Castro in a couple of weeks, Global Bug Jam
• Notifications in 9.04
• LoCos on TV
• Ubuntu Privacy Remix
• Tabbed Browsing in Nautilus
• etc, etc, etc

As usual, thanks to all the folks who stopped by the Ustream.TV live feed. We dent and tweet out when we are about to stream live. If you want to know when that happens, follow http://twitter.com/ubuntupodcast or http://identi.ca/ubuntupodcast.

Digg It!

I finally had the chance to play with the usb-creator feature on the Ibex live CD a few days ago. In short the Ubuntu 8.10 Live CD comes with the option to create a USB startup disk or burn the Live CD iso file to a USB stick, to put it differently.

The usb-creator program can be launched from the System -> Administration -> Create a USB starup disk on the Ubuntu 8.10 Live CD

This is a great way to carry around a Ubuntu Linux install, without having to bring my Laptop everywhere. I just need a spare pc with USB boot enabled and I’m good to go, whether I’m trying to show others what Ubuntu can provide or just trying to get some work done. The boot time is of course a bit longer than usual, since everything happens over USB, but once the boot is over you have access to all the fabulous tools that comes with Linux. And if you want you can also install Ubuntu Linux onto the machine you are working on (but don’t do this on other peoples machines without their consent!).

The size of your USB key does limit the fun, both how many extra programs you can install and how many files you can carry around. But with a 4 GB key like mine there is room for the programs I need and can’t seem to find on the Windows machines at work.

It is not all roses though. During install and upgrades I quickly ran into this bug which seems to prevent upgrades of the kernel. Security also seems to be an issue. There is no password needed to log into the system or to use sudo. There is also the risk of forgetting the USB stick - somehow forgetting an entire laptop seems less likely than forgetting a USB key in the USB drive as you get up to leave.
I haven’t yet looked into the possibility of using the private encrypt directory to protect files on the key, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t work on the Live CD.

So, what other uses have you put your Live USB keys to?

Well, after a bit of nagging from family and friends, coupled with a bit of curiosity, I’ve gone social. I’m now part of the Web 2.0 bubble that seems to be all the rage. I have Identi.ca, Facebook, FriendFeed, Last.fm and Ping.fm accounts. Trying to restore Twitter as well (I left Twitter when Identi.ca came online). IRC, Jabber and email wasn’t enough to be considered “cool”. Now it’s “microblogging” and gathering all the possible friends in the universe you can find. Ok, so I’m a bit sarcastic there. I will say that there has been some value in these social apps. I’ve been able to connect to old friends that I haven’t seen or heard of in years, and I’ve been able to keep in contact with family and friends that have moved out of state. So, there’s been some value in it for me.

However, with all these social apps, it’s getting difficult to manage them all. Definitely when trying to update statuses to the accounts. So, a single point of entry would be preferred, that could push my status out to each application once. Ping.fm fits the bill. With Ping.fm, I can update my status to Identi.ca, Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed with a single message. Because Ping.fm, Identi.ca and FriendFeed all have Jabber bots, I can follow the updates of others through that. Because each service offers sending emails when someone is following my status, or other things, I can pull up the site as needed.

My Jabber client is Bitlbee and runs in Irssi, my IRC client. This way all messaging is managed in a single source. This keeps me from having to go to separate sites in my web browser. The only thing that could improve the setup, is having each of the Jabber bots posting their updates in a MUC room rather than each private messaging me. In fact, if I could join a Jabber MUC that was exclusively built for each bot (an Identi.ca room and a FriendFeed room), that treated posts from those I’m following as a message from that person rather than from the bot, that would be cool.

So, there you have it. I am now a statistic in the Web 2.0 world.