As the title of this blog post indicates, I've got some hardware to sell.
do-release-upgrade -d, hit 'yes' to everything, rebooted, and everything was fine! Admittedly, I don't have anything running on the server yet, so that kept things short and sweet, and didn't require the upgrade of various systems which might have had troubles, but so far so good
If you'd like to sign up for Slicehost, it looks like they give you a referral code. Mine can be utilized by going here.
The Debian bug sprint has started!
27 players registered in the hope to win cookies. The list of players and their assignments can be viewed at the usual place.
Good luck to everyone.
NB: for those who wonder, the assigned bugs were chosen as the 27 oldest RC bugs without a patch and randomized with shuf.
I have uploaded barry package to Debian some hours ago. It is still waiting for NEW processing, so if you want it you will have to download sources from Debian git repo, and compile the package yourself. It has just been accepted into the archive.
Barry is a GPL program that will allow you to charge your Blackberry through the USB port, to make backup copies of your device databases, manage contacts and use your BB as a modem.
So if you have a BlackBerry device, you can also enjoy it in Debian.
Update 26/10/2008: Barry has just been accepted into the archive, so you can get it in every Sid repository mirror. Thanks!
Since it's apparently en vogue to change one's way these days, I'm now learning Python (by looking at TurboGears and related technologies), using Emacs as my main editor (so far I was using mostly Perl and vim.)
But while indenting with vim was often correct but occasionally annoying, I've found the much-touted autoindenting with Emacs disappointing. Yes, indent-region is cool, and if I hit tab on a line it indents it correctly, and using C-J instead of hitting enter also gives the right result. But why do I have to do all this? When I hit enter I want to have the new line at the correct indenting. When I start a line with “</” in a HTML file I want emacs to automatically run indent-for-tab-command on the closing “>” of this tag (or better yet immediately autocomplete the tag, since in XML there is only one tag to close, right?)
(Oh, and btw: I've not found much about Python to dislike to date. So while my Emacs use might be just an episode, I might stick with Python as default scripting language for future projects for a while now. I thought about switching to git from hg as well in this “trying new things” effort but I think I'll leave this for later, since I've not had hg annoy me much so far.)
Last Wednesday I went for the first time in many years to FES Iztacala, the UNAM faculty where I worked for four years (1999-2003) and where I have most learnt and advanced in my career so far. I have a very special spot in my heart for Iztacala :-)
Twice, recently, people have commented on my post titles. I keep a real journal elsewhere where entries are either untitled, or are titled by quotations. In the past I used to keep a running total of who had guessed the source of the quote, but these days that game gets ignored.
Titles here used to be song lyrics, but these days they are film quotes.
When I started I intended to be a little interesting, and make "happy posts" contain quotes from films I enjoyed watching, and "ironic" or "ranty" posts contain quotes from films I disliked. But that didn't last for long, and I suspect nobody noticed anyway. (Why would they?!)
Regardless that's the only explaination I'll give.
Once or twice I've had people "complain" :
Your titles have no relationship to your posts. I don't know if your post is a serious one I should read, or a trivial one I should ignore.To those comments I have several potential response:
"I'll keep this up, whether you like it or not, until I get bored. Regardless of how much I might respect you, and your opinion."PS. tscreen released. Again. ObFilm: Star Trek #2 - Wrath of Khan
Since I blogged about it, a few things happened around APT maintenance.
First of all, it seems that more people got interested in the package. Many even *discovered* that one of our key packages was not that actively maintained.
Not everything is really settled, far from that. There is no strong team yet...but some hype happened.
A wiki page has been setup (I'm offline right now...just search on wiki.debian.org).
Eugene V. Lyubimkin started bug triaging activities and will need help and encouragement (or cookies).
Michael Vogt gave some indications about how to contribute to APT.
Things happened. And I don't even know if that done by Debian Developers, Debian ontributors or Debian Maintainers. Things just happen and that's good.
This is going to help us release lenny, while the two giant threads currently running on -project and -devel will not.
For one, I think it might be a good idea to pause this proposal now. (Reason: lenny) Linus Torvalds isn’t a hacker! Richard Stallman isn’t a hacker! Niels ProvosOf course, one can play the game of defining the authentic hacking (and it makes sense for many to do this!) but my interest as an anthropologist has never been to draw a bright and clear boundary between good hackers and bad hackers. or “real and fake hackers,” but instead to describe and grapple with the tension points and internal ambiguities among hackers (my whole course is designed around this theme, in fact). This is not to say that anything goes in the world of hacking (that is, I don’t consider any computer break in a hack; I often just call it a crime) but if there is a group of people calling themselves hackers and thinking to some degree of the ethical implications of their actions, as an anthropologist, this is enough “social evidence” to start asking some questions about the political and cultural significance of their actions.
isn’t a hacker! Fat/ugly, maybe! Hackers, no! And what is up with
the use of the term “cracker”? As far as I’m concerned, that term
applies to people that bypass copyright protection mechanisms.
Vladimir Levin? HACKER. phiber optik? HACKER. Kevin Mitnick? OK,
maybe a gay/bad one, but still WAS a “hacker.” Hope that’s clear.
ace root% apt-get install tftpd-hpaNote: If this installs an inetd at the same time, you may need to restart the inetd so it enables the tftpd service. The tftpd will serve files out of /var/lib/tftpboot, so we need to add some files for it to serve. You can use this script to fetch various netboot installers from Ubuntu's servers.
#!/bin/bash
set -u
set -e
cd /var/lib/tftpboot
for dist in dapper feisty gutsy hardy intrepid; do
mkdir -p $dist
for arch in amd64 i386; do
mkdir -p $dist/$arch/
(cd $dist/$arch/ && ncftpget -RT \
ftp://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/$dist/main/installer-$arch/current/images/netboot/)
done
done
Download ubuntu-tftp-update.sh
Now we need to alter our dhcpd configuration. (You are using DHCP
aren't you?) All we need to add is a group declaration to your subnet
declaration, adding a next-server and a filename
parameter. You can then add a host declaration for any machine you want
to netboot into the installer.
group # intrepid amd64
next-server 10.0.0.1;
filename "intrepid/amd64/pxelinux.0";
host foobar hardware ethernet 00:22:15:45:cc:fa; fixed-address foobar.example.com;
You'll need to restart the dhcp server so it picks up the new
setting. The next-server parameter is the name or IP address of your
tftp server. filename is the path to the bootloader. Obviously,
you can use this to pick which version of the installer you want to
run. If you do a lot of installations, it might be worth configuring
every installer you're likely to use and then move hosts in and out of
the suitable group as and when you need to install them.
All that's left to do now is to boot the computer and set it to boot
from the network and enjoy medialess installation.
Here are some tricks that you can use to ensure that your announcement to
debian-devel-announce has maximal negative utility.
hide who's talking
Make sure that your announcement does not start off by making clear who's
speaking. The announcement will have a From line with your name on it, and
that's good enough. Everyone knows who you are, what groups you're a member
of, and can guess what group you're speaking for ... or whether you're just
speaking for yourself.
Throughout the annoucement, be use to use terms like "We plan", "let us
describe", "we are considering", "This is where our proposal comes in.", etc.
Maybe in a footnote include a clue such as a mention of "the NM-Committee",
but be sure to not sign the announcement with the name of any group or
team or set of people, so that the reader is left guessing about who this
"we" is all the way to the end and beyond.
(And hey, "cabal" is a fun word.)
weasel words
Scatter throughout the announcement some vaguely worded digs at things you
disagree with. The key here is to make clear what you really mean, while
providing enough plausible deniability that you can deny having said it
later.
So you might say ...
Some time ago a few Developers thus went and pushed forward the "Debian Maintainer" status.... Thus implying that this was a few malcontents who should be ignored. Sure, the whole project voted for this, and so you should be sure to allude to that vote somewhere else. Maybe in a different paragraph entirely, you could refer to "Debian Maintainers (DM) [GR-DM]". (It would be excessive to have that footnote refer to a bogus url like http://vote.debian.org/something.) the big lie Make sure that your announcement starts off all bright and cheery on the surface, with just a hint of deadly steel jaws underneath. Something like:
If you are an existing Debian Developer or Debian Maintainer, don't be afraid, we are not going to take anything away from you.Natter on for many, many pages of trivilities, good ideas, bad ideas, half-baked ideas, conflicting acronyms, and useless footnotes. Then spring the trap:
In future this will be a list maintained by the NM-committee. At the time of migrating from the old to the new way, Ftpmaster will convert the existing DM-Upload-Allowed fields into that list, so there should be no interruption in your ability to upload.And ability to upload is all that matters. Who cares about the regression back to the tyranny of unix permissions? Who cares that DDs won't be able to decide when they trust a DM to upload their package, or that DMs won't be able to sign up quickly and easily, or that DMs will have to petition a disinterested committe to change anything? Nothing will have changed, nothing will be taken away, nothing to see here, move along: The big lie.
The only plausible result from this RNC mailing, I think, is increased fundraising for Obama over the next few days:
"Terrorists Don't Care Who They Hurt"
The only plausible result from this RNC mailing, I think, is increased fundraising for Obama over the next few days:
"Terrorists Don't Care Who They Hurt"
Next.