Yesterday started out with Jacob and me going to a men/boys breakfast organized by my great uncle and some others. He s in his 80s and this is probably his last year doing this. It was out in the woods by the Little Arkansas River. They cooked up bacon, sausage, and eggs and it was a fun time. Jacob enjoyed throwing sticks in the river and sitting on some logs. Terah, meanwhile, went to Wichita with Oliver. So it was just Jacob and me when we got home. Jacob spent two hours playing rivers with me. A few weeks ago, he and I set this up outside. I found an old length of pipe on our property (my dad thinks it used to carry water from a well) and some cement blocks. I set it up on the blocks so that one end is higher than the other, and the lower end empties out at the top of a small dirt pile. Then I brought a water hose over to it, turned on the water at a very slow speed, and put the hose in the pipe. The result is a small stream of water coming out at the dirt pile. After it runs just a little while, the dirt is soft enough that you can dig out little channels, or rivers , with your fingers or a stick. Jacob enjoyed this the first time he played, but yesterday he really enjoyed it. We had a fork in the river, and he informed me that he would sit on his bank and I would sit on mine. He also wanted to give river food to his river (the fork closest to him). River food was loose dirt that he d pick up and sprinkle over the water, and watch it get carried on down. I spotted some random bug in the area once, and that bug got food too. I think Jacob and the bug disagreed about whether this was particularly helpful. Jacob enjoyed playing other games with the pipe. I had showed him that we could send things through the pipe, so he would take out the hose, stuff some dirt in one end, and then make sure I was watching to see if it came out the other end. He sometimes made a fountain by setting the hose on top of the cement blocks and watching the water drip down from level to level. Then later in the day, I introduced him to Tuxpaint. This is a painting program aimed at children. I had told him I had a painting game to show him a few days ago, but because he made some bad behavior choices, he had lost access to my computer for a few days. Anyhow, we tried it yesterday and wow he loved it. There was constant laughter and excitement. I first showed him how to select colors for the paintbrush. He quickly figured out how to make lines, change colors, and change brushes. Tuxpaint has sound effects for just about everything, which he loved too. Then we explored the interface together and I showed him the stamps feature, which lets you paste pre-made pictures into a drawing. Tuxpaint comes with dozens of these, on kid-friendly themes such as animals, cars, fire trucks, signs, etc. This he loved even more. Terah and Oliver got home about this time, and Oliver and Jacob both sat on my lap for a time, both laughing loudly each time Jacob discovered something new to paste into his picture. Of course, then Oliver tried to eat my keyboard and smash my monitor, but there you go.

So, we have some netgear prosafe switches and some IP Power 9258 devices where I'm currently working, unfortunately, these don't always get the IP configuration that you'd expect (or, they get a DHCP lease from a DHCP server that I can't query the leases from...), however both come with little windows utilities that "magically" find the devices and give back (quite a lot, really) information on the IP configuration of the device. Being somewhat of a "oh god, I don't want to use windows, please don't make me" type person, and knowing the the IPPower 9258 boxes were going to a remote site where I'll only have linux machines on the same network as them, I figured that it would be a good idea to sit with wireshark and find out how the heck these tools worked. Turns out that both just send out a UDP broadcast packet (or two) and then sit and wait for responses - this meant that to get the information that I wanted out of them I could get away with writing very little python, taking the UDP packet that I got back, taking the payload and dismantling it piece by piece so that I could display that information. The scripts aren't at all polished, but if anyone happens to need something (that should work multi-platform, too) to discover either of these, let me know and I can throw you what I've got.

C++0x has a workload of new features[2]... Today I'm having a look at lambdas. Lambdas are available in g++-4.5, for now only available in experimental. What are lambdas? You can think of it as something akin to a struct with operator(). But it's a more than that: it's closer from a closure, something that Scheme fans are very familiar with: the closure code block captures its outter environment in its body. Closures are a very powerful tool that are being retrofitted in many languages (for instance Java). They can be used as building blocks for many useful programing idioms such as continuations. Enough for theory, let's have a look at this new beast. How do they look like?

  [](int i)   return i + 1;  ;

This is the increment lambda. You can declare a lambda in any function or method. Written like this, the lambda compiles[1] but it's not very useful: it's an anonynous lambda that is neither stored nor used. How to read this? The square brackets open the declaration of a lambda. Then you declare lambda parameters and its body. Nothing suprising so far except for the declaration opening. Using a lambda To use it add arguments, for instance:

  [](int i)   return i + 1;  (0);

would compute the value 1. Storing a lambda The type of a lambda is automatically deduced. You can hint its return type if you need to. To store it you need to use another new C++0x keywork, auto, that was taken back from C:

  auto inc = [](int i)   return i + 1;  ;
  std::cout << inc(0) << std::endl;

Notice that calling a named lambda is not different from calling a function. If you need to hint the lambda return type you can use ->:

  auto mult = [](int x, double y) -> double   return x * y;  ;

Capturing environment You can use lambdas to capture outter environment. A more complex, not working, example:

  void f()  
    int x = 5;
    [](int w)   return w + x;  (0);
   

Tha lambda declaration + invocation does not work, because the x variable we're referring to is declared in the outter scope. To enable capture of the outter scope, we can rewrite the previous example like this:

  void f()  
    int x = 5;
    [=](int w)   return w + x;  (0);
   

The = sign in the square brackets (which are really the capturing clause) means we will copy every variable from the outter scope. Hence we can access x from our anonymous lambda. Now what if you want to change x?

  void f()  
    int x = 5;
    [=](int w)   return w + ++x;  (0);
   

This does not compile: the environment is read-only by default. If you really want to increment x then you need to write:

  void f()  
    int x = 5;
    [=](int w) mutable   return w + ++x;  (0);
   

Yes, mutable. The value returned from the lambda is what you would expect. But guess what? x value is not changed when the lambda returns. Indeed, we've copied outter scope variables by value. To really affect outter scope you need to change the capture clause:

  void f()  
    int x = 5;
    [&](int w)   return w + ++x;  (0);
   

We use the ampersand to capture the environment by reference, and thus we can change x value. We could also be more explicit about what we want to capture:

struct A  
    int z;
    A() : z(0)  
    void f()  
      int x = 5;
      [this, &x](int w)   z = w + ++x;  (0);
      std::cout << "x: " << x << ", z: " << z << std::endl;
     
 ;

The lambda in f() explicitely mentions environment variables which are captured by value: this, because we change this->z, and also the local variable x. Complete example It's easier to write functionnal-style code. As Sarah just said: 10 years from now everyone will realize how powerful functional programming is, then we'll be the masters of the universe!

#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
 
  std::vector<int> v =   1, 2, 3  ;
  // Show then increment
  std::for_each(v.begin(), v.end(), [](int& e)   std::cout << e++ << std::endl;  );
  // Show content now
  std::for_each(v.begin(), v.end(), [](int e)   std::cout << e << std::endl;  );
 return 0;
 

[1] Use g++-4.5 --std=c++0x to activate C++0x mode
[2] More complete g++ C++0x feature list available here

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned... or at least, not blogged for a looooong time. I've been reasonably busy, stopped working for Runtime Collective and started contracting for a small company in Portsmouth, it's been somewhat hectic, and the commute isn't brilliant, but it has given me a lot of time for reading... Really, mostly a lot of my time during the week is commuting, working, reading and sleeping, haven't had much time for anything else, and have mostly been knackered... I'm getting in to the habit now, though, so am getting a bit more time for getting on with other things. I have, however, gained a lot more fiction books in the last few months, and am averaging 2 or 3 books a week at the moment. Most enjoyed the first 2 books of the Demon Trilogy by Peter V Brett - have to wait till 2012 to get the last book, though - which is a loooong time! Actually, I seem to have made a habit of ending up starting trilogys recently where not all of the books are published, in the case of Feed by Mira Grant I managed to really screw up - not even the second book is due out until next year - but the first is really quite good. I've also got the first book of Mark C Newton's Legend of the Red Sun books, really enjoyed that, but am waiting for the second in paperback, as they're much easier to carry around and use on the tube. Have read the Millennium trilogy, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The first film, although a reasonable adaptation of the book, misses some good parts of the book, and doesn't leave you feeling as if you know the characters as much. Am also planning on working through all the Laundry books by Charles Stross, I picked up The Fuller Memorandum on a whim (OK, it was on a 2 for 1 in Waterstones...) and really enjoyed it, so am going to get the rest (when I start getting low on books again - I've currently got another 5 queued up, so it might not be for a couple of weeks). So, other than that, what have I been up to? Well, played the last bits of DLC for Assassins Creed 2 on the PS3, and thoroughly looking forward to the release of AC3, played most of the way through Lego Harry Potter, wandered about and saw people... you know, the usual things! Oh, and of course, August bank holiday weekend (28-30) were spent with good peoples at the ever fantastic Debian UK BBQ where much Nero was imbibed, many people spoken to, and some gpg signing done - as always many thanks to Steve McIntyre for a fantastic weekend, to Collabora and Mythic Beasts for the beer, and to antibodyMX and Coding Craft Ltd for the food (Oi, Pashley , stop being crap and sort out your company website...).

After a bit of work, I got the sheeva plug working the way I wanted it to. First of all, I grabbed a spare 1G USB flash disk I had laying around and installed Debian squeeze to it by following tbm s instructions here: http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/install.html After debian was installed to the USB disk, I removed it from the plug and used dd on my laptop to create an image of the filesystem. I mounted the filesystem as a loopback device and created a jffs2 partition image from it after doing a bit of minor tweaking. I placed the USB disk back in the plug and booted to it. Using this intermediate filesystem and the mtd-tools package, I wrote the new jffs2 image to the NAND mtd device. I then modified the uboot environment to suit, saved, and now have a working setup. Detailed instructions are below. pre-requisites Connect the plug to your network with the rj-45/cat5 cable. Connect a USB flash drive to the plug. I used a 1G drive, but 512M should be sufficient. Install the tftpd package on a machine on your network. You ll also need screen on the machine that you use to connect to the plug s serial terminal. I ll assume these are the same host. You need the IP address of the tftp server. In this example, we will assume that the IP is 192.168.1.2 and that you will assign 192.168.1.200 to the plug. $ sudo apt-get install tftpd screen Place uImage, uInitrd, and uBoot in the /srv/tftp directory: $ sudo wget -O /srv/tftp/uImage http://www.cyrius.com/tmp/beta1/marvell/sheevaplug/uImage
$ sudo wget -O /srv/tftp/uInitrd http://www.cyrius.com/tmp/beta1/marvell/sheevaplug/uInitrd
$ sudo wget -O /srv/tftp/uBoot http://wp.colliertech.org/cj/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/07/uboot.bin Connecting to the serial console We are now ready to boot the plug. Note that you have to be quick with the screen command. I recommend you type it out and get ready to press the enter key. You have to interrupt the bootloader in order to enter the u-boot console. Attach the power and immediately enter the following command: $ screen -S sheeva /dev/ttyUSB0 cs8,ixoff,115200 If you did this right, you should see a prompt like this: Marvell>> update uboot As per tbm s instructions, you can now update the uboot if needed. Instructions for that are here: http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/uboot-upgrade.html I ll put them inline here for completeness.

Marvell>> setenv serverip 192.168.1.2 # IP of your TFTP server
Marvell>> setenv ipaddr 192.168.1.200 # IP of the plug
Marvell>> bubt uboot.bin

be sure to answer n to the question about env parameters. Now reset the device. Don t forget to interrupt the bootloader so we can get back to the prompt:

Marvell>> reset

Let the device know that you will be running a mainline kernel and set the arcNumber:

Marvell>> setenv mainlineLinux yes
Marvell>> setenv arcNumber 2097
Marvell>> saveenv
Marvell>> reset

Install Debian to the USB disk Interrupt the boot process once more. We are now ready to run the debian installer. I ll leave the details as an exercise for the reader. The following should put you into the installer, which you are probably quite familiar with by now. NB: I will assume that you will use a single ext3 partition for the entire system. This will make it easier to build a jffs2 image out of the resultant partition on the USB disk.

Marvell>> setenv serverip 192.168.1.2
Marvell>> setenv ipaddr 192.168.1.147
Marvell>> tftpboot 0x01100000 uInitrd
Marvell>> tftpboot 0x00800000 uImage
Marvell>> setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200n8 base-installer/initramfs-tools/driver-policy=most
Marvell>> bootm 0x00800000 0x01100000

build a jffs2 image Once the installation has completed, power down the plug and remove the USB disk. Put the USB disk in the machine you used to get the console on the plug and note what device the kernel assigns to it. In my case, it was given sdc, so debian is installed to /dev/sdc1. I will use these values for this example. If the filesystem was automatically mounted, unmount it. Create a disk image of the partition and mount it as a loopback device.

$ sudo umount /dev/sdc1
$ dd if=/dev/sdc1 of=/tmp/debian.img
$ mkdir /tmp/mnt
$ sudo mount -o loop /tmp/debian.img /tmp/mnt

You can now remove the USB disk and return it to the plug. Modify the /etc/fstab file. The root filesystem will be /dev/mtdblock2 and of fs type jffs2. My fstab file looks like the following:

proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
/dev/mtdblock2 /               jffs2    errors=remount-ro 0       1

We can now create a jffs2 image from the mounted and altered fresh install:

$ sudo mkfs.jffs2 -l \
  -e 0x20000 \
  -X zlib \
  --eraseblock=128KiB \
  --pad \
  --output=/tmp/rootfs.jffs2 \
  --compression-mode=priority \
  -n \
  --squash \
  -r /tmp/mnt

write jffs2 to nand Now that we have an image to flash to the NAND, let s boot off of the USB disk. It should now be attached to the plug. Power on the plug and use screen to get a console. Interrupt the bootloader and enter the following commands:

Marvell>> setenv bootargs_console console=ttyS0,115200
Marvell>> setenv bootcmd_usb 'usb start; ext2load usb 0:1 0x01100000 /boot/uInitrd; ext2load usb 0:1 0x00800000 /boot/uImage'
Marvell>> setenv bootcmd 'setenv bootargs $(bootargs_console); run bootcmd_usb; bootm 0x00800000 0x01100000'
Marvell>> run bootcmd

Log in as root with the credentials you configured during the install. You will need to install a few packages in order to complete the nand flash. You can then ssh to the host on which you created the jffs2 image and cat it to stdout, piping this to nandwrite:

$ sudo apt-get install mtd-utils
$ ssh user@192.168.1.2 cat /tmp/rootfs.jffs2   sudo nandwrite /dev/mtd2 -p -

You now have a jffs2 image on the nand. Configure u-boot One more reboot to set u-boot s environment, and you will be done. Power down and remove the USB disk. Power on and get the serial console using screen. Break into the bootloader and enter the following commands:

Marvell>> setenv bootargs_console console=ttyS0,115200
Marvell>> setenv mtdpartitions mtdparts=orion_mtd:0x400000@0x100000(uImage),0x1fb00000@0x500000(rootfs)
Marvell>> setenv bootargs_root root=/dev/mtdblock2 rw rootfstype=jffs2
Marvell>> setenv bootcmd 'setenv bootargs $(bootargs_console) $(mtdpartitions) $(bootargs_root); nand read.e 0x00800000 0x00100000 0x00400000; bootm 0x00800000'
Marvell>> saveenv
Marvell>> reset

You should now be good to go.

The recent work by MWR Labs does a reasonable job showing Debian s poor pro-active security and why I am so frustrated about it: we have not been able to move very quickly at getting it enabled. While my hardening-includes package is available to maintainers that want to turn on protections for their builds, it s still a far cry from having it be distro-wide, and it doesn t protect people that build stuff by hand. We were able to solve this in Ubuntu very directly a while ago by improving the compiler itself. Since SSP and FORTIFY_SOURCE can only be confirmed (it s not possible without source analysis to see if it should have been enabled), it would be nice to see what binaries differed between distros on this. Most of the SSP disabled stuff are binaries that lack character arrays on the stack to begin with, and the FORTIFY_SOURCE stuff may have done all compile-time protections. The comments about other distributions could potentially enable it for a few more binaries is a bit misleading since, for all but Debian, both SSP and FORTIFY_SOURCE are enabled for all builds. I did appreciate the nod to Ubuntu for being the only distro without by-default PIE that built Firefox with PIE. Given that Firefox is the #2 most vulnerable piece of software in a desktop distro, it was important to do it. (The #1 most vulnerable is the kernel itself I m counting number of fixed CVEs for this stat.) The kernel analysis by MWR seems rather incomplete. Also, it s not clear to me which distros were running a PAE kernel, which would change some of the results. I didn t see any mention of several other userspace protections that the kernel can provide, for example:

• symlink and hardlink protections (Gentoo Hardened and Ubuntu 10.10 only)
• PTRACE protections (Gentoo Hardened and Ubuntu 10.10 only)

And a ton more that only Gentoo Hardened could boast, due to their use of grsecurity. I d also be curious to see performance comparisons, too. They compared 4 general-purpose distros against a tuned-specifically-for-security-hardening distro, which seems a bit unfair. How about comparing against vanilla Gentoo instead? I can tell you who would be best then. :)

Since the introduction of the 3.0 (quilt) source format, it is now possible to integrate multiple upstream tarballs in Debian source packages. This article will show you how to do the same with your own package shall you need it. It s quite useful to easily integrate supplementary plugins, translations, or documentation that the upstream developers are providing in separate tarballs. Step by step explanation We ll take the spamassassin source package as an example. The upstream version is 3.3.1. The main upstream tarball is named as usual (spamassassin_3.3.1.orig.tar.gz) and contains the top directory of our source package. We already have a debian directory because the package is not new. Upstream provides spamassassin rules in a separate tarball named Mail-SpamAssassin-rules-3.3.1.r901671.tgz. We grab it, rename it to spamassassin_3.3.1.orig-pkgrules.tar.gz and put it next to the main tarball. The pkgrules part is the component name that we choose to identify the tarball, it s also the name of the directory in which it will be extracted inside the source package. For now that directory doesn t exist yet so we must create it.

$ mv Mail-SpamAssassin-rules-3.3.1.r901671.tgz spamassassin_3.3.1.orig-pkgrules.tar.gz
$ cd spamassassin-3.3.1
$ mkdir pkgrules
$ tar -C pkgrules -zxf ../spamassassin_3.3.1.orig-pkgrules.tar.gz

This is already enough, the next time that you will build the source package, the supplementary tarball will be automatically integrated in the generated source package.

$ dpkg-buildpackage -S
[...]
 dpkg-source -b spamassassin-3.3.1
dpkg-source: info: using source format  3.0 (quilt)'
dpkg-source: info: building spamassassin using existing ./spamassassin_3.3.1.orig-pkgrules.tar.gz ./spamassassin_3.3.1.orig.tar.gz
dpkg-source: info: building spamassassin in spamassassin_3.3.1-1.debian.tar.gz
dpkg-source: info: building spamassassin in spamassassin_3.3.1-1.dsc

The supplementary tarball is now part of the source package but we re not making anything useful out of it. We have to modify debian/rules (or debian/spamassin.install) to install the new files in the binary package. A special case: bundling related software In very rare cases, you might want to create a bundle of several software (small perl modules for example) and you don t have any main tarball, you only have several small tarballs. Rename all the tarballs following the same logic as above and when building the source package you can ask dpkg-source to create an empty (and fake) main archive for you with the option --create-empty-orig:

$ dpkg-buildpackage -S --source-option=--create-empty-orig

Use with care as the version number you give to the bundle is what users will see and it s likely unrelated to the version number of each individual software. Common mistakes Forgetting to extract the supplementary tarball If you forget to extract the content of the supplementary tarball in the pkgrules directory, dpkg-source will emit lots of warnings about those files being deleted. In fact, you did not delete them but you only forgot to create them in the first place.

dpkg-source: warning: ignoring deletion of directory pkgrules
dpkg-source: warning: ignoring deletion of file pkgrules/20_fake_helo_tests.cf
dpkg-source: warning: ignoring deletion of file pkgrules/60_shortcircuit.cf
[...]

Using a bad version number for the supplementary tarball Sometimes the supplementary tarball has a version of its own that does not match the upstream version. You must still name the file in a way that matches the upstream version of the main tarball otherwise it will not be picked up by dpkg-source and it will generate a new patch in debian/patches/ containing the whole new directory. It s possible to encode the version number of the supplementary tarball in the component name (in our example above we could have picked pkgrules-r901671 as component name) but this means that the name of the associated directory will regularly change and you must adapt your packaging rules to cope with this. However this last trick has the benefit of being able to update the additional tarball without bumping the upstream version. A sourceful upload of a new revision of the package will be accepted by the archive: the main tarball is ignored since it s unchanged but the supplementary tarball is taken since it s a new file for the archive (it has a different filename). Be sure to move away old versions of the additional tarball when you do that if you don t want to upload several versions of the same tarball by mistake! Misextracting the supplementary tarball dpkg-source is very smart when it extracts the supplementary tarball and you should be as well when you manually extract it. If the tarball contains only a single top-level directory, that directory is extracted, renamed to match the component name and moved in the source package directory.
If the tarball contains several top-level files or directories, then the target directory is first created and the content of the archive is directly extracted into that directory. Here are commands to install the files in both cases (we re already in the source package directory):

$ mkdir pkgrules
# Archive contains a single top-level directory
$ tar -C pkgrules --strip-components=1 -zxf ../spamassassin_3.3.1.orig-pkgrules.tar.gz
# Archive contains many top-level entries
$ tar -C pkgrules -zxf ../spamassassin_3.3.1.orig-pkgrules.tar.gz

2 comments Support my work

I started to give flattr a try, too. It is a social micropayment site and the similarity of its name to the verb flatter is on intention. It is meant to say thanks in small amounts month by month to "things" you like. One such thing I created is my blog you can find the link to it below every entry. To be able to flattr someone one needs to create an account on the site and put money into their account. After that it's possible to follow the flattr button links. If you are reading my blog on my site and have JavaScript enabled you just have to click the flattr part of the image (not the number) to do so. If you are reading it through my feed or with JavaScript disabled you will have to click a second time on the flattr site to make the flattring happen. Another thing I've created is Debian BTS: cleaning up. I use this link in my mails to the Debian BTS for my stable RC cleanup efforts, or general proper closing of bugs that aren't getting archived. Through the help of UDD I've created me helpful overview pages of bugs that need attention for this. The third thing I've created is Package Maintenance. If you are a fan of one of the packages I maintain and want to thank me for taking proper care of it, feel free to also click this one. Please be aware that this shouldn't be seen as an Upstream appreciation if one of the projects I package for Debian uses flattr themself then you should definitely (also) consider flattring them for their own. About Upstream projects that use flattr: One of the packages I invest quite a lot of effort into started using flattr: wesnoth. They have put the flattr button on their entry page at wesnoth.org, here is the direct link to their first and general thing: The Battle for Wesnoth. Please be reminded that the things you did flattr in a previous month can again be flattred the next month. This is especially true for general purpose things like what I am using currently. Others might create things for every single blog entry, or very specific tasks, to allow people to flattr them more often in a month and get a bigger share of the cake. So keep in mind which things are general ones and consider returning to them. Enjoy!

/debian permanent link Comments: 1

After a semi-recent thread on debian-devel, I poked around and realized that I'd never actually gotten around to formally announcing the release of source code for Selectricity, a piece of web-based election software designed to allow for preferential decision-making and to provide "election machinery for the masses." Selectricity is useful for a range of decisions but it targets all those quick little decisions that we might want to decide preferentially but where running a vote would be overkill. Things were delayed through a drawn out set of negotiations with the MIT Technology Licensing Office over how to release the code under a free software license of my choosing. I was swamped when things finally came through. Over time, I managed to forget that I never did a formal announcement, never setup a mailing list, and never did all those things that I have tried to teach other people in the Free Software Project Management HOWTO. Code just sort of appeared on my website under the GNU Affero General Public License. It was until the debian-devel thread that I remembered I'd never made a formal announcement. Sorry about that! The git repository has been online and accessible through searches for more than a year now. Most folks who wanted the code seem to have been able to find it there. Indeed, a number of people have set up their own instances and a few have submitted patches to the code! But more visibility for the source means more empowered users, more visibility for free software, and more developers. So I've shipped all the code into a project in Gitorious (its like GitHub, except free), announced things on the Selectricity Blog, changed the Selectricity footer of to include a prominent link to the source. I've also created a mailing list. The Gitorious project page includes a wiki. I also want to mention this all here because the attention of the current development team seems mostly to have moved on to other projects. The current team seems able to keep the hosted version up and running, and even gets around to little improvements now and then, but there's definitely room for new life and new leadership. There are some nearly-complete and "complete minus further testing" features in the development tree that might provide low hanging fruit for folks interested in elections and decision-making who might want to get involved in Selectricity development. If you're interested and know (or want to learn) Rails, feel free to check out the code, introduce yourself on the list or contact team@selectricity.org to coordinate.

This summer of 2010 has been memorable. It started with a difficult period following the hospitalization and death of my mother, a series of very intense and equally memorable conferences catapulting me out of my funk and ending with a trip to Ireland, perhaps one of my most pleasant trips ever. I have always wanted to go there, as I have some good Irish friends and I was also quite attracted to the place due to its history, so when the opportunity came for me to go, I did not hesitate to book my ticket. I was not left disappointed in any way, shape or form, although since I barely experienced the gray, misty, and rainy weather Irish is famous for, my experience may admittedly be a bit skewed. These are some of things I did and some of my fragmented thoughts about Ireland and some photos, proof that the weather was UnIrish Ireland and The Irish: Well I can t as no one can speak of The Irish as if they were some unitary group but I did learn a lot about Irish history and managed hang out with a number Irish folks (even a family) and one thing that seems to mark Ireland as distinct, what makes it stand out from the rest of its Western European brothers and sisters, is the pervasive sense of history bleeding into the ambiance, perhaps because it is so tragic. The short version of the history, if you don t know it, is that the Irish, especially the Catholics, got repeatedly screwed by the British monarchs/rulers/planters/government/ for nearly a thousand years, the last five hundred of those being particularly harsh and ugly, a cycle of slight gains crushed by various forms of tyranny and violence at least until part of the country achieved independence (Northern Ireland is a bit of a different story). I may have gone a bit out of my way to learn about Irish history, more than I have done for any other place, but this historical consciousness seemed to be inescapable, precipitating into all sorts of conversations and places. To take one example, I went to see Gaelic Football, one of the two beloved national sports (the other being hurling), and the minute you learn anything about this sport, you learn that it is intimately bound with the Irish fight for independence and nationalism. The Irish are also very warm, kind, and outgoing. They also seem to curse an awful lot as well, so much so cursing is a bit of a national pastime, which yes, I (f*cking) loved as I tend to have a bit of a foul mouth myself, curbed I will admit, in recent years and in the classroom. It crept up in a lot of places but was most pronounced during the All Ireland Semi-Final Gaelic football game when the ladies (not lads, mind you) behind me were constantly yelling at the referee, hurling the c-word (rhymes with trunk) whenever they made a call they disagreed with. EASA/Maynooth.: I went to Ireland to attend the largest Anthropological meetings in Europe, and in specific an all day panel on digital anthropology, which seemed like a great opportunity given we are a a bit of a minority. The conference was impressively large with roughly 1200 attendees (can you believe there are that many anthropologists?), smoothly run, and the all-day panel on digital media was quite lively and I got to meet some really interesting folks. I was a tad sad to find out Maynooth is the only university in Ireland with an Anthropology department (for crying shame lads!!!) but at least it is located in a darn stunning university: the old quarters of the campus are strikingly beautiful. Anonymous: I have done some work on Anonymous and well when I found out there was going to be a raid/protest at the Church of Scientology (a pretty dismal, and run down church), I got in contact with Irish anon to let them know I was coming. Although someone first decapitated me (at least in character with their norms, right?), when I showed up in person, they were not only civil but really quite hospitable (greeting me with one of my favorite songs). Overall it was a great day. I was reminded of important differences among Anons (Irish Anon s take their anonymity pretty seriously, the New York Anons do not) and also good to experience the social life and metabolism of a protest, especially one attended by folks who have lost family to the church. Dublin: Since I stayed with my friend and his family in Dublin, this is where I spent most of my time. I was able to hook up with various friends, including one from graduate school who just got back from years of fieldwork in Rwanda and hearing about his experiences and stunning but stunningly sad project made me feel like mine in comparison was Child s Play (in fact, it really was). I got to see the Debian crew (many who work at Google) and I finally paid a visit to the office, which was exactly how I imagined it to be (good and abundant food, good lighting, lots of toys and bikes, lots of Star Wars posters.. Yep, it could have been in Silicon Valley). But I was surprised at the young age of the marketing and sales folks who were hanging in their lounge when I ran into them. In fact when I saw them I thought like I was looking at my freshman class or something! It was great to see the Debian folks (though no one I met was actually Irish), as well, one of my favorite things to do whenever I visit a foreign city. I walked my heart out in the city getting a blister in a shoe that I thought was blister proof and while not as picturesque as some other European cities, it has a ton of character and no shortage of Guinness and pubs (no surprise there). My favorite places/things were: The National Library (great exhibit on Yeats, but make sure to use the multi-media as that is where all the information is stuffed), St. Stephen s Park (overflowing with chubby ducks and lovely flowers), the prison Kilmainham Gaol (would not advise a visit if you are feeling in any way down, there is some heavy shit you learn during the tour), the simple stained glass that seemed pretty common, and finally the Long Room in Trinity Church, which you enter after the Book of Kells (I realized just how much I adore books when I visited this old library stuffed from floor to ceiling with old old old books). The West Coast: I did not think I was going to head out west but after hurricane Earl started its burst along the eastern Seaboard and I was able to change my ticket for free so I stayed a few more days. I went to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher both totally stunning, really majestic. As is often the case with these type of these natural wonders, I am often left elated and awed but such strikingly wondrous places also seem to subsequently spur a more melancholic state of mind and heart. Friends, Family, and Dogs: While in Dublin I stayed with my friend A. and his extremely hospitable family, which included, a brother, a father, and three Irish mutts, one of which, Buster (pitt bull/lab mix), pretty much stole my heart. Buster s true love, is food, so much so he almost poised himself to death a little while back snorting down something he shouldn t have costing the family a pretty penny to save him. My friend no longer lives there but came from Berlin and it was a real treat to not only spend days layered upon each other with a friend (it has been an awful long since I have done that outside of conferences) but also meet his family. You learn a lot about your friends that way and in this case, there is some serious and I mean serious intellectual jousting that happens, sometimes bordering on warfare but generally it plays out in more contained, civil and fascinating fashion. Now I understand why my friend is armed with seemingly endless knowledge: it was needed for purposes of defense at home. So in essence, a great, great trip and a fantastic way to end a memorable summer and transition into what I hope will be a bit of a monkish (I call it monk mode) period for this academic year. I am (so so so) fortunate enough to have a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study and am going to try my darnest to take advantage of the fact I am not teaching (Hell Yes!) and hide away and accomplish all that I have set out to do.

We will celebrate Independency Day here in Brazil tomorrow (the year was 1822 for those into world history). I took the time to visit Belo Horizonte and meet a few googlers I don't see in a while. The cool part is that Rodrigo and his wife Ellen are also in town. We (me and Rodrigo) used to work in the same team at Google here in Belo, he's now living in Zurich.

I've been using IPv6 on my rootserver for some time now. Last week I migrated to a new rootserver and copied my domU/VM instances over to the new hardware. Everything is working fine so far - except IPv6. The network setup is the same as on the old server: the external interface is eth0. The domU/VMs are hooked up to a bridge, called xenbr0. There's another bridge for internal communication: xenbr1. The dom0/Xen host itself seems reachable via IPv6. The /48 subnet is provided by Sixxs and is using a static 6-to-4 tunnel. But the VMs are not reliable reachable, although it is setup in the same way as it was on the old server and where it was working like a charme. The configs of the hosts are these:

Xen dom0

config	old server	new server
System	Debian Etch 2.6.18-6-xen-amd64 linux-image-2.6.18-6-xen-amd64 linux-modules-2.6.18-6-xen-amd64 xen-hypervisor-3.0.3-1-amd64 xen-ioemu-3.0.3-1 xen-linux-system-2.6.18-6-xen-amd64 xen-tools xen-utils-3.0.3-1 xen-utils-common	Debian Squeeze 2.6.32-5-xen-amd64 libxenstore3.0 linux-image-2.6.32-5-xen-amd64 xen-hypervisor-4.0-amd64 xen-linux-system-2.6.32-5-xen-amd64 xen-tools xen-utils-4.0 xen-utils-common xenstore-utils xenwatch
/etc/sysctl.conf	net.ipv4.ip_forward=1 net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1 net.ipv4.conf.default.proxy_arp=1	net.ipv4.ip_forward=1 net.ipv4.ip_syncookies=1 net.ipv4.conf.all.rp_filter=1 net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts=1
/etc/xen/xend-config.sxp	(network-script network-route) (vif-script vif-bridge) (dom0-min-mem 196) (dom0-cpus 0)	(vif-script vif-bridge) (network-script network-route) (dom0-min-mem 196) (enable-dom0-ballooning yes) (total_available_memory 0) (dom0-cpus 2) (vncpasswd '')
/etc/network/interfaces	# device: eth0 auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 85.10.209.30 broadcast 85.10.209.31 netmask 255.255.255.224 up route add -net 85.10.209.0 netmask 255.255.255.224 gw 85.10.209.1 eth0 true up ip route add 85.10.209.0/28 via 85.10.209.1 src 85.10.209.30 true up route add default gw 85.10.209.1 true auto xenbr0 iface xenbr0 inet static address 85.10.209.30 netmask 255.255.255.224 pre-up brctl addbr xenbr0 up route add -net 78.47.85.144/29 dev xenbr0 true up ip -6 r a 2001:6f8:90e:145::1/64 via 2001:6f8:90e:1:216:3eff:fe55:197c dev xenbr0 true up ip -6 r a 2001:6f8:90e:146::1/64 via 2001:6f8:90e:1:216:3eff:fe2f:481d dev xenbr0 true up ip -6 r a 2001:6f8:90e:147::1/64 via 2001:6f8:90e:1:216:3eff:fe60:68be dev xenbr0 true up ip -6 r a 2001:6f8:90e:a100::1/64 via 2001:6f8:90e:1:216:3eff:fe70:be dev xenbr0 true auto xenbr1 iface xenbr1 inet static address 192.168.x.254 netmask 255.255.255.0 pre-up brctl addbr xenbr1 # some internal IPv4 routing auto sixxs iface sixxs inet6 v4tunnel address 2001:6f8:900:c6e::2 netmask 64 endpoint 212.224.0.188 local 85.10.209.30 ttl 64 up ip link set mtu 1280 dev sixxs true up ip route add default via 2001:6f8:900:c6e::1 dev sixxs true up ip -6 route flush dev eth0 true up ip -6 r a 2001:6f8:90e::/48 dev xenbr0 true down ip -6 route flush dev sixxs true	# device: eth0 auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 178.63.83.84 broadcast 178.63.83.127 netmask 255.255.255.192 gateway 178.63.83.65 # default route to access subnet up route add -net 178.63.83.64 netmask 255.255.255.192 gw 178.63.83.65 eth0 auto xenbr0 iface xenbr0 inet static address 178.63.83.84 netmask 255.255.255.192 pre-up brctl addbr xenbr0 up route add -host 178.63.83.104 dev xenbr0 true up route add -host 178.63.83.105 dev xenbr0 true up route add -host 178.63.83.106 dev xenbr0 true up ip route add 178.63.123.128/26 dev xenbr0 true up ip -6 r a 2001:6f8:90e:145::1/64 via 2001:6f8:90e:1:216:3eff:fe89:6c31 dev xenbr0 true up ip -6 r a 2001:6f8:90e:146::1/64 via 2001:6f8:90e:1:216:3eff:fedc:af5f dev xenbr0 true up ip -6 r a 2001:6f8:90e:147::1/64 via 2001:6f8:90e:1:216:3eff:fe08:8f40 dev xenbr0 true up ip -6 r a 2001:6f8:90e:a100::1/64 via 2001:6f8:90e:1:216:3eff:fe70:be dev xenbr0 true auto xenbr1 iface xenbr1 inet static address 192.168.x.254 netmask 255.255.255.0 pre-up brctl addbr xenbr1 # some internal IPv4 routing auto sixxs iface sixxs inet6 v4tunnel address 2001:6f8:900:c6e::2 netmask 64 endpoint 212.224.0.188 local 178.63.83.84 ttl 64 up ip link set mtu 1280 dev sixxs true up ip route add default via 2001:6f8:900:c6e::1 dev sixxs true up ip -6 route flush dev eth0 true up ip -6 r a 2001:6f8:90e::/48 dev xenbr0 true down ip -6 route flush dev sixxs true

The config of one of the Xen domUs is this:

sample domU config

config	old server	new server
system	Debian Lenny 2.6.18-6-xen-amd64	Debian Lenny 2.6.32-5-xen-amd64
/etc/sysctl.conf	net.ipv4.conf.default.rp_filter=1 net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies=1 net.ipv4.conf.default.forwarding=1 net.ipv6.conf.default.forwarding=1 net.ipv4.conf.eth0.proxy_arp=1 net.ipv4.conf.default.proxy_arp=1 kernel.shmmax=268435456	net.ipv4.conf.default.rp_filter=1 net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies=1 net.ipv4.conf.default.forwarding=1 net.ipv4.conf.all.forwarding=1 net.ipv6.conf.default.forwarding=1 net.ipv4.conf.eth0.proxy_arp=1 net.ipv4.conf.default.proxy_arp=1 kernel.shmmax=268435456
/etc/network/interfaces	# The primary network interface auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 78.47.85.145 netmask 255.255.255.248 up ip route add 85.10.209.0/27 dev eth0 up route add default gw 85.10.209.30 dev eth0 up ip -6 address add 2001:6f8:90e:145::1/64 dev eth0 true up ip -6 route add default via 2001:6f8:90e:1::1 true up iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 192.168.x.96/27 -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE true iface eth0 inet6 static address 2001:6f8:90e:145::1 netmask 64 gateway 2001:6f8:90e:1::1 auto eth1 iface eth1 inet static address 192.168.x.1 netmask 255.255.255.0	# The primary network interface auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 178.63.83.104 gateway 178.63.83.84 netmask 255.255.255.192 broadcast 178.63.83.127 up ip -6 address add 2001:6f8:90e:145::1/64 dev eth0 true up ip -6 route add default via 2001:6f8:90e:1::1 src 2001:6f8:90e:1:216:3eff:fe89:6c31 true up iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 192.168.x.96/27 -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE true iface eth0 inet6 static address 2001:6f8:90e:145::1 netmask 64 gateway 2001:6f8:90e:1::1 auto eth1 iface eth1 inet static address 192.168.x.1 netmask 255.255.255.0

The dom0 seems to be reachable via IPv6 just perfectly fine. When trying to reach the domU I see packets going through the xenbr0 bridge and reaching the domU eth0 interface. The ICMP6 echo request packets (proto 58) are unanswered there, no echo replies. Strange enough it seems to work from time to time, but mostly not. I've also tried to set a generic default route like ip -6 route add default dev eth0, but still no improvement. Did I miss something when migrating to the new server? Is there any mistake in the configs? Any suggestions are appreciated! :-) UPDATE:
This is a tcpdump from the domU, doing a ping from dom0:

07:35:29.308261 IP6 fe80::e46d:25ff:fe1f:317b > ip6-allnodes: ICMP6, router advertisement, length 56
07:35:29.329411 IP6 gate-hro.ip6.windfluechter.net > vserv.windfluechter.net: ICMP6, echo request, seq 45, length 64
07:35:30.329439 IP6 gate-hro.ip6.windfluechter.net > vserv.windfluechter.net: ICMP6, echo request, seq 46, length 64
07:35:30.451991 IP6 2001:418:4001:3::c657:b0c5 > vserv.windfluechter.net: ICMP6, echo request, seq 52836, length 64
07:35:30.481124 IP6 fe80::e46d:25ff:fe1f:317b > ff02::1:ff70:be: ICMP6, neighbor solicitation, who has 2001:6f8:90e:1:216:3eff:fe70:be, length 32
07:35:31.329906 IP6 gate-hro.ip6.windfluechter.net > vserv.windfluechter.net: ICMP6, echo request, seq 47, length 64
07:35:31.481645 IP6 fe80::e46d:25ff:fe1f:317b > ff02::1:ff70:be: ICMP6, neighbor solicitation, who has 2001:6f8:90e:1:216:3eff:fe70:be, length 32
07:35:32.329284 IP6 gate-hro.ip6.windfluechter.net > vserv.windfluechter.net: ICMP6, echo request, seq 48, length 64
07:35:32.481114 IP6 fe80::e46d:25ff:fe1f:317b > ff02::1:ff70:be: ICMP6, neighbor solicitation, who has 2001:6f8:90e:1:216:3eff:fe70:be, length 32
07:35:33.329951 IP6 gate-hro.ip6.windfluechter.net > vserv.windfluechter.net: ICMP6, echo request, seq 49, length 64
07:35:34.329705 IP6 gate-hro.ip6.windfluechter.net > vserv.windfluechter.net: ICMP6, echo request, seq 50, length 64

UPDATE #2:
The issue is finally solved. The solution can be found here.

I'm swinging on the front porch shade, with happy wifi bars lit up on my laptop. A good network makes for a happy home, isn't that how the saying goes? (Maybe not yet.) Typically that's easy to achieve -- here it wasn't. The house is solar powered, the only connection to the outside is a phone line. So I needed a computer that would work in that environment, using minimal (12 volt) power, and getting the most out of the limited bandwidth while providing those happy wifi bars. At DebConf we learned that the name for these little home servers we have been building for years is "FreeDomBox". All right then, here's my latest FreedomBox build.

A typical inexplicable tangle of computer bits.

• Computer: NSLU2. There are faster choices than the "Slug", but on dialup, speed doesn't much matter, and there are not many lower-powered choices. And with the NSLU2, I can take advantage of years of development and experience, that has resulted in great support for running eg, Debian on it, and deep available knowledge of hardware hacks. It's proven, cheap, highly reliable hardware, and I had it lying around.
• Power: The NSLU2 is a 5 volt computer. There are some highly (90%) efficient 12 volt to 5 volt converters, which I covet. But the cheap and easy option is a automotive USB power adapter. So power is coming in to the NSLU2 on a USB cable. It's possible to just plug that into its usb port and it will run. But that wastes a port. Instead, I made the other end of the usb cable have a NSLU2 power socket on it. So, no wasted ports. The system has available as many amps as the voltage converter supplies. Not many. Booting it with too many usb gadgets attached could be an issue. (If I need to run an external usb hard drive, it had better have its own power supply.)
• Wireless: ZyDAS 2501 USB dongle. Not my first choice, just one I had lying around. This device cannot run in AP mode. It is, by the way, possible to use some USB dongles in AP mode with a modified hostapd, but the few I know that work are out of stock. No problem; this house won't have many visitors, and I can tell them the details for connecting using Ad-Hoc wireless mode.
• Storage: 64 gb thumb drive I had lying around. Hmm, last time I touched a NSLU2, I had only 1 gb drives lying around. Progress.
• Modem: My NSLU2 is modified to have an external serial port, so I can use an external modem if desired. But I suspect a USB modem will use slightly less power, even though this third USB device means I need a USB hub too. I was doubtful about finding a USB modem dongle that works with Linux, but it was actually no problem, the USR5637 Just Works.
• Software: Debian Linux of course. For the first time I'm using the polipo web proxy cache, and it works marvelously on dialup and on this low-spec system. Combined with dnsmasq, this makes web browsing over dialup actually not painful.

Since the solar house is in the sticks, the result is a server I call "stick".

Been playing with that thought for a while now, finally got to rebuilding it for lenny, now I m using it tmux is the new screen. To have fun already I read a few short introductions and got myself a few suggestions for a proper .tmux.conf. So, for root I have this one now: # Copy mode
unbind [
bind Escape copy-mode
# Use Vi mode
setw -g mode-keys vi
# Make mouse useful in copy mode
setw -g mode-mouse on
# More straight forward key bindings for splitting
unbind %
bind split-window -h
bind h split-window -h
unbind '"'
bind - split-window -v
bind v split-window -v
# History
set -g history-limit 4000
# Terminal emulator window title
set -g set-titles on
set -g set-titles-string '#S:#I.#P #W'
# Status Bar
set -g status-bg black
set -g status-fg white
set -g status-interval 1
set -g status-left '#[fg=green]#H#[default]'
# no line break here, it's just to long for my blog layout!
set -g status-right '#[fg=yellow]#(cut -d " " -f 1-4 /proc/loadavg)#[default] #[fg=cyan,bold]%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S#[default]'
# Notifying if other windows has activities
setw -g monitor-activity on
set -g visual-activity on
# Highlighting the active window in status bar
setw -g window-status-current-bg red
# Clock
setw -g clock-mode-colour green
setw -g clock-mode-style 24
# Create a default session
new -n htop -d htop
setw -t htop monitor-activity off
neww -n aptitude -d aptitude
neww -d Then I added a new alias to my user s zsh config: alias root='su -c "tmux attach"' Why tmux attach ? Because tmux would start a new session which I don t want it to. The config already starts a session which we can immediately attach to. Also, when such session was started I can attach to it as a user with the very same command over and over again. That makes it pretty handy as I always have htop, aptitude and a free shell available in a nice tmux session. Great. How did I live until now? ;-)

Long time no see Not much hacking in the last few months. Not much ranting either (some of you I m sure will appreciate ;-). Anyway, I recently grew excited to learn that ZFS is coming to Debian. I decided to bite the bullet, patched the missing bits in GRUB and Parted, a few small changes in D-I and there s now a modified Debian Installer with ZFS support for you to play with. Enjoy! Note1: I didn t have time or interest in warping D-I into the N:1:M model used in ZFS. Instead, this installer assumes each zpool has exactly one device and exactly one filesystem. However, you can later add more devices ( zpool attach ) or create new filesystems in the same pool ( zfs create ). Note2: Don t ask for i386, it was intentionally left out. ZFS is designed with modern CPUs in mind. It can work on i386 with special tuning but I don t want to encourage users to do this unless they re well aware of what they re doing.

Two updates for Debian today.

I'm the upstream for psmisc and 22.13 finally got released, which also meant 22.13-1 Debian package got released too. There was some delay to it (see below why) but it is now out. Unless you run a mips or superH architecture, there is not really any exciting changes, but should make it compile for those two architectures and then at least get the mips buildd underway so the versions all line up.

Secondly, gjay had two minor bug fixes and was updated. If the analysis daemon kept playing music instead of looking at it or the vorbis files were not being recognised, then this new version will help there. The mpg123 command line patch will be rolled into the upstream too.

I'm also working on getting gjay to work with the Exaile player. If you want it to work with your player the easiest thing is to send me patches or code snippets that do the following:

• Detect your player is running
• Can give me the currently played song, preferably the filename of it. Exaile doesn't so I'll put it a kludge to guess it from title and artist
• Remotely send a playlist to your player and get the player to start

Last of all, my second son was born last week. It's back to those night feeds again and is probably why I've not written as much code as I normally would; but I wouldn't change that either.

Emdebian Grip 1.0.1 (based on Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.6) is now available.

Emdebian Grip is binary-compatible with Debian, providing smaller packages for use on embedded devices. Emdebian Grip selects a subset of Debian packages and removes documentation and other non-binary content without recompiling the source code. Currently, Emdebian Grip supports amd64, arm, armel, i386, mips, mipsel and powerpc in the stable distribution. ARM support will be dropped in the next stable release in favour of armel.

This is the first update of the stable distribution Emdebian Grip (based on Debian GNU/Linux 5.0), bringing Emdebian Grip up to date with Debian 5.0.6. This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustment to serious problems.

Please note that this update does not constitute a new version of Emdebian Grip 1.0 or Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 but only updates some of the packages included. Systems will upgrade to 1.0.1 via the Emdebian mirror after an installation.

For more details on the changes within Debian through 5.0.1, 5.0.2, 5.0.3, 5.0.4, 5.0.5 and now 5.0.6, see the Debian news website.

As well as updates to packages which already existed in Emdebian Grip 1.0, the update includes many new packages, including apache2, aspell and variants, and matchbox.

e.g. 822 packages were released for armel in Emdebian 1.0; this update increases that number to 1,297.

Long ago I've set up a small but occasionally useful service on merkel: Debian Official Kernel Configuration files. It extracts and stores the configuration files from all kernel packages ever uploaded to the archive (does not seem to work particularly well with stuff uploaded to experimental though). Now that merkel is going away, this service is likely going to die. If you care about things like that, and would like to see it continue beyond merkel's demise, feel free to grab the script code and historical config files, and set it up elsewhere (it's not likely that I'm going to bother).

* It is same old life, apart from: + Guitar is going good. Learning first thing apart from computer in life + Learning C++ and openFrameworks for helping friend for project. More details later.. * Packages: + I ve uploaded Gwibber 2 after waiting for ages to experimental now. Now, OAuth sucked life from all previous version of Gwibber stable version will not have twitter working. I m thinking what can be best solution for that. + Code::Blocks is with me now. I m talking to upstream to do better things with license issues. It will not make to stable, but backport version is planned. * Kavin: + Arr. He can reach to my any books, gadgets and even laptop.