Sunday afternoon I came back from the QA meeting in M rida (Spain).
I host some of the pictures on my machine: http://www.marioiseli.com/stuff/qa-extremadura-2007/
(thanks to Cyril Brulebois for the pics)
As I have written to debian-devel-announce yesterday, I was mostly working on MIA stuff, it was also great to have some personal discussions with several DDs. I hope that there will be such a great meeting again, maybe next year. 
Monday in the evening I got a phonecall from the company where I had a personal interview last tuesday. They can adopt my apprenticeship. Yay… There are several reasons why I want to leave my current workplace (Stadt Grenchen): I have almost nothing to do, I learn nothing anymore, some people in my team were an interpersonal catastrophe, noone knows what the work “responsibility” means. I don’t want to go into the detail, but at least they reached that I got several nervous breakdowns, ending at the doctor wednesday afternoon. As I told, my nerves are down, I can’t sleep during the night here, motivation for life was down in the cave. This week I don’t need to work at all (medical certificate) and the next 2 weeks only 50%, so enough time to relax and get healthy again.
Also thanks to my girlfriend Lisa for always being there for me… Tomorrow we will be a pair for already 4 months, Tempus fugit…
Regards,
Everyone knows that Webmin is nasty - it does things in wrong way on a pure and nice Debian (and Ubuntu) systems and for some reason is not included in Debian (post-sarge) or Ubuntu. That does not inspire confidence in a root-running web based software to say the least.
Today I went for the second time[1] to emag's service[2] to have my laptop's[*] battery replaced since it was powering the laptop only for 15 (yes, fifteen) minutes. This after only 11 months since I bought the laptop[**].
The german government (that is the CDU CSU and SPD partys) passed a law that
would require communication providers to keep connection data for half a year.
This data retention includes phone calls, emails and internet connection data
such as IP addresses.This law was passed as a "preventive" step against terrorism, mostly. Which is
such an hilariously bad argumentation, actually.This is a serious step towards total surveillance, and is considered to be
unconstitutional by many. Amongst others, it seriously undermines
Confidentiality protection for e.g. priests, lawyers, doctors and journalists.
Apart from opening the doors for total surveillance, of course and not having
any desireable effect when it comes to preventing crimes, especially
terrorism.
Over 20.000 people already have already signed a complaint of
unconstitutionality to be handed in at the Federal Constitutional Court in
germany. This would then be the biggest complaint of unconstitutionality in the
(short) history of the Federal republic of Germany. (1300 people complained
1983 against the census, which led to privacy protection becoming considered a
key role of the german constitution)Right now, the law is waiting to be signed by the German state president (and
we hope that he might refuse to sign it). Once it has take effect, the
complaint can be handed in.Web page with further
information.If you are a German resident, please join the 20.000+ others who have already
signed a mandate for the
complaint
of unconstitutionality. Deadline is December 24th.It's our freedom we're fighting for!
Okay, so any excuse to bring out the Laphroaig is fine by me, but
the cute little eeePC is better than most. That it’s cute and popular
is all very well, but what really makes my day is this is the first
device I’ve seen that both doesn’t hide the fact it’s running Linux,
and is available in maintstream stores in Australia. A random review
from the Sydney Morning Herald:
You also don’t get Windows. Asus has adopted the free Linux operating system that’s been slowly yet steadily growing in popularity over the past decade. This keeps the cost down and makes better use of its relatively modest hardware, which would creak under the weight of Windows. It does mean not being able to use your favourite Windows software but, fortunately, the Eee PC comes with dozens of programs, including the familiar Firefox web browser and Skype for online phone calls.That came out on the day the eeePC was released in Australia. Three days later, they did a followup:
Taiwan computer maker Asus might have underestimated the local demand for its diminutive Eee PC, as the $499 laptop is now virtually sold out in Australia.From that, there’s a brief take on who’s actually buying them:
“We’ve had customers coming in buying two or three units for the family - the mix of customer has been probably novices more than the tech types,” he said.It’s really good to see that Linux is getting credit in pretty much all those stories, no matter how mainstream. Xandros is pretty rarely mentioned, and I don’t think I’ve seen Debian mentioned yet. But even without the credit, it’s still pretty cool that with the eeePC and Dell’s trysting with Ubuntu, the real in-roads to pre-installed consumer Linux these days are building on Debian. I’d always expected that Red Hat or SuSE or someone with more commercial muscle would get through that door first (they’ve certainly had box sets more readily available!), but apparently elitist, freedom obsessed, techno-geekery actually works better, somehow. At least when there’s a company to put a smiley face in front of it all :) The other interesting thing about choosing Xandros, is that it presumably means the eeePC is covered by Microsoft’s patent protection scheme – which means no baseless threats against eeePC users from Microsoft, but also that Microsoft’s probably getting a cut of whatever Xandros receives from each eeePC sale. Whether you think that’s a problem or not, the result is probably going to be that it’s the thin edge of the wedge: it’s removed Microsoft from blocking a Linux preinstall on consumer hardware, which means we can see that regular people like Linux systems enough that they sell out in days. And that means Linux systems are a fact of life, and if Microsoft try to stop them by making it difficult for you to sell Windows systems, well, that’ll just make it difficult to sell Windows systems – which is another win for Linux. And once you get to the point where the argument for paying off Microsoft doesn’t rely on keeping your OEM deal for Windows, but is just a matter of whether their patents are actually valid… Oh, also nice from the promoting free software angle, is that the first thing you see if you decide to visit Asus’s eeePC site to check the gizmo is the news item:
2007.11.27 ASUSTek is committed to meet the requirements of the GNU General…Add the fact that an eeePC running a Debian-derivative has access to all the software in the Debian repositories for no cost, and the new government’s planned rebates and investments in IT probably mean that parents can get close to a full refund, and you’re getting pretty close to a choice of spending nothing and getting a popular, reasonably functional and very portable laptop with all the software you could ever want, that just happens to be running Linux, or paying an extra few hundred or thousand dollars to get a Windows laptop, and then probably pirating whatever software you end up needing. In any event, to my mind, that makes 2007 the year of the Linux on the desktop: everything from here is just a simple matter of quantity. What’s next?
Yes, yes, I know I already said so, and surely in a more visible site, and even he also announced his victory over DAMnation... But still, having more Mexicans in this little project I call home makes me very happy. So, welcome on board, Rodrigo!
)
I'm pleased my home state of Queensland (which bills itself as the Smart
State) has finally decided to start
fluoridating its water, a move the rest of the country made back in the
1960's and 1970's.
Hardly surprising I guess, when the No campaign for a referendum on daylight
saving involved a fear of the curtains
fading from that extra hour of sunlight...
I remember when I was little, my Mum used to give me fluoride tablets.
Dentists to this day, who have known I've grown up in Brisbane, have
remarked how they can tell by my teeth that I've had fluoride as a kid.
Apparently ones teeth are noticeably different (for the better) if fluoride
has been involved.
* I was too tired to write this yesterday. Yes, it was very hectic day (but great fun!). Things started very well. Sam and Bubulle did great presentations (specially, this slide from bubulle’s presentation!).
Problem with G0SUB’s laptop lead our workshop in very bad situation but Karunakar’s laptop made life easy by some percent! Thanks to him!!
Personally, I will not say anything about last two talks, but we have to be very careful next time 
* Congrats to Varun for being 4th Indian Debian Developer! Yeppie!
Seth Oster, executive VP and chief communications officer of the MPAA, told Ars that the notice came over the Thanksgiving holiday when their offices were closed. "As soon as we came back and discovered that there had been someone who had raised some concerns, we removed the software," Oster said. "Anytime anyone raises any reasonable concern we look at it because we take copyright very seriously at the MPAA." He also denied Garret's assertions that the ISP was involved in the takedown, saying that the MPAA chose to take the toolkit offline.
I've set up a quick rebuildd demo. It may allow you to rebuild one of your package on etch/lenny/sid and for amd64/i386 as you wish. You will get build log by email.
I've just wrote the PHP page in 2 hours. I just hate Web interfaces and PHP is crap, seriously. For the record, I've tried to use DataGrid, and after having lost 1h to get it work with no PHP/PEAR error printed or available, I managed to have it working with a big pear upgrade-all. OMFG.
#!/bin/sh
if test $# != 1 ; then echo "Missing argument!" >&2 ; exit 1 ; fi
FILENAME="$(tempfile -s ".ps")"
ldd "$1" mawk &aposBEGIN print "graph deps " END print " " function dump(name,binary) system("objdump -x " binary " grep NEEDED sed -e \"s#.* # \\\"" name "\\\" -- \\\"#\" -e\"s/$/\\\"/\"") BEGIN dump("&apos"$1"&apos","&apos"$1"&apos") /=> \// dump($1,$3) &apos dot -Tps -o "$FILENAME"
gv "$FILENAME"
rm "$FILENAME"
… or something like that… I planned to write a short note about how to start with using git-svn so I can provide a pointer to some of my colleagues. It turned out that git has too many nice features that you should be aware of. 
Hopefully my notes (now being a reference for myself as well, thx to gebi for all the help and feedback) are useful anyway. If you think something (more or less essential, or at least something most of us should be aware of) is missing: please feel free to mention that in the comment section of my blog entry, thanks.
Disclaimer: I’m still happy with mercurial for what I - and we at grml in general - use it: linear, but anyway distributed development. git on the other hand provides some really nice features. Rebasing and branching with git is really great - so non-linear development just works. As usual: use the right tool for the right job.
git is a bit complicate to use. Not only but especially in the beginning. On the other hand I’m not such a big friend of subversion. If you aptitude install \ git-buildpackage git-core git-cvs git-daemon-run \ git-doc git-email git-gui git-load-dirs git-svn \ gitk gitweb qgitNow let’s start with some general and basic configuration:
# Remove directories from the SVN tree if there # are no files left behind, configure it globaly: git config --global svn.rmdir=true # Want some more global, personal git configuration? for line in user.name=Michael Prokop user.email=foo@example.invalid color.diff=auto color.diff.new=cyan color.diff.old=magenta color.diff.frag=yellow color.diff.meta=green color.diff.commit=normal do git config --global $line doneCheck out man git-config for much more details about configuration options. First tip: set ‘g’ as an alias for git so you don’t have to type that much. I’ll write the long version in the following examples so copy/paste works for everyone. Make sure to use the short options of git itself as well: use ‘git co’ for example instead of ‘git checkout’. You can define your own aliases inside git as well - either manually in ~/.gitconfig or running something like:
git config --global alias.st statusEnough pre-configuration for now. It’s time to checkout the SVN repository:
# Check out the SVN repository and set 'svn/' as # prefix for the branches: git svn clone -s --prefix=svn/ \ https://svn.tugraz.at/svn/$project foobar && cd foobar # Adjust svn:ignore settings within git: git svn show-ignore >> .git/info/exclude # List all branches: git branch -a # List all remote branches: git branch -r # Rebase your local changes against the # latest changes in SVN (kind of 'svn up'): git svn rebase # Checkout a specific branch: git checkout $branchOk so far? But what do we have to do if we want to work on the upstream source and are allowed to commit/push directly to the repository? Let’s see how to work on that without using branches:
# Hack: $EDITOR foobar # Check status git st[atus] # List diff: git diff [foobar] # Commit it with a commit message using $EDITOR: git commit -a # Now commit your changes (that were committed # previously using git) to SVN, as well as # automatically updating your working HEAD: git svn dcommitBut what should we do if we do not have commit rights? Let’s create our own branch and send a patch via mail to upstream:
# Make a new branch: git checkout -b mikas_demo_patch # and hack... $EDITOR # Commit all changes: git ci -a -m 'Best patch but worst commit msg ever' # ... and prepare patch[es]: git format-patch -s -p -n master # Now send mail(s) either use git-send-email: git send-email --to foo@example.invalid *.patch # ... or if you prefer mutt instead (short zsh syntax): for f in *.patch ; mutt -H $fYou got a mail from someone else and would like to incorporate changes from the attached patch in your repository? Just store the mail in a seperate mailbox (use save-message in mutt for example, keybinding ’s’ by default), then execute:
# Apply a [series of] patch[es] from a mailbox git am /path/to/mailboxWant to work on a seperate branch and rebase your work with upstream?
# First of all make sure to use recent sources... # So pull when using plain git: git pull -u # .. or when using git-svn use: git svn rebase # Then create a new branch: git checkout -b mika # Hack: $EDITOR # Commit: git ci -a -m 'Best patch but worst commit msg ever' # Switch to master branch: git checkout master # Pull again when using plain git: git pull -u # .. or when using git-svn use: git svn rebase # Finally switch back git checkout mika # Now rebase it with plain git using: git rebase origin/master # ... or when using git-svn: git svn rebase # Now check out the last 5 commits: git log -n5Another branch-session might look like:
git co -b foo $EDITOR git ci -a -m 'foo changes' git co master git co -b bar $EDITOR git ci -a -m 'bar changes'' git co foo git rebase bar git log -n5 git st git branchPfuhhh? Right.
Now it’s time to check out another cool feature: git stash, which is just great when pulling into a dirty tree or when suffering from interrupted workflow. Demo:
git stash git pull / fetch+rebase $EDITOR # fix conflicts git commit -a -m "Fix in a hurry" git stash apply git stash clear # unless you want to keep the stashgit reset rocks as well:
# List all recent actions: git reflog # Now undo the last action: git reset --hard HEAD@ 0How to get rid of branches?
# Delete a branch. The branch must be fully merged: git branch -d remove_me_branch # Delete a branch irrespective of its index status: git branch -D remove_me_branch # Delete a remote branch: git push reponame :branchRepack a git repository to minimize its disk usage:
git pack-refs --prune git reflog expire --all git repack -a -d -f -l git prune git rerere gcUse git cherry to find commits not merged upstream. Another really cool feature is the interactive rebasing: git rebase –interactive Make sure you are aware of gitk:
… and don’t forget to set readable fonts for gitk, like:
[ -r ~/.gitk ] cat > ~/.gitk << EOF set mainfont Arial 10 set textfont Courier 10 set uifont Arial 10 bold EOFIf you prefer a Qt based interface check out qgit. Useful ressources:
Next.