Sergio Cipriano: My experience at MiniDebConf Campinas 2026
My experience at
MiniDebConf Campinas 2026
Last week, I spent the entire week in Campinas attending MiniDebConf
and MiniDebCamp. The Debian Brazil community organizes this event every
year, and this year's edition was the biggest so far.
During MiniDebCamp, I sponsored a few uploads and spent two days
teaching packaging to two participants. I usually teach packaging
online, so it was refreshing to do it in person. I believe the
experience was much better than teaching online.
One of my mentees introduced me to the DDTSS (Debian
Distributed Translation Server Satellite). Even though there are many
i18n contributors in Brazil, this was my first time learning about this
system. I plan to contribute to translations over the next few weeks
using DDTSS.
My Activities
NOTE: I translated every talk title; the original
titles are in PT-BR, so some details may have been lost in
translation.
I presented three talks and led one BoF session. The talks are all
available on Debian's Peertube:
- Get to
know dh-make-vim
- Zero-Code
Instrumentation of an application using eBPF
- DD
non-uploading can upload
You can also find my slides at people.d.o.
My first talk was a showcase of dh-make-vim, a
tool I created and have been using for a few months. Some people tested
it and found bugs, which was really nice to see.
My second talk was essentially a live version of my blog post Zero-Code
Instrumentation of an Envoy TCP Proxy using eBPF.
I also gave a lightning talk about something many people are not
aware of: non-uploading DDs can also sponsor uploads.
If you're interested, this bug report provides more context: tracker.debian.org:
Signed by field is missing when sponsoring as DD non-uploading
Finally, I led the BoF session "Experiences,
lessons learned, and next steps from the mentoring sessions". This
was my favorite session, we had many participants with different
perspectives and ideas, which led to a very engaging discussion. I'm
still working on the action plans and I plan to release them soon.
Here are some photos of these activities:
My favorite activities
This is a list, in no particular order, of some of the sessions I
enjoyed the most:
- Salsa
CI, showing features that almost nobody knows
I wrote a blog post
about one of the things I learned in this talk, and there is still a lot
more to explore. Aquila Macedo is developing many cool features in Salsa
CI.
- Free
Software: Freedom, Autonomy, Sovereignty
I had been really looking forward to this one. Alexandre Oliva is a
very important figure in the Free Software movement, especially in South
America. I'll need to rewatch it, my futures talks about Free Software
will likely be inspired by this one.
- What
I've lived/seen in 33 Years of Debian & Free Software in
general
Eduardo Ma an was the first Debian Developer in Brazil, so it's
always valuable to hear the story from someone who was part of
it.
- Symbolism
- an introduction
Despite the title, this talk was not about astrology! I'll probably
rewatch it as well, as there is a lot of information to take in. I
really like the passion S rgio Durigan has for C. He is also a great
speaker and knows how to guide the audience through the topic.
- Debate:
Contemporary controversies in Debian
The debate itself was great, but the conversations we had afterward
were even better. I changed some of my opinions after hearing different
perspectives. I don't think this format would work at DebConf, but I
would definitely like to attend another one like this.
- Why
LTS on Debian?
I had a few questions about LTS, and Kanashiro and Santiago answered
them both during the talk and in the Q&A session. They also shared
some challenges and how to avoid them, it was a great learning
experience.
- From
my first contribution to the Debian Maintainer
Polkorny was a bit shy but did a great job! I really enjoy this kind
of talk. It is always nice to see the different paths people
take.
Unfortunatly, I couldn't attend everything I was interested in, as
always.
DayTrip - The
Brazilian Particle Accelerator
Sirius is the largest and most complex scientific infrastructure ever
built in Brazil and one of the most advanced synchrotron light sources
in the world. My jaw dropped the entire time; it's hard to describe how
incredible this is.
My favorite detail: they're running Debian :)
Wrap up
I believe this was the best MiniDebConf Brazil so far. There were
many other things I chose not to include here, as this post is already
quite long. Still, here are a few more highlights:
- A Bug Squashing Party
- Driving Samuel Henrique's drones
- Lots of capybaras
- A small birthday party
- A visit to two data centers
NOTE: I translated every talk title; the original titles are in PT-BR, so some details may have been lost in translation.I presented three talks and led one BoF session. The talks are all available on Debian's Peertube:
- Get to know dh-make-vim
- Zero-Code Instrumentation of an application using eBPF
- DD non-uploading can upload
My favorite activities
This is a list, in no particular order, of some of the sessions I
enjoyed the most:
- Salsa
CI, showing features that almost nobody knows
I wrote a blog post
about one of the things I learned in this talk, and there is still a lot
more to explore. Aquila Macedo is developing many cool features in Salsa
CI.
- Free
Software: Freedom, Autonomy, Sovereignty
I had been really looking forward to this one. Alexandre Oliva is a
very important figure in the Free Software movement, especially in South
America. I'll need to rewatch it, my futures talks about Free Software
will likely be inspired by this one.
- What
I've lived/seen in 33 Years of Debian & Free Software in
general
Eduardo Ma an was the first Debian Developer in Brazil, so it's
always valuable to hear the story from someone who was part of
it.
- Symbolism
- an introduction
Despite the title, this talk was not about astrology! I'll probably
rewatch it as well, as there is a lot of information to take in. I
really like the passion S rgio Durigan has for C. He is also a great
speaker and knows how to guide the audience through the topic.
- Debate:
Contemporary controversies in Debian
The debate itself was great, but the conversations we had afterward
were even better. I changed some of my opinions after hearing different
perspectives. I don't think this format would work at DebConf, but I
would definitely like to attend another one like this.
- Why
LTS on Debian?
I had a few questions about LTS, and Kanashiro and Santiago answered
them both during the talk and in the Q&A session. They also shared
some challenges and how to avoid them, it was a great learning
experience.
- From
my first contribution to the Debian Maintainer
Polkorny was a bit shy but did a great job! I really enjoy this kind
of talk. It is always nice to see the different paths people
take.
Unfortunatly, I couldn't attend everything I was interested in, as
always.
DayTrip - The
Brazilian Particle Accelerator
Sirius is the largest and most complex scientific infrastructure ever
built in Brazil and one of the most advanced synchrotron light sources
in the world. My jaw dropped the entire time; it's hard to describe how
incredible this is.
My favorite detail: they're running Debian :)
Wrap up
I believe this was the best MiniDebConf Brazil so far. There were
many other things I chose not to include here, as this post is already
quite long. Still, here are a few more highlights:
- A Bug Squashing Party
- Driving Samuel Henrique's drones
- Lots of capybaras
- A small birthday party
- A visit to two data centers
This is an amazing feature. Thanks to everyone involved in making it
happen!
Linux kernel security modules provide a good additional layer of security around individual programs by restricting what they are allowed to do, and at best block and detect zero-day security vulnerabilities as soon as anyone tries to exploit them, long before they are widely known and reported. However, the challenge is how to create these security profiles without accidentally also blocking legitimate actions. For MariaDB in Debian and Ubuntu, a new AppArmor profile was recently created by leveraging the extensive test suite with 7000+ tests, giving good confidence that AppArmor is unlikely to yield false positive alerts with it.
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