Search Results: "tina"

26 November 2024

Sandro Knau : Akademy 2024 in W rzburg

In order to prepare for the Akademy I started some days before to give my Librem 5 ( an Open Hardware Phone) another try and ended up with a non starting Plasma 6. Actually this issue was known already, but hasn't been addressed. In the end I reached the Akademy with my Librem 5 having phosh installed (which is Gnome based), in order to have something working. I met Bushan and Bart who took care and the issue was fixed two days later I could finally install Plasma 6 on it. The last time I tested my Librem 5 with Plasma 5 it felt sluggish and not well working. But this time I was impressed how well the system reacts. Sure there are some things here and there, but in the bigger picture it is quite useable. One annoying issue is that the camera is only working with one app and the other issue is the battery capacity, you have to charge it once a day. Because of missing a QR reader that can use the camera, getting data to the phone was quite challenging. Unfortunately the conference Wifi separated the devices and I couldn't use KDE Connect to transfer data. In the end the only way to import data was taking five photos from the QR Code to import my D-Ticket to Itinerary. With a device with Plasma Mobile, it directly was used for a experiment: How well does Dolphin works on a Plasma Mobile device. Together with Felix Ernst we tried it out and were quite impressed, that Dolphin does work very well on Plasma Mobile, after some simple modifications on the UI. That resulted in a patch to add a mobile UI for Dolphin !826. With more time to play with my Librem 5 I also found an bug in KWeather, that is missing a Refresh option, when used in a Plasma Mobile environment #493656. Akademy is a good place to identify and solve some issues. It is always like that, you chat with someone and they can tell you who to ask to answer the concrete question and in the end you can solve things, that seems unsolvable in the beginning. There was also time to look into the travelling app Itinerary. A lot people are faced with a lot of real world issues, when not in their home town. Itinerary is the best traveling apps I know about. It can import nearly every ticket you have and can get location information from restaurant websites and allow routing to that place. It does add many useful information, while traveling like current delays, platform changes, live updates for elevator, weather information at the destination, a station map and all those features with strong focus on privacy. In detail I found some small things to improve: I additionally learned that it has a lot of details that helps people who have special needs. That is the reason why Daniel Kraut wants to get Itinerary available for iOS. As spoken out, that Daniel wants to reach this goal, others already started to implement the first steps to build apps for iOS. This year I was volunteering in helping out at Akademy. For me it was a lot of fun to meet everyone at the infodesk or help the speakers setup the beamer and microphone. It is also a good opportunity to meet many new faces and get in contact with them. I see also room for improvement. As we were quite busy at the Welcome Event to get out the badges to everyone, I couldn't answer the questions from newcomers, as the queue was too long. I propose that some people volunteer to be available for questions from newcomers. Often it is hard for newcomers to get their first contact(s) in a new community. There is a lot of space for improvement to make it easier for newcomers to join. Some ideas in my head are: Make an event for the newcomers to get them some links into the community and show that everyone is friendly. The tables at the BoFs should make a circle, so everyone can see each other. It was also hard for me to understand everyone as they mostly spoken towards the front. And then BoFs are sometimes full of very specific words and if you are not already deep in the topic you are lost. I can see the problem, on the one side BoFs are also the place where the person that knows the topic already wants to get things done. On the other side new comers join BoFs, are overwhelmed by to many new words get frustrated and think, that they are not welcome. Maybe at least everyone should present itself with name and ask new faces, why they joined the BoF to help them joining. I'm happy, that the food provided for the attendees was very delicious and that I'm not the only one mostly vegetarian with a big amount to be vegan. At the conference the KDE Eco initiation really caught me, as I see a lot of new possibilities in giving more reasons to switch to an Open Source system. The talk from Natalie was great to see how pupils get excited about Open Source and also help their grandparents to move to a Linux system. As I also will start to work as a teacher, I really got ideas what I can do at school. Together with Joseph and Nicole, we finally started to think about how to drive an exploration on what kind of old hardware is still KDE software running. The ones with the oldest hardware will get an old KDE shirt. For more information see #40. The conference was very motivating for me, I also had still energy at the evening to do some Debian packaging and finally pushed kweathercore to Debian and started to work on KWeather. Now I'm even more interested in the KDE apps focusing the mobile world, as I now have some hardware that can actually use those apps. I really enjoyed the workshop how to contribute to Qt by Volker Hilsheimer, especially the way how Volker explained things in a very friendly way, answered every question, sometime postponed some questions but came back to them later. All in all I now have a good overview how Qt is doing development and how I can fix bugs. The daytrip to Rothenburg ob der Tauber was very interesting for me. It was the first time I visited the village. But in my memory it feels like I know the village already. I grew up with reading a lot of comic albums including the good SiFi comic album series "Yoku Tsuno" created by the Belgian writer Roger Leloup. Yoku Tsuno is an electronics engineer, raised in Japan but now living in Belgium. In "On the edge of life" she helps her friend Ingard, who actually lives in Rothenburg. Leloup invested a lot of time to travel to make the make his drawings as accurate as possible. a comic page with Yoko Tsuno in Rothenburg ob der Tauber In order to not have a hard cut from Akademy to normal life, I had a lunch with Carlos, to discuss KDE Neon and how we can improve the interaction with Debian. In the future this should have less friction and make both communities work together more smoothly. Additionally as I used to develop on KDEPIM with the help of Docker images based on Neon I ask for a meta kf6 dev meta package. That should help to get rid of most hand written lists of dev packages in the Docker file in order to make it more simple for new contributors to start hacking on KDEPIM. The rest of the day I finally found time to do the normal tourist stuff: Going to the Wine bridge and having a walk to the castle of W rzburg. Unfortunately you hear a lot of car noises up there, but I could finally relaxe in a Japanese designed garden. Finally at Saturday I started my trip back. The trains towards Eberswalde are broken and I needed to find alternative routing. I got a little bit nervous, as it was the first time I travelled with my Librem 5 and Itinerary only and needed to reach the next train in less than two mins. With the indoor maps provided, I could prepare my run through the train station so I reached successfully my next train. By the way, also if you only only use KDE software, I would recommend everyone to join Akademy ;)

2 November 2024

Russell Coker: More About the Yoga Gen3

Two months ago I bought a Thinkpad X1 Yoga Gen3 [1]. I m still very happy with it, the screen is a great improvement over the FullHD screen on my previous Thinkpad. I have yet to discover what s the best resolution to have on a laptop if price isn t an issue, but it s at least 1440p for a 14 display, that s 210DPI. The latest Thinkpad X1 Yoga is the 7th gen and has up to 3840*2400 resolution on the internal display for 323DPI. Apple apparently uses the term Retina Display to mean something in the range of 250DPI to 300DPI, so my current laptop is below Retina while the most expensive new Thinkpads are above it. I did some tests on external displays and found that this Thinkpad along with a Dell Latitude of the same form factor and about the same age can only handle one 4K display on a Thunderbolt dock and one on HDMI. On Reddit u/Carlioso1234 pointed out this specs page which says it supports a maximum of 3 displays including the built in TFT [2]. The Thunderbolt/USB-C connection has a maximum resolution of 5120*2880 and the HDMI port has a maximum of 4K. The latest Yoga can support four displays total which means 2*5K over Thunderbolt and one 4K over HDMI. It would be nice if someone made a 8000*2880 ultrawide display that looked like 2*5K displays when connected via Thunderbolt. It would also be nice if someone made a 32 5K display, currently they all seem to be 27 and I ve found that even for 4K resolution 32 is better than 27 . With the typical configuration of Linux and the BIOS the Yoga Gen3 will have it s touch screen stop working after suspend. I have confirmed this for stylus use but as the finger-touch functionality is broken I couldn t confirm that. On r/thinkpad u/p9k told me how to fix this problem [3]. I had to set the BIOS to Win 10 Sleep aka Hybrid sleep and then put the following in /etc/systemd/system/thinkpad-wakeup-config.service :
# https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/1blpy20/comment/kw7se2l/?context=3
[Unit]
Description=Workarounds for sleep wakeup source for Thinkpad X1 Yoga 3
After=sysinit.target
After=systemd-modules-load.service
[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "echo 'enabled' > /sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio0/power/wakeup"
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "echo 'enabled' > /sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/power/wakeup"
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "echo 'LID' > /proc/acpi/wakeup"
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Now it works fine, for stylus at least. I still get kernel error messages like the following which don t seem to cause problems:
wacom 0003:056A:5146.0005: wacom_idleprox_timeout: tool appears to be hung in-prox. forcing it out.
When it wasn t working I got the above but also kernel error messages like:
wacom 0003:056A:5146.0005: wacom_wac_queue_insert: kfifo has filled, starting to drop events
This change affected the way suspend etc operate. Now when I connect the laptop to power it will leave suspend mode. I ve configured KDE to suspend when the lid is closed and there s no monitor connected.

10 October 2024

Gunnar Wolf: Started a guide to writing FUSE filesystems in Python

As DebConf22 was coming to an end, in Kosovo, talking with Eeveelweezel they invited me to prepare a talk to give for the Chicago Python User Group. I replied that I m not really that much of a Python guy But would think about a topic. Two years passed. I meet Eeveelweezel again for DebConf24 in Busan, South Korea. And the topic came up again. I had thought of some ideas, but none really pleased me. Again, I do write some Python when needed, and I teach using Python, as it s the language I find my students can best cope with. But delivering a talk to ChiPy? On the other hand, I have long used a very simplistic and limited filesystem I ve designed as an implementation project at class: FIUnamFS (for Facultad de Ingenier a, Universidad Nacional Aut noma de M xico : the Engineering Faculty for Mexico s National University, where I teach. Sorry, the link is in Spanish but you will find several implementations of it from the students ). It is a toy filesystem, with as many bad characteristics you can think of, but easy to specify and implement. It is based on contiguous file allocation, has no support for sub-directories, and is often limited to the size of a 1.44MB floppy disk. As I give this filesystem as a project to my students (and not as a mere homework), I always ask them to try and provide a good, polished, professional interface, not just the simplistic menu I often get. And I tell them the best possible interface would be if they provide support for FIUnamFS transparently, usable by the user without thinking too much about it. With high probability, that would mean: Use FUSE. Python FUSE But, in the six semesters I ve used this project (with 30-40 students per semester group), only one student has bitten the bullet and presented a FUSE implementation. Maybe this is because it s not easy to understand how to build a FUSE-based filesystem from a high-level language such as Python? Yes, I ve seen several implementation examples and even nice web pages (i.e. the examples shipped with thepython-fuse module Stavros passthrough filesystem, Dave Filesystem based upon, and further explaining, Stavros , and several others) explaining how to provide basic functionality. I found a particularly useful presentation by Matteo Bertozzi presented ~15 years ago at PyCon4 But none of those is IMO followable enough by itself. Also, most of them are very old (maybe the world is telling me something that I refuse to understand?). And of course, there isn t a single interface to work from. In Python only, we can find python-fuse, Pyfuse, Fusepy Where to start from? So I setup to try and help. Over the past couple of weeks, I have been slowly working on my own version, and presenting it as a progressive set of tasks, adding filesystem calls, and being careful to thoroughly document what I write (but maybe my documentation ends up obfuscating the intent? I hope not and, read on, I ve provided some remediation). I registered a GitLab project for a hand-holding guide to writing FUSE-based filesystems in Python. This is a project where I present several working FUSE filesystem implementations, some of them RAM-based, some passthrough-based, and I intend to add to this also filesystems backed on pseudo-block-devices (for implementations such as my FIUnamFS). So far, I have added five stepwise pieces, starting from the barest possible empty filesystem, and adding system calls (and functionality) until (so far) either a read-write filesystem in RAM with basicstat() support or a read-only passthrough filesystem. I think providing fun or useful examples is also a good way to get students to use what I m teaching, so I ve added some ideas I ve had: DNS Filesystem, on-the-fly markdown compiling filesystem, unzip filesystem and uncomment filesystem. They all provide something that could be seen as useful, in a way that s easy to teach, in just some tens of lines. And, in case my comments/documentation are too long to read, uncommentfs will happily strip all comments and whitespace automatically! So I will be delivering my talk tomorrow (2024.10.10, 18:30 GMT-6) at ChiPy (virtually). I am also presenting this talk virtually at Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre in Santa Fe, Argentina, next week (virtually as well). And also in November, in person, at nerdear.la, that will be held in Mexico City for the first time. Of course, I will also share this project with my students in the next couple of weeks And hope it manages to lure them into implementing FUSE in Python. At some point, I shall report! Update: After delivering my ChiPy talk, I have uploaded it to YouTube: A hand-holding guide to writing FUSE-based filesystems in Python, and after presenting at Jornadas Regionales, I present you the video in Spanish here: Aprendiendo y ense ando a escribir sistemas de archivo en espacio de usuario con FUSE y Python.

21 September 2024

Jamie McClelland: How do I warm up an IP Address?

After years on the waiting list, May First was just given a /24 block of IP addresses. Excellent. Now we want to start using them for, among other things, sending email. I haven t added a new IP address to our mail relays in a while and things seems to change regularly in the world of email so I m curious: what s the best 2024 way to warm up IP addresses, particularly using postfix? Sendergrid has a nice page on the topic. It establishes the number of messages to send per day. But I m not entirely sure how to fit messages per day into our setup. We use round robin DNS to direct email to one of several dozen email relay servers using postfix. And unfortunately our DNS software (knot) doesn t have a way to add weights to ensure some IPs show up more often than others (much less limit the specific number of messages a given relay should get). Postfix has some nice knobs for rate limiting, particularly: default_destination_recipient_limit and default_destination_rate_delay If default_destination_recipient_limit is over 1, then default_destination_rate_delay is equal to the minimum delay between sending email to the same domain. So, I m staring our IP addresses out at 30m - which prevents any single domain from receiving more than 2 messages per hour. Sadly, there are a lot of different domain names that deliver to the same set of popular corporate MX servers, so I am not sure I can accurately control how many messages a given provider sees coming from a given IP address. But it s a start. A bigger problem is that messages that exceed the limit hang out in the active queue until they can be sent without violating the rate limit. Since I can t fully control the number of messages a given queue receives (due to my inability to control the DNS round robin weights), a lot of messages are going to be severely delayed, especially ones with an @gmail.com domain name. I know I can temporarily set relayhost to a different queue and flush deferred messages, however, as far as I can tell, it doesn t work with active messages. To help mitigate the problem I m only using our bulk mail queue to warm up IPs, but really, this is not ideal. Suggestions welcome!

Update #1 If you are running postfix in a multi-instance setup and you have instances that are already warmed up, you can move active messages between queues with these steps:
# Put the message on hold in the warming up instance
postsuper -c /etc/postfix-warmingup -h $queueid
# Copy to a warmed up instance
cp --preserve=mode,ownership,timestamp /var/spool/postfix-warmingup/hold/$queueid /var/spool/postfix-warmedup/incoming/
# Queue the message
postqueue -c /etc/postfix-warmedup -i $queueid
# Delete from the original queue.
postsuper -c /etc/postfix-warmingup -d $queueid
After just 12 hours we had thousands of messages piling up. This warm up method was never going to work without the ability to move them to a faster queue. [Additional update: be sure to reload the postfix instance after flushing the queue so messages are drained from the active queue on the correct schedule. See update #4.]

Update #2 After 24 hours, most email is being accepted as far as I can tell. I am still getting a small percentage of email deferred by Yahoo with:
421 4.7.0 [TSS04] Messages from 204.19.241.9 temporarily deferred due to unexpected volume or user complaints - 4.16.55.1; see https://postmaster.yahooinc.com/error-codes (in reply
So I will keep it as 30m for another 24 hours or so and then move to 15m. Now that I can flush the backlog of active messages I am in less of a hurry.

Update #3 Well, this doesn t seem to be working the way I want it to. When a message arrives faster than the designated rate limit, it remains in the active queue. I m entirely sure how the timing is supposed to work, but at this point I m down to a 5m rate delay, and the active messages are just hanging out for a lot longer than 5m. I tried flushing the queue, but that only seems to affect the deferred messages. I finally got them re-tried with systemctl reload. I wonder if there is a setting to control this retry? Or better yet, why can t these messages that exceed the rate delayed be deferred instead?

Update #4 I think I see why I was confused in Update #3 about the timing. I suspect that when I move messages out of the active queue it screws up the timer. Reloading the instance resets the timer. Every time you muck with active messages, you should reload.

30 August 2024

Sahil Dhiman: Debconf24 Busan

DebConf24 was held in Busan, South Korea, from July 28th to August 4th 2024 and preceded by DebCamp from July 21st to July 27th. This was my second IRL DebConf (DC) and fourth one in total. I started in Debian with a DebConf, so its always an occasion when one happens. This year again, I worked in fundraising team, working to raise funds from International sponsors. We did manage to raise good enough funding, albeit less than budgeted. Though, the local Korean team was able to connect and gather many Governmental sponsors, which was quite surprising for me. I wasn t seriously considering attending DebConf until I discussed this with Nilesh. More or less, his efforts helped push me through the whole process. Thanks, Nilesh, for this. In March, I got my passport and started preparing documents for South Korean visa. It did require quite a lot of paper work but seeing South Korea s s fresh passport visa rejection rate, I had doubts about visa acceptance. The visa finally got approved, which could be attributed to great documentation and help from DebConf visa team. This was also my first trip outside India, and this being to DebConf made many things easy. Most stuff were documented on DebConf website and wiki. Asking some query got immediate responses from someone in the DebConf channels. We then booked a direct flight from Delhi, reaching Seoul in the morning. With good directions from Sourab TK who had reached Seoul a few hours earlier, we quickly got Korean Won, local SIM and T Money card (transportation card) and headed towards Seoul by AREX, airport metro. We spent the next two days exploring Seoul, which is huge. It probably has the highest number of skyscrapers I have ever seen. The city has a good mix of modern and ancient culture. We explored various places in Seoul including Gyeongbokgung Palace, Statue of King Sejong, Bukchon Hanok village, N Seoul Tower and various food markets which were amazing. A Street in Seoul
A Street in Seoul
Next, we headed to Busan for DebConf using KTX (Korean high speed rail). (Fun fact, slogan for City of Busan is Busan is Good .) South Korea has a good network of frequently running high speed trains. We had pre-booked our tickets because, despite the frequency, trains were sold out most of the time. KTX ride was quite smooth, despite travelling at 300 Kmph at times through Korean countryside and long mountain tunnels. View from Dorm Room
PKNU Entrance
The venue for DebConf was Pukyong National University (PKNU), Daeyeon Campus. PKNU had two campuses in the Busan and some folks ended up in wrong campus too. With good help and guidance from the front desk, we got our dormitory rooms assigned. Dorms here were quite different, ie: View from Dorm Room
View from Dorm Room
Settling in was easy. We started meeting familiar folks after almost a year. The long conversations started again. Everyone was excited for DebConf. Like everytime, the first day was full of action (and chaos). Meet and greet, volunteers check in, video team running around and fixing stuff and things working (or not). There were some interesting talks and sponsors stalls. After day one, things more or less settled down. I again volunteered for video team stuff and helped in camera operations and talk directions, which is always fun. As the tradition applies, saw few talks live on stream too sitting in the dorm room during the conf, which is always fun, when too tired to get ready and go out. From Talk Director's chair
From Talk Director's chair
DebConf takes care of food needs for vegan/vegetarianism folks well, of which I m one. I got to try different food items, which was quite an experience. Tried using chopsticks again which didn t work, which I later figured that handling metal ones were more difficult. We had late night ramens and wooden chopsticks worked perfectly. One of the days, we even went out to an Indian restaurant to have some desi aloo paratha, paneer dishes, samosas and chai (milk tea). I wasn t particularly craving desi food but wasn t able to get something according to my taste so went there. As usual Bits from DPL talk was packed
As usual Bits from DPL talk was packed
For day trip, I went to Ulsan. San means mountains in Korean. Ulsan is a port city with many industries including Hyundai car factory, petrochemical industry, paint industry, ship building etc. We saw bamboo forest, Ulsan tower (quite a view towards Ulsan port), whale village, Ulsan Onggi Museum and the sea (which was beautiful). The beautiful sea
The beautiful sea

View from Ulsan Bridge Observatory
View from Ulsan Bridge Observatory
Amongst the sponsors, I was most interested in our network sponsors, folks who were National research and education networks (NREN) here. We had two network sponsors, KOREN and KREONET, thanks to efforts by local team. Initially it was discussed that they ll provide 20G uplink each, so 40G in total, which was whopping but by the time the closing talk happened, we got to know we had 200G uplink to the Internet. This was a massive update to last year when we had 1G main and 100M backup link. 200G wasn t what is required, but it was massive capacity and IIRC from the talk, we peaked at around 500M in usage, but it s always fun to have astronomical amount of bandwidth for bragging rights ;) Various mascots in attendance
Various mascots in attendance

Video and Network stats. Screengrab from closing ceremony
Video and Network stats. Screengrab from closing ceremony
Now let s talk about things I found interesting about South Korea in general: Gyeongbokgung Palace Entrance Gyeongbokgung Palace Entrance Gyeongbokgung Palace Entrance
Grand Gyeongbokgung Palace, Seoul

Starfield Library
Starfield Library, Seoul
If one has to get the whole DebConf experience, it s better to attend DebCamp as well because that s when you can sit and interact with everyone better. As DebConf starts, everyone gets busy in various talks and events and things take a pace. DebConf days literally fly. This year, attending DebConf in person was a different experience. Attending DebConf without any organizational work/stress so was better, and I was able to understand working of different Debian team and workflows better while also identified a few where I would like to join and help. A general conclusion was that almost all Debian teams needs more folks to help out. So if someone want to join, they can probably reach out to the team, and would be able to onboard new folks. Though this would require some patience. Kudos to the Korean team who were able to pull off this event under this tight timeline and thanks for all the hospitality. DebConf24 Group Photo
DebConf24 Group Photo. Click to enlarge.
Credits - Aigars Mahinovs
This whole experience expanded my world view. There s so much to see and explore and understand. Looking forward to DebConf25 in Brest, France. PS - Shoutout to abbyck (aka hamCK)!

10 August 2024

Bits from Debian: DebConf24 closes in Busan and DebConf25 dates announced

DebConf24 group photo - click to enlarge On Saturday 3 August 2024, the annual Debian Developers and Contributors Conference came to a close. Over 339 attendees representing 48 countries from around the world came together for a combined 108 events made up of more than 50 Talks and Discussions, 37 Birds of a Feather (BoF informal meeting between developers and users) sessions, 12 workshops, and activities in support of furthering our distribution and free software (25 patches submitted to the Linux kernel), learning from our mentors and peers, building our community, and having a bit of fun. The conference was preceded by the annual DebCamp hacking session held July 21st through July 27th where Debian Developers and Contributors convened to focus on their Individual Debian-related projects or work in team sprints geared toward in-person collaboration in developing Debian. This year featured a BootCamp that was held for newcomers with a GPG Workshop and a focus on Introduction to creating .deb files (Debian packaging) staged by a team of dedicated mentors who shared hands-on experience in Debian and offered a deeper understanding of how to work in and contribute to the community. The actual Debian Developers Conference started on Sunday July 28 2024. In addition to the traditional 'Bits from the DPL' talk, the continuous key-signing party, lightning talks and the announcement of next year's DebConf25, there were several update sessions shared by internal projects and teams. Many of the hosted discussion sessions were presented by our technical core teams with the usual and useful meet the Technical Committee and the ftpteam and a set of BoFs about packaging policy and Debian infrastructure, including talk about APT and Debian Installer and an overview about the first eleven years of Reproducible Builds. Internationalization and localization have been subject of several talks. The Python, Perl, Ruby, and Go programming language teams, as well as Med team, also shared updates on their work and efforts. More than fifteen BoFs and talks about community, diversity and local outreach highlighted the work of various team involved in the social aspect of our community. This year again, Debian Brazil shared strategy and action to attract and retain new contributors and members and opportunities both in Debian and F/OSS. The schedule was updated each day with planned and ad-hoc activities introduced by attendees over the course of the conference. Several traditional activities took place: a job fair, a poetry performance, the traditional Cheese and Wine party, the group photos and the Day Trips. For those who were not able to attend, most of the talks and sessions were broadcast live and recorded and the videos made available through a link in their summary in the schedule. Almost all of the sessions facilitated remote participation via IRC messaging apps or online collaborative text documents which allowed remote attendees to 'be in the room' to ask questions or share comments with the speaker or assembled audience. DebConf24 saw over 6.8 TiB (4.3 TiB in 2023) of data streamed, 91.25 hours (55 in 2023) of scheduled talks, 20 network access points, 1.6 km fibers (1 broken fiber...) and 2.2 km UTP cable deployed, more than 20 country Geoip viewers, 354 T-shirts, 3 day trips, and up to 200 meals planned per day. All of these events, activities, conversations, and streams coupled with our love, interest, and participation in Debian and F/OSS certainly made this conference an overall success both here in Busan, South Korea and online around the world. The DebConf24 website will remain active for archival purposes and will continue to offer links to the presentations and videos of talks and events. Next year, DebConf25 will be held in Brest, France, from Monday, July 7 to Monday, July 21, 2025. As tradition follows before the next DebConf the local organizers in France will start the conference activities with DebCamp with particular focus on individual and team work towards improving the distribution. DebConf is committed to a safe and welcome environment for all participants. See the web page about the Code of Conduct in DebConf24 website for more details on this. Debian thanks the commitment of numerous sponsors to support DebConf24, particularly our Platinum Sponsors: Infomaniak, Proxmox, and Wind River. We also wish to thank our Video and Infrastructure teams, the DebConf24 and DebConf committees, our host nation of South Korea, and each and every person who helped contribute to this event and to Debian overall. Thank you all for your work in helping Debian continue to be "The Universal Operating System". See you next year! About Debian The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of volunteers from all over the world work together to create and maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal operating system. About DebConf DebConf is the Debian Project's developer conference. In addition to a full schedule of technical, social and policy talks, DebConf provides an opportunity for developers, contributors and other interested people to meet in person and work together more closely. It has taken place annually since 2000 in locations as varied as Scotland, Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and India. More information about DebConf is available from https://debconf.org/. About Infomaniak Infomaniak is an independent cloud service provider recognized throughout Europe for its commitment to privacy, the local economy and the environment. Recording growth of 18% in 2023, the company is developing a suite of online collaborative tools and cloud hosting, streaming, marketing and events solutions. Infomaniak uses exclusively renewable energy, builds its own data centers and develops its solutions in Switzerland, without relocating. The company powers the website of the Belgian radio and TV service (RTBF) and provides streaming for more than 3,000 TV and radio stations in Europe. About Proxmox Proxmox provides powerful and user-friendly Open Source server software. Enterprises of all sizes and industries use Proxmox solutions to deploy efficient and simplified IT infrastructures, minimize total cost of ownership, and avoid vendor lock-in. Proxmox also offers commercial support, training services, and an extensive partner ecosystem to ensure business continuity for its customers. Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH was established in 2005 and is headquartered in Vienna, Austria. Proxmox builds its product offerings on top of the Debian operating system. About Wind River Wind River For nearly 20 years, Wind River has led in commercial Open Source Linux solutions for mission-critical enterprise edge computing. With expertise across aerospace, automotive, industrial, telecom, and more, the company is committed to Open Source through initiatives like eLxr, Yocto, Zephyr, and StarlingX. Contact Information For further information, please visit the DebConf24 web page at https://debconf24.debconf.org/ or send mail to press@debian.org.

9 August 2024

Kalyani Kenekar: One Backpack, One Passport: My First Solo Trip

Planing A Self Organized Solo Trip You know the movie Queen? The actor Kangana Ranaut plays in that movie the role of Rani Mehra, a 24-year-old Punjabi woman, who was a simple, homely girl that was always reliant on her family. Similar to Rani I too rarely ventured out without my parents and often needed my younger sibling by my side. Inspired by her transformation, I decided it was time to take control of my own story and discover who I truly am. Queen movie picture Of Kangana

Trip Requirements

My First Passport The journey began with a significant first step: Obtaining my first passport Never having had one before, I scheduled the nearest available interview date on June 29 2022. This meant traveling to Solapur, a city 309 km from my hometown, accompanied by my father. After successfully completing the interview, I received my passport on July 14 2022.

Select A Country, Booking Flights And Accommodation Excited and ready to embark on my adventure, I planed trip to Albania and booked the flight tickets. Why? I had heard from friends that it was a beautiful European country with beaches and other attractions, and importantly, it didn t require a visa for Indian citizens and was more affordable than other European destinations. Before heading to Albania, I planned a overnight stop in Abu Dhabi with a transit visa, thanks to friend who knew the process for obtaining it. Some of my friends did travel also to Europe at the same time and quite close to my plannings, but that I realized just later the trip.

Day 1, Starting The Experience On July 20, 2022, I started my journey by traveling from Pune, Maharashtra, to Delhi, where my brother lives. He came to see me off at the airport, adding a touch of warmth and support to the beginning of my solo adventure. Upon arriving in Delhi, with my next flight scheduled for July 21, I stayed at a backpacker hostel named Zostel, Paharganj, Delhi to rest. During my stay, I noticed that many travelers at the hostel carried rucksacks, which sparked a desire in me to get one for my own trip to Europe. Up until then, I had always shopped with my mom and had never bought anything on my own. Inspired by the travelers, I set out to find a suitable rucksack. I traveled alone by metro from Paharganj to Rohini to visit a Decathlon store, where I purchased a 50-liter rucksack. This was a significant step in preparing for my European adventure and marked a milestone in my journey of self reliance. Rucksack description tag Kalyani s packpacker

Day 2, Flying To Abu Dhabi The following day, July 21 2024, I had a flight to Abu Dhabi. I spent the night at the hostel to rest before my journey. On the day of the flight, I needed to reach the airport by 3 PM, and a friend kindly came to drop me off. With my rucksack packed and excitement building, I was ready for the next leg of my adventure. When we arrived at the airport, my friend saw me off, marking the start of my international journey. With mom made spices, chutneys, and chilly flakes packed for comfort, I completed my immigration process in about two and a half hours. I then settled at the gate for my flight, feeling a mix of excitement and anxiety as thoughts raced through my mind. mom-made spices Passport and boarding pass To ease my nerves, I struck up a conversation with a man seated nearby who was also traveling to Abu Dhabi for work. He provided helpful information about safety and transportation in Abu Dhabi, which reassured me. With the boarding process complete and my anxiety somewhat eased. I found my window seat on the flight and settled in, excited for the journey ahead. Next to me was a young man from Ranchi(Zarkhand, India), heading to Abu Dhabi for work at a mining factory. We had an engaging conversation about work culture in Abu Dhabi and recruitment from India. Upon arriving in Abu Dhabi, I completed my transit, collected my luggage, and began finding my way to the hotel Premier Inn AbuDhabi, which was in the airport area. To my surprise, I ran into the same man from the flight, now in a cab. He kindly offered to drop me at my hotel, which I gladly accepted since navigating an unfamiliar city with a short acquaintance felt safer. At the hotel gate, he asked if I had local currency (Dirhams) for payment, as sometimes online transactions can fail. That hadn t crossed my mind, and I realized I might be left stranded if a transaction failed. Recognizing his help as a godsend, I asked if he could lend me some Dirhams, promising to transfer the amount later. He kindly assured me to pay him back once I reached the hotel room. With that relief, I checked into the hotel, feeling deeply grateful for the unexpected assistance and transferred the money to him after getting to my room. dhiramm money hotel room Kalyani in hotel room

Day 3, Flying And Arrive In Tirana Once in the hotel room, I found it hard to sleep, anxious about waking up on time for my flight. I set an alarm to wake up early, but my subconscious mind kept me alert, and I woke up before the alarm went off. I got freshened up and went down for breakfast, where I found some vegetarian options like Idli-Sambar and bread with butter, along with some morning tea. After breakfast, I headed back to the airport, ready to catch my flight to my final destination: Tirana, Albania. Breakfast at hotel Airport area I reached Tirana, Albania after a six hours flight, feeling exhausted and I was suffering from a headache. The air pressure had blocked my ears, and jet lag added to my fatigue. After collecting my checked luggage, I headed to the first ATM machine at the airport. Struggling to insert my card, I asked a nearby gentleman for help. He tried his best, but my card got stuck inside the machine. Panic set in as I worried about how I would survive without money. Taking a deep breath, I found an airport employee and explained the situation. The gentleman stayed with me, offering support and repeatedly apologizing for his mistake. However, it wasn t his fault, the ATM was out of order, which I hadn t noticed. My focus was solely on retrieving my ATM card. The airport employee worked diligently, using a hairpin to carefully extract my card. Finally, the card was freed, and I felt an immense sense of relief, grateful for the help of these kind strangers. I used another ATM, successfully withdrew money, and then went to an airport mobile SIM shop to buy a new SIM card for local internet and connectivity. sim plans

Day 4, Arriving In Tirana, Facing Challenges In A Foreign Country I had booked a stay at a backpacker hostel near the city center of Tirana. After sorting out the ATM and SIM card issues, I searched for a bus or any transport to get there. It was quite late, around 8:30 PM, and being in a new city, I was in a hurry. I saw a bus nearly leaving the airport, stopped it, and asked if it went to the city center. They gave me the green flag, so I boarded the airport service bus and reached the city center. Feeling very tired, I discovered that the hostel was about an hour and a half away by walking. Deciding to take a cab, I faced a challenge as the driver couldn t understand my English or accent. Using a mobile translator to convert my address from English to Albanian, I finally communicated my destination to him. With that sorted out, I headed to the Blue Door Backpacker Hostel and arrived around 9 PM, relieved to have finally reached my destination and I checked in. Hostel gate Street in Tirana I found my top bunk bed, only to realize I had booked a mixed-gender dormitory. This detail had completely escaped my notice during the booking process. I felt unsure about how to handle the situation. Coincidentally, my experience mirrored what Kangana faced in the movie Queen . Feeling acidic due to an empty stomach and the exhaustion of heavy traveling, I wasn t up to cooking in the hostel s kitchen. I asked the front desk about the nearest restaurant. It was nearly 9:30 PM, and the streets were deserted. To avoid any mishaps like in the movie Queen, I kept my passport securely locked in my bag, ensuring it wouldn t be a victim of theft. Venturing out for dinner, I felt uneasy on the quiet streets. I eventually found a restaurant recommended by the hostel, but the menu was almost entirely non-vegetarian. I struggled to ask about vegetarian options and was uncertain if any dishes contained eggs, as some people consider eggs to be vegetarian. Feeling frustrated and unsure, I left the restaurant without eating. I noticed a nearby grocery store that was about to close and managed to get a few extra minutes to shop. I bought some snacks, wafers, milk, and tea bags (though I couldn t find tea powder to make Indian-style tea). Returning to the hostel, I made do with wafers, cookies, and milk for dinner. That day was incredibly tough for me, I filled with exhaustion and struggle in a new country, I was on the verge of tears . I made a video call home before sleeping on the top bunk bed. It was a new experience for me, sharing a room with both unknown men and women. I kept my passport safe inside my purse and under my pillow while sleeping, staying very conscious about its security.

Day 5, Exploring Nearby Places I woke up the next day at noon. After having some coffee, the hostel management girl asked if I wanted breakfast. She offered curd with cornflakes, which I refused because I don t like curd. Instead, I ordered a pizza from a vegetarian pizza place with her help, and I started feeling better. I met some people in the hostel, some from Syria and others from Italy. I struggled to understand their accents but kept pushing myself to get involved in their discussions. Despite the challenges, I felt more at ease and was slowly adapting to my new environment. I went out from the hostel in the evening to buy some vegetables to cook something. I searched for shops and found some potatoes, tomatoes, and rice. I decided to cook Khichdi, an Indian dish made with rice, and added some chili flakes I brought from home. After preparing my dinner, I ate and then went to sleep again. vegetable shop cooking in kitchen Food

Day 6, Tiranas Recent History The next day, I planned to explore the city and visited Bunkart-1, a fascinating museum in a massive underground bunker from the communist era. Originally built as a shelter for Albania s political and military elite, it now offers a unique glimpse into the country s history under Enver Hoxha s oppressive regime. The museum s exhibits include historical artifacts, photographs, and multimedia displays that detail the lives of Albanians during that time. Walking through the dimly lit corridors, I felt the weight of history and gained a deeper understanding of Albania s past. Bunkart Bunkart Bunkart Bunkart Bunkart Bunkart Bunkar Bunkart Bunkart Bunkart Bunkart

Day 7-8, Meeting Friends From India The next day, I accidentally met with Chirag, who was returning from the Debian Conference 2022 held in Prizren, Kosovo, and staying at the same hostel. When I encountered him, he was talking on the phone, and I recognized he was Indian by his accent. I introduced myself, and we discovered we had some mutual friends. Chirag told me that our common friend, Raju, was also coming to stay at the hostel the next day. This news made me feel relaxed and happy to have known people around. When Raju arrived, the three of us, Chirag, Raju, and I planned to have dinner at an Indian restaurant and explore Tirana city. I had a great time talking and enjoying their company. Friends on street

Day 9-10, Meeting More Friends Raju had a ticket to leave soon, so Chirag and I made a plan to visit Shkod r and the nearby Komani Lake for kayaking. We started our journey early in the morning by bus and reached Shkod r. There, we met new friends from the conference, Pavit and Abraham, who were already there. We had dinner together and enjoyed an ice cream treat from Chirag. Friends on dinner

Day 12, Kayaking And Say Good Bye To Friends The next day, Pavit and Abraham had a flight back to India, so Chirag and I went to Komani Lake. We had an adventurous time kayaking, even though neither of us knew how to swim. We took a ferry through the backwaters to the island on Komani Lake and enjoyed a fantastic adventure together. After our trip, Chirag returned to Tirana for his flight back to India, leaving me to continue my journey alone. Lake with mountain Kayak

Day 13, Climbing Rozafa Castel By stopping at Shkod r, I visited Rozafa Castle. Despite the language barrier, as most locals only spoke Albanian, people around me guided me correctly on how to get there. At times, I used applications like Google Translate to communicate. To read signs or hotel menus, I used Google Photos' language converter. I even used the audio converter to understand and speak some basic Albanian phrases. View from top of Castel Rozafa castel I took a bus from Shkod r to the southern part of Albania, heading to Sarand . The journey lasted about five to six hours, and I had booked a stay at Mona s Hostel. Upon arrival, I met Eliza from America, and we went together to Ksamil Beach, spending a wonderful day there.

Day 14, Vlora Beach: Beach Side Cycling Next, I traveled to Vlor , where I stayed for one day. During my time there, I enjoyed beach side cycling with a cycle provided by the hostel owner and spent some time feeding fish. I also met a fellow traveler from Delhi who had brought along some preserved Indian curry. He kindly shared it with me, which was a welcome change after nearly 15 days without authentic Indian cuisine, except for what I had cooked myself in various hostels. Sunset on BeachKalyani on Beach Beach with streetBeach side cycling

Day 15-16 Visiting Durress, Travelling Back To Tirana I then visited Durr s, exploring its beautiful beaches, before heading back to Tirana one day before my flight home. On the day of my flight, my alarm didn t go off, and I woke up late at the hostel. In a frantic rush, I packed everything in just five minutes and dashed toward the city center to catch the bus to the airport. If I had been just five minutes later, I would have missed the bus. Thankfully, I managed to stop it just in time and began my journey back home, reflecting on the incredible adventure I had experienced. Fortunately, I wasn t late; I arrived at the airport just in time. After clearing immigration, I boarded my flight, which had a layover in Warsaw, Poland. The journey from Tirana to Warsaw took about two and a half hours, followed by a seven to eight-hour flight from Poland back to India. Once I arrived in Delhi, I returned to Zostel and booked a train ticket to Aurangabad for the next three days.

Backview This trip was an incredible adventure for me. I never imagined I could accomplish something like this, but I did. Meeting diverse people, experiencing different cultures, and learning so much made this journey truly unforgettable. Looking back, I realize how much I ve grown from this experience. Although I may have more opportunities to travel abroad in the future, this trip will always hold a special place in my heart. The memories I made and the incredible people I met along the way are irreplaceable. This experience goes beyond what I can express through this blog or words; it was incredibly precious to me. Every moment of this journey is etched in my memory, and I am grateful for every part of it.

17 July 2024

Gunnar Wolf: Script for weather reporting in Waybar

While I was living in Argentina, we (my family) found ourselves checking for weather forecasts almost constantly weather there can be quite unexpected, much more so that here in Mexico. So it took me a bit of tinkering to come up with a couple of simple scripts to show the weather forecast as part of my Waybar setup. I haven t cared to share with anybody, as I believe them to be quite trivial and quite dirty. But today, V ctor was asking for some slightly-related things, so here I go. Please do remember I warned: Dirty. Forecast I am using OpenWeather s open API. I had to register to get an APPID, and it allows me for up to 1,000 API calls per day, more than plenty for my uses, even if I am logged in at my desktops at three different computers (not an uncommon situation). Having that, I set up a file named /etc/get_weather/, that currently reads:
# Home, Mexico City
LAT=19.3364
LONG=-99.1819
# # Home, Paran , Argentina
# LAT=-31.7208
# LONG=-60.5317
# # PKNU, Busan, South Korea
# LAT=35.1339
#LONG=129.1055
APPID=SomeLongRandomStringIAmNotSharing
Then, I have a simple script, /usr/local/bin/get_weather, that fetches the current weather and the forecast, and stores them as /run/weather.json and /run/forecast.json:
#!/usr/bin/bash
CONF_FILE=/etc/get_weather
if [ -e "$CONF_FILE" ]; then
    . "$CONF_FILE"
else
    echo "Configuration file $CONF_FILE not found"
    exit 1
fi
if [ -z "$LAT" -o -z "$LONG" -o -z "$APPID" ]; then
    echo "Configuration file must declare latitude (LAT), longitude (LONG) "
    echo "and app ID (APPID)."
    exit 1
fi
CURRENT=/run/weather.json
FORECAST=/run/forecast.json
wget -q "https://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?lat=$ LAT &lon=$ LONG &units=metric&appid=$ APPID " -O "$ CURRENT "
wget -q "https://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/forecast?lat=$ LAT &lon=$ LONG &units=metric&appid=$ APPID " -O "$ FORECAST "
This script is called by the corresponding systemd service unit, found at /etc/systemd/system/get_weather.service:
[Unit]
Description=Get the current weather
[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/get_weather
And it is run every 15 minutes via the following systemd timer unit, /etc/systemd/system/get_weather.timer:
[Unit]
Description=Get the current weather every 15 minutes
[Timer]
OnCalendar=*:00/15:00
Unit=get_weather.service
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
(yes, it runs even if I m not logged in, wasting some of my free API calls but within reason) Then, I declare a "custom/weather" module in the desired position of my ~/.config/waybar/waybar.config, and define it as:
"custom/weather":  
    "exec": "while true;do /home/gwolf/bin/parse_weather.rb;sleep 10; done",
"return-type": "json",
 ,
This script basically morphs a generic weather JSON description into another set of JSON bits that display my weather in the way I prefer to have it displayed as:
#!/usr/bin/ruby
require 'json'
Sources =  :weather => '/run/weather.json',
           :forecast => '/run/forecast.json'
           
Icons =  '01d' => ' ', # d   day
         '01n' => ' ', # n   night
         '02d' => ' ',
         '02n' => ' ',
         '03d' => ' ',
         '03n' => ' ',
         '04d'  => ' ',
         '04n' => ' ',
         '09d' => ' ',
         '10n' =>  '  ',
         '10d' => ' ',
         '13d' => ' ',
         '50d' => ' '
         
ret =  'text': nil, 'tooltip': nil, 'class': 'weather', 'percentage': 100 
# Current weather report: Main text of the module
begin
  weather = JSON.parse(open(Sources[:weather],'r').read)
  loc_name = weather['name']
  icon = Icons[weather['weather'][0]['icon']]   ' ' + f['weather'][0]['icon'] + f['weather'][0]['main']
  temp = weather['main']['temp']
  sens = weather['main']['feels_like']
  hum = weather['main']['humidity']
  wind_vel = weather['wind']['speed']
  wind_dir = weather['wind']['deg']
  portions =  
  portions[:loc] = loc_name
  portions[:temp] = '%s  %2.2f C (%2.2f)' % [icon, temp, sens]
  portions[:hum] = '  %2d%%' % hum
  portions[:wind] = ' %2.2fm/s %d ' % [wind_vel, wind_dir]
  ret['text'] = [:loc, :temp, :hum, :wind].map   p  portions[p] .join(' ')
rescue => err
  ret['text'] = 'Could not process weather file (%s   %s: %s)' % [Sources[:weather], err.class, err.to_s]
end
# Weather prevision for the following hours/days
begin
  cast = []
  forecast = JSON.parse(open(Sources[:forecast], 'r').read)
  min = ''
  max = ''
  day=Time.now.strftime('%Y.%m.%d')
  by_day =  
  forecast['list'].each_with_index do  f,i 
    by_day[day]  = []
    time = Time.at(f['dt'])
    time_lbl = '%02d:%02d' % [time.hour, time.min]
    icon = Icons[f['weather'][0]['icon']]   ' ' + f['weather'][0]['icon'] + f['weather'][0]['main']
    by_day[day] << f['main']['temp']
    if time.hour == 0
      min = '%2.2f' % by_day[day].min
      max = '%2.2f' % by_day[day].max
      cast << '          min: <b>%s C</b> max: <b>%s C</b>' % [min, max]
      day = time.strftime('%Y.%m.%d')
      cast << '        <b>%04d.%02d.%02d</b>  ' %
              [time.year, time.month, time.day]
    end
    cast << '%s   %2.2f C    %2d%%   %s %s' % [time_lbl,
                                                f['main']['temp'],
                                                f['main']['humidity'],
                                                icon,
                                                f['weather'][0]['description']
                                               ]
  end
  cast << '          min: <b>%s</b> C max: <b>%s C</b>' % [min, max]
  ret['tooltip'] = cast.join("\n")
  
rescue => err
  ret['tooltip'] = 'Could not process forecast file (%s   %s)' % [Sources[:forecast], err.class, err.to_s]
end
# Print out the result for Waybar to process
puts ret.to_json
The end result? Nothing too stunning, but definitively something I find useful and even nicely laid out: Screenshot Do note that it seems OpenWeather will return the name of the closest available meteorology station with (most?) recent data for my home, I often get Ciudad Universitaria, but sometimes Coyoac n or even San ngel Inn.

9 July 2024

Russ Allbery: Review: Raising Steam

Review: Raising Steam, by Terry Pratchett
Series: Discworld #40
Publisher: Anchor Books
Copyright: 2013
Printing: October 2014
ISBN: 0-8041-6920-9
Format: Trade paperback
Pages: 365
Raising Steam is the 40th Discworld novel and the third Moist von Lipwig novel, following Making Money. This is not a good place to start reading the series. Dick Simnel is a tinkerer from a line of tinkerers. He has been obsessed with mastering the power of steam since the age of ten, when his father died in a steam accident. That pursuit took him deeper into mathematics and precision, calculations and experiments, until he built Iron Girder: Discworld's first steam-powered locomotive. His early funding came from some convenient family pirate treasure, but turning his prototype into something more will require significantly more resources. That is how he ends up in the office of Harry King, Ankh-Morpork's sanitation magnate. Simnel's steam locomotive has the potential to solve some obvious logistical problems, such as getting fish from the docks of Quirm to the streets of Ankh-Morpork before it stops being vaguely edible. That's not what makes railways catch fire, however. As soon as Iron Girder is huffing and puffing its way around King's compound, it becomes the most popular attraction in the city. People stand in line for hours to ride it over and over again for reasons that they cannot entirely explain. There is something wild and uncontrollable going on. Vetinari is not sure he likes wild and uncontrollable, but he knows the lap into which such problems can be dumped: Moist von Lipwig, who is already getting bored with being a figurehead for the city's banking system. The setup for Raising Steam reminds me more of Moving Pictures than the other Moist von Lipwig novels. Simnel himself is a relentlessly practical engineer, but the trains themselves have tapped some sort of primal magic. Unlike Moving Pictures, Pratchett doesn't provide an explicit fantasy explanation involving intruding powers from another world. It might have been a more interesting book if he had. Instead, this book expects the reader to believe there is something inherently appealing and fascinating about trains, without providing much logic or underlying justification. I think some readers will be willing to go along with this, and others (myself included) will be left wishing the story had more world-building and fewer exclamation points. That's not the real problem with this book, though. Sadly, its true downfall is that Pratchett's writing ability had almost completely collapsed by the time he wrote it. As mentioned in my review of Snuff, we're now well into the period where Pratchett was suffering the effects of early-onset Alzheimer's. In that book, his health issues mostly affected the dialogue near the end of the novel. In this book, published two years later, it's pervasive and much worse. Here's a typical passage from early in the book:
It is said that a soft answer turneth away wrath, but this assertion has a lot to do with hope and was now turning out to be patently inaccurate, since even a well-spoken and thoughtful soft answer could actually drive the wrong kind of person into a state of fury if wrath was what they had in mind, and that was the state the elderly dwarf was now enjoying.
One of the best things about Discworld is Pratchett's ability to drop unexpected bits of wisdom in a sentence or two, or twist a verbal knife in an unexpected and surprising direction. Raising Steam still shows flashes of that ability, but it's buried in run-on sentences, drowned in cliches and repetition, and often left behind as the containing sentence meanders off into the weeds and sputters to a confused halt. The idea is still there; the delivery, sadly, is not. This is the first Discworld novel that I found mentally taxing to read. Sentences are often so overpacked that they require real effort to untangle, and the untangled meaning rarely feels worth the effort. The individual voice of the characters is almost gone. Vetinari's monologues, rather than being a rare event with dangerous layers, are frequent, rambling, and indecisive, often sounding like an entirely different character than the Vetinari we know. The constant repetition of the name any given character is speaking to was impossible for me to ignore. And the momentum of the story feels wrong; rather than constructing the events of the story in a way that sweeps the reader along, it felt like Pratchett was constantly pushing, trying to convince the reader that trains were the most exciting thing to ever happen to Discworld. The bones of a good story are here, including further development of dwarf politics from The Fifth Elephant and Thud! and the further fallout of the events of Snuff. There are also glimmers of Pratchett's typically sharp observations and turns of phrase that could have been unearthed and polished. But at the very least this book needed way more editing and a lot of rewriting. I suspect it could have dropped thirty pages just by tightening the dialogue and removing some of the repetition. I'm afraid I did not enjoy this. I am a bit of a hard sell for the magic fascination of trains I love trains, but my model railroad days are behind me and I'm now more interested in them as part of urban transportation policy. Previous Discworld books on technology and social systems did more of the work of drawing the reader in, providing character hooks and additional complexity, and building a firmer foundation than "trains are awesome." The main problem, though, was the quality of the writing, particularly when compared to the previous novels with the same characters. I dragged myself through this book out of a sense of completionism and obligation, and was relieved when I finished it. This is the first Discworld novel that I don't recommend. I think the only reason to read it is if you want to have read all of Discworld. Otherwise, consider stopping with Snuff and letting it be the send-off for the Ankh-Morpork characters. Followed by The Shepherd's Crown, a Tiffany Aching story and the last Discworld novel. Rating: 3 out of 10

1 July 2024

Russ Allbery: Review: Snuff

Review: Snuff, by Terry Pratchett
Series: Discworld #39
Publisher: Harper
Copyright: October 2011
Printing: January 2013
ISBN: 0-06-221886-7
Format: Mass market
Pages: 470
Snuff is the 39th Discworld novel and the 8th (and last) Watch novel. This is not a good place to start reading. Sam Vines has been talked, cajoled, and coerced into taking a vacation. Since he is now the Duke of Ankh, he has a country estate that he's never visited. Lady Sybil is insistent on remedying this, as is Vetinari. Both of them may have ulterior motives. They may also be colluding. It does not take long for Vimes to realize that something is amiss in the countryside. It's not that the servants are uncomfortable with him talking to them, the senior servants are annoyed that he talks to the wrong servants, and the maids turn to face the wall at the sight of him. Those are just the strange customs of the aristocracy, for which he has little understanding and even less patience. There's something else going on. The nobility is wary, the town blacksmith is angry about something more than disliking the nobles, and the bartender doesn't want to get involved. Vimes smells something suspicious. When he's framed for a murder, the suspicions seem justified. It takes some time before the reader learns what the local nobility are squirming about, so I won't spoil it. What I will say is that Snuff is Pratchett hammering away at one of his favorite targets: prejudice, cruelty, and treating people like things. Vimes, with his uncompromising morality, is one of the first to realize the depth of the problem. It takes most of the rest longer to come around, even Sybil. It's both painful, and painfully accurate, to contemplate how often recognition of other people's worth only comes once they do something that you recognize as valuable. This is one of the better-plotted Discworld novels. Vimes starts out with nothing but suspicions and stubbornness, and manages to turn Snuff into a mystery novel through dogged persistence. The story is one continuous plot arc with the normal Pratchett color (Young Sam's obsession with types of poo, for example) but without extended digressions. It also has considerably better villains than most Pratchett novels: layers of foot soldiers and plotters, each of which have to be dealt with in a suitable way. Even the concluding action sequences worked for me, which is not always a given in Discworld. The problem, unfortunately, is that the writing is getting a bit wobbly. Pratchett died of early-onset Alzheimer's in 2015, four years after this book was first published, and this is the first novel where I can see some early effects. It mostly shows up in the dialogue: it's just a bit flabby and a bit repetitive, and the characters, particularly towards the end of the book, start repeating the name of the person they're talking to every other line. Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it, and it was annoying enough to rob a bit of enjoyment from the end of the book. That aside, though, this was a solid Discworld novel. Vimes testing his moral certainty against the world and forcing it into a more ethical shape is always rewarding, and here he takes more risks, with better justification, than in most of the Watch novels. We also find out that Vimes has a legacy from the events of Thud!, which has interesting implications that I wish Pratchett had more time to explore. I think the best part of this book is how it models the process of social change through archetypes: the campaigner who knew the right choice early on, the person who formed their opinion the first time they saw injustice, the person who gets there through a more explicit moral code, the ones who have to be pushed by someone who was a bit faster, the ones who have to be convinced but then work to convince others, and of course the person who is willing to take on the unfair and far-too-heavy burden of being exceptional enough that they can be used as a tool to force other people to acknowledge them as a person. And, since this is Discworld, Vetinari is lurking in the scenery pulling strings, balancing threats, navigating politics, and giving Vimes just enough leeway to try to change the world without abusing his power. I love that the amount of leeway Vimes gets depends on how egregious the offense is, and Vetinari calibrates this quite carefully without ever saying so openly. Recommended, and as much as I don't want to see this series end, this is not a bad entry for the Watch novels to end on. Followed in publication order by Raising Steam. Rating: 8 out of 10

21 June 2024

Gunnar Wolf: A new RISC-V toy... requiring almost no tinkering

Shortly before coming back from Argentina, I got news of a very interesting set of little machines, the MilkV Duo. The specs looked really interesting and fun to play with, particularly those of the bigger model, Milk-V DUO S Some of the highlights: Milk-V Duo S Naturally, for close to only US$12 (plus shipping) for the configuration I wanted I bought one, and got it delivered in early May. The little box sat on my desk for close to six weeks until I had time to start tinkering with it I must say I am surprised. Not only the little bugger delivers what it promises, but it is way more mature than what I expected: It can be used right away without much tinkering with! I mean, I have played with it for less than an hour by now, and I ve even managed to get (almost) regular Debian working. Milk-V distributes a simple, 58.9MB compressed Linux image, based on Buildroot, a simple Linux image generator mostly used for embedded applications, as well as its source tree. I thought that would be a good starting point to work on setting up a minimal Debian filesystem, as I did with the CuBox-i4Pro ten years ago, and maybe even to grow towards a more official solution, akin to what we currently have for the Raspberry Pi family Until I discovered what looks like a friendly and very active online community of Milk-V users! I haven t yet engaged in it, but I stumbled across a thread announcing the availability of Debian images for the Milk-V family. And yes, it feels like a very normal Debian system. /etc/apt/sources.list does point to a third-party repository, but it s for only four packages, all related to pinmux controlfor CVITEK chips. It does feel like a completely normal Debian system! It is not as snappy and fast to load as Buildroot, but given Debian s generality, that s completely as expected. Even the wireless network, one of the usual pain points, works just out of the box! The Debian images can be built or downloaded from this Git repository. In case you wonder how is this system booting or what hardware it detects, I captured two boot logs:

27 May 2024

Sahil Dhiman: A Late, Late Debconf23 Post

After much procrastination, I have gotten around to complete my DebConf23 (DC23), Kochi blog post. I lost the original etherpad which was started before DebConf23, for jotting down things. Now, I have started afresh with whatever I can remember, months after the actual conference ended. So things might be as accurate as my memory. DebConf23, the 24th annual Debian Conference, happened in Infopark, Kochi, India from 10th September to 17th September 2023. It was preceded by DebCamp from 3rd September to 9th September 2023. First formal bid to host DebConf in India was made during DebConf18 in Hsinchu, Taiwan by Raju Dev, which didn t came our way. In next DebConf, DebConf19 in Curitiba, Brazil, another bid was made by him with help and support from Sruthi, Utkarsh and the whole team.This time, India got the opportunity to host DebConf22, which eventually became DebConf23 for the reasons you all know. I initially met the local team on the sidelines of DebConf20, which was also my first DebConf. Having recently switched to Debian, DC20 introduced me to how things work in Debian. Video team s call for volunteers email pulled me in. Things stuck, and I kept hanging out and helping the local Indian DC team with various stuff. We did manage to organize multiple events leading to DebConf23 including MiniDebConf India 2021 Online, MiniDebConf Palakkad 2022, MiniDebConf Tamil Nadu 2023 and DebUtsav Kochi 2023, which gave us quite a bit of experience and workout. Many local organizers from these conferences later joined various DebConf teams during the conference to help out. For DebConf23, originally I was part of publicity team because that was my usual thing. After a team redistribution exercise, Sruthi and Praveen moved me to sponsorship team, as anyhow we didn t had to do much publicity and sponsorship was one of those things I could get involved remotely. Sponsorship team had to take care of raising funds by reaching out to sponsors, managing invoices and fulfillment. Praveen joined as well in sponsorship team. We also had international sponsorship team, Anisa, Daniel and various Debian Trusted Organizations (TO)s which took care of reaching out to international organizations, and we took care of reaching out to Indian organizations for sponsorship. It was really proud moment when my present employer, Unmukti (makers of hopbox) came aboard as Bronze sponsor. Though fundraising seem to be hit hard from tech industry slowdown and layoffs. Many of our yesteryear sponsors couldn t sponsor. We had biweekly local team meetings, which were turned to weekly as we neared the event. This was done in addition to biweekly global team meeting. Pathu
Pathu, DebConf23 mascot
To describe the conference venue, it happened in InfoPark, Kochi with the main conference hall being Athulya Hall and food, accommodation and two smaller halls in Four Point Hotel, right outside Infopark. We got Athulya Hall as part of venue sponsorship from Infopark. The distance between both of them was around 300 meters. Halls were named Anamudi, Kuthiran and Ponmudi based on hills and mountain areas in host state of Kerala. Other than Annamudi hall which was the main hall, I couldn t remember the names of the hall, I still can t. Four Points was big and expensive, and we had, as expected, cost overruns. Due to how DebConf function, an Indian university wasn t suitable to host a conference of this scale. Infinity Pool at Night
Four Point's Infinity Pool at Night
I landed in Kochi on the first day of DebCamp on 3rd September. As usual, met Abraham first, and the better part of the next hour was spent on meet and greet. It was my first IRL DebConf so met many old friends and new folks. I got a room to myself. Abraham lived nearby and hadn t taken the accommodation, so I asked him to join. He finally joined from second day onwards. All through the conference, room 928 became in-famous for various reasons, and I had various roommates for company. In DebCamp days, we would get up to have breakfast and go back to sleep and get active only past lunch for hacking and helping in the hack lab for the day, followed by fun late night discussions and parties. Nilesh, Chirag and Apple at DC23
Nilesh, Chirag and Apple at DC23
The team even managed to get a press conference arranged as well, and we got an opportunity to go to Press Club, Ernakulam. Sruthi and Jonathan gave the speech and answered questions from journalists. The event was covered by media as well due to this. Ernakulam Press Club
Ernakulam Press Club
During the conference, every night the team use to have 9 PM meetings for retrospection and planning for next day, which was always dotted with new problems. Every day, we used to hijack Silent Hacklab for the meeting and gently ask the only people there at the time to give us space. DebConf, it itself is a well oiled machine. Network was brought up from scratch. Video team built the recording, audio mixing, live-streaming, editing and transcoding infrastructure on site. A gaming rig served as router and gateway. We got internet uplinks, a 1 Gbps sponsored leased line from Kerala Vision and a paid backup 100 Mbps connection from a different provider. IPv6 was added through HE s Tunnelbroker. Overall the network worked fine as additionally we had hotel Wi-Fi, so the conference network wasn t stretched much. I must highlight, DebConf is my only conference where almost everything and every piece of software in developed in-house, for the conference and modified according to need on the fly. Even event recording cameras, audio check, direction, recording and editing is all done on in-house software by volunteer-attendees (in some cases remote ones as well), all trained on the sideline of the conference. The core recording and mixing equipment is owned by Debian and travels to each venue. The rest is sourced locally. Gaming Rig which served as DC23 gateway router
Gaming Rig which served as DC23 gateway router
It was fun seeing how almost all the things were coordinated over text on Internet Relay Chat (IRC). If a talk/event was missing a talkmeister or a director or a camera person, a quick text on #debconf channel would be enough for someone to volunteer. Video team had a dedicated support channel for each conference venue for any issues and were quick to respond and fix stuff. Network information. Screengrab from closing ceremony
Network information. Screengrab from closing ceremony
It rained for the initial days, which gave us a cool weather. Swag team had decided to hand out umbrellas in swag kit which turned out to be quite useful. The swag kit was praised for quality and selection - many thanks to Anupa, Sruthi and others. It was fun wearing different color T-shirts, all designed by Abraham. Red for volunteers, light green for Video team, green for core-team i.e. staff and yellow for conference attendees. With highvoltage
With highvoltage
We were already acclimatized by the time DebConf really started as we had been talking, hacking and hanging out since last 7 days. Rush really started with the start of DebConf. More people joined on the first and second day of the conference. As has been the tradition, an opening talk was prepared by the Sruthi and local team (which I highly recommend watching to get more insights of the process). DebConf day 1 also saw job fair, where Canonical and FOSSEE, IIT Bombay had stalls for community interactions, which judging by the crowd itself turned out to be quite a hit. For me, association with DebConf (and Debian) started due to volunteering with video team, so anyhow I was going to continue doing that this conference as well. I usually volunteer for talks/events which anyhow I m interested in. Handling the camera, talkmeister-ing and direction are fun activities, though I didn t do sound this time around. Sound seemed difficult, and I didn t want to spoil someone s stream and recording. Talk attendance varied a lot, like in Bits from DPL talk, the hall was full but for some there were barely enough people to handle the volunteering tasks, but that s what usually happens. DebConf is more of a place to come together and collaborate, so talk attendance is an afterthought sometimes. Audience in highvoltage's Bits from DPL talk
Audience in highvoltage's Bits from DPL talk
I didn t submit any talk proposals this time around, as just being in the orga team was too much work already, and I knew, the talk preparation would get delayed to the last moment and I would have to rush through it. Enrico's talk
Enrico's talk
From Day 2 onward, more sponsor stalls were introduced in the hallway area. Hopbox by Unmukti , MostlyHarmless and Deeproot (joint stall) and FOSEE. MostlyHarmless stall had nice mechanical keyboards and other fun gadgets. Whenever I got the time, I would go and start typing racing to enjoy the nice, clicky keyboards. As the DebConf tradition dictates, we had a Cheese and Wine party. Everyone brought in cheese and other delicacies from their region. Then there was yummy Sadya. Sadya is a traditional vegetarian Malayalis lunch served over banana leaves. There were loads of different dishes served, the names of most I couldn t pronounce or recollect properly, but everything was super delicious. Day 4 was day trip and I chose to go to Athirappilly Waterfalls and Jungle safari. Pictures would describe the beauty better than words. The journey was bit long though. Athirappilly Falls
Athirappilly Falls

Pathu Pathu Tea Gardens
Tea Gardens
Late that day, we heard the news of Abraham gone missing. We lost Abraham. He had worked really hard all through the years for Debian and making this conference possible. Talks were cancelled for the next day and Jonathan addressed everyone. We went to Abraham s home the next day to meet his family. Team had arranged buses to Abraham s place. It was an unfortunate moment that I only got an opportunity to visit his place after he was gone. Days went by slowly after that. The last day was marked by a small conference dinner. Some of the people had already left. All through the day and next, we kept saying goodbye to friends, with whom we spent almost a fortnight together. Athirappilly Falls
Group photo with all DebConf T-shirts chronologically
This was 2nd trip to Kochi. Vistara Airway s UK886 has become the default flight now. I have almost learned how to travel in and around Kochi by Metro, Water Metro, Airport Shuttle and auto. Things are quite accessible in Kochi but metro is a bit expensive compared to Delhi. I left Kochi on 19th. My flight was due to leave around 8 PM, so I had the whole day to myself. A direct option would have taken less than 1 hour, but as I had time and chose to take the long way to the airport. First took an auto rickshaw to Kakkanad Water Metro station. Then sailed in the water metro to Vyttila Water Metro station. Vyttila serves as intermobility hub which connects water metro, metro, bus at once place. I switched to Metro here at Vyttila Metro station till Aluva Metro station. Here, I had lunch and then boarded the Airport feeder bus to reach Kochi Airport. All in all, I did auto rickshaw > water metro > metro > feeder bus to reach Airport. I was fun and scenic. I must say, public transport and intermodal integration is quite good and once can transition seamlessly from one mode to next. Kochi Water Metro
Kochi Water Metro

Scenes from Kochi Water Metro Scenes from Kochi Water Metro
Scenes from Kochi Water Metro
DebConf23 served its purpose of getting existing Debian people together, as well as getting new people interested and contributing to Debian. People who came are still contributing to Debian, and that s amazing. Streaming video stats
Streaming video stats. Screengrab from closing ceremony
The conference wasn t without its fair share of troubles. There were multiple money transfer woes, and being in India didn t help. Many thanks to multiple organizations who were proactive in helping out. On top of this, there was conference visa uncertainty and other issues which troubled visa team a lot. Kudos to everyone who made this possible. Surely, I m going to miss the name, so thank you for it, you know how much you have done to make this event possible. Now, DebConf24 is scheduled for Busan, South Korea, and work is already in full swing. As usual, I m helping with the fundraising part and plan to attend too. Let s see if I can make it or not. DebConf23 Group Photo
DebConf23 Group Photo. Click to enlarge.
Credits - Aigars Mahinovs
In the end, we kept on saying, no DebConf at this scale would come back to India for the next 10 or 20 years. It s too much trouble to be frank. It was probably the peak that we might not reach again. I would be happy to be proven wrong though :)

20 May 2024

Debian Brasil: MiniDebConf Belo Horizonte 2024 - um breve relato

De 27 a 30 de abril de 2024 foi realizada a MiniDebConf Belo Horizonte 2024 no Campus Pampulha da UFMG - Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, em Belo Horizonte - MG. MiniDebConf BH 2024 banners Esta foi a quinta vez que uma MiniDebConf (como um evento presencial exclusivo sobre Debian) aconteceu no Brasil. As edi es anteriores foram em Curitiba (2016, 2017, e 2018), e em Bras lia 2023. Tivemos outras edi es de MiniDebConfs realizadas dentro de eventos de Software Livre como o FISL e a Latinoware, e outros eventos online. Veja o nosso hist rico de eventos. Paralelamente MiniDebConf, no dia 27 (s bado) aconteceu o FLISOL - Festival Latino-americano de Instala o de Software Livre, maior evento da Am rica Latina de divulga o de Software Livre realizado desde o ano de 2005 simultaneamente em v rias cidades. A MiniDebConf Belo Horizonte 2024 foi um sucesso (assim como as edi es anteriores) gra as participa o de todos(as), independentemente do n vel de conhecimento sobre o Debian. Valorizamos a presen a tanto dos(as) usu rios(as) iniciantes que est o se familiarizando com o sistema quanto dos(as) desenvolvedores(as) oficiais do projeto. O esp rito de acolhimento e colabora o esteve presente em todos os momentos. MiniDebConf BH 2024 flisol N meros da edi o 2024 Durante os quatro dias de evento aconteceram diversas atividades para todos os n veis de usu rios(as) e colaboradores(as) do projeto Debian. A programa o oficial foi composta de: MiniDebConf BH 2024 palestra Os n meros finais da MiniDebConf Belo Horizonte 2024 mostram que tivemos um recorde de participantes. Dos 224 participantes, 15 eram contribuidores(as) oficiais brasileiros sendo 10 DDs (Debian Developers) e 05 (Debian Maintainers), al m de diversos(as) contribuidores(as) n o oficiais. A organiza o foi realizada por 14 pessoas que come aram a trabalhar ainda no final de 2023, entre elas o Prof. Lo c Cerf do Departamento de Computa o que viabilizou o evento na UFMG, e 37 volunt rios(as) que ajudaram durante o evento. Como a MiniDebConf foi realizado nas instala es da UFMG, tivemos a ajuda de mais de 10 funcion rios da Universidade. Veja a lista com os nomes das pessoas que ajudaram de alguma forma na realiza o da MiniDebConf Belo Horizonte 2024. A diferen a entre o n mero de pessoas inscritas e o n mero de pessoas presentes provavelmente se explica pelo fato de n o haver cobran a de inscri o, ent o se a pessoa desistir de ir ao evento ela n o ter preju zo financeiro. A edi o 2024 da MiniDebconf Belo Horizonte foi realmente grandiosa e mostra o resultado dos constantes esfor os realizados ao longo dos ltimos anos para atrair mais colaboradores(as) para a comunidade Debian no Brasil. A cada edi o os n meros s aumentam, com mais participantes, mais atividades, mais salas, e mais patrocinadores/apoiadores. MiniDebConf BH 2024 grupo

MiniDebConf BH 2024 grupo Atividades A programa o da MiniDebConf foi intensa e diversificada. Nos dias 27, 29 e 30 (s bado, segunda e ter a-feira) tivemos palestras, debates, oficinas e muitas atividades pr ticas. MiniDebConf BH 2024 palestra J no dia 28 (domingo), ocorreu o Day Trip, um dia dedicado a passeios pela cidade. Pela manh sa mos do hotel e fomos, em um nibus fretado, para o Mercado Central de Belo Horizonte. O pessoal aproveitou para comprar v rias coisas como queijos, doces, cacha as e lembrancinhas, al m de experimentar algumas comidas locais. MiniDebConf BH 2024 mercado Depois de 2 horas de passeio pelo Mercado, voltamos para o nibus e pegamos a estrada para almo armos em um restaurante de comida t pica mineira. MiniDebConf BH 2024 palestra Com todos bem alimentados, voltamos para Belo Horizonte para visitarmos o principal ponto tur stico da cidade: a Lagoa da Pampulha e a Capela S o Francisco de Assis, mais conhecida como Igrejinha da Pampulha. MiniDebConf BH 2024 palestra Voltamos para o hotel e o dia terminou no hacker space que montamos na sala de eventos para o pessoal conversar, empacotar, e comer umas pizzas. MiniDebConf BH 2024 palestra Financiamento coletivo Pela terceira vez fizemos uma campanha de financiamento coletivo e foi incr vel como as pessoas contribu ram! A meta inicial era arrecadar o valor equivalente a uma cota ouro de R$ 3.000,00. Ao atingirmos essa meta, definimos uma nova, equivalente a uma cota ouro + uma cota prata (R$ 5.000,00). E novamente atingimos essa meta. Ent o propusermos como meta final o valor de uma cota ouro + prata + bronze, que seria equivalente a R$ 6.000,00. O resultado foi que arrecadamos R$ 7.239,65 com a ajuda de mais de 100 pessoas! Muito obrigado as pessoas que contribu ram com qualquer valor. Como forma de agradecimento, listamos os nomes das pessoas que doaram. MiniDebConf BH 2024 doadores Bolsas de alimenta o, hospedagem e/ou passagens para participantes Cada edi o da MiniDebConf trouxe alguma inova o, ou algum benef cio diferente para os(a) participantes. Na edi o deste ano em Belo Horizonte, assim como acontece nas DebConfs, oferecemos bolsas de alimenta o, hospedagem e/ou passagens para ajudar aquelas pessoas que gostariam de vir para o evento mas que precisariam de algum tipo de ajuda. No formul rio de inscri o, colocamos a op o para a pessoa solicitar bolsa de alimenta o, hospedagem e/ou passagens, mas para isso, ela deveria se identificar como contribuidor(a) (oficial ou n o oficial) do Debian e escrever uma justificativa para o pedido. N mero de pessoas beneficiadas: A bolsa de alimenta o forneceu almo o e jantar todos os dias. Os almo os inclu ram pessoas que moram em Belo Horizonte e regi o. J o jantares foram pagos para os(as) participantes que tamb m receberam a bolsa de hospedagem e/ou passagens. A hospedagem foi realizada no Hotel BH Jaragu . E as passagens inclu ram de avi o ou de nibus, ou combust vel (para quem veio de carro ou moto). Boa parte do dinheiro para custear as bolsas vieram do Projeto Debian, principalmente para as passagens. Enviamos um or amento o ent o l der do Debian Jonathan Carter, e ele prontamente aprovou o nosso pedido. Al m deste or amento do evento, o l der tamb m aprovou os pedidos individuais enviados por alguns DDs que preferiram solicitar diretamente para ele. A experi ncia de oferecer as bolsas foi realmente muito boa porque permitiu a vinda de v rias pessoas de outras cidades. MiniDebConf BH 2024 grupo Fotos e v deos Voc pode assistir as grava es das palestras nos links abaixo: E ver as fotos feitas por v rios(as) colaboradores(as) nos links abaixo: Agradecimentos Gostar amos de agradecer a todos(as) os(as) participantes, organizadores(as), volunt rios(as), patrocinadores(as) e apoiadores(as) que contribu ram para o sucesso da MiniDebConf Belo Horizonte 2024. MiniDebConf BH 2024 grupo Patrocinadores Ouro: Prata: Bronze: Apoiadores Organiza o

22 April 2024

Russ Allbery: Review: The Stars, Like Dust

Review: The Stars, Like Dust, by Isaac Asimov
Series: Galactic Empire #2
Publisher: Fawcett Crest
Copyright: 1950, 1951
Printing: June 1972
Format: Mass market
Pages: 192
The Stars, Like Dust is usually listed as the first book in Asimov's lesser-known Galactic Empire Trilogy since it takes place before Pebble in the Sky. Pebble in the Sky was published first, though, so I count it as the second book. It is very early science fiction with a few mystery overtones. Buying books produces about 5% of the pleasure of reading them while taking much less than 5% of the time. There was a time in my life when I thoroughly enjoyed methodically working through a used book store, list in hand, tracking down cheap copies to fill in holes in series. This means that I own a lot of books that I thought at some point that I would want to read but never got around to, often because, at the time, I was feeling completionist about some series or piece of world-building. From time to time, I get the urge to try to read some of them. Sometimes this is a poor use of my time. The Galactic Empire series is from Asimov's first science fiction period, after the Foundation series but contemporaneous with their collection into novels. They're set long, long before Foundation, but after humans have inhabited numerous star systems and Earth has become something of a backwater. That process is just starting in The Stars, Like Dust: Earth is still somewhere where an upper-class son might be sent for an education, but it has been devastated by nuclear wars and is well on its way to becoming an inward-looking relic on the edge of galactic society. Biron Farrill is the son of the Lord Rancher of Widemos, a wealthy noble whose world is one of those conquered by the Tyranni. In many other SF novels, the Tyranni would be an alien race; here, it's a hierarchical and authoritarian human civilization. The book opens with Biron discovering a radiation bomb planted in his dorm room. Shortly after, he learns that his father had been arrested. One of his fellow students claims to be on Biron's side against the Tyranni and gives him false papers to travel to Rhodia, a wealthy world run by a Tyranni sycophant. Like most books of this era, The Stars, Like Dust is a short novel full of plot twists. Unlike some of its contemporaries, it's not devoid of characterization, but I might have liked it better if it were. Biron behaves like an obnoxious teenager when he's not being an arrogant ass. There is a female character who does a few plot-relevant things and at no point is sexually assaulted, so I'll give Asimov that much, but the gender stereotypes are ironclad and there is an entire subplot focused on what I can only describe as seduction via petty jealousy. The writing... well, let me quote a typical passage:
There was no way of telling when the threshold would be reached. Perhaps not for hours, and perhaps the next moment. Biron remained standing helplessly, flashlight held loosely in his damp hands. Half an hour before, the visiphone had awakened him, and he had been at peace then. Now he knew he was going to die. Biron didn't want to die, but he was penned in hopelessly, and there was no place to hide.
Needless to say, Biron doesn't die. Even if your tolerance for pulp melodrama is high, 192 small-print pages of this sort of thing is wearying. Like a lot of Asimov plots, The Stars, Like Dust has some of the shape of a mystery novel. Biron, with the aid of some newfound companions on Rhodia, learns of a secret rebellion against the Tyranni and attempts to track down its base to join them. There are false leads, disguised identities, clues that are difficult to interpret, and similar classic mystery trappings, all covered with a patina of early 1950s imaginary science. To me, it felt constructed and artificial in ways that made the strings Asimov was pulling obvious. I don't know if someone who likes mystery construction would feel differently about it. The worst part of the plot thankfully doesn't come up much. We learn early in the story that Biron was on Earth to search for a long-lost document believed to be vital to defeating the Tyranni. The nature of that document is revealed on the final page, so I won't spoil it, but if you try to think of the stupidest possible document someone could have built this plot around, I suspect you will only need one guess. (In Asimov's defense, he blamed Galaxy editor H.L. Gold for persuading him to include this plot, and disavowed it a few years later.) The Stars, Like Dust is one of the worst books I have ever read. The characters are overwrought, the politics are slapdash and build on broad stereotypes, the romantic subplot is dire and plays out mainly via Biron egregiously manipulating his petulant love interest, and the writing is annoying. Sometimes pulp fiction makes up for those common flaws through larger-than-life feats of daring, sweeping visions of future societies, and ever-escalating stakes. There is little to none of that here. Asimov instead provides tedious political maneuvering among a class of elitist bankers and land owners who consider themselves natural leaders. The only places where the power structures of this future government make sense are where Asimov blatantly steals them from either the Roman Empire or the Doge of Venice. The one thing this book has going for it the thing, apart from bloody-minded completionism, that kept me reading is that the technology is hilariously weird in that way that only 1940s and 1950s science fiction can be. The characters have access to communication via some sort of interstellar telepathy (messages coded to a specific person's "brain waves") and can travel between stars through hyperspace jumps, but each jump is manually calculated by referring to the pilot's (paper!) volumes of the Standard Galactic Ephemeris. Communication between ships (via "etheric radio") requires manually aiming a radio beam at the area in space where one thinks the other ship is. It's an unintentionally entertaining combination of technology that now looks absurdly primitive and science that is so advanced and hand-waved that it's obviously made up. I also have to give Asimov some points for using spherical coordinates. It's a small thing, but the coordinate systems in most SF novels and TV shows are obviously not fit for purpose. I spent about a month and a half of this year barely reading, and while some of that is because I finally tackled a few projects I'd been putting off for years, a lot of it was because of this book. It was only 192 pages, and I'm still curious about the glue between Asimov's Foundation and Robot series, both of which I devoured as a teenager. But every time I picked it up to finally finish it and start another book, I made it about ten pages and then couldn't take any more. Learn from my error: don't try this at home, or at least give up if the same thing starts happening to you. Followed by The Currents of Space. Rating: 2 out of 10

18 April 2024

Russ Allbery: Review: Unseen Academicals

Review: Unseen Academicals, by Terry Pratchett
Series: Discworld #37
Publisher: Harper
Copyright: October 2009
Printing: November 2014
ISBN: 0-06-233500-6
Format: Mass market
Pages: 517
Unseen Academicals is the 37th Discworld novel and includes many of the long-standing Ankh-Morpork cast, but mostly as supporting characters. The main characters are a new (and delightful) bunch with their own concerns. You arguably could start reading here if you really wanted to, although you would risk spoiling several previous books (most notably Thud!) and will miss some references that depend on familiarity with the cast. The Unseen University is, like most institutions of its sort, funded by an endowment that allows the wizards to focus on the pure life of the mind (or the stomach). Much to their dismay, they have just discovered that an endowment that amounts to most of their food budget requires that they field a football team. Glenda runs the night kitchen at the Unseen University. Given the deep and abiding love that wizards have for food, there is both a main kitchen and a night kitchen. The main kitchen is more prestigious, but the night kitchen is responsible for making pies, something that Glenda is quietly but exceptionally good at. Juliet is Glenda's new employee. She is exceptionally beautiful, not very bright, and a working class girl of the Ankh-Morpork streets down to her bones. Trevor Likely is a candle dribbler, responsible for assisting the Candle Knave in refreshing the endless university candles and ensuring that their wax is properly dribbled, although he pushes most of that work off onto the infallibly polite and oddly intelligent Mr. Nutt. Glenda, Trev, and Juliet are the sort of people who populate the great city of Ankh-Morpork. While the people everyone has heard of have political crises, adventures, and book plots, they keep institutions like the Unseen University running. They read romance novels, go to the football games, and nurse long-standing rivalries. They do not expect the high mucky-mucks to enter their world, let alone mess with their game. I approached Unseen Academicals with trepidation because I normally don't get along as well with the Discworld wizard books. I need not have worried; Pratchett realized that the wizards would work better as supporting characters and instead turns the main plot (or at least most of it; more on that later) over to the servants. This was a brilliant decision. The setup of this book is some of the best of Discworld up to this point. Trev is a streetwise rogue with an uncanny knack for kicking around a can that he developed after being forbidden to play football by his dear old mum. He falls for Juliet even though their families support different football teams, so you may think that a Romeo and Juliet spoof is coming. There are a few gestures of one, but Pratchett deftly avoids the pitfalls and predictability and instead makes Juliet one of the best characters in the book by playing directly against type. She is one of the characters that Pratchett is so astonishingly good at, the ones that are so thoroughly themselves that they transcend the stories they're put into. The heart of this book, though, is Glenda.
Glenda enjoyed her job. She didn't have a career; they were for people who could not hold down jobs.
She is the kind of person who knows where she fits in the world and likes what she does and is happy to stay there until she decides something isn't right, and then she changes the world through the power of common sense morality, righteous indignation, and sheer stubborn persistence. Discworld is full of complex and subtle characters fencing with each other, but there are few things I have enjoyed more than Glenda being a determinedly good person. Vetinari of course recognizes and respects (and uses) that inner core immediately. Unfortunately, as great as the setup and characters are, Unseen Academicals falls apart a bit at the end. I was eagerly reading the story, wondering what Pratchett was going to weave out of the stories of these individuals, and then it partly turned into yet another wizard book. Pratchett pulled another of his deus ex machina tricks for the climax in a way that I found unsatisfying and contrary to the tone of the rest of the story, and while the characters do get reasonable endings, it lacked the oomph I was hoping for. Rincewind is as determinedly one-note as ever, the wizards do all the standard wizard things, and the plot just isn't that interesting. I liked Mr. Nutt a great deal in the first part of the book, and I wish he could have kept that edge of enigmatic competence and unflappableness. Pratchett wanted to tell a different story that involved more angst and self-doubt, and while I appreciate that story, I found it less engaging and a bit more melodramatic than I was hoping for. Mr. Nutt's reactions in the last half of the book were believable and fit his background, but that was part of the problem: he slotted back into an archetype that I thought Pratchett was going to twist and upend. Mr. Nutt does, at least, get a fantastic closing line, and as usual there are a lot of great asides and quotes along the way, including possibly the sharpest and most biting Vetinari speech of the entire series.
The Patrician took a sip of his beer. "I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining on mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."
My dissatisfaction with the ending prevents Unseen Academicals from rising to the level of Night Watch, and it's a bit more uneven than the best books of the series. Still, though, this is great stuff; recommended to anyone who is reading the series. Followed in publication order by I Shall Wear Midnight. Rating: 8 out of 10

9 April 2024

Gunnar Wolf: Think outside the box Welcome Eclipse!

Now that we are back from our six month period in Argentina, we decided to adopt a kitten, to bring more diversity into our lives. Perhaps this little girl will teach us to think outside the box! Yesterday we witnessed a solar eclipse Mexico City was not in the totality range (we reached ~80%), but it was a great experience to go with the kids. A couple dozen thousand people gathered for a massive picnic in las islas, the main area inside our university campus. Afterwards, we went briefly back home, then crossed the city to fetch the little kitten. Of course, the kids were unanimous: Her name is Eclipse.

29 March 2024

Ravi Dwivedi: A visit to the Taj Mahal

Note: The currency used in this post is Indian Rupees, which was around 83 INR for 1 US Dollar as that time. I and my friend Badri visited the Taj Mahal this month. Taj Mahal is one of the main tourist destinations in India and does not need an introduction, I guess. It is in Agra, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, 188 km from Delhi by train. So, I am writing a post documenting useful information for people who are planning to visit Taj Mahal. Feel free to ask me questions about visiting the Taj Mahal.
Our retiring room at the Old Delhi Railway Station.
We had booked a train from Delhi to Agra. The name of the train was Taj Express, and its scheduled departure time from Hazrat Nizamuddin station in Delhi is 07:08 hours in the morning, and its arrival time at Agra Cantt station is 09:45. So, we booked a retiring room at the Old Delhi railway station for the previous night. This retiring room was hard to find. We woke up at 05:00 in the morning and took the metro to Hazrat Nizamuddin station. We barely reached the station in time, but anyway, the train was not yet at the station; it was late. We reached Agra at 10:30 and checked into our retiring room, took rest and went out for Taj Mahal at 13:00 in the afternoon. Taj Mahal s outer gate is 5 km away from the Agra Cantt station. As we were going out of the railway station, we were chased by an autorickshaw driver who offered to go to Taj Mahal for 150 INR for both of us. I asked him to bring it down to 60 INR, and after some back and forth, he agreed to drop us off at Taj Mahal for 80 INR. But I said we won t pay anything above 60 INR. He agreed with that amount but said that he would need to fill up with more passengers. When we saw that he wasn t making any effort in bringing more passengers, we walked away. As soon as we got out of the railway station complex, an autorickshaw driver came to us and offered to drop us off at Taj Mahal for 20 INR if we are sharing with other passengers and 100 INR if we reserve the auto for us. We agreed to go with 20 INR per person, but he started the autorickshaw as soon as we hopped in. I thought that the third person in the auto was another passenger sharing a ride with us, but later we got to know he was with the driver. Upon reaching the outer gate of Taj Mahal, I gave him 40 INR (for both of us), and he asked to instead give 100 INR as he said we reserved the auto, even though I clearly stated before taking the auto that we wanted to share the auto, not reserve it. I think this was a scam. We walked away, and he didn t insist further. Taj Mahal entrance was like 500 m from the outer gate. We went there and bought offline tickets just outside the West gate. For Indians, the ticket for going inside the Taj Mahal complex is 50 INR, and a visit to the mausoleum costs 200 INR extra.
Security outside the Taj Mahal complex.
This red colored building is entrance to where you can see the Taj Mahal.
Taj Mahal.
Shoe covers for going inside the mausoleum.
Taj Mahal from side angle.
We came out of the Taj Mahal complex at 18:00 and stopped for some tea and snacks. I also bought a fridge magnet for 30 INR. Then we walked back towards Agra Cantt station, as we had a train for Jaipur at midnight. We were hoping to find a restaurant along the way, but we didn t find any that we found interesting, so we just ate at the railway station. During the return trip, we noticed there was a bus stand near the station, which we didn t know about. It turns out you can catch a bus to Taj Mahal from there. You can click here to check out the location of that bus stand on OpenStreetMap.

Expenses These were our expenses per person Retiring room at Delhi Railway Station for 12 hours 131 Train ticket from Delhi to Agra (Taj Express) 110 Retiring room at Agra Cantt station for 12 hours 450 Auto-rickshaw to Taj Mahal 20 Taj Mahal ticket (including going inside the mausoleum): 250 Food 350

Important information for visitors
  • Taj Mahal is closed on Friday.
  • There are plenty of free-of-cost drinking water taps inside the Taj Mahal complex.
  • Ticket price for Indians is 50, for foreigners and NRIs it is 1100, and for people from SAARC/BIMSTEC is 540. 200 extra for the mausoleum for everyone.
  • A visit inside the mausoleum requires covering your shoes or removing them. Shoe covers costs 10 per person inside the complex, but are probably involved free of charge in foreigner tickets. We could not find a place to keep our shoes, but some people managed to enter barefoot, indicating there must be some place to keep your shoes.
  • Mobile phones and cameras are allowed inside the Taj Mahal, but not eatables.
  • We went there on March 10th, and the weather was pleasant. So, we recommend going around that time.
  • Regarding the timings, I found this written near the ticket counter: Taj Mahal opens 30 minutes before sunrise and closes 30 minutes before sunset during normal operating days, so the timings are vague. But we came out of the complex at 18:00 hours. I would interpret that to mean the Taj Mahal is open from 07:00 to 18:00, and the ticket counter closes at around 17:00. During the winter, the timings might differ.
  • The cheapest way to reach Taj Mahal is by bus, and the bus stop is here
Bye for now. See you in the next post :)

18 March 2024

Gunnar Wolf: After miniDebConf Santa Fe

Last week we held our promised miniDebConf in Santa Fe City, Santa Fe province, Argentina just across the river from Paran , where I have spent almost six beautiful months I will never forget. Around 500 Kilometers North from Buenos Aires, Santa Fe and Paran are separated by the beautiful and majestic Paran river, which flows from Brazil, marks the Eastern border of Paraguay, and continues within Argentina as the heart of the litoral region of the country, until it merges with the Uruguay river (you guessed right the river marking the Eastern border of Argentina, first with Brazil and then with Uruguay), and they become the R o de la Plata. This was a short miniDebConf: we were lent the APUL union s building for the weekend (thank you very much!); during Saturday, we had a cycle of talks, and on sunday we had more of a hacklab logic, having some unstructured time to work each on their own projects, and to talk and have a good time together. We were five Debian people attending: santiago debacle eamanu dererk gwolf @debian.org. My main contact to kickstart organization was Mart n Bayo. Mart n was for many years the leader of the Technical Degree on Free Software at Universidad Nacional del Litoral, where I was also a teacher for several years. Together with Leo Mart nez, also a teacher at the tecnicatura, they contacted us with Guillermo and Gabriela, from the APUL non-teaching-staff union of said university. We had the following set of talks (for which there is a promise to get electronic record, as APUL was kind enough to record them! of course, I will push them to our usual conference video archiving service as soon as I get them)
Hour Title (Spanish) Title (English) Presented by
10:00-10:25 Introducci n al Software Libre Introduction to Free Software Mart n Bayo
10:30-10:55 Debian y su comunidad Debian and its community Emanuel Arias
11:00-11:25 Por qu sigo contribuyendo a Debian despu s de 20 a os? Why am I still contributing to Debian after 20 years? Santiago Ruano
11:30-11:55 Mi identidad y el proyecto Debian: Qu es el llavero OpenPGP y por qu ? My identity and the Debian project: What is the OpenPGP keyring and why? Gunnar Wolf
12:00-13:00 Explorando las masculinidades en el contexto del Software Libre Exploring masculinities in the context of Free Software Gora Ortiz Fuentes - Jos Francisco Ferro
13:00-14:30 Lunch
14:30-14:55 Debian para el d a a d a Debian for our every day Leonardo Mart nez
15:00-15:25 Debian en las Raspberry Pi Debian in the Raspberry Pi Gunnar Wolf
15:30-15:55 Device Trees Device Trees Lisandro Dami n Nicanor Perez Meyer (videoconferencia)
16:00-16:25 Python en Debian Python in Debian Emmanuel Arias
16:30-16:55 Debian y XMPP en la medici n de viento para la energ a e lica Debian and XMPP for wind measuring for eolic energy Martin Borgert
As it always happens DebConf, miniDebConf and other Debian-related activities are always fun, always productive, always a great opportunity to meet again our decades-long friends. Lets see what comes next!

10 March 2024

Thorsten Alteholz: My Debian Activities in February 2024

FTP master This month I accepted 242 and rejected 42 packages. The overall number of packages that got accepted was 251.

This was just a short month and the weather outside was not really motivating. I hope it will be better in March. Debian LTS This was my hundred-sixteenth month that I did some work for the Debian LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian. During my allocated time I uploaded: I also started to work on qtbase-opensource-src (an update is needed for ELTS, so an LTS update seems to be appropriate as well, especially as there are postponed CVE). Debian ELTS This month was the sixty-seventth ELTS month. During my allocated time I uploaded: The upload of bind9 was a bit exciting, but all occuring issues with the new upload workflow could be quickly fixed by Helmut and the packages finally reached their destination. I wonder why it is always me who stumbles upon special cases? This month I also worked on the Jessie and Stretch updates for exim4. I also started to work on an update for qtbase-opensource-src in Stretch (and LTS and other releases as well). Debian Printing This month I uploaded new upstream versions of: This work is generously funded by Freexian! Debian Matomo I started a new team debian-matomo-maintainers. Within this team all matomo related packages should be handled. PHP PEAR or PECL packages shall be still maintained in their corresponding teams. This month I uploaded: This work is generously funded by Freexian! Debian Astro This month I uploaded a new upstream version of: Debian IoT This month I uploaded new upstream versions of:

8 March 2024

Louis-Philippe V ronneau: Acts of active procrastination: example of a silly Python script for Moodle

My brain is currently suffering from an overload caused by grading student assignments. In search of a somewhat productive way to procrastinate, I thought I would share a small script I wrote sometime in 2023 to facilitate my grading work. I use Moodle for all the classes I teach and students use it to hand me out their papers. When I'm ready to grade them, I download the ZIP archive Moodle provides containing all their PDF files and comment them using xournalpp and my Wacom tablet. Once this is done, I have a directory structure that looks like this:
Assignment FooBar/
  Student A_21100_assignsubmission_file
    graded paper.pdf
    Student A's perfectly named assignment.pdf
    Student A's perfectly named assignment.xopp
  Student B_21094_assignsubmission_file
    graded paper.pdf
    Student B's perfectly named assignment.pdf
    Student B's perfectly named assignment.xopp
  Student C_21093_assignsubmission_file
    graded paper.pdf
    Student C's perfectly named assignment.pdf
    Student C's perfectly named assignment.xopp
 
Before I can upload files back to Moodle, this directory needs to be copied (I have to keep the original files), cleaned of everything but the graded paper.pdf files and compressed in a ZIP. You can see how this can quickly get tedious to do by hand. Not being a complete tool, I often resorted to crafting a few spurious shell one-liners each time I had to do this1. Eventually I got tired of ctrl-R-ing my shell history and wrote something reusable. Behold this script! When I began writing this post, I was certain I had cheaped out on my 2021 New Year's resolution and written it in Shell, but glory!, it seems I used a proper scripting language instead.
#!/usr/bin/python3
# Copyright (C) 2023, Louis-Philippe V ronneau <pollo@debian.org>
#
# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
"""
This script aims to take a directory containing PDF files exported via the
Moodle mass download function, remove everything but the final files to submit
back to the students and zip it back.
usage: ./moodle-zip.py <target_dir>
"""
import os
import shutil
import sys
import tempfile
from fnmatch import fnmatch
def sanity(directory):
    """Run sanity checks before doing anything else"""
    base_directory = os.path.basename(os.path.normpath(directory))
    if not os.path.isdir(directory):
        sys.exit(f"Target directory  directory  is not a valid directory")
    if os.path.exists(f"/tmp/ base_directory .zip"):
        sys.exit(f"Final ZIP file path '/tmp/ base_directory .zip' already exists")
    for root, dirnames, _ in os.walk(directory):
        for dirname in dirnames:
            corrige_present = False
            for file in os.listdir(os.path.join(root, dirname)):
                if fnmatch(file, 'graded paper.pdf'):
                    corrige_present = True
            if corrige_present is False:
                sys.exit(f"Directory  dirname  does not contain a 'graded paper.pdf' file")
def clean(directory):
    """Remove superfluous files, to keep only the graded PDF"""
    with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as tmp_dir:
        shutil.copytree(directory, tmp_dir, dirs_exist_ok=True)
        for root, _, filenames in os.walk(tmp_dir):
            for file in filenames:
                if not fnmatch(file, 'graded paper.pdf'):
                    os.remove(os.path.join(root, file))
        compress(tmp_dir, directory)
def compress(directory, target_dir):
    """Compress directory into a ZIP file and save it to the target dir"""
    target_dir = os.path.basename(os.path.normpath(target_dir))
    shutil.make_archive(f"/tmp/ target_dir ", 'zip', directory)
    print(f"Final ZIP file has been saved to '/tmp/ target_dir .zip'")
def main():
    """Main function"""
    target_dir = sys.argv[1]
    sanity(target_dir)
    clean(target_dir)
if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()
If for some reason you happen to have a similar workflow as I and end up using this script, hit me up? Now, back to grading...

  1. If I recall correctly, the lazy way I used to do it involved copying the directory, renaming the extension of the graded paper.pdf files, deleting all .pdf and .xopp files using find and changing graded paper.foobar back to a PDF. Some clever regex or learning awk from the ground up could've probably done the job as well, but you know, that would have required using my brain and spending spoons...

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