tuxmaniac’s blog

After killing two dogs, I just managed to reach Cafe coffee day (Blame my ISP for no internet for continuous 3 days) at 2100 hrs on July 12th 2008. But then, the topic read “Session starts at 2130 hrs”. Wtf! I was early.

All these dramatic prologue apart, the session started of with me welcoming all the participants and taking them through what was coming in the next few weeks. Yes! We are planning quite a few interesting online sessions and a few surprise ones too which will be announced on the Ubuntu India Mailing list as it gets finalized. These online sessions, I must admit were inspired from Kushal’s amazing work at dgplug (more on that later as a separate entry). After the brief round up of whats coming, the agenda of the day was put forth. It was mainly on Bug Squashing basics. People were asked to create their own Launchpad accounts and a briefing of what LP is all about was done. Later Parthan took over the stage along with Onkar, to describe the basics of Bug Squashing. They started of with what a triage is, then moved over to explain the severity levels of bugs, bug life cycle, responsibilities of a bug triager, etc. During this time, I was busy collecting some basic bugs which could be thrown at the participants for practical exposure and helping both of them to answer a few questions that were being asked.

I was sure the session was a success when quite a few folks suddenly started disappearing from the channel when bug 247861 was thrown at the participants for triaging . They returned to cheerfully say that they have reproduced the issue. Great! Most of them were becoming greedy for triaging and confirming bugs, when we realized that it was already past midnight and it is better we “officially” stop the session here before the greed becomes uncontrollable.

The logs of Day 1 have been updated in the wiki page here and today is Day 2, where we will be concentrating on packaging related issues. Onkar has already mailed the list with some details. Looking forward to it and be there at #ubuntu-in-classroom by 2100 hrs IST. As usual a plain “Hello” is most welcome!

You guys must have already heard about the Global Bug Jam that is planned around the month of August. If you haven’t yet read about it, Go Read it NOW!!! As a build up to the mega event, we the Ubuntu-IN folks are organising a Basic Bug triaging session this weekend. If you want to start squashing bugs or help out others be there. Or you just wanna say a Plain “Hello” to the folks, you are most welcome too!!
Venue: #ubuntu-in @ irc.freenode.net

Date: 12, 13 July 2008 from 2100 hrs.

More details are here -> http://ubuntu-in.org:81/wiki/Events/BugJamPrepSessions

Its back. This time a bit fast. Yes! Freed.in is now moved to February and this time its happening on 22-24th of this month at Jawaharlal Nehru University Campus, New Delhi. Following foss.in (Theme: “Show me the code”), gnunify (theme: getting new users) and Fossconf Chennai, this year’s freed.in ’s theme is “Knowledge shall set you free”. Interesting. Knowing the evergreen folks of ILUGD, I am sure the conclaves are gonna be full of h0t and fruitful discussions; and the dinners even hotter

Not many people whom I expected for this year’s event are turning up but neverthless a few folks are still packing the bags to Delhi. I am there on all three days and also talking on “FOSS for Electronics Enthusiasts!”. By any chance you happen to be around Delhi at that time, drop in and say Hi!!!

Get ready to be Freed!!!

As I had mentioned in this post about the top gear packaging activity that is going on for a few Science tools (more specifically Electronics), one review point that the packager comes across instantly is that “Do not change upstream code”. This is a Golden rule for packagers. Making these changes as patches in debian/ (for debian based distros ofcourse ) is highly recommended. One such tool for achieving this is DPATCH. kart linked me to this nice page which has a few details on dpatch. Still the page did not have a step by step how to, instead has tidbits. So here goes my how-to or just a documentation of what I learnt.

1. Install dpatch. sudo apt-get install dpatch

2. Go to “your_packages_top_directory”/debian and create a directory “patches”. (mkdir patches)

3. Inside this debian/patches directory create a file “00list”. The reason for this file is explained in the coming points.

4. Open up debian/rules in your favourite editor (I expect it to be emacs ofcourse ) and do the changes mentioned below.

* Add this line “include /usr/share/dpatch/dpatch.make” without the quotes at the top.

* Append to the config.status section “patch-stamp” before “configure”. This shall let the package know that there is a patch stamp that needs to be checked.

* In the “clean” section add “unpatch”. This ensures the patch is reverted when a make clean is performed.

5. Now save the debian/rules and execute the following command. “dpatch-edit-patch {patchname}”. Say for example the patch name is fixing_foo then the command is “dpatch-edit-patch fixing_foo”

6. This opens up a temporary shell where a copy of the source package is ready. Make the changes that you would want to do and exit the shell. Patch is created. Wow! (Check debian/patches directory)

7. Update this patch name in the 00list file that we created in point 3. This file will have the list of patches that needs to be applied in the specified order. Repeat this process until all the necessary changes to upstream is done and patches are ready.

Now give the package for a build. Sit back, relax and enjoy the pbuilder experience!

Ladies and Gentlemen.. Boys and girls.. The preparations for this year’s FOSS.IN just shifted to top gear from the Ubuntu-IN community side. As usual the Ubuntu Community Managers have been extremely kind enough to dispatch 500 Ubuntu Gutsy CDs (different variants for various architectures). They are all awaiting to be laid hands on. Thanks to loads of people who have been involved in getting this approval done in record time!! Great going guys.

As things are shifting to top gear we are facing quite some issues with respect to printing Tees. Due to various reasons the printer with whom we were planning to give the order for has backed out and now we need a replacement. If someone has any information on Printers in Bangalore, who can print around 30 Tees in 6-7 days, we would be immensely grateful. If so please ping either technofreak or me offline.

Its less than 2 weeks now and work is happening at all corners to get things done for the biggest FOSS Event of the year in India FOSS.IN

First Update from the Ubuntu-IN team. The sticker designs are out.

Go grab ‘em all at Debian/Ubuntu Project Day on Dec 4th 2007. More goodies to follow. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, hold your breath!! Its big than ever before!!

Thanks to Niyam for helping us out with the designs.

After a pretty long Saturday; Took a workshop for BMSCE College guys and was busy fixing a “Hard Disk partitions go missing” issue (will blog in detail on this later), I headed for BarCamp Bangalore 5 (Winter Edition) on a cold and lazy Sunday morning. Met up with Parthan and helped him around in the Registration Desk. We saw a “Collective Sticker” and decided to write the word “Ubuntu” in the space provided. Wrote it, stuck it on our T-Shirts and immediately a registrant asks “Where is the Ubuntu Collective happening?”. We looked at each other and said, ” Yeah!!! Hmm.. We havent decided yet.”. After similar queries from a couple of more guys we thought may be we could actually set up a BoF. We decided on the time, place and pinned it up on the schedule board. In the beginning, there were a couple of people and we started discussing on Possible projects, Experiences using Ubuntu, Ubuntu-IN Community, FOSS.IN project day and lots more. We actually ended up having 20-25 odd people with issues like “My Wireless doesnt work in Ubuntu. Is there a way out?”, “I want to connect my mobile to my laptop using bluetooth in Ubuntu. What should I do?” and lots more. People pointed out various sites and references and exchanged interesting ideas. the conversation even shifted to Ubuntu Mobile Team, Android, iphone and the likes. I showed them a small demo on the Bluetooth remote control and headed for lunch. An unexpected Collective ends on a happy note.

After lunch, we lazed around, met Hobbes`, dumbhead, vegpuff, tuxplorer and chatted away to glory! It was time to move out of BCB5 and head for dinner. Dumbhead took us to V.V.Puram’s Food Street. Man o Man, its a must visit for food lovers. The entire street has only “Road side eateries” serving right from Gulcand icecreams, Idlis, Benna Dosas, Pav Bhaji and chat items at a very economical price. All you delegates coming in for Foss.in take note of this place and ask your geeky/fossy friend to take you for dinner here (especially the mumbaikars ). Weekend comes to an end.

Special appreciation: Dumbhead, I have to appreciate your action towards that poor woman who asked for food. Hats off dude!

Complete photoset here