gregoa's blog

there was a recurring catchphrase during DebConf10, worded something like "Debian derivatives are also our users", that appeared quite often in talks as well as in hallway chats.

I kept pondering about this idea, & I'm still not sure what to think about it, & what the "message behind the message" actually is: is it an intelligent new point of view, some new way of thinking, seeing an increase in our user base & therefore in our possibilities&responsibilities? or, on the contrary, is it an admission of "defeat", accepting in resignation that end users prefer other distros, & Debian can only cling to the idea of "derivatives as users" in order to maintain its raison d'être?

in the beginning I liked the idea ("oh, I haven't looked at it that way yet"); over time I tended to hear the defending undertone stronger ("if nothing else we are at least useful as a base for other distros").

the phrase might have both aspects; & I'm still not sure neither how it was actually meant neither if I like it ...

long time no RC bug posting. in july I was at the Munich BSP, & during DebCamp/DebConf I had the excuse of being one of the judges of the RCBC (which was the only reason for the freeze, I'm sure :)).

to keep up with the tradition of posting about my other RC bug activities, here comes a short list. as you can see most of the work was done in or around the pkg-perl group; luckily I often only have to upload packages prepared by ansgar, carnil, & others.

• #560634 – src:libparse-debianchangelog-perl: "libparse-debianchangelog-perl: FTBFS: tests failed"
  upload NMU prepared by Ansgar
• #578458 – src:libcoro-perl: "libcoro-perl: FTBFS: E: Caught signal 'Terminated': terminating immediately"
  use different backends for different architectures - didn't work :/ (pkg-perl)
• #580479 – libdbd-mysql-perl: "libdbd-mysql-perl can access out of string and call craches"
  upload new upstream release, prepared by Ansgar (pkg-perl)
• #582410 – libgtk2-perl: "libgtk2-perl: FTBFS on mips: Failed test 'callbacks encountered'"
  don't run tests that need an X server (pkg-perl)
• #585471 – webgui: "webgui: License of www/extras/yui/examples/treeview/assets/js/json.js is considered non-free"
  upload new upstream release prepard by SquOnk
• #588118 – libmoose-perl: "libmoose-perl [ia64]: test failures"
  upload with patch from Niko (pkg-perl)
• #590409 – src:libdbd-anydata-perl: "libdbd-anydata-perl: FTBFS: Can't call method "params" on unblessed reference at /usr/lib/perl5/DBI/DBD/SqlEngine.pm line 721."
  upload NMU prepared by Ansgar (pkg-perl)
• #590453 – libgtk2-perl: "libgtk2-perl: Gtk2::Dialog and descendents signal produces different response to ->run()"
  upload new version prepared by Jeffrey (pkg-perl)
• #591108 – src:jabref-plugin-oo: "jabref-plugin-oo: FTBFS: package org.antlr.runtime does not exist"
  add .jar to classpath
• #591113 – src:libwebservice-youtube-perl: "libwebservice-youtube-perl: FTBFS: tests failed"
  upload fixed package prepared by carnil (pkg-perl)
• #591120 – src:libhtml-formfu-perl: "libhtml-formfu-perl: FTBFS: failed test"
  upload fixed package prepard by carnil (pkg-perl)
• #591166 – src:nama: "nama: FTBFS: tests failed"
  upload new upstream release prepared by ansgar (pkg-perl)
• #592981 – src:jifty: "FTBFS: failed tests t/TestApp-Plugin-SetupWizard/t/001-basic.t with libyaml-syck-perl 1.12-1"
  upload patched package prepared by ansgar (pkg-perl)
• #593012 – src:libdevel-ebug-perl: "FTBFS: test t/pad.t fails with libyaml-syck-perl 1.12"
  upload patched package prepared by carnil (pkg-perl)

I hope we as a project can keep up the momentum to fix the remaining RC bugs, & see a release in a not so far future.

At the beginning of DebCamp, Zack started the RCBC – the Release Critical Bug squashing Contest. Two weeks later not only DebConf10 is over but we also have results for the RCBC:

In summary: It was a huge success, we managed to fix

• 139 RC bugs in testing/unstable
• 79 RC bugs in stable

And the winners are:

• Stable: Gerfried Fuchs (77 bugs)
• Testing/unstable: 1. Moritz Mühlenhoff (32 bugs), 2. Nico Golde (17 bugs), 3. Alexander Reichle-Schmehl (16 bugs)

All details can be found at http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf10/RCBC.

The winners who haven't collected their prizes at the closing ceremony will get them be snail mail.

Finally let me thank

• our donors of the prizes
• Micah and Zack for initiating the contest
• Mehdi for being my co-judge
• all participants who hugely improved Debian in the last two weeks

a short description of my experiences on entering the U.S. – disclaimer: austrian passport, VWP, EWR airport, yesterday evening.

immigration

I spent roughly two minutes at the immigration counter. the dialog with the polite, tired, & probably bored guy was like:

he: what are you doing in the US?
me: going to a computer conference at columbia university.
he: how long are you staying?
me: until the 14^th of august.
/he looks at passport
he: you are here for the first time?
me: yup.
he: (instructions for fingerprint scanning & photo)
he: do you work at home? what are you doing there?
/me explains
/he probably doesn't really listen
/he stamps passport

customs

I had ticked "I bring food" on the customs declaration form, & entered "cheese, 0.5 kg, $9" in the "goods to declare" box. the guy handling the queue sent all people without any "yes" ticks straight to the exit, & me to the counter. dialog with the friendly lady:

she: what food are you bringing?
me: two small pieces of cheese.
she: anything else? meat? fruits?
me: no.
she: ok, put your bags here. (belt for the luggage scanner)

that was all, no more questions, no inspections, or whatever. – & noone actually looked at the customs declaration form except for the one "yes".

I spent the last two days at the BSP in Munich – thanks to everyone for inviting & feeding me, & especially to Stefan for hosting me again!

Unfortunately the weather was not good enough for an excursion to a Biergarten but the local chefs at the LiMux office delighted us with self-made spaghetti salmone & self-rolled sushi, & we spent quite some time behind our laptops.

The main results can be seen on the wiki page; my personal conclusion is that the list of remaining RC bugs contains mostly "hard stuff" (e.g. architecture-, hardware-, or desktop-specific bugs). Probably some packages will need to be kicked out of squeeze & some bugs might get a squeeze-ignore tag ... – To put it positively: I have a gut feeling that the freeze is getting closer :)

finally I bought my airplane tickets. at cheaptickets.com & for the first time in my life in USD :)

---

Leave Sunday, July 25, 2010

British Airways 951 Economy  |  Airbus Industrie A320 (320) |  2hr 5min |  575 miles
Depart: 12:55pm Munich, Germany  Munich Franz Josef Strauss (MUC)
Arrive: 2:00pm London, United Kingdom  London Heathrow (LHR)

British Airways 189 Economy  |  Boeing 777 (777) |  7hr 45min |  3458 miles
Depart: 3:35pm London, United Kingdom  London Heathrow (LHR)
Arrive: 6:20pm Newark, NJ  Newark Liberty Int'l (EWR)

---

Return Saturday, August 14, 2010

British Airways 186 Economy  |  Boeing 767 Passenger (767) |  7hr 15min |  3458 miles
Depart: 10:55pm Newark, NJ  Newark Liberty Int'l (EWR)
Arrive: 11:10am London, United Kingdom  London Heathrow (LHR)

British Airways 952 Economy  |  Airbus Industrie A319 (319) |  1hr 55min |  575 miles
Depart: 12:45pm London, United Kingdom  London Heathrow (LHR)
Arrive: 3:40pm Munich, Germany  Munich Franz Josef Strauss (MUC)

---

some of the things I did on saturday & sunday:

• reduced the amount of dust in my rooms
• increased the amount of air in my bike's tyres
• created an armel cross-building chroot (with pdebuild-cross, multistrap, & some patching & swearing & beating)
• switched from xterm to urxvt
• filled in the ESTA/VWP form to be allowed to enter the u.s.
• upgraded colleen (which doesn't have any devices for hard disks under /dev anymore since then)
• cleaned the toilet & the corridor
• uploaded some packages
• played with some of the meego stuff; not very successful
• saturated 2GB of RAM + 1GB of swap by having ~40 tabs with airline websites open in chromium; still no ticket
• wrote two blog entries (what's recursion again?)

some successes, some failuresroom for improvement.

to start with the good news: christine has joined the RCBW initiative – yeah! let's see who joins next ...

as usual, a short overview about my own attempts in the RC bugs department:

• #580106 – libclutter-1.0-0: "empathy: fails to start on armel"
  grab patch from BTS and upload to DELAYED/2
• #583465 – src:clutter-1.0: "clutter-1.0: FTBFS: ERROR in annotation: can't find parameter n_properies referenced by parameter values of 'animatev'"
  test, add a comment to the BTS, grab patch from BTS and upload to DELAYED/2
• #583648 – zoneminder: "package removed, processes still running"
  apply patch for debian/postinst from BTS and upload to DELAYED/2
• #585410 – nagios3-cgi: "nagios3-cgi: Missing conflict with nagios3 v3.0.6-4~lenny2 (/usr/lib/cgi-bin/nagios3/extinfo.cgi_"
  add Replaces/Breaks and upload to DELAYED/2, later cancelled on maintainer's request; later fixed by a maintainer upload based on my patch
• #587830 – libnet-sftp-foreign-perl: "libnet-sftp-foreign-perl: causes script to fail silently with exit code 0"
  add missing dependencies (pkg-perl)

again, a short overview regarding my RC bug activities:

• #462810 – liballegro4.2: "liballegro4.2: alsa plugin doesn't work with many sound cards"
  apply patch from BTS and upload to DELAYED/2
• #535260 – libdbd-oracle-perl: "Does not work anymore with instantclient 11.1"
  upload new upstream release prepared by JuNix (pkg-perl)
• #573078 – gtkvncviewer: "Doesn't start without gnome-keyring"
  add missing dependency and upload to DELAYED/2
• #576463 – pulseaudio: "pulseaudio: Support tmpfs /var/run"
  investigate and add a comment to the BTS
• #578458 – src:libcoro-perl: "libcoro-perl: FTBFS: E: Caught signal 'Terminated': terminating immediately"
  more trial-and-error "debugging" (pkg-perl)
• #581552 – vtun: "vtun: want ipv6 support"
  apply patch from BTS and upload to DELAYED/2 (later downgraded to wishlist but I left the NMU with maintainer's permission)
• #583072 – libgnupg-perl: "libgnupg-perl: Hangs on test"
  fix unrelated packaging problem and upload the patched package (pkg-perl)
• #583463 – src:libmoosex-types-structured-perl: "libmoosex-types-structured-perl: FTBFS: tests failed"
  upload new upstream release prepared by Ansgar (pkg-perl)
• #583985 – upse: "upse: FTBFS against audacious 2.3"
  grab patch from Ubuntu and upload to DELAYED/2
• #584377 – src:libtest-valgrind-perl: "libtest-valgrind-perl: FTBFS: tests failed"
  add comment to the BTS and tag (pkg-perl)
• #584391 – src:libdbix-class-perl: "libdbix-class-perl: FTBFS: tests failed"
  upload new upstream release prepared by Ansgar (pkg-perl)
• #584910 – ftp.debian.org: "RM: libgtk2-sexy-perl -- ROM; obsolete, no rdeps"
  RM (pkg-perl)
• #585468 – jifty: "jifty: license of */share/web/static/js/json.js is considered non-free"
  replace non-free json.js with a free alternative (pkg-perl)
• #585744 – zoneminder: "zoneminder: FBTFS (sid cowbuilder chroot, i386)"
  file new FTBFS bug

as a short reminder that there are still a few RC bugs waiting to be fixed here's a short list of the ones I've worked on in the last time:

• #571116 – debsums: "debsums: overwrites /etc/apt.conf.d/90debsums without asking"
  upload NMU prepared by Giovanni Mascellani to DELAYED/2
• #578458 – src:libcoro-perl: "libcoro-perl: FTBFS: E: Caught signal 'Terminated': terminating immediately"
  modify package to get more info (pkg-perl)
• #578638 – libpam-ldap: "libpam-ldap: needs versioned dependency on libpam-runtime"
  make dependecy versioned (again), upload to DELAYED/2
• #581194 – libpoe-component-irc-perl: "libpoe-component-irc-perl: Insufficient stripping of CR/LF allows arbitrary IRC command execution"
  upload new upstream release (pkg-perl)
• #581327 – src:libpoe-component-sslify-perl: "libpoe-component-sslify-perl: FTBFS: tests failed"
  new upstream release + additional dependency (pkg-perl)
• #583351 – libtime-y2038-perl: "libtime-y2038-perl: FTBFS"
  adjust build dependency to please sbuild (pkg-perl)
• #583418 – src:libnet-z3950-zoom-perl: "libnet-z3950-zoom-perl: FTBFS: Nonexistent build-dependency: libyaz3-dev"
  correct build dependency (pkg-perl)
• #583462 – src:libnet-https-any-perl: "libnet-https-any-perl: FTBFS: tests failed"
  fix test suite in debian/rules (pkg-perl)
• #583467 – src:libdist-zilla-perl: "libdist-zilla-perl: FTBFS: tests failed"
  upload new upstream version (pkg-perl)
• #583751 – src:ufraw: "ufraw-batch: fails to install"
  new RC bug reported