Older blog entries for faw (starting at number 18)

Long time without post, time to a quick (happy!) post and to try to keep it up-to-date again! In fact, I'm keep saying that I should try to get advogato more up-to-date, I need to get a lot of stuffs more up-to-date, but I'm working on this. :o)

[Debian]
Yeah! Today I received mail from katie (Debian Archive Kit), luk uploaded translate-docformat it is now in incoming and soon will hit unstable. I adopted from Luk after he requested an adopter. He is going to "sponsor" me in the mean time (someday I'm planning to subscribe to NM). I also sent a couple of days ago a new package for lifelines, I'm waiting until Christian Perrier upload it (he is my sponsor). :o) I'm also working on another packages that I plan to upload soon.

In the l10n field I started a discussion with the idea to split the pt and pt_BR translation efforts since we have different areas of interests and we are putting hard work on different places. Looks like that DebianPT translators agreed with me. I hope we can find a nice solution to get both languages in Debian infrastructure. We are also working a lot with WMLs and the demand to update potfiles and manpages. Lots of work!

TracMultipleProjects tricky!
So... in the last weeks I've been playing with Trac to setup it inside my company. We have a Multiple Project environment and I was trying to get it working under a name like this: "projects.foo.bar".

After some fight and after read the really nice mod_rewrite documentation (1.3 here) and the really cool URL Rewriting Guide (1.3 here) I get this setup to work:

Alias /trac "/usr/share/trac/htdocs/"
RewriteEngine on RewriteRule ^/trac(/?.*)$ - [L] RewriteRule ^/+$ /index.cgi [L]
RewriteCond /var/www/projects/$1 -d RewriteRule ^/([[:alnum:]]+)(/?.*) /trac.cgi$2 [S=1,E=TRAC_ENV:/var/www/projects/$1] RewriteRule ^/(.*) /index.cgi
The rest of the tricks are in the TracMultipleProject page, anyway, looks like that the new versions of Trac are using mod_pythons and some new resources, really good stuff. Congratualtions to Trac Team! I'm using this setup with Apache2 in a Debian Sarge environment. Enjoy it! :o)
You made the plans, that's good! Did you make a backup plan and/or an alternative plan, just in case? :o)

Server Breakdown!

04.sep.2005, about 22h 00min I got a phone call, it was otavio. Breaking News: Debian-BR-CDD Server stopped again. I said "ok", there is nothing to be done, I have to get a new harddisk and go to change it. On Monday (05.sep), the hard disk arrives almost 19h 00min and I really need to went to College, after that I went to my home to met otavio on IRC and told him my plans for the next day: get earlier on DATACENTER on tuesday (06.sep) change hard disks and everything should be fine!

The real problem here is that I had never looked to that server personally, I only know it digitally. My first mistake that day was not bring my camera. And of course, I shouldn't assumpt that it is going to be "easy" to restore the server.

I changed the hard disks, turned on the machine, listened a very very strange noise and the machine freezes, a quick look in the cooler revealed to me that it is "stoped" (and also melted), great! Ask for a new cooler and the nice guys at the DATACENTER bring me another one. Good! Now we are ready to go! Turn it on again, checking the boot it is a Pentium 3 Celeron 733MHz, the BIOS opens in the maintainance mode because in the last boot it crashed and it is using 1100MHz for CPU, ahhhhh now I understood why the old cooler melt.

The server had two hard disks, I replace one of them, re-organize the internal arrangement to create some space to let the air flow inside, now we are ready to go! After a lot of ninja magic, and after I discovered that several live CDs doesn't reconigze LVM2, I finally get to duplicate the data and check it using rsync. Of course that I had some problems in /var directory, it was the exactly place where the old hard disk present some problems, but with some faith, the previous ninja magic and somo voodoo techniques I was able to bring all the data! :-)


Holidays! Toooo much TV for me!
Oh yeah! Sep.07 is a national holiday and Sep.08 is a holiday in my city, so I just have to work on the friday and I have to days to rest and work to put some of my tasks up-to-date. And that was really the plan, but instead of doing that I got one of the worst colds in the last years, which lead me to stay in the bed for three long days (including the friday), no holiday, no work, no up-to-date, in fact, things get delayed and I never watched so much TV (which is bad, but I can't turn on the computer).

Yeah! Amazing! Now I'm bloging the last week adventures in the hope that the next week things get better. :o)
There is no big deal
On the evening of August 28th (Sunday) to August 29th (Monday) I got a message from otavio about Debian-BR-CDD Server, I'm the closest sys/net admin (the server is in the same city I am), we had a downtime, about ten hours until I get there, reboot the machine check the things and everything was just fine. (Ok, of course that i get some sleep, wake up in the monday morning and go to the server). :)

One of our hard disks is dying, there is an administrative stop scheduled for this week, I hope that the actual disk keep the good job until the time comes (which means the new hard disk arrives) and then the "Bit Heaven" is waiting for him. :-)



Why Debian is an incredible amazing project?
Today on d-u-p we receive a message asking help to translate debian to Guarani which is one of the official languages of Paraguay but also one of the Tupi-Guarani languages that is used by a lot of indigenas and people in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay.

Do you know why he wants that? Because they are installing eight computers in an "indigena area", hey that's great! Debian definitely rox! :o)

Of course, I'm still facing "time slice" problems, anyway the notebooks is helping me a lot... but I still have to figure out some ways to improve my "time maintainance".

Hmmm, doing better, update it in short time TODOs that I really need to DO!

Debian

I'm still trying to get the backlog down, which means read my mails and put my work up-to-date. :(

Software Freedom Day

So, we are going to have some celebrations for SFD 2005 in my city (and I'm hoping in other brazilian cities). We already have support from a High School and we are planning to get events in Colleges, Universities and Companies. :o)

Linux Kernel

In the past months I'm reading LKML, which is great, I'm discovering nice things and learning a lot. Planet Kernel is also a very good reading.

In fact, I have a great TODO list, I'm trying to organize a couple of things, while I'm trying to change the way of doing some approaches to solve problems and to contribute in some project. Hope it works. :o)

Oh my!
Yeah! Once again, I'm still alive and trying to keep advogato more "up-to-date"! :o)

One of the biggest problems when you do not post news often is that when you do, you have the "old news feeling". Well, they are old news, I mean, at least for me, but I still want to tell people about that... for now, just some "quick news" and I hope during the next days (...weeks... ???) I'm going to publish more news!


Desktop Developers' Conference and Ottawa Linux Symposium
Yes! (Thanks Jon!) I went there, spent an entire week, knew a lot of people, and really enjoy myself! :)) I also ran a BOF about Debian Women, had the chance to participate in a Key Signing Party (Thanks willy!), Hope to put some pictures online!


Mobility
Great news! I got a notebook! :-)


Debian
My first Debian Package hitted "testing", now I'm working on two other packages to upload them. :) I'm also reading a lot of "delayed" mails to start helping again. We are trying to put QA in place for pt_BR team. And I'm also planning to propose the pt split into pt_PT and pt_BR.


Hurry!
College, Work/Job, Free Software, Volunteer! Yeah! Time is decreasing as fast as my TODO list is increasing... :-)


And at last, but not least, I would like to say "thank you" to fike, he certified me as an Apprentice.
Sorry for the long time without posting. :o)
Now, time for a great post and to keep it more "updated".

Debian - Working with packages

I'm working with Christian Perrier (a.k.a. bubulle), he is helping me and also sponsoring my uploads to Debian of package lifelines.

Christian sent to Debian-Women maillist a pre-RFA (pre Request For Adoption) offering some help in a menotor/mentee model for three of his packages, one of them is lifelines. I'm working with him and today he uploaded 3.0.46-1. There is another version ready to go 3.0.46.1-1 which is considered the upstream stable version.


More Debian Packaging

I believe it is "lucky" for myself, but in the same week, Luk Claes sent RFA's for some of his packages, I decides to adopt two of them (ITA - Intent To Adopt). Packages since and translate-docformat are ready for upload, just waiting for Luk approval, he is going to sponsor me as IANADD (I Am Not A Debian Developer).

The since package is a kind of tail but with "state information". For translate-docformat I also became upstream, it is a shell script to convert between different file formats.


New server, time to organize a little bit my personal stuff

With some friends, we just setup (we are still finishing it) a new server and finally I found a good place to put some of my talks and the Debian Packages that I'm working on.

Past

Since last post a lot of things already happened. The FISL 6.0 was a great event and a great time for Brazilian Debian Community. We took some time to talk about QA in debian-l10n-portuguese and try to get together all Debian User Groups in Brasil. In the last weeks, I configured two new domains for two DUG's, now DUG-RJ and DUG-SC are sharing the machine with DUG-PR.

RJ is Rio de Janeiro, SC is Santa Catarina and PR is ParanĂ¡, all of them are Brazilian states. :o)


Future

I'm still working in some Debian Packages that I would like to add to the repository, thumbs is one of them, the other on is tuxfrw and pagode. But I still have to figure out a couple of things and get some spare time. :)

We have to turn on the QA proccess in debian-l10n-portuguese, in the next day we probably have a new release of Debian Zine (a Brazilian fanzine about Debian) and also the report and some nice pictures about FISL6.0 (at least, I hope so). :))


I would like to say "thank you" to caio1982 that certifies me as an Apprentice
It should be like any given sunday, but...
Today was a common day except by one special and very isolated event. I went to the Book Store with my mother, she wants to buy some office things (papers, folders and stuff like that). As usual, while she was checking her list of things to buy I went to look around and visit the Technological Section with books, software (almost only proprietary), hardware and peripherals.

First I checked some book prices and then the new hardwares available. So, I decided to take a look at the games shelf when I found something unusual. Without even stop to think I got the pack, went to check the price in the machine and saw this:

R$ 58,00, special offer for only R$ 2,90

I can't believe! It is an Original Netscape Communicator pack, for just R$ 2,90 (which means about US$ 1,00 or less than "one euro"). Bought it! You can see the pictures. It is a relic, it's not free software, but remember me from the Browser War and the begining of the Mozilla Project based on the Netscape Open Source Code. :o)

linux kernel i18n
Do you remember when I told you about a new project to translate make *config messages? Well, we have an updated status! After acme wrote and sent the patch, he got an automatic answer (that is sent when patch is applied to -mm kernel series) from Andrew Morton. The message from Andrew to acme was posted in br-linux, a Brazilian Portuguese Linux News Site (the article/news is in brazilian portuguese, but the automatic message from Andrew is in english). Thank you acme! And thanks to Fabricio Vaccari that had the first idea and start looking for people to collaborate on the project. :o)

I would like to say "thank you" to otavio that certified me as Apprentice and to mirwin that certified me as Journeyer.

ping... Ok, I'm still alive! :o)

FLISOL2005

FLISOL happened on April 2th in over 100 cities around Latin America. In Curitiba, the event took place on a High School, which is very good, because we could work with teenagers (14-17) to prepare and bring them to Free Software. Yes, kind of: "Come to light side of The Force!" :-)

Back in business

Back to i18n/l10n work on Debian and also trying to reduce my already-big-TODO-list. I'm working on translation and localization effort, specially to put pt_BR up-to-date. And it includes Debian Women website and wiki. I'm playing aroung with dl10n-bot, a perl bot to generate some statistics do l10n teams in Debian. Hope thata I can understand perl a little bit better and implement the HTML feature in a good manner.

I'm also working on Debian Zine a Brazilian eletronic publication about (of course) Debian. We are planning some periodic schedules and resources to make our work easier. I'm also putting as much information as I can about out Debian User Group. After FLISOL we start a lot of ideas and small projects.

In Debian-BR-CDD I'm working on QA trying to check bugs, find more information and close them. Because of that I became interested in help on Debian QA.

At last but not least:

Branden Robinson was elected the new Debian Project Leader, for one year Debian will lead the Project. I hope that Branden could do a great job as Project Leader and, at least for me, there are some special things that I would like to see (and help):
  • Don't let the number of supported arch'es decrease
  • Avoid a dual arch model (first and second class)
  • Bring more consensus on lists, by reducing the number of flamewars
  • More information about how "Debian Works (tm)"
  • Release cycle in the "Best Debian Way (tm)" without taking so long

Good luck Branden! :o)

I would like to thanks lezz that certifies me as Apprentice. And I really hope to come here more often.

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