Older blog entries for gleblanc (starting at number 54)

djm: As Richard is kind enough to point out to the GNOME community every 12 months or so (when we hold GNOME Foundation Board elections), the second GNU Desktop attempt wound up creating 'guile', because they wanted a desktop scripting language. I have no idea how useful it actually is, but it might be worth looking at.

movement and MichaelCrawford seem to be having a great time going back and forth. For what it's worth I don't think the bug report that Michael filed is very useful. There really isn't anything in there that the mozilla people can work on. Mozilla certainly does crash from time to time. Whenever I find something that makes it crash consistently, I file a bug, so that it can get fixed, and maybe I can do whatever it is that I was trying do. However, you talk about "random crashes". Not only are those the most annoying, but they're nearly impossible to debug. If you've got something that folks can actually investigate and fix, great, bitch and moan that nobody is working on it.

MichaelCrawford also complains of "UI bugs that make it unpleasant to use." What bugs are these? I've filed the UI bugs that I've found. If you're finding ones that are unpleasant, look for them in bugzilla (the query page is scary at first glance, but not so bad if you take your time), and add yourself to the 'cc' list, so that you can get notified when they get fixed. If you can't find them in bugzilla, file them, so that folks know where their UI sucks. Without this, it's not going to get any better. You can't claim that you don't know what the bugs are if you find that they make it "unpleasant" to use. Even if you don't have a suggestion for making it better, file that you don't like the current behaviour.

As for movement's posts (not his initial reply via bugzilla), well, at the very least, their tone -sucks-. This is not how you talk to people who care enough to file a bug report. It's not how you encourage people to keep contributing to your project (code is NOT the only contribution possible).

Sorry, but that sort of thing just ticks me off, and it was the top two entries at recentlog, so it HAD to be replied to. More interesting stuff later, really! :)

dyork Woo, you're here (more or less)! Do you have time to get together for a beer before you leave? (I'll drop you a real note via email, but this will help remind me)

Hardware
I purchased an Intel In Business 8-Port 10/100 "Switch" (I'll go into the inacuracies in that statement some other time) a couple of year ago. Hmm, probably about 3 or 4 years, now that I think about it. Anyway, at the time I paid $75 for the device, because somebody had sent out the MSRP as off by $200, or some snafu like that. It was a great deal, and since it's was manufactured by a large company, I figured that it would be decent quality. Alas, it dies this afternoon. Nothing catastrophic, but the PSU was suddenly outputing no volts. Gar, so that left me with a network connection for a while, and worse, my server without a network connection. Thankfully I have folks who run backup services for me.
I just find it a bit frustrating that this simple piece of electronics just up and dies, for no apparent reason. Worse, there are no screws holding it together. It appears to snap together, and get held there with glue. I can't even open it up and find out what's wrong. Of course, being for a piece of computer equipment, it is rated at 3 Amps, which is quite a bit more than any PSU available at Rat Shack can supply. I ended up wiring it up to a computer power supply (you know, the "old fashioned" kind that has a switch to turn it on or off), so that I could get up and running again. Horrible cludge, but better than not getting mail.

I just got around to doing some work on a project that's been on my mind foe aeons. Certainly long enough that I've talked with both HelixCode (err, Ximian) and Red Hat about releasing their versions of it. Never made any real progress, but the Ximian person I talked to had stupid reasons behind it. Anyway, I have need for a system that can take SRPMs and build them in to binary RPMs in an unattended manner. I wrote up some of my thoughts on the topic, in a rather haphazard manner, and put them online here I've also put up the XML source, (though it's using DocBook 4.1.2 instead of DocBook 4.2, because 4.2 doesn't work properly on my RHL8.0 box) http://linuxweasel.com/~gleblanc/rpm_build_system_design.html

So, I decided to try out Wine this afternoon, since I wanted to play a video game, and I no longer have windows installed. Sounds simple, up2date wine, then run my program. Of course, that didn't work. Somebody suggested a newer wine, so I went ahead and fought with the RPM, and got the newest one to build (removed 2 patches, re-worked one other). Still didn't work. So I went to the wine website, and started poking around. I found some stuff in the faq-o-matic there which was helpful, although the question in question was in need of a good purging of confusing info. So, I got it working, and installed StarCraft (though the DirectX install blew up. Not sure if that should have worked or not). StarCraft actually runs, and if I run via sudo, it runs full-screen, and looks very spiffy, but it locks up my keyboard and mouse. Gar, back to the FAQ-O-Matic

Judas Nokia makes darn good phones, but I'm not sure they know how to do testing on things as complex as a JVM or an emulator. But, if you want to do cool stuff on a phone, you ought to check out the Danger hiptop. Looks like it should be able to do a lot more from the cool stuff perspective, and I'll wager on data rates for it being a lot more reasonable than on typical cell phones.

davidr What about companies who, instead of releasing specs for their products, release drivers in binary-only form? BTW, which products does Logitech not release specs for? Their mice seem to work just fine for me.

As long as we're all thinking and talking about certifications and trusts, I thought I'd share some of mine. :)

One of the big things that I think lots of folks miss out here is the dedication part of certifications. The dedication part can change, and when it does, the level you certify someone at can change. I think I'll go with a hypothetical example, since it's easier to make fit. Let's say that Joe was one of three people who were the leaders of an important software project. They each had areas where they helped contributors, and wrote lots of code themselves. They were working lots of hours on their software, and getting folks involved. I come along, and start dinking around with this software, asking questions, and come to know Joe, and that he's really pushing this project along. Since it's an important project, and I'm pretty familiar with Joe after a while, I certify him on Advogato as a free software "Master". Some time passes, and Joe decides that he's not going to work on that project anymore. Perhaps he takes a new job which doesn't permit him the time to work on free software, so he's only contributing in smaller ways now. Joe puts this sort of stuff into his advogato diary, and it's clear that he's not putting the same kind of time into free software as he was. Joe may still be just as competent a free software hacker as he was, but since he's not pushing an important project along, I decide that he's fufilling a role as a free software "Journeyer" now, and change his certification to represent this. This is the right thing to do if Advogato isn't a popularity contest, since it represents the role that Joe is playing at the moment. Joe won't be offended, he's just doing something else now. I know of quite a few people who have change how much they work on free software, but not many of them have ever had time for advogato.

So, as for the rankings... It seems to me that there is some inflation of the certifications, but I'm not sure where it comes from. Perhaps it's just based on people not thinking hard enough about how they certify someone. In my mind, "Master" is a pretty exclusive group. It's for somebody who's not only the driving force behind a free software project, but is the driving force behind a big one. So, Alan pushes along a big part of the kernel, and David Merril pushes along the LDP pretty well. They're both clearly "Masters" in my book, since both the kernel and the LDP seem to be large important projects to me.

I want to write some more on Journeyer, and perhaps Apprentice, but I'm tired, so it will wait until later.

Spelling! :)

From: Chris Byrne <chris@chrisbyrne.com> Subject: RE: [geeks] aw yeah. Date: 26 Apr 2002 02:01:15 +0100

I live in Ireland now. My spell checker does that sort of thing ;-)

Chris Byrne

> -----Original Message----- > From: geeks-admin@sunhelp.org [mailto:geeks-admin@sunhelp.org]On Behalf > Of Gregory Leblanc

> > the town. He testified for the defence in the Texas case. > > Defeat of de cat went over defence before detail? (sorry, just poking > fun!) > Greg

ringbark: I see pmcgovern as having been certified by several more people than himself as master, but I don't immediately see how he's certified as master. I don't worry about it too much, because there are simply some things about advogato that are 'magic'.

wiki is clearly one of these weird "free software hacker" terms. It seems very bizzare to me, any time I see it. Eventually, it may even bother me enough to figure out where that reference comes from.

Alive without breath
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail, ever clinking.

I finished the bonsai section of my Webtools Howto today. It's in need of some more editing, both for content, and general gramar/markup issues. I'm very pleased to have gotten it done, and I think it's a lot better than the old docs.
I also fired off my mail to the gnome-sysadmin team that I'm ready to proced with the LXR and bonsai upgrades on cvs.gnome.org. I think I've got it planned out pretty well, although I'm going to see if I can't talk jdub or pzb into being "on hand" for assistance, in case I've forgotten something, or get stuck.

Advogato

I certified pzb just a minute ago, as I didn't know he had an account before this. I also changed the level at which I've certified Telsa and jdub, as they are clearly contributing enough to be journeyers. Telsa may not believe that, but it IS true. drake just signed up today, and he's writing the GDP XSL stylesheets, so journeyer for now.

Biking

I didn't get out for a bike ride today, but I'll get there tomorrow. I need to make some long pants so that I can go biking, as it's simply too cold to go without them. My parents got some great A.M.C. (Applachian Mountain Club) poly-pro long sleeve shirts when they went backpacking for their Anniversery. They're GREAT shirts, they do a nice job wicking moisture away, keep you relatively warm, and let you breathe. Much MUCH MUCH more comfortable than any other brand that I've ever found. Amazing. I think I'll stop at the store and price leg warmers while I'm out tomorrow. I've got a rear fender hooked up nicely, but my bike doesn't have the clearance for a front fender (darn), so I'll just have to make due. I don't think it will matter that much, although I'd like to get some fenders on my fixed gear bike too.
I found this GREAT site tonight, from one of the bike mailing lists. http://www.ultracycling.com/ This is just the sort of biking that I want to get into doing, and it's got some good information on keeping healthy. I'm only doing about 60 miles on my long rides right now, but I think I can move that up fairly quickly, with a little bit of work. WAY past my bedtime now, so I'll hit the hay.

This is actually from 23 Oct 2001, I just forgot to post it.

I read through that Linux Certification article I mentioned yesterday. Pretty interesting to me, since I'm looking into getting some certs. The CompTIA Linux+ looks to be about on the same level as the last CompTIA exam I took. I'm A+ certified, and that exam was trivially easy. I might just go down and take the Linux+ exam next week, since I won't have to study for it (other than to edit a file with vi again, I haven't done that for a couple of months). I haven't finished reviewing the LPI and SAIR ones, but I think that the LPI one will certainly be on my list of things to get. I didn't realize that the RHCE was such a broad exam, or I'd have looked at it a lot sooner. That one is definately on my list, but I think I'll have to make sure I'm prepared first.

Tomas Ogren is helping me to get "push-sync" set up for ftp.gnome.org. This will mean that it gets updated immediately whenever somebody puts a new release on master.gnome.org, and we won't have so much trouble with things being out of date. The old setup is much too slow.
We got the "install-module" mess cleaned up there, but no further. install-module is the script that manages the ftp site, making symlinks, diffs, and that sort of thing. It's very slick, but we had a few dozen copies of it running around. Now, just 1 real copy is left, making things much simpler. Now we only have to keep track of a single copy, and can set up that single copy to "trigger" the sync. Hopefully we'll get this going to several machines soon, so that ftp.gnome.org is a RR DNS.

We've got to get new DocBook tools on the gnome.org webserver, but I haven't got time to do all of the research required for this. Darn. I sent out mail asking for volunteers to work on this, hopefully I'll get some replies.

I spent some time with drake this evening, trying to customize Norm's stylesheets a little bit. I think we figured out how things were getting called, but we don't have any clue how to customize it. Drake is going to email docbook-apps, and I'm going to read the replies. :-) I just found out that there's some XSL information in TDG, so I'm going to try to read that tonight.