Linux Grandma

Taxes, and Supporting Free Software

2012-01-31T02:45:00.000-08:00

Elections bring issues out in the open, and expose ideas to the public. My country is preparing for a national election, so naturally taxes are being discussed. When I got my first paycheck, I was shocked and disappointed to see how much of MY money was going to taxes! I was very young then, and didn't know how much my pittance helped ME to become part of the adult world, by doing my part, paying my fair share, supporting my government and even my future self. The act of paying didn't engage my emotions, or make me feel part of my community then.

Back when I used Windows, I paid my fair share both by buying the software I used, but also by contributing to my favorite shareware applications. However, just as when I first paid taxes, I didn't feel part of the community, because all I gave was money.

As I became an adult, I began to contribute in some organizations where I felt that my work really did help to change the world, improve my culture, and my country.

Then I started using free software, and eventually learned that there are communities creating this software, and even more astonishing, that I could help. And not just with my money, although that is sometimes important. For instance, KDE welcomes all kinds of contribution; code, bug reporting, bug triage, and bug fixing. Writing documentation, press releases, news stories, interviews, blog posts, even tweet/dents. Art, graphics, design, videos, baked goods! Party planning, setting up meetings, sprints, summits, conferences, leadership, management, moving chairs, taking minutes--and giving money.

The foundation supporting KDE, the KDE e.V., needs supporting members, corporate sponsors, and even occasional small donations. All of that money is needed to support the office, fund sprints, and do large meeting start-up.

I'd like to urge you to become a Supporting Member if you use KDE software. Doing so will move your heart from feeling like a user, to feeling like a contributor to the community. If you can't afford Join the Game, please contribute as you can! The more you contribute, the more your KDE community becomes your family. Do it now. You'll be glad you did.

Happy Ubuntu Community Appreciation Day

2011-11-20T17:31:00.001-08:00

So many people have been inspirational and helpful. First I must mention my children, who opened me up to learning so much. One of them, Thomas (qubes), is the Ubuntu user who got me using Linux in the first place, and Kubuntu as my present distro. Thanks to you Thomas for all your help through the years.

In Ubuntu-Women, I found not just inspiration, but the examples I needed to get involved with the community. Lydia (Nightrose) in particular has been a beacon to my path. Here ability to pack every day with so many useful activities is an accomplishment to which I still aspire. Thank you Lydia! I learn from you every day. Myriam (Mamarok) with her wealth of technical knowledge and willingness to help one and all, is a daily inspiration as well. Recently, she stepped up to the task of creating and perfecting the spreadsheet we needed to bulk upload tasks for Google CodeIn. It was amazing. Thank you so much, Mamarok. Mackenzie (maco) - how can I thank you enough? Your friendship through the years has been wonderful. Amber (akgraner), you shine with a warm glow, like the jewel you are named. Your friendly open enthusiasm has shaped U-W into the great project it is. And you continue to spark your energy into new projects, which pick up that same golden glow. Akkana (akk), I have long admired not only your curiousity and knowledge, but your willingness to share. Once you got a successful career as an author going, you went on to public speaking! I love it - thank you for your example, your work, your kindness.

Within Kubuntu, and through that, the KDEMultimedia team, Harald (apachelogger) and Trever (tdfischer) have become daily inspirations to me. When they encounter difficulties, they code! I don't code, but I can do my own work, even when times are tough. Thank you, Harald and Trever for your example. And all the bad jokes, and good music. :-)

On the local level, I'd like to thank three people in particular, Linda (Althara), Ben (bkrensa) and Michael (MJEvans). Linda shows the leadership and on-going patience to try to get our Washington LoCo going, in spite of low numbers and barely-enough enthusiasm to keep it going. We'll do it, Linda! Thank you for being you. Ben down in Portland, meanwhile, is unstoppable! His tremendous joy and generosity are infectious. Thank you for being my friend, Ben. You keep me jazzed. Michael, you have helped me so much through the years, and your patience and willingness to keep on keeping on is an inspiration to me. Thank you, Michael. You keep me focussed on Doing It Right.

Finally, my co-authors! Karan (wizardKaran), Supreet and Rohan (shadeslayer) - thank you so much for including me in your group. The week we spent at Google writing a book was just mind-bending. It feels so cool to look at a copy of our book and know that I created it with you guys! We did it!

Thinking Together for Success

2011-11-10T01:35:00.000-08:00

Tonight I heard an excellent interview on Fresh Air called How Birth Control And Abortion Became Politicized. Don't worry, I'm not going to write about politics, history, or medical procedures! I was struck by how positions on this subject have changed over the years. And yet many Americans now line up on one side or the other, and little dialogue is taking place between the two sides. As a consequence, my country is making little progress in resolving this issue. We have a shocking number of unwanted pregnancies here, with little discussion about improving the situation.

I just finished an interesting book about religion and politics by Francis Shaeffer (Sex, Mom and God), where he makes an eloquent lament about the same issue, and he's been on all sides of it, including creating the Religious Right in the US with his father and some others. When people stop listening to one another, they stop thinking together, which is the process we need to solve the really tough problems.

I'm reading again the excellent Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together. The author illustrates many tough problems which have been successfully solved in dialogue, and some cases where dialogue broke down, and why. Unfortunately, the most often used attempts we are making to solve problems and make decisions aren't as effective as they could be. I see this in Western culture, and in Free and Open Source Software. I see a lot of conversations which turn into an airing of long-held positions, arguments, and debates, instead of creativity, fresh thinking, and problem solving.

There is another way, and I thank those in Linux who are fostering team-building, sprints, and larger in-person meetings such as Canonical's UDS, the KDE e.V.'s sprints, Akademy, Desktop Summits, and the GNOME Foundation's Guadecs and Desktop Summits. So much great dialogue can happen in those gatherings! There are other excellent groups sponsoring other opportunities for people to dialogue, but these are the ones I've experienced. I'd like to see us carry out dialogue on our mailing lists, blogs, forums and on IRC as well as our face-to-face meetings.

To the extent that people can begin to listen to one another as much as talk about their own knowledge and ideas, we'll begin to think together more and more, and craft more amazing solutions to our common problems. Until we learn how to do this better, we'll be a minority movement. We have to offer not just better software than the closed, unfree stuff, but also an attractive community, where we model mutual respect and helpful partnership.

This week I've read some really discouraging blog comments, IRC discussions, and mail list threads. We can do better! And we must do better, if we want to be ultimately successful. This isn't about enforcing codes of conduct, but about listening, and engaging in thinking, together. As Mahatma Gandhi said, Be the change you want to see in the world.

Help KDE e.V. secure funding for a sprint with just a few clicks

2011-11-09T00:07:00.000-08:00

Some weeks ago Lydia blogged about a German bank giving away 1000 euros for each 1000 associations who can get the most votes. Well, until four days ago we were at postion 320, now we are at 735 and falling. Please, read Lydia's post about how to vote and help KDE e.V., it is just a few clicks.I'll include the directions here for speed. Remember, you'll be sent an email with a link, which you must click, and click a button on that page too. AND you can do this three times! I've done my three votes, have you?

A German bank is giving away 1000 Euro each to the 1000 associations who can get the most votes. Everyone has 3 votes. Please do vote with all 3 for KDE. With just a few clicks you can make a difference!
Here’s what you have to do:
1) go to https://verein.ing-diba.de/sonstiges/10115/kde-ev and click “Stimme abgeben”
2) enter your email and the captcha it asks for and then click“absenden”
3) you’ll get an email to confirm your vote – click the link in the email
4) you’ll get to a website – click “Stimme abgeben”

You can do this 3 times in a row. If KDE is among the top 1000 associations we’ll get 1000 Euro.

New KDE book, Beginning KDE Development!

2011-10-21T23:04:00.000-07:00

This week has been amazing! I'm not sure what I expected when I applied for the GSoC Doc Sprint, or when I became part of Karan's team, whichproposed creating a guide for new KDE developers. I know I did NOT expect to have a book in print within the week! However, our wonderful hosts and guides from Google, FlossManuals, and Aspiration http://www.aspirationtech.org/ guided all of us so well, that WE DID IT! Not only the KDE team, but also the people from OpenMRS, OpenStreetMap and Sahana also created and published books! Four books in one week, from 29 people. I still can't believe it. Rohan, Supreet, and Karan (Rohan Garg, Supreet Pal Singh, Karan Pratap Singh) - you are the best!

Publication isn't the end of the process though. In fact, the opposite. Because of the way FlossManuals is set up, the books are in a "rolling release" unless they are deliberately frozen. So interested folks can edit and add over time, or even clone books or chapters to "fork", if needed.

Also, one of the teams was describing how they created a book before, with a co-located coding and documentation sprint. Doesn't that sound like a great idea, KDE teams? As they told it, as the doc team struggled with difficulties, and consulted with the coding team, often the code was made better, cleaner, simpler -- which make the documentation more straightforward as well. It sounds like a great idea; to make the new documentation match exactly the new code, released together at the same time. Sounds like a best practice to me! We did something like this at the Amarok sprint at Randa last summer, and it worked out very well. Since we had Myriam there hunting down bugs too, which was triply effective.

Not every team will want a book, of course. Books aren't always a practical documentation form-factor, although FlossManuals points the way to the future, I think. The books don't have to be printed, but can also be made available as HTML, PDF, or ePub files. Also, the files can be given away or sold, as the project chooses, and the projects set the price on the printed books as well. Since we have make the e.V. the owner of the book, they could even decide to set a higher price for awhile, as a fundraiser, or buy them cheaply in bulk to send to the GSoC students, or make available at KDE booths at FOSS events.

Our book, Beginning KDE Development, was created with the GSoC students in mind, to help them get up and running KDE trunk, if necessary, as quickly as possible. Along with the technical helps, we've also discussed the KDE community, where to get help, and how to communicate -- all in one short book. I hope you will visit http://booki.flossmanuals.net/kde-guide/, create an account, and help us make it better! We have to have it in excellent shape in time for the next group of GSoC students 2012.

Adam Oram has written an interesting series of blog posts about the event, with some pictures. Check out the series here: https://bitly.com/bundles/praxagora/4. Thank you O'Reilly for sending Adam to help us, and chronicle the event! And most important, thank you Google for selecting our team for sponsorship. You've done KDE a great service.

Life and Death, Love, Respect and Foolishness

2011-10-11T20:24:00.000-07:00

Death clarifies a lot of issues. At least it did for Steve Jobs, as he so eloquently expressed at his famous Commencement address at Stanford (text, video). Personally, I wish he had made other choices, but he didn't ask my advice. He did follow his intuition and curiosity, however, and that is what I want to take from him. These things helped make him insanely great, coupled with his intense focus on perfection.

A couple of days ago was the eight anniversary of my cousin Carol's death. Her life and death changed my own life in many ways, and I continue to be blessed to have known her especially in her last bit of time on Earth. And I'll be forever grateful for her son Colin becoming our son. He and his hubby Rory bring joy to our life so often. Carol was a year and a day younger than me, yet she has been eight years gone. So Steve's words about living each day as if it might be your last have special meaning to me.

What does all this have to do with Free and Open Software, you might ask? Apple was the opposite of free, at least once Wozniak stepped away. Yet I've recently heard yearning for a dictatorial leader who has a vision, and makes US "insanely great." Steve did that, at great cost. He left many people feeling shredded and shamed by his public tantrums, although he deserves universal acclaim for the beautiful objects his teams produced. But there is more than personal and professional hurt left as part of his legacy. There is also a very dirty secret about how the workers who produced those beautiful objects have been treated, right into the present. We can't forget the dark side of this leadership style, which relies on domination hierarchies to produce both software and hardware. If we choose that terrible beauty, let's at least acknowledge what our choice entails.

There is a better way, in my opinion. There is freedom. Freedom of association, freedom of thought, the generous gift to the world of one's code, documentation, web pages, work, money, time. What is this freedom based on, since most of us don't work for money in KDE and Kubuntu? We work for love. We don't often admit it, but we love the freedom, we love the people, we love what we do, and we love the product we put out. We work in partnership with people all over the world!

I've noticed some problems lately, as the quality of that love has become strained. Like any other relationship, our love must grow and change as our projects grow and change. Kubuntu is six and a half, while KDE is fifteen now! Happy anniversary, and welcome to growing pains. We have as many projects now as there used to be developers. This means we need to spend more time listening to one another, and suspending judgment until all the facts, all the ideas, all the creativity has been taken into account. And at that point, we don't need a leader to tell us what the right decision is. We can continue to listen until we've come to consensus. Yes, this takes some time, but not as much time as Do it all over again! as Steve often demanded. If we have respect for one another, and enough self-respect to do our best with the work we contribute, we will turn out LOVELY products!

Steve asks himself in the Stanford speech, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Please don't stay on in a position or a team where you aren't in love. Doing so will only result in burn-out, bitterness, and other nasty stuff. Instead, bow out gracefully, and find a project and team you ARE in love with. As Steve said, Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Celebrate Ada Lovelace Day!

2011-10-07T21:17:00.000-07:00

Who has helped you along the way? Women aren't generally encouraged to be geeks in our culture, but some of us are working to change that! I've met many heroes along the way, in Rootsweb, Linuxchix, KDE and Ubuntu Women, but today I'd like to mention someone of the encouraging friends I've met along the way, in honor of Ada Lovelace Day.

Joan and Pig were and are great friends from Rootsweb, which is a free genealogy project. They encouraged me to take the step of becoming a listowner, and then to administer the forums gatewayed to my lists. I still have those lists and boards, although they aren't too active these days. And Pig knew about Linuxchix, and guided me there when I was thinking about making the jump from Windows 2000 Pro to Linux. Both these women are not only tireless researchers, but also take the time to help others with both research methodology AND technical issues. Their patient, clear advice has guided me for a decade.

In Linuxchix, I met many heroes, but especially Akkana Peck and Carla Schroder. Both of these women rock! Carla has taught herself an amazing plethora of skills, which she's then turned around to teach others. You are my hero and example in that, Carla. Akkana is always willing to ask questions and find the answers, which is so rare in adults. She also then turns around and teaches others, whether it's astronomy, or how to use a plug computer.

Then there is Mackenzie Morgan, my youngest hero. I invited her to Linuxchix, and she in turn urged me to get involved in Ubuntu Women, where I've met so many wonderful people, and many heroes! I also met Linda Halligan on Linuxchix, and have been inspired by her hard work, skill, and enthusiasm in her life, as a mother, and in her work for Ubuntu, especially Ubuntu Washington, our LoCo. Maco has been an inspiration for many in her friendly geeky encouragement and increasing craft skills, along with her code contributions to Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Ubuntu accessability.

Two more women who have inspired me in Ubuntu Women and in life, are Amber Graner and Lyz Krumbach. Both have faced significant personal obstacles in their personal and professional lives, yet remain calm, helpful, creative and dependable. Dependable is a compliment? Yes, of the highest order. Many people have great ideas, but few follow through. These women do, time and after time, and so are asked to take on more and more responsibilities. They shoulder so much, I'm not sure when they have time to LIVE! And yet they do. :-)

Finally, both in Ubuntu Women and in KDE, Lydia Pintscher and Myriam Schweingruber are my heroes. Both excellent geeky women, giving in so many technical and community-building ways to KDE and Ubuntu Women both. How do they find the time?

As usual, I didn't focus! But so many people have helped me along the way, picking out just one person is impossible. Even this list is much too small, and not detailed enough about the many accomplishments of this pantheon of geeky women. Many men have helped me along the way as well, but this blog is for Ada Lovelace Day!

Thank you all!

Teaching the next Adas: join KDE for Ada Lovelace Day tutorials

2011-10-06T14:29:00.000-07:00

October 7th is Ada Lovelace Day, a day many people celebrate by writing about women who influenced them in their science, technology, engineering or math career.

KDE wants to celebrate the day a bit differently this year. We will help the next generations of Adas find their way in KDE and Qt. We’ll do this by holding a tutorial day for women and their friends -- women are the main focus of the event but everyone else who’s nice is welcome as well.

The tutorials will be given by the excellent Myriam Schweingruber and Dario Freddi. Don’t forget to sign up.

How To Help With Bug Reports (5PM UTC)

Coding in a Free Software project is a very important part of the work, but by far not the only one. One of the possible fields where non-coders can get involved is bug triaging. This course will give an overview on bug triaging and testing. After the course the participant should be able to pick their preferred application and start helping in bug triaging. Myriam will talk about all the fine details of becoming a bugmaster from choosing the right project for yourself to figuring out what is missing in a bug report. This is probably one of the most valuable skills you can bring to KDE right now.

Building your own launcher (3PM UTC)

In this tutorial, you will create a basic application launcher for KDE. Yes, a full-fledged one you can then have fun in turning into a real “start menu” with your new skills. While doing that, Dario will teach you the basics of KDE, Qt and QML, which will empower you to create your first shiny application.

    Requirements:
        Basic knowledge of C++, mainly syntax-wise
        Beginner knowledge of Qt could be preferred, but not a requirement
        A Linux+KDE installation
        A working KDE development environment (Show up early in the channel if you don’t have that set up yet so we can still do that together.)
        KDevelop 4.2+ (preferred) or Qt Creator, or your IDE of choice :)

    You will learn about:
        Basic usage of CMake for building your project
        Basic Qt paradigms
        Some of KDE’s basic APIs such as KService, KIO, Solid
        Basic QML programming
        The Model/View paradigm and how to use it with Qt/KDE
        Interaction between QML and C++

The tutorials will take place in #kde-tutorials on freenode. (You can use the webchat if you don’t already have a working IRC client.) Each course will last approximately 1 hour and will include a question and answer part.
Join us and spread the word to your friends :)

Sign up for the tutorials!

New Thing: Kubuntu Documentation

2011-09-16T02:40:00.000-07:00

For about a year I've been intending to contribute to Kubuntu Documentation, beyond the occasional update or correction of the wiki -- not that that isn't important too! But the docs which are distributed (accessed through the Help menu or F1) with all of our applications are the basic way we interact with our users all over the world. As the applications change and our settings, and suite of applications change over time, the documentation needs to be kept both current and correct. This is the role of the Documentation team. Once we're done, the docs are turned over to the Translation team, who are heroes!

Since David Wonderly (DarkwingDuck in IRC) took the leadership of the team, he's created a nice guide to contribution, at https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Kubuntu/Documentation. As I discovered during crunch time, it wasn't perfect - by the time you consult it, it will be, I'm sure!

One thing which was not stressed to me, and turned out to be important, was pulling to keep the update current. If you are working in a team, it's important to do this step frequently so that you are working on current copies of the documents.

David has documented the steps well, so I don't need to go through them here, but as in any technical process, it's important to set up your process and follow that faithfully. So always update before uploading (pushing), always fix conflicts first, and so forth.

Also, communication is important. We use a Whiteboard on Launchpad, and I discovered that I wasn't saving after claiming work items. There is no SAVE button -- just a green checkmark. Use the green checkmark! And talk to people in IRC about your intentions as well. Stepping on someone's work makes two unhappy people, and wasted worktime as well.

To sum up, getting started in Kubuntu/Ubuntu documentation involves some technical steps, such as setting up Bazaar and your SSH key, getting the Repository branch(es) you'll be working with, and keeping them up-to-date. However, they are clearly described, and help or hand-holding is available on IRC. Just follow the steps as described, and you'll have success, as I did.

The documents themselves are edited in a text editor (I use Kate, naturally), saved as usual, then committed locally, and finally pushed to Launchpad. Once uploaded, they can be checked by one of the developers and committed on Launchpad. Once you have pushed, remember to update your status on the Whiteboard, and mention it on IRC as well, if you are working in a team. #kubuntu-devel for Kubuntu, and #ubuntu-doc for everybody.

Finally, thanks for contributing to documentation! Your fellow users thank you.

Are you a Listowner? Try listadmin CLI tool

2011-09-12T00:23:00.000-07:00

I don't consider myself a very techie person, and generally chose the GUI tools over text-based commands in a console, with few exceptions. However, my life keeps getting busier, and spending time on mindless tasks like deleting list spam seems like a waste. Especially when there is a command-line interface (CLI) tool which promises both speed and control.

This will only be useful if you are a listowner, and your list is administered using Mailman, and you use Linux/Unix/BSD. But if this fits you, give it a try! In your package manager, select listadmin, or use apt-get install listadmin or the equivalent in your distribution. To start the application, in your console, type listadmin. If it's the first time you've run listadmin, you'll first see a series of questions which when answered will fill in the file $HOME/.listadmin.ini. I found it easier to edit this file by hand until I found the correct way to enter the password and listnames. You can edit this file in any text editor; I prefer Kate.

Here's my file, with some sample lists:


username valorie.zimmerman@gmail.com
password XxXxX
spamlevel 8

# If you uncomment the following you will only have to press Return
# to discard a message:
#
default discard

# Uncomment the following to get a terse transaction log:
#
# log "~/.listadmin.log"
volunteers@mailman.linuxchix.org


password XxXxXx
alsachat@lists9.rootsweb.ancestry.com

Username in this case is the email account you use in Mailman to administer the list; password is the password exactly as you type it - no extra spaces or symbols, and list address takes a bit more explanation. I successfully figured out the listname so it worked by using the Mailman administration weblink for the subdomain and domain part. For instance, my Linuxchix link is http://mailman.linuxchix.org/mailman/admindb/listname, which becomes listname@mailman.linuxchix.org. For Rootsweb lists, it's http://lists#.rootsweb.ancestry.com/mailman/admindb/listname, which becomes listname@lists#.rootsweb.ancestry.com, where # is the server number. The same procedure works for KDE lists: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/admindb/listname becomes listname@mail.kde.org.

The coolest thing is that if you set up your ini file as I did, you can do ALL your Mailman lists in one run, no matter how many servers the lists live on, and how many passwords you use. Be sure to use a blank line after the last list in a group, then create another group as shown above.

For more information, see the author's description: http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin and the Manual: http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/listadmin.txt

KDE: Finding the Unloved

2011-09-02T19:02:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,It's that time again. We in the CWG are trying to find those parts of KDE that do not have someone to take care of them, as well as those teams that are in need of help. Our goal is to find people who are interested in those unloved applications, teams, or areas in KDE.Please add to the list here:http://community.kde.org/KDE/Finding_The_Unloved.Thanks!

Don't Make Me Think

2011-09-02T15:45:00.000-07:00

Don't Make Me Think is the title of an excellent book on building websites by Steve Krug. If you are building any sites, you need this book. But even if you don't, it's worth a look, because it's really about how people respond to processes.

So often we make designs/processes based on some sort of logic, but forget to test them out with people. Krug stresses, over and over, that everything in a site needs testing. I believe this is true in community work, web-stuff, application design, windowing systems, game design, documentation, and on and on.

One of the points that I noticed, although he didn't stress it, is that small changes need testing, because when you emphasize one thing, even things you didn't touch are de-emphasized. So lots of small tests, quite frequently. Don't make a big deal of it; just grab someone, let them test your site/app/process/interface/form/design, and then fix what is obviously wrong.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Contributions of Non-Technical People

2011-08-06T07:53:00.000-07:00

First, congratulations to Bambi, Romain Perier for his new Kubuntu Developer status. He's one of our wonderful packagers who create the new KDE packages we need to run the latest Kubuntu. Bambi does some development, and this is important. And we need non-technical contributions too!

In fact, if you run and love Kubuntu, we want and need your creativity, your testing, your bug reports, your corrections on the wiki, your help on artwork, documentation, promotion (like this blog!), your helpful voice in IRC, identica, twitter, Google+ -- the sky is the limit! Community work is as important as the code, because people create the love, create the community, create the software.

As a non-technical person, I wanted to give back to Free and Open Source software, which I've been using for about 10 years. My process was to think beyond Linuxchix, which had been my homebase for those 10 years. I thought about my favorite application, which is Amarok. I looked around in the documentation, to see how I could help out. I noticed that the user documentation was outdated and not well-maintained. So after reading the mail list for a few months, I got my courage up, and asked about helping on the list. I was immediately greeted, and asked to join the IRC channel to talk about my ideas. Once I connected to Freenode and set up my identity there, I was made most welcome in #amarok, which made me feel wonderful, and more confident that I could contribute. It ended up that I headed up the Documentation team, and have been writing and editing the newsletter as well as the Userbase documentation. Through this process, I worked with the KDE WWW team, and learned more about how both Kubuntu and KDE work. Basically, I became part of the community team, even before joining the Community Working Group.

In Kubuntu, I haven't done as much as I would like, but I plan to get more active in the documentation team; editing if nothing else. The Kubuntu Council granted me membership, which is also Ubuntu Membership, based on my work with the LoCo, my help in #kubuntu, and work with the Ubuntu-Women. And Canonical sponsored a trip to Orlando, Florida to Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) last year.

I'm writing this blog post from Desktop Summit in Berlin; my lodging and travel sponsored by the KDE e.V. In June, they sent me to Randa, Switzerland for a sprint. Some of the wonderful rewards for contributing. If I can do it, you can do it!

Google Summer of Code, and Season of KDE: Past the mid-point

2011-07-30T23:36:00.000-07:00

We have now passed the mid-term evaluations for both GSoC, and SoK. Our students are doing a wonderful job in GSoC -- all 51 students passed! We've had a couple of disappointing reports from SoK, which I would like to follow up on. Please, students and mentors, if you are having difficulties with research, coding, or support, contact us administrators. Lydia isn't alone; we are all here to help you.

This past week I was at the Community Leadership Summit and OSCON. A meeting of GSoC mentors and admins during lunch one day was fun, and I'm looking forward to the Mentor Summit in October. I'm so pleased with the creative support that Google is providing to KDE and the rest of the FOSS projects. This last year, they added the spectacular Google Code-In, and it seems likely they will offer that contest again this fall. New in 2011 is the Documentation Sprint, which I've applied to attend. If accepted, I'll be in Mountainview for a week, for the Sprint then the Mentor Summit.

Thank you Google, thank you KDE mentors, thank you wonderful students, and thank you to Lydia, Jeff and Ingo, my fellow administrators. This has been a great ride.

PS:

Teamwork!

2011-07-09T22:42:00.000-07:00

Kudos to the Kubuntu packaging team, who are doing so much with so little! By so much, I mean that they are not only packaging all of KDE 4.7 release candidate, but also the 4.6 updates. With JR Riddell off working on Bazaar for Canonical, it's been a tremendous job for an all-volunteer crew. Many of these folks are in school, doing a Google Summer of Code project, or have summer jobs too.

I've seen them really challenged not only to get the software packaged so it builds and runs, but also running down licensing information, which is sometimes difficult to find or confusing to provide. Yet they have been so fun to watch, as they joke back and forth in IRC while working at top speed, and checking one another's work.

If you've ever thought about learning to package, or know how but have been taking a break, stop by #kubuntu-devel and offer your help. You will find work waiting for you.

Thanks again, Kubuntu team. You totally rock!

Cool Summer Stuff

2011-06-22T20:08:00.000-07:00

First,

I'm so happy to be headed to Europe again, especially for this huge event. I look forward to meeting more of my KDE team, but also many Gnome developers. Next month, I'll head down to Portland again and attend both CLS and OSCON. Looking forward to that as well. I'm thinking of doing a lightning talk at CLS, and hope that that springs me forward to start public speaking again.

Finally, I've Joined the Game, and am now supporting KDE quarterly. If you are using a KDE-provided platform and applications, you might join too! See Join the Game for more information.

Table of Contents is DONE! and other Sprint News

2011-06-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

In spite of spotty internet connections and wiki timeouts, the Amarok Handbook Table of Contents is done! Eternal thanks to Myriam for her help learning how to move the pages, and to the rest of the team for working out the best order for the pages. Moving the pages is a bit complicated, so if you are using Userbase, try to get your pages in the order you will want them! The Kdenlive team has already posted their QuickStart Guide, so they are well on the way to documenting their excellent application. KMix is next. Right, Christian?

Of course I still need to check the Amarok pages for the proper progress information. That shouldn't take long, and I should have it done within the week -- maybe sooner.

In non-documentation news, we had a good community-building meeting. Unfortunately none of us were quite ready, but we covered all the ground anyway, I think.

My Pictures, and Trever's pictures.

Also, the biscotti were a huge hit! Most were gone the first day. Well worth the space in my luggage. :-)

Greetings from Randa, Switzerland

2011-06-05T06:45:00.000-07:00

Thanks to KDE e.V. sponsorship, I was able to come here to attend the Amarok and Multimedia Sprints, and mix with other sprint teams too, such as the KDE Platform, who have taken over the entire attic!, and Nepomuk, KDevelop-Kate. Find our linked notes and such from http://community.kde.org/Amarok/RandaSprint2011. I'm sure that all Amarok, Phonon, PulseAudio, and Kdenlive users will find much to celebrate about as the commits roll in!

Harald Sitter is now lord president of #kde multimedia! He has the vision to create from the disparate KDE multimedia applications and teams, a more unified experience for KDE users, and cooperation and coordination between application teams.

We are living in an 150 year-old hotel this week, hosted by Mario Fux and seemingly his entire family and friends from the entire valley! The food and fellowship have both been great! Especially the raclette for dinner. And getting to know people who've not met -- including some Gnome people! See some pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cosmokramer/sets/72157626882307128/show/.

UDS-O Wrapup

2011-05-28T22:54:00.000-07:00

No, I didn't GO to UDS, but I did attend -- remotely. If you didn't have time to do that, here are some ways to catch up.

Watch: lots of the plenaries and some of the sessions, along with many interviews are here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ubuntudevelopers#p/u/1/4wZd77h6aUg

Listen: http://mirrors.tumbleweed.org.za/uds-o/

Look: Excellent photos of the event: http://www.pixoulphotography.com/2011/05/18/official-uds-o-group-photo-and-personal-photo-set/. And for those who are interested, excellent photos of the setup. http://photos.pixoulphotography.com/Events.

Please add more suggestions in the comments!

KDE Community Working Group Office Hour next Saturday

2011-05-28T17:37:00.000-07:00

Add topics for next office hour to http://community.kde.org/CWG.

We're here for you! The Community Working Group is a group of people supporting KDE in all matters community. The charter and list of current members can be found on the KDE e.V. website.

So if you have an issue, a problem, a topic you think needs discussing, please add it to the agenda so we can do our homework before the Office Hour.

All interested people are welcome to attend, on 11th of June at 7pm UTC. See http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=KDE+Community+Working+Group+office+hour&iso=20110611T21&p1=964&ah=1 and scroll down to find a city close to you for your local time.

Going to Switzerland!

2011-05-26T01:35:00.000-07:00

Yes, next week I'm headed for the beautiful village of Randa, high in the Alps, for the KDE multi-media sprint! Amarok, Phonon, and so much more!

I'm very excited to finally meet some of the team I've been working with for 18 months or so. And it will be great to see Harald again, too. :-)

This is part of the work and part of the reward of contributing to KDE. Join the game! and travel the world while doing it. See Sprints.kde.org for more information.

Regression Testing, Please!

2011-05-06T19:51:00.000-07:00

I've recently written a bit about my difficulties using UbuntuOne in Kubuntu Maverick and now again in Natty. The sad part is that a bit of regression testing, and working with our Kubuntu developer could have solved this situation long ago. APIs are supposed to give application developers access, not make that access more difficult. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntuone-client/+bug/369230

Now a related incident has happened: a Canonical uTouch patch to Qt which breaks Wacom tablets. For more on this, see: http://www.valdyas.org/fading/index.cgi/software/krita/no_pressure_in_krita.html.

Thank you to the Koffice people for blogging about this.

ScottK assures me that a fixed package can be found in his PPA: https://launchpad.net/~kitterman/+archive/ppa/ while we try to get the fix properly sorted: https://bugs.launchpad.net/koffice/+bug/762938.

Canonical developers, please do some regression testing against Kubuntu before committing changes.

OpenWeek session: Introducing Kubuntu

2011-05-05T17:26:00.000-07:00

Just finished a class in #ubuntu-classroom, Introducting Kubuntu for Ubuntu Open Week: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek. What a great experience! Find logs here: http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2011/05/05/%23ubuntu-classroom.html

It runs in the usual Ubuntu way, mostly on wikis and multiple IRC channels. It seems complicated at first, so I'll explain what is involved if you want to speak, and then if you just would like to attend and ask questions.

Speakers: Visit https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek/Prep. Enter your information into the grid, and email Amber (or whomever is listed as the contact person on that page). You'll notice that I didn't do this, which made people scramble a bit to get the necessary info. Make everyone's life easier by filling out this page. Then you'll be listed here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek. Click on the time link, and you'll be taken to TimeAndDate.com, scroll down to the largest city in your time zone, and mark your calendar.

Create some introductory sentences with information links and such, which you can easily copy/paste into IRC. That will keep your talk moving along when you have no questions. Remember, you only have an hour for both your text, and answering questions. So prepare, but not too much.

Before your session, read up on ClassBot here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Classroom/ClassBot. It isn't complicated, but remember to /msg ClassBot before your session starts. Also, join #ubuntu-classroom, #ubuntu-classroom-chat, and #ubuntu-classroom-backstage. Backstage is where you interact with the Classroom folks, who make sure everything is set up for you. #ubuntu-classroom will be moderated, so people can only ask questions in #ubuntu-classroom-chat, and when you query ClassBot and say !yes, the question will appear in #ubuntu-classroom where you can answer it.

The ClassBot will announce your talk, voice you, give you the questions when you are ready for those, and announce when there are 10 minutes left, 5 minutes left, and when your session is done. Also, the log link will be announced, and you'll be de-voiced.

Attendees: Join #ubuntu-classroom and #ubuntu-classroom-chat. When you have a question, ask in -chat, like this: QUESTION: Your question. The speaker may or may not have time to talk to you personally, or address your question in the hour. I was happy to be able to get to all of my questions, although I didn't know all the answers.

In -chat, there were some answers which I wasn't quick enough to get into the main classroom channel, so I'll add them here:

[09:19] <himcesjf> QUESTION: Hi valorie. Great information #ubuntu-classroom! Could you introduce me about graphics which Kubuntu uses? Like the compositing types openGL and XRender, etc ...
[09:22] <ScottK> himcesjf: Defaults to OpenGL, but supports Xrender. GLES support coming soon.

[09:22] <doctormo> QUESTION: Has there been any update on Akonadi and what do you feel about further chaos with the new elementary postler backend? Is the KDE community concerned at all about fragmentation of data standards?
[09:23] <shadeslayer> okay i can answer a part of that ^^
[09:23] <shadeslayer> doctormo: Yes, the new KDE PIM 4.6 oozes of akonadi integration, infact, i'm using it right now! and everything pretty much works for me except IMAP, which i was told has been fixed in a new upstream release
[09:24] <ScottK> doctormo: What standards in particular?
[09:25] <doctormo> ScottK: mail, contacts, calendars, notes, bookmarks, clipboards, file-path-and-io... etc.
[09:25] <doctormo> Everything that makes you want to pull your hair out about gtk ;-)
[09:26] <ScottK> doctormo: I don't think Akonadi is responsible for any fragmentation of these standards.
[09:27] <ScottK> Akonadi was originally proposed to be hosted on FDO, but got refused for reasons that didn't seem to make any sense.
[09:28] <doctormo> ScottK: I don't think it is either, but the situation continues.
[09:28] <apachelogger> shadeslayer: works for me
[09:28] <doctormo> And much the same with new apps being developed that reinvent their own backends too.
[09:31] <ScottK> doctormo: Akonadi is intended to be broadly useful for PIM type data and hopfeully will see broader adoption. A prototype Evolution package that used Akonadi was demonstrated at the combined desktop summit in Gran Canraria.
[09:34] <shadeslayer> ^^ Adding to that, i'll be working on a GUI for a tool called syncevolution which can identify multiple PIM Data sources and do a 3 way sync between your PC/Phone/A Server like Nokia's Ovi Store
[09:34] <shadeslayer> so hopefully that should reduce data fragmentation ....

[09:36] <himcesjf> QUESTION: Would you introduce me on application framework/toolkits Qt/GTK+ with reference to Kubuntu/KDE?
[09:36] <eagles0513875> himcesjf: for QT there is kdevelop for qt based apps
[09:36] <shadeslayer> himcesjf: QtCreator as well
[09:36] <eagles0513875> not sure what programs are available for gtk though

Linuxfest Northwest and Happy Memories

2011-05-05T16:32:00.000-07:00

Bellingham again showed us the beauty of the coastal northwest, and the Bellingham Linux User Group topped themselves with LFNW 2011. While it's difficult to gauge attendance to a free conference, it seemed we had roughly the same number stop by our booth this year, although we gave out fewer free CDs. We had no large pile of packaged free CDs from Canonical, so made do with giving out the last of our old ones, and burning CDs for those who needed them. Thank you to Michael (MJEvans) for donating the blank CDs. Also thanks to our anonymous donor, who insisted on giving us $5 for his FREE cd!

Also new this year, was burning to thumb drives. Not only did I lend out my MultiSystem drive a few times, I also created a couple of them for people, and burned ISOs onto four or five drives as well. Yay for Ktorrent getting me all those ISOs, so they were available for people! Next year, I'll do even more. We had a request for Xubuntu, but I didn't have one, and the bandwidth was not sufficient to download it.

Saturday was a crush, and we were demonstrating Unity and Kubuntu, burning CDs, and talking about Ubuntu-Women and Linuxchix, and the issues surrounding women in Linux, FOSS, and even attending conferences. I enjoyed showing off Kubuntu and KDE and explaining the difference to lots and lots of people.

Also, once Zareason fixed the wireless on my Terra, Thomas put 11.04 32-bit on it, and I set it to the netbook interface. So people could really see the difference between Kubuntu and the new Ubuntu Unity interface. I saw the new Teo netbook at the Zareason booth -- it looks snazzy! We might have sold them a few netbooks, so I hope their good service to me pays off in the long run. :-)

One new feature at LFNW this year: http://linuxfestnorthwest.org/lfnw-principles. Not that the principles themselves are new; this group has always been friendly and welcoming. But now they are codified for all to see. Kudos to BLUG for this important step!

They know how to throw a party, too! The party Saturday night was lower-key than last year, and more fun, in my opinion. The beer was, if possible, even better too. :-)

The food was nothing special, but after the food, the games came out! Not only Guitar Hero and some Wii games, but also table games for those who wanted them. I think that created a really friendly atmosphere before the beer was poured. Also, the beer cups were smaller. I know I drank less, and felt good Sunday morning. Yay!

Sunday is a quiet day, with fewer sessions, and fewer visitors. However, I think quite a few visitors to our table were new. I was surprised at how many CDs went out. I was having trouble keeping up! I did have time to do two sit-downs with women who wanted to know more about the community, how to use IRC, etc. That was really enjoyable.

All in all, and excellent weekend! Again, the Hampton was affordable, clean, and convenient. The free breakfast also furnished a yogurt, apple and bagel for my lunch too. I look forward to 2012, and plan to speak.

Rsync, Level: Expert

2011-04-28T22:42:00.000-07:00

Learning all kinds of new things, like how to escape spaces in filenames. When I tried the command

$ sudo rsync -avr --progress /etc/ /media/FreeAgent Backup/etc/

I got only error messages. What works is quoting,

sudo rsync -avr --progress /etc/ "/media/FreeAgent Backup/etc/"

or escaping:

sudo rsync -avr --progress /etc/ /media/FreeAgent\ Backup/etc/

. I back up /etc as it's small, and may be useful. The main thing to backup, of course, is /home:

sudo rsync -avr --progress /home/valorie/ "/media/FreeAgent Backup/home/"

where /home is the source, and /media/FreeAgent Backup/ is the destination. Thanks to sbeattie and maco in #ubuntu-women for showing me this.

Also, empty trash BEFORE running a backup of /home!

sudo rm -r /home/valorie/.local/share/Trash/*

. In #ubuntu-women, JanC suggested using "the GUI or a special commandline tool to empty the trash, as it keeps references around etc. The trash-cli package contains a command

empty-trash

." When I asked what she meant by references, JanC explained, "references as to what file has to be restored to where (if you ever want to do so). And of course there are separate trash directories on every disk you have etc. AFAIK trash-cli implements the XDG spec about this, just like GNOME & KDE do."

In #kubuntu-offtopic, James147 suggested that rather than just emptying the trash, I use --exclude=, ie rsync ... --exclude=*/Trash/* --exclude=*.tmp --exclude=*.bak ... etc. He suggested "useful patterns might be: *.tmp *.bak *.backup *~ *.swp */lost+found/*. I really wish I had thought to do this, and I definitely will in future. Watching that stuff scroll past as I waited was not fun!

I asked, "so each of the excludes needs to be separate, like: --exclude=*/Trash/* --exclude=*.tmp --exclude=*.bak"

[15:27] <james147> yes
[15:27] <james147> each pattern you want to exclude needs a separate --exclude=
[15:27] <james147> ^^ can get long but thats what scripts are for :D
[15:28] <valorie> that maybe my next step
[15:28] <valorie> for now, a good string I can copy/paste will be good

[15:29] <james147> valorie: a script isn't hard to do...

[15:29] <valorie> the up-arrow in bash makes things pretty easy
[15:30] <james147> valorie: can be as simple as

1. #!/bin/bash
   2. rsync ... --exclude=*.tmp --exclude=/Trash/* ... # add and edit this line till it suits your needs

[15:30] ^^ then you just need to run "chmod +x scriptname"
[15:31] then run it with ./scriptname or bash scriptname or sh scriptname
[15:31] (use sudo if it needs root)
[15:31] valorie: bash scripts can just be a bunch of commands you want to run

I'm not quite ready to wrap all this into a script, but will definitely think about do so before my next backup. http://www.linux.com/news/enterprise/storage/8200-back-up-like-an-expert-with-rsync discussing scripting the backup process too. For now, on to Natty Narwhal!

GSoC and Season of KDE - Let's GO!

2011-04-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

Our students have received their acceptance letters, and this year are being assembled into small teams. So the students will not only have access to their project community and mentor(s), and us admins, but also each other. We hope that this will make it more likely that students will not only contribute code to KDE, but their continuing participation.

We had many strong proposals this year, but unfortunately were only able to accept 51 out of the 169 proposals for GSoC. However, now Season of KDE has been announced! See Nightrose's blog for all the details: http://blog.lydiapintscher.de/2011/04/25/announcing-season-of-kde-2011/. If you are one of the hundred or so students who were not selected for GSoC, please consider applying for SoK. The T-shirt is always *awesome*, and you'll also get swag and a certificate attesting to your contribution.

While we created this for the folks who could not do GSoC, it is open to all, and need not be code. Please discuss your plans with the community where you would like to work, because a mentor is required for participation. If you cannot find a mentor yourself, please apply anyway and ask us to help find you one. All this new code is great! But what is really important, is that we are growing the KDE community. Put on your thinking cap, and apply!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Kubuntu Natty is on the way!

2011-04-22T03:21:00.000-07:00

Wow, it seems like just a few months ago we did the planning for this release, at UDS-N. Now beta time is almost done, and Natty Narwhal will emerge fully-formed. It really has been an amazing ride, and I'd like to thank the Kubuntu team for all their wonderful work.

Also, without the encouragement of first the Linuxchix, and then Ubuntu-Women, I never would have been part of it. A minor part, but I did my best to help out where I could.

In this next cycle, Oneiric Ocelot, I'll be less involved with UDS-O, since I'm attending remotely. However, I *really want* to work on the Kubuntu documentation this cycle, and I resolve to do so.

Me, Wrong? Oh, Yes!

2011-04-21T20:32:00.000-07:00

Thanks to DoctorMo's great blogpost, I just watched another great Ted Talk, by Kathryn Schulz: On being wrong. I've had a similar experience to her opening story, where my brain was stuck in a wrong ... frame, I guess you could call it. A mistaken conceptual frame. And of course, I've made some huge mistakes in my life, and in all of them, I felt totally justified in my actions, as in the Fool of the first Tarot card.

But the reason I decided to discuss this issue here, on my tech blog, has to do with the social costs she mentions in the talk (please watch it!). When we present our case to others, and they disagree, we often feel that they are 1. ignorant, 2. idiots, or 3. malevolent. This series of unfortunate assumptions is played out in our culture over and over again, whether "our culture" means the politics of the United States (I'm American, excuse my cultural scope), or the behavior sometimes observed on FOSS mail lists, forums, and IRC channels -- or even face-to-face meetings.

We lose so much when we allow this to happen. The folks we encounter in these venues are full of experience and knowledge, and if we meet them with the attitude of learning, rather than proving ourselves right, we all gain! Consider the marketplace of ideas as a bazaar, where bargaining (the exchange of ideas, experience, knowledge) leaves both participants richer and happier. Often what I see instead is gladiators battling in the Coliseum. One walks away the "victor" -- and the other one lies bleeding. What a waste! The cost of such behavior is very high, but is hidden, because all of the wonderful collaborations which could take place, instead do not.

Please take the time to watch this short talk. It is well worth 20 minutes of your time. http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong.html

Notes on notes

2011-04-21T17:19:00.000-07:00

I've been looking for many years for a good note-taking application. While still on Windows, I used (and paid for) ClipCache, which was perfect. I've not found anything that meets my needs as well, yet, in the FOSS world.

I used Basket for a long while, until an update lost all my stored notes! My efforts to restore them were futile. Now Basket is no longer being developed, or I would give it another try. A student proposed making Baskets and Notes shareable as a GSoC project, however, no mentor could be found. So I've given up hope there.

I also tried out TuxNotes for awhile, but again, my notes were lost in an upgrade. This is just not acceptable. This project seems to be totally gone, or maybe I am remembering the name of the app incorrectly.

Big windup for my decision to download and install Tomboy, with the announcement of TomDroid, which I can use on my phone too. I really hated to download all that gnome/ubuntu/mono stuff to support it, but oh, well! I do have an UbuntuOne account, whether it works natively on Kubuntu or not (it does not). Now my notes will be available to me *everywhere*, which is what I want. AND, I'll never lose my notes again!

Sad update: UbuntuOne didn't work in Maverick, and it still doesn't work in Natty. Not even the ugly Gnome version. Le sigh. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntuone-client/+bug/369230

The Dirty Little Secret of F/OSS and How We Can Change Reality

2011-04-18T00:31:00.000-07:00

Resistance is Useful

Hello internet. We have something to talk about, and it’s been cooking for some time.

We’re going to talk about geek culture, about misogyny, about rape culture and rape apologism, about safe-spaces and fear, harassment and assault, about growing-up-geek, about social responsibility, reckoning and resistance.[1]

We’re going to talk about my experience of this in a small Australian city, and about making a declaration of intransigence.

http://flyingblogspot.com/2011/04/resistance-is-useful/

I would ask each of my readers to not only read this essay, but put it into practice, and also pass it along. As I said in my comment, the best way to get bullies to STOP, is to name and shame them. But it takes us bystanders to realize that we are the majority, we are the Public, and we can stop this. If we band together, and if we want to.

There is a followup at http://flyingblogspot.com/2011/04/further-dispatches-from-the-perth-geek-underground/ where we learn that Reality is difficult to grasp for some, and the lovely news that MikeeUSA is spewing his woman-hating barf again.

The Sound of Silence, Solved by a New User; Skype Not So Easy

2011-04-15T21:07:00.000-07:00

Skype can be useful, I admit. But I haven't been able to get it to work in Maverick, at all. First I could hear callers, but they couldn't hear me. Then their sound got intermittent, and then, no sound at all. Then the other day I was messing with sound settings trying to get it working again for a meeting, but while the pulse tools registered sound, Skype didn't.

The next day, the laptop was silent. No sound in any application, the sample wave didn't work, nothing. I found a helpful page here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshooting, and with some extra help from Himanshu, was able to restore sound. Here is how I did it.

From the page: "Can you play a known-good sound?

aplay is part of the alsaplayer package, and Front_Center.wav is part of the alsa-utils package, so both are pretty standard. So try to run

aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

." No, it would not play. Next step:

"Can someone else play a known-good sound?

Login with another user account. If this user has sound try the following.

Rename the .pulse directory of the user that has no sound to .pulse_bad. You need to do this with sudo and the user with problems must be logged out. [emphasis mine]

sudo mv /home/problem_user/.pulse /home/problem_user/.pulse_bad

." [note that problem_user needs to be replaced by your actual troubled username]

Sounds very straight-forward, but I was not for the life of me able to log in as another user. To solve that problem, a different page was somewhat helpful: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AddUsersHowto. When I added a new user from the gui, or from the krunner, I simply was not able to log in. I was prompted immediately for a new password, which the gui seemed never to see.

Finally Himanshu suggested, in a console:

sudo passwd problem_user

Finally I was able to type in a new password, and then log into "problem_user" today. Problem_user had sound! When I was setting up Problem_user's account, I made sure it was part of the sudo group, so than I could paste into a console:

sudo mv /home/valorie/.pulse /home/valorie/.pulse_bad

Remember, my troubled user was myself! Problem_user didn't have any problems. :-)

Update: In another attempt to get skype working, I again hosed my sound. Thanks to an anonymous comment below, I decided to try the advice delete the .pulse folder which is quite a bit simpler than the above folderol. And it works! I'm still glad I learned how to create a new user successfully, and how to administer that user.

Now, in order to participate in my GSoC administrator meeting tomorrow, I still have to get Skype going, if possible. Wish me luck! (I had sound to me working, and they had access to IRC, so it was a partial success.)

Hint: I got these helpful pages from ubottu, the bot in #kubuntu. To access these links, type !sound and !user in the channel. It is always worthwhile asking ubottu for help, either for yourself or others in the channel.

And Now, for Something Completely Different

2011-03-13T20:57:00.000-07:00

Recently, my little world of FOSS has been like a peaceful valley, surrounded by thunderstorms. As I sit in my recliner, watching the lightning strike, and hearing the booms which always follow, I am wondering how we all will weather this.

All the kindly, smart people I encounter in IRC, on blogs, forums, lists, wikis; all are people who believe in the power of giving to the world; sharing knowledge and work, music and programming, art and packaging. And yet there is infighting again. I've read the major posts which have become the flash points, and many of the thunderous responses. Canonical vs. Gnome, or Gnome vs. KDE, and on and on.

Finally, a bit of sunlight in the west: Allison Randal's reasonable and thorough discussion of the entire matter. As a bonus, she titles it after one of my favorite songs from the 60's: With A Little Help From My Friends.

Listen: As a world-wide multi-project FLOSS community, we are a diverse collection of cultures, customs, and governance structures, and some things that seem strange to an outsider or a member of a different subgroup make perfect sense when you look more deeply.

Please read her post, and think deeply about the structures she describes, and about how WE (no matter which WE you are a part of) are seen by "outsiders." When we meet in un-logged IRC channels, how will new contributors find out about the decision-making process, or the background of standards, directions, and other important factors of our products? And what IS our product? Software, or a community which works together to make software?

Rather than pointing fingers, I hope each one of my readers will look inside, and think about how each of own conduct is building up or tearing down our community. Please, let us choose our words and actions wisely, and strive for transparency, clarity, and kindness. Daylight chases away suspicion and distrust.

So we can discuss painful events of the past, but with the goal of using those experiences to do better, BE better. I could say so much more, but please: go read Alison's post instead.

Rsync and Backup Success

2011-03-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

A blog post started long ago, back in Oct. 2010:

If you are a reader of my blog, you might have suffered along with me through a non-existent backup. Tomorrow, I'm setting off for UDS in Orlando, Florida, and I wanted to be sure to have an up-to-date backup. So I started up my 1.5 T backup, newly formatted, and looked up a reliable article about using rsync. No more relying on GUI front-ends to it! I wanted to use it direct from the command-line, so I could see the errors right away. http://www.linux.com/news/enterprise/storage/8200-back-up-like-an-expert-with-rsync is simple and understandable, even for me. "The basic syntax for rsync is simple enough -- just run rsync [options] source destination to copy the file or files provided as the source argument to the destination."

Written in the now:

Unfortunately, I didn't finish this blog post after returning from Florida, but today a major disaster became a minor disaster by means of 1. a small screwdriver, 2. an inexpensive disk drive enclosure ($14.99 at Fry's), and 3. this simple command:

rsync -av /media/home/valorie/Music /home/valorie/Music

Disaster was my laptop power supply dying on me, without a recent backup. I know, shame on me! Instead, I used the screwdriver to take out the hard drive and attempted to put it into the HD enclosure I already have. However, it didn't fit. So I wrapped up the HD securely, and made a trip to Fry's. I showed the salesman the drive, to ensure I got the right kind of enclosure (SATA).

Once home, I put the drive into the enclosure, hooked it up to my netbook (thanks, ZaReason!) and began transferring my music from my old laptop to my new one, while continuing to work on the Amarok Handbook, which is *almost done*! I took the opportunity of a freshly installed Amarok to make some screenshots with which to finish the book! http://userbase.kde.org/Amarok/Manual

An update: One trouble I've had, besides some error messages that Sre-su helped me to figure out (thank you again, Sre-su!), is that the drive kept un-mounting. I don't know why -- bad USB connection, bad enclosure, bad HD -- but the solution is to just run the command again. Rsync checks the files it has already done, and then just charges ahead. I added -r (recursive) to be sure all music files were copied, and --progress so I can see at a glance what is going on. Also, --dry-run is cool -- it shows you what will happen, quick as a flash. Also, sre-su pointed out that I needed sudo before the command, which is now:

sudo rsync -avr --progress /media/home/valorie/Music /home/Music

I didn't catch my error in the above command until today, when I wondered why my music was STILL not in my Amarok collection! What must have happened is that while my original command was correct, the USB drive is touchy, and I needed to run it a few times. Not knowing this, I changed it, and put my Music not in /home/valorie/Music where it belongs, but in /home/Music/. Bleah.

Proper command, after all, is:

rsync -avr --progress /media/home/valorie/Music /home/valorie/Music

It's time -- apply NOW! UDS -O

2011-02-23T15:43:00.000-08:00

Even if you don't think they will sponsor you (I did not), apply.

Even if you don't think you know enough (I felt that way), apply.

Even if you don't think you are important enough (I wasn't, and am not), apply.

Even if you are a minority, a woman, in the "out" group (I was, and am), apply.

Even if you don't know what "UDS" stand for (Ubuntu Developer Summit), apply.

Even if you don't consider yourself a "developer" (I didn't either), apply!

What's the worst that can happen, after all? Canonical can say no, and then you'll have to attend remotely. But what if the best happens, and they say YES? They told me yes, and flew me to Florida! The travel agents arranged to have me fly in early, so I could spend some time with my long-time friend who lives north of Orlando. (This time, the city is Budapest!)

If you are sponsored, they will work with you, too. Creating a diverse working environment is one of the most important values of Canonical, to make Ubuntu for Humans. So if you have an interest, apply. See Jono's blog post for more information: http://www.jonobacon.org/2011/02/23/ubuntu-developer-summit-sponsorship-now-open/.

This is new; we now have an explicit anti-harrassment policy: http://uds.ubuntu.com/harassment/

Ubuntu-Women has a UDS resource page: http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/UDS

I've written a couple of UDS-related posts, during and after UDS-N in Orlando last year: Surviving, Thriving at Ubuntu Developer Summits and UDS and You, Wherever You Are

Pastebin, and pastebinit

2011-02-20T04:07:00.000-08:00

Another helpful snippet tonight in #kubuntu (all the cool stuff is in there!):

Have you ever run into a problem, where you have a long error message or something that you need to show someone in IRC? The answer is to use a pastebin which is a service where you can paste that text (or image, in an imagebin) and give the link. This keeps help channels readable; long pastes are called flooding, and will usually get you automatically disconnected. The best one, in my opinion, is http://paste.kde.org.

But what happens when you are working in a console on one computer, and using another for IRC? If the text terminal is connected to the Internet, my wise friend Daskreech says:

[22:46] Daskreech: apt-get install pastebinit
[22:46] Daskreech: lsmod | pastebinit
[22:46] Daskreech: it will upload it to pastebin for you

Lsmod, (list loaded modules) by the way, is a useful Unix command to use when you need to figure out which modules might be messing with your display or sound. The | is called a pipe, and is used to tell some commands where to output; in this case the pastebin.

Thanks for another useful tip, Daskreech! You rock.

PS to beginners, or those in stress: the apt-get command always needs to be proceeded by sudo, to give you root power. So the whole command will be: sudo apt-get install pastebinit .

GSoC 2011 - Start your engines!

2011-02-08T15:26:00.000-08:00

It is time, right now, developers, and students -- craft your ideas for Google Summer of Code! Students, please drop into the IRC channels of the projects you are interested to work with, and talk about your ideas. Write to the project list, if you get no-one to talk to in IRC.

Developers, please add plenty of ideas as soon as you can: http://community.kde.org/GSoC/2011/Ideas. Students are already waiting, so the sooner your ideas are on the page the better. Make yourself available to the students, and help them get ready to do a successful project this summer. Consider mentoring or co-mentoring; it can be a great experience.

In case you are new to GSoC in KDE please check http://community.kde.org/GSoC.

Mentors: An excellent resource for both new mentors and those who've done it before: http://www.booki.cc/gsoc-mentoring/

For questions please contact the admins (lfranchi, valorie, neverendingo and nightrose) in #kde-soc. If you want to help with the organization please let us know.

Linux conferences 2011

2011-02-05T22:32:00.000-08:00

Started filling out the calendar with all the events I'd like to attend this year, if I get sponsorship, and can arrange care for Rhys during the weekdays I'm gone. It looks REALLY busy and exciting!

First will be Camp KDE, which I've never attended. This year it's in San Francisco, at Hotel Kabuki, 4th and 5th of April. Right after is the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit, which takes place April 6-8, 2011 at the same place. However, that is invitation-only, and I'm not invited. :-) . So the cost would be the hotel and travel to and from SF. I'll have to ask around and see if it would be worth the time and money!

LinuxFest Northwest is next, April 30th & May 1st. I'm registered, Thomas has already said he wants to go with me, and our room is booked at the Bellingham Hampton. :-)

A *week* later, UDS in Budapest! Starts: 12:59 UTC on Monday, 2011-05-09, Ends: 12:59 UTC on Friday, 2011-05-13. I would probably want to fly out on Friday, to give myself a bit of time to adjust to the time change, and recover from the really long flight. Ideal would be to fly to the east coast and then a few days later, fly to Budapest, but..... probably not gonna happen. I've applied for sponsorship, and registered. I can always participate remotely if sponsorship is denied.

To my surprise, I've been asked to attend the KDE WebWorld2011, at LinuxHotel in Essen, Germany from 1 to 5th June 2011. If I get sponsorship to UDS, perhaps I should just stay in Europe for those two weeks? Otherwise I would have to choose one or the other. I'm a Kubuntu, Washington LoCo and Ubuntu-Women member, not a KDE member. I would choose UDS first.

In July, again this year there is CLS 23rd-24th July, 2011 in Portland, Oregon, followed by OSCON that next week, the 25th through the 29th. Looking for a room mate for this one, hopefully at a hotel across the street from the convention center. That was slick!

Finally, I've also been told (not asked, LOL) I'm coming to Akademy this year, which will be held in conjunction with the Open Desktop Summit, http://dot.kde.org/2010/10/06/kde-and-gnome-desktop-summit-2011-6-12-august, from 6 to 12 August at Humboldt University in Berlin.

If I attend all these events, and stay in Europe between UDS and WebWorld, I'll be gone more than I'm home! So I'm not sure it's all possible.

Finding missing packages - three methods

2011-02-05T02:11:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, when compiling applications, rather than installing them from packages, one comes up against a problem like this one recently posed in #kubuntu (IRC channel on Freenode):

Hi, I have an error then I'm compiling an app. It doesn't find /usr/lib/libGL.so. How can I install it?

Here is one answer:

[01:45] you want to install libgl1-mesa-dev
[01:46] you also want to install apt-file, 'apt-file find /usr/lib/libGL.so' will tell you that you need libgl1-mesa-dev for it

Here is the second way:

[01:54] you know, packages.ubuntu.com has the same function
[01:54] sadly doesn't work with PPAs though since the LP folks didn't implement the Contents.gz it needs yet

And the easiest way if you are in #ubuntu or #kubuntu (or any channel with ubottu). Notice there are two ways to ask:

[01:54] as does ubottu :)
[01:55] !find libGL.so
[01:55] File libGL.so found in fglrx, ia32-libs, libgl1-mesa-dev, libgl1-mesa-glx, libgl1-mesa-glx-dbg, libgl1-mesa-swx11, libgl1-mesa-swx11-dbg, libgl1-mesa-swx11-dev, lsb-build-base3, nvidia-173 (and 2 others) http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?searchon=contents&keywords=libGL.so&mode=&suite=maverick&arch=any

[01:56] !find usr/lib/libGL.so
[01:56] File usr/lib/libGL.so found in libgl1-mesa-dev

Slick! Thanks to yofel and tsimpson for their help.

KDE Warriors - our sysadmins

2011-01-30T16:15:00.000-08:00

Martin earlier called out his heroes: "Ian, our awesome sysadmin crew, KO for sponsoring Ian and everybody else who worked on the git transition."

Indeed! I happened to be in the sysadmin channel when the entire migration was happening, and there was some blood on the floor. But through it all, our KDE sysadmin team kept their cool, kept our infrastructure and data safe, and got everything working. I appreciate that deeply.

Kudos! and thanks.

KDE 4.6 - Elegance!

2011-01-26T16:37:00.000-08:00

It's here! Beta was great, and I expect even more from the full release! See more at KDE.org. I love all the artwork accompanying 4.6, which shows the beauty and elegance we want from great software.

Amarok Insider 16, brought to you by Google Code-in Students!

2011-01-24T15:09:00.000-08:00

The latest Amarok Insider, just published at http://amarok.kde.org, features the writing of seven Google Code-In students, writing nine different articles, ranging from an interview with developer Bart Cerneels, to "How To install a new script in Amarok." Besides the mentors, students were able to get assistance and encouragement in their tasks and research from Amarok developers and users in the #amarok IRC channel on Freenode, which is what makes these articles of
such high quality.

Amarok Insider featured articles: What's New in Amarok, Google and Amarok, Roktober Success, Interview with a Developer: Bart Cerneels, Automated Playlist Generator: How to Use it, Queue Manager in Amarok, Installing and using a script in Amarok, Amarok on Windows, Transcode
your media files, Amarok Live CD.

Google Code-In was a huge success for Amarok, and it's great to celebrate the Amarok 2.4 release with this Insider almost completely written by our students!

Respect is Fundamental

2010-11-10T03:54:00.000-08:00

Like reading is fundamental.

Read it, support it, live it.

Listening to Our Better Angels

2010-11-06T01:24:00.000-07:00

I've been most distressed tonight, to hear of my friend Noirin being assaulted at an ApacheCon party, here: http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/418/. Worse, there are people calling her out for naming the attacker! Seriously, people? (I hear the comments are even worse over at Hacker News. I refuse to get even more disturbed and upset, so I'm not going to be reading them.)

In two separate discussions about this, with people who know and love Noirin, women said that the story makes them reluctant to attend cons and other FLOSS events, since assaults seem to be common. Yes, if you haven't been keeping up with the news, this happens OFTEN.

This doesn't make me fearful, it makes me ANGRY. Of course I'm angry at the perpetrators, but I'm also angry at those who protect them, and those who say 'we want more women to participate,' while not setting the standards of NO ASSAULT, and enforcing those standards. That seems like a very low expectation, don't you think? No ASSAULT!?

I can't help but contrast this assault with my experiences at last week's UDS in Orlando Florida. Ubuntu has a Code of Conduct, and not only enforces it, but has an even higher standard for community leaders. And there is discussion about having the Leadership CoC be formally signed also. I applaud this initiative, and hope that more communities create enforceable standards, and that conventions and other large gatherings will do likewise. There is no reason for any person to fear for their safety at these gatherings! I felt completely safe in Orlando, and I credit the high standards for that feeling of safety. Of course my favorite Kubuntu is covered by the same codes of conduct.

I call on the LinuxFest Northwest to set up and announce No Assault or Harrassment standards, and enforce them. I guarantee that a reputation as a safe space *will* result in more women attending. See the Con Anti-Harassment Project for specifics.

However, I think we need to go beyond a negative, and move toward positive expectations. I love the LinuxChix famous two rules: 1. Be polite, and 2. Be helpful. Indeed! And many projects have a standards. Among them, KDE Community Code of Conduct, GNOME Code Of Conduct, Gentoo Linux's Code of Conduct, the Mandriva Linux Code of Conduct, to name those I could easily find.

In addition, Freenode has an inspiring description of the "catalyst" role and how important it is to the continued use and usefulness of Freenode IRC: http://freenode.net/catalysts.shtml. And today, Jono Bacon, the Ubuntu Community Leader for Canonical, has posted The OpenRespect Declaration: http://openrespect.org/. I think we all owe it to one another as free humans, to respect one another.

PS: In case another reminded is needed: http://www.lovelight.me/2009/11/how-to-prevent-rape.html. Thanks for posting this link just when I needed it, Hypatia.

PPS: Also see The Open Source Women Back Each Other Up Project

Help the Graner Family

2010-11-05T00:41:00.000-07:00

As many of may of heard, Amber Graner, Ubuntu community member extraordinaire, and Peter Graner received horrible news this week while at UDS: their house caught on fire.

Thankfully their children and dog are fine!

Rikki Kite has started a fund to help out the Graner family.

In the spirit of community, please donate whatever you can.

LoCo Teams in the Natty Cycle

2010-11-03T23:37:00.000-07:00

Still trying to organize my thoughts after the UDS in Orlando. While the election results are distracting, I think it's important to analyze what lies ahead, and get moving before the holidays hit.

Washington Team
1. We need to hold leadership elections, and transfer power over the Launchpad team to the leadership.

2. We need to begin scheduling and hold regular meetings, even if they are only in IRC.

3. We need to get the official logbot in our #ubuntu-us-wa channel on Freenode. Linda is requesting that, so I hope it will happen soon.

4. We need to look at the calendar and plan some Team events, so advance planning can take place.

5. We need to figure out how to get monthly reports done monthly, so that we can get approval!

In the discussion about increasing diversity in the Ubuntu Community, Pici posted a great link, which might be helpful in how we conduct our LoCo team: http://freenode.net/catalysts.shtml

Ubuntu Community Local Teams
There are some exciting plans ahead. Some of them (from Ubuntu LoCo Council Items for the Natty Cycle):

* Community leaders to sign the Leadership Code of Conduct in Launchpad

* Team Re-approvals from the LoCo Directory instead of wiki pages

* Move content from the wiki to the LoCo Directory

* Standard Team Re-approval form

* https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoGettingApproved

* Standards for teams, a set of guidelines: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoCouncil/Standards

* Update the standard Application to include Team reports and give more details

* Enforce the team naming standards [this can't happen soon enough, IMO]

PS: May 9-13 UDS-O, Budapest! Lay your plans now. :-)

Surviving, Thriving at Ubuntu Developer Summits

2010-10-28T19:08:00.000-07:00

First: to survive, one must attend, in person or remotely. Attending in person involves either asking for sponsorship from Canonical, or paying your own way. Attendence is free, so local folks can register and walk in. Without the encouragement of my fellow Ubuntu-Women team members, requesting sponsorship is not something I would have considered. However, the application process was painless, and I was sponsored! My flight, food and lodging are all included, which is amazing.

Since I have a wonderful friend who lives close to Orlando, Florida where this UDS is being held, I flew in Friday, and spent two wonderful days on the Wekiva River, paddling and boating up and down the river. Besides hours spent catching up on our lives (years spent separated by an entire continent!), we ate simply and slept when we were tired. So I arrived Sunday night rested and ready to work.

Second: Promptness is appreciated. Rooms are shared with a room-mate, so set your alarm early enough to allow time for both of you to shower, dress, eat, and arrive for the first events at nine in the morning. This involves going to bed the night before, rather than spending it at the hotel bar!

Third: Set up what you will need to participate fully in your sessions before they begin. If attending in person, a netbook with good battery life is best, with Quassel-with-a-core installed, along with your favorite browser(s), Gobby (*UGH!*), and time to review the documents associated with the sessions you'll be attending. This involves first reading the blueprints of the issues you find important, subscribing to them, and registering your attendence as essential if this is so. The scheduling software (Summit) attempts to allow every essential person to attend all their sessions by shifting the timing of the sessions. I haven't found a way to go back and change subscribing to subscribing and must attend if there is a way. There are a couple I had to miss because I didn't check the essential box. Once you find out the name of the rooms, join all the room channels in Quassel so you don't have to do this later. I chose Quassel on my netbook because it is lighter in weight than my favorite Konversation, but I didn't have time to set up a core account. I wish I had done, so I had all UDS sessions in IRC.

If you are attending remotely, you'll need to connect to the streams through Amarok or your favorite music/streaming app. Fire up IRC, join all the room-named channels, and you're ready. You might want earphones since some of the voices are far from the microphones. Don't be afraid to "speak up" in IRC, and ask people to repeat things, or to speak more clearly/loudly. If gobby is being used in your session, be prepared to help take notes, fix spelling errors, clarify points, etc. This is a collaboration. Etherpad may be used as an alternate, if the session leader chooses.

Fourth: Eat enough - there are good meals provided, with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. I tried to sit down most of the time with people I did not know, and fix that. :-) Drink enough -- not at the bar, silly! Drink enough water to keep you healthy. Coffee is provided, along with tea, pop, snacks, etc. Sleep enough -- this is the hard part. You will be meeting all the people you've been working with all year, many for the first time. The temptation to spend all your time socializing will be strong! Don't exhaust yourself. Have fun -- yes, the work is fun, but there are opportunities to party, to visit local cool sites (here, Disneyland, of course! And Universal Studios, Sea World, etc.). Choose wisely, take lots of pictures, and you'll have a time you'll never forget!

Fifth: Take time to blog, tweet, dent about what you are doing. There are countless people who want to know, or need to know. Be eyes and ears for them.

PS: If I sound preachy, it's my future self I'm preaching to. :-)
PPS: Pictures in a bit.

UDS and You, Wherever You Are

2010-10-21T20:59:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate to get sponsorship to the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Orlando, Florida, but most of the participants did not! Many if not most folks will be in IRC and listening to the streams, and we on-site participants will be in IRC also, and be responding real-time to those of you who are remote.

Laura Czajkowski has written a great guide to doing this, http://www.lczajkowski.com/2010/10/19/how-to-remote-participate-at-uds-n-and-get-the-most-of-the-sessions/ and I hope you will try it out. Look at the sessions, and pick a couple of them, and BE THERE!

Apachelogger has updated his Icecast script so you can listen right from Amarok. Use the script search to find it, and then select your sessions from the Internet session.

I look forward to "seeing" you there -- especially you Kubuntu folks!

Blogger sadness > New Blog

2010-10-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

I'll keep up my Linux Grandma blog here for now, but Blogger has started adding an insidious ad across the blog content, obscuring it from the reader. That must be really annoying, and I don't want to subject people to that. Serendipity is the blog software that KDE uses, and so far, it seems great. I might install it on my own server for the other blogs I have, and move the content from Blogger. What a pity; Blogger used to be great.

Maverick Meerkat Kubuntu, released 10/10/10, was quite an adventure in installation, due to PEBKAC (problem exists between keyboard and chair), but with the help of my son, and friend maco, and my blogged experience of the last install, I have quite a beautiful install going.

All apps installed well, most importantly Amarok and Konversation. Once I regained my old /home partition, I have my music again, unfortunately without covers and lyrics. However, the new cover-fetching is excellent, and I hope to have that all rebuilt in the next couple of months. Until then I'll be playing "Random" a lot!

While mentioning Amarok, I have to say that it's Roktober, so give! I did, and it feels great. Also, it's great to have it built from git again. All the latest!

The biggest surprise with Mav was installing Skype again, to test my built-in video camera and mic. Previously, the camera worked, but never the mic. I thought maybe it was mis-installed. However, once I unmuted it in pavucontrol (Pulseaudio controller), it worked perfectly!

I've been recently given Kubuntu membership, and am headed for UDS next weekend, to plan for Natty, the next release. Please give me any feedback you'd like me to take to Florida about the future of Kubuntu.

I'll be blogging, at least about KDE, Kubuntu, and Amarok here: http://amarok.kde.org/blog/categories/31-valoriez.

Such a pity about Blogger. ::sigh::

Post-Maverick Install Woes - no /home

2010-10-13T02:18:00.000-07:00

Why oh why? I told the process Not To Touch my /home, which Thomas had so thoughtfully labelled. AND said to use it as /home. But cat fstab shows:

$ cat fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
#                
proc            /proc           proc    nodev,noexec,nosuid 0       0
# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=649ffd64-17b4-4a95-aebe-360413cc3203 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sdb5 during installation
UUID=dfe16a55-80c3-42c8-937a-4341cb2886c8 none            swap    sw              0       0

Where is /dev/sdb6, which was /home?

I can't deal with this tonight. I can't feel too discouraged, after escaping from the botch-install hell of the last couple of days. Maverick looks and feels GREAT! It's just bizarre to have no settings, and no content whatsoever, not even my old backup. Amarok is lonesome with no music.

Maco asks, in IRC, if the partition is still on the harddisk, which of course has been my question.

sudo fdisk -l

tells me:

Disk /dev/sda: 400.1 GB, 400088457216 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 48641 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000c403c

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        2432    19530752   83  Linux
/dev/sda2            2432       48642   371178497    5  Extended
/dev/sda5            2432        2918     3905536   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6            2919       48642   367271936   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 7958 MB, 7958691840 bytes
245 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15190 * 512 = 7777280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000ee8a7

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1        1023     7769654    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(1023, 244, 62) logical=(1022, 244, 62)

At this point,

sudo blkid /dev/sda6

to get the UUID for /dev/sda6, which says:

/dev/sda6: LABEL="home" UUID="1e3555c0-f248-446e-a9a7-6a42ab95eced" TYPE="ext4"

Yay! It's still there on the disk, still with it's nice label. Thanks, Thomas!

Now it's time to edit fstab, and add the line:

UUID=1e3555c0-f248-446e-a9a7-6a42ab95eced /home               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1

I did that by using Kate, which is somewhat unorthodox, but it's what I like.

kdesu kate

then append the line above, save as fstab. Finally, I moved my present $HOME in case I need some of the settings or files from the last few days.

sudo mv $HOME /oldhome

and then restart. Let's see if it works!

===========

I want to report success! My /home is all happy, and my /oldhome dotfiles mostly copied back over. This time around, Chromium built OK, and I'm actually editing this blog in it now. Hallelujah, Maverick rocks! If I can build Amarok from source again, I'll be in heaven.

PPS: Amarok built without a hitch!

GRUB2 and chroots, dammit!

2010-10-13T01:38:00.000-07:00

Worst outcome from an install so far. Upon automatic reboot, when all is reported success:

error: the symbol `grub_xputs` not found
grub rescue:>

Terror struck my heart, and hopelessness, and googling. I found that not only was I not alone, but it is a result from a long-standing bug, which bothered me greatly as I was installing: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/496435/comments/20, specifically: "Grub doesn't identify SATA drives in the same order as the BIOS." Not only was this extremely confusing to me as I was trying to decide what to do during the install, even though I thought I had prepared very well, but also, "I had to boot from the live image and chroot" as the bug commenter did.

On the other hand,that worked well. See the process here: http://www.webupd8.org/2010/05/fix-symbol-grubputs-not-found-when.html. Guess what the post is called? Fix Symbol 'grub_puts' Not Found When Migrating From Ubuntu Karmic To Lucid.Imagine that. BUG IS STILL THERE. And it bit me, and that hurt. A side issue is that my /home isn't found, but I think I know the fix for that, and I'm sure it is partially my ignorance and inexperience at fault.

There were other possible solutions suggested, which I didn't try. For starters, I could only have one computer plugged into the Internet at a time, which meant I was looking for solutions in one screen, and typing them in on the other. The less to type, the fewer chances of typing errors making the problem even worse. But here they are, if you are in terror as I was, and my solution didn't work, or has disappeared:

http://www.linux.com/community/forums?func=view&%3Bcatid=18&%3Bid=4219 and http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1580752

====================

Comment I got by email from Holger Herzog:

Hi Valorie,

I read your blog entry - thanks much for that! - and I ran into further troubles caused by something that was not mentioned on _any_ of the web sites regarding this grub problem:

I have boot fs and root fs on different partitions!

Then I had to mount the _root_ fs partition as described in the tutorials and _additionally_, I had to mount the boot fs under "boot" under the mounted root fs:

mount /sdROOT /mnt/temp
mount -B /dev /mnt/temp/dev
mount -B /dev/pts /mnt/temp/dev/pts
mount -B /proc /mnt/temp/proc
mount -B /sys /mnt/temp/sys

AND, additionally:

mount /sdBOOT /mnt/temp/boot

Otherwise I got an empty "grub>" prompt with no kernels found by grub.

============

Problem presented in #kubuntu tonight with the same problem (and maybe the same bug cause) where grub was installed onto the USB key instead of on the hard drive. And even after Grub2 was installed on the HD,

sudo apt-get install grub2

still was non-booting. The magic command which finally fixed grub

sudo grub-setup /dev/sda

Installing Maverick anew; Cliff Notes version

2010-10-12T02:32:00.000-07:00

I was going to write a long rant/whine about my botched upgrade and re-install of Maverick on 10/8, but it's both painful and boring. That said, being back on a horrible install of Lucid (KDE on top of 32-bit Ubuntu) is painful and boring. ESCAPE!

My zsync trick didn't work, since I didn't want a liveCD, but the alternate install. And the torrent stopped working, probably courtesy of Comcast. Thanks, Comcast! Wget, however, works wonderfully. For instance, this is the command I used:

wget http://releases.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/maverick/kubuntu-10.10-alternate-amd64.iso

Less than ten minutes later, I have my image, and can write it to the thumb-drive. While the ISO is downloading and writing to the drive, I need to figure out where /home is, so I save that.

I'll spare you reading my over-long novel about a botched Lucid upgrade/re-install, by culling the highlights. Use

sudo blkid

to see your partitions. This time, what I see is:

/dev/sda1: UUID="28de0df5-ddbb-4bf9-a61a-e7a5aa007f2a" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda5: UUID="dfe16a55-80c3-42c8-937a-4341cb2886c8" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda6: LABEL="home" UUID="1e3555c0-f248-446e-a9a7-6a42ab95eced" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="New Volume" UUID="0741-0B7E" TYPE="vfat"

/dev/sda1 is my present Lucid install, which I conclude by process of elimination. I'll be glad to see THAT disappear! Sda5 swap is swap, which will stay as-is. Look at that LABEL="home" on sda6 -- that stays put. The sdb1 New Volume is my thumb-drive.

One of the reasons my last Lucid install experience was such a nightmare, was that I was already stressed because of the botched upgrade, and consequent dead laptop. Within the alternate install windows, I didn't realize I could still access the command prompt, by using

ctrl+alt+f1

. Try that; you can use it any time, anywhere! While there, maco told me to use

sudo mount /dev/sda5 /media ; ls /media

to see what was in sda5, and then we stepped through all of them, so see which was /home. Remember to

sudo umount /media

before stopping, or

sudo umount /media ; sudo mount /dev/sda6 /media ; ls /media

if you are going to continue to step through your partitions, and

ls

(list) the contents. Of course substitute the numbers you see in your own

blkid

command.

I'll write about the actual install when I do it tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Necessity, Mother of Learning Zsync

2010-10-08T02:50:00.000-07:00

I don't need to invent, just learn! My recent Kubuntu update from Lucid to Maverick RC broke YouTube. Actually, it broke my ATI graphics card driver, and the cure, as Jussi told me, is to re-install Maverick.

I have the alpha ISO on my hard drive, and slow as my Internet connection is here sometimes, I really didn't want to download essentially the same file AGAIN. Zsync to the rescue! As explained here, https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ZsyncCdImage, if you use zsync on a ISO CDimage, you will get only the parts you need, not what you already have. So, I downloaded zsync, and did the command

zsync http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/daily/20101007/maverick-alternate-amd64.iso.zsync

You will need to replace the cdimage URL to the one you want, of course! Rather than taking over 3 hours, as it did to download the alpha, it took about ten minutes!

This is a wonderful tool for ISO testers to use, since you will not have to constantly download almost identical files. *Learned another tip about zsync from MJEvans at today's Maverick Release Party. Change the name of your old file to be identical to that of the new file before starting the process, and it will happen without any need to add additional filenames to the command line. Clever! Thank you Michael!

In Kubuntu, there is a magic program called usb-creator-kde. After the ISO is written to my little USB drive, all that remains is backing up my home partition -- just in case! And then re-installing Maverick Meerkat. I'll update this if anymore learning takes place!

Update: The download and write processes described above both went perfectly. However, the daily file I chose to install was NOT a perfect fit for my equipment, and I made a bad choice, in retrospect, in choosing to attempt a fresh install when I did. More details in another post.

10.10 Maverick Meerkat Release Party, Burien Washington

2010-10-06T02:56:00.000-07:00

Let's hang out, celebrate Maverick Meerkat release, and show off the shiny and new. Then we'll sup on some delicious pizza! See you there.

Bison Creek Pizza, 630 SW 153rd St #F, Burien, WA 98166-2260

Google Map of Bison Creek Pizza

http://www.bisoncreekpizza.com/

Another fun production from your Washington Ubuntu LoCo (Local Community). Oh, and I just found out that we can use the cloud-server for free on Sunday, courtesy of Canonical. For more information, see: http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2010/10/try-ubuntu-server-in-cloud-on-our-dime.html

Register here: http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/team/450/detail/

Official announcement on the wiki here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WashingtonTeam/Events/

Amarok New stuff - 2.3.2 Release, Insider 15

2010-09-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

Like this beautiful image,

Amarok 2.3.2, code name Moonshine, illuminates your music today. Check out the release notes here: http://amarok.kde.org/en/releases/2.3.2.

New: as of Thursday, our crack team of translators have already got the release notes translated to French, German and Spanish! Spread the news!

While you are downloading and installing, check out the new Amarok Insider: http://amarok.kde.org/en/Insider/Issue_15. Some of the subjects covered: What's New in Amarok, Interview with a Developer: Leo Franchi, Podcasts on your Mobile Device, Automated Playlist Generator, Weekly Windows Build Now Available, and Organizing a Music Collection.

* Now available in German, too! Thanks, Xenios!

New Thing today: build a tarball

2010-09-15T19:06:00.000-07:00

I'm no longer running Amarok from GIT! Today was tagging for 2.3.2 (yay!), and Nightrose needed tarball testers. A tarball is "A package of files gathered together using the tar utility." (rbt.phs.com.tw/manual/glossary.html) To clarify, once the developers agree that Amarok is ready to release, it is tagged, and compressed for testing, then available to the distribution packagers.

I've never participated in the tarball testing, because I didn't know how, and didn't like the idea of ditching my git version. However, in the last six months, building from git has become almost second nature. Leo Franchi (lfranchi) helpfully explained how to build from a tarball, in three easy steps. Step one, download. If you have never used wget, it is worthwhile learning, because it is super EASY and FAST. In this case, the command was

cd ~/kde/src/
~/kde/src$ wget http://xyz.net/~account/amarok-2.3.2.tar.bz2wget

Once it downloaded, oh so quickly, it was time to untar the file, thus:

~/kde/src$ tar xf amarok-2.3.2.tar.bz2

And then build as usual:

cd $HOME/kde/build/amarok
~/kde/build/amarok$ cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/kde -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debugfull $HOME/kde/src/amarok

(I did cmake in case it was needed, perhaps it isn't)

~/kde/build/amarok$ make -j3 && make install

In a very few minutes, it was built and running successfully!

Thanks to all the Amarok developers who have helped me learn how to help out this year.

Note: because I was already running Amarok built from git, all the directories were set up, and dependencies installed. If you are building an app from a tarball for the first time, it will be a bit more complicated, as you must set up your directories and install any dependencies too. There is usually a README file (text file) which you can open and use as your guide to installation.

Ubuntu Global Jam - Lessons Learned

2010-08-29T02:57:00.000-07:00

At first our Jam experience seemed like a failure. We had two attend, and one of them was me. Thank goodness for Charles (acerimmer); his arrival made the afternoon fun. The first difficulty was Internet connectivity -- my laptop reported that it was getting a good wireless connection, but I was only able to use IRC and get webpages for about 10 minutes in the four hours at the library.

So the ability to connect with others around the state, and around the world was pretty much nil.

Technically, I was unable to load Kubuntu Mav in a virtualbox. I found out from Charles that I had not allocated enough memory, and that K/ubuntu's package might be missing a crucial xorg.conf file. Since the Kubuntu developers didn't mention this last point, more investigation is needed.

Also, I was unable to fully load the Mav LiveCD. I found out that my issues were not uncommon: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MaverickMeerkat/TechnicalOverview. This is still alpha software, after all.

My liveUSB key was also a fail, giving the same error message to both me and Charles. I found out that it wasn't my fault, but that of Lucid. After removing that useless LiveUSB install from my cute little 8-gig USB key, I copied the ISO onto it, but Charles was unable to load it into a virtualbox on his laptop either -- incompatible 64-bit systems! I'm not sure what that's about, but hope he'll file a bug about it.

After we talked some about upcoming LoCo events, we decided to leave early. We had both run out of options for testing.

However, the Jam continues through Sunday, and once I got home and got connected again, androidbruce gave me a great idea: swap out my present hard drive for my old backup one, and install on that! Although I was unsuccessful at partitioning off the old backup, which is mostly music, not much harm done to lose it, either. I had hoped to save it, just to be able to play some music during testing. Oh, well! So, as Scarlett O'Hara so wisely observed, Tomorrow is another day!

PS: Also -- more publicity is better! Craigslist? Any other ideas for spreading the word?

Learning New Skills: Reformat, Partition, Backup, Virtualize

2010-08-27T22:28:00.000-07:00

Too much peace and quiet is too much, I guess. As soon as the current skill-set is working, I seem to need to add more complexity. Tomorrow is Ubuntu Global Jam, designed to get *buntu users together to test new software, the next release, work on bugs, clean out stale wiki pages, and other useful stuff. Seattle-area members of the Washington LoCo are gathering at the Rainier Beach Library tomorrow for Global Jam, so I thought I would try out Kubuntu Maverick, which is at the end of alpha. I figured backing up my current ~/home would be wise, so I bought a hard-drive at Costco for $99. For under a hundred dollars, I got 1.5 terrabytes!

Unfortunately, I hadn't done my research ahead of time, and it turns out that this Seagate model, the Free Agent, doesn't really like Linux, and isn't supported. Plus it was NTFS, so I figured out how to re-format it into EXT3, here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/how-to-format-a-ntfs-usb-hard-drive-to-fat32-or-ext3-621585/. Basicly, use sudo fdisk -l to figure out what you have, and then mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1 to re-format.

I asked some friends what the best Kubuntu partition manager was, and it turns out to be Partition Manager, hahaha. On the other hand, I'm not sure I got it successfully partitioned, but I decided that I could always do that later, if necessary. So after doing a bit of research, I settled on LuckyBackup to manage the backup, because it's a nice light GUI on top of rsync, which rocks. Set it up last night, and let it back up during the night. It feels GREAT to start out a day with success! I let it update ~/home this morning, and also backed up /usr.

Next step, ask the developers in #kubuntu-devel what is most useful for tomorrow. So, now downloading (very slowly) the Maverick 64-bit ISO, and investigating how to install Virtualbox for testing. Using http://www.ubuntugeek.com/create-and-manage-virtual-machines-using-virtualbox.html a guide to getting it going. It really was very easy!

I found another guide for those who are testing inside the environment, at http://www.mikesmullin.com/development/programmers-virtualbox-is-a-better-development-environment/. The seamless mode (http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/virtualboxs-seamless-mode-combine-operating-systems-desktop/ seems like it is worth trying out also.

Amarok Quick Start Guide in Translation

2010-08-21T17:33:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the hard work of the wonderful Amarok Promo Team, we now have the beginning of the Amarok Handbook completed, and in the able hands of the KDE Translation team (http://userbase.kde.org/Amarok/QuickStartGuide). It's quite exciting to see the completed pages roll in on #kde-www. Neverdingo has written a wonderful blog post about the procedure: http://neverendingo.blogspot.com/2010/08/amarok-translatons.html. If you love Amarok, and have ever thought about translating, now is the time to step up! This is going from our small team, to the larger team of KDE, and it is thrilling to see.

I guess we did something unusual, beginning our Handbook in the KDE wiki system. I'll have to say that comparing the process to our old way, which was using Google Docs -- it is like night and day. The one advantage of Gdocs is that you can tell who is also editing, and what they are doing, but we got around that, for the most part, by communicating in our IRC channel. There is simply nothing better than seeing your document take place marked up and looking professional! Wiki markup isn't complicated, and the guides (http://userbase.kde.org/EditMarkup and http://userbase.kde.org/Typographical_Guidelines) are easy and helpful to use.

I will never again use Google Docs for more than just text. The wiki rules! Userbase is awesome! Thank you, thank you, KDE.

I understand the next bit of this process is the DocBook markup, which sounds mysterious and scary still, since I don't know much about it. There is a guide to that as well, which I'm sure I'll be consulting often. For now, though, we'll concentrate on finishing the rest of the Handbook, for those who need more detail about the finer points of using the best music program of all time, AMAROK!

Thank you Mamarok, and Willem, Nightrose and Pete, Abhi and Adrián, Emilio and Dima for all your work. You've been GREAT.

Amarok 2.3.2 Beta 1, "Sentinel" released

2010-08-17T19:21:00.000-07:00

Our Amarok students are still finishing up this year's Google Summer of Code projects, and we'll hopefully release them some time later this fall, when they are fully tested and working. Meanwhile, help us weed out some bugs to make Amarok 2.3.2 the rock solid release we want.

Amarok 2.3.2 Beta 1, codename “Sentinel” is out.

Since the last release in the 2.3 series the Amarok team has been working through the laziest days of summer to implement very much needed fixes, changes and even some new features, especially concerning filtering and podcasts. Read the full announcement here. Please report bugs: bugs.kde.org.

Kubuntu package available here: http://www.kubuntu.org/news/amarok-2.3.2-beta

The new Quick Start Guide is nearly ready: http://userbase.kde.org/Amarok/QuickStartGuide. Please ping me with any complaints, suggestions, or offers of help!

The Sentinel in Yosemite Park, California USA. "The Sentinel 3270 ft., Yosemite." Digital ID: 435032. Watkins, Carleton E. -- Photographer. 1861-1866

Off to CLS and OSCON

2010-07-15T01:21:00.000-07:00

What a string of letters! CLS is the Community Leadership Summit, http://www.communityleadershipsummit.com/, July 17-18 at the Oregon Conference Center in Portland, Oregon. "CLS brings together community leaders, organizers and managers and the projects and organizations that are interested in growing and empowering a strong community." I've not attended before, so it will be all new to me. It's free, and an "unconference," which sounds interesting. That's this next weekend.

Next week is OSCON, O'Reilly's commercial conference in the same venue. I'll be staffing a table with the Oregon LoCo, for Washington LoCo, Ubuntu-Women, and Linuxchix. You can bet I'll do my bit to support Kubuntu, and Amarok of course.

Lydia and Jeff from Amarok will be in town for CLS and part of OSCON, and I'll be sharing a room with Meryll from Seattle Linuxchix. I hope to see more of our Seattle members at OSCON as well.

If you are coming and want to meet up, please email me. So far, Monday evening looks interesting.

Linuxchix Seattle, and Firewalling

2010-06-08T21:06:00.000-07:00

I was hoping to meet Hypatia and her man tonight, but maybe next time. In any case, many of the linuxchix met up at Boom Noodle, and ate a delicious meal. Then we walked up East Pike to Caffe Vita, and shared delicious coffee and tech talk. Although I connected to the Boom Noodle wireless without a problem, it was impossible to connect here at Caffe Vita. I finally was able to connect through Kevin's tethered iPhone! And download nmap. :-)

I'm not entirely sure what's up with my wireless card, but it must not be toast, because it eventually worked.

Meryll Larkin taught us how to test our security with nmap, and helped me set up a firewall with hosts.allow and hosts.deny files. Then she tried to hack me -- without success. :-)

Also, I started up Amarok and successfully scrobbled to Last.fm, so my hosts.allow file is working well.

Life is good.

Linuxchix is at http://www.linuxchix.org, Amarok at http://amarok.kde.org, Last.fm at http://last.fm.

Girls Using *Buntu -- Win a Netbook!

2010-05-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

Ubuntu Women has launched another competition!

http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/Events/Competitions/WorldPlayDay

Nine days left to enter -- get the word out to any *buntu-using girls! Posters and such are available.

If you're interested in spreading the word throughout the twitter and
status.net circles, the original status updates are:
http://twitter.com/elkbuntu/statuses/12112708587
http://identi.ca/notice/28397262

A quick howto for entering:
http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/Events/Competitions/WorldPlayDay/HowToEnter

Win that little girl a netbook or other cool geeky stuff. :-)

Locked out of my own website!

2010-04-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

I tried to ssh into our server, now hosted at linode.net. I got a notice, all scary-like:

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@ WARNING: POSSIBLE DNS SPOOFING DETECTED! @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
The RSA host key for zimres.net has changed,
and the key for the corresponding IP address 74.207.247.190
is unchanged. This could either mean that
DNS SPOOFING is happening or the IP address for the host
and its host key have changed at the same time.
Offending key for IP in /home/valorie/.ssh/known_hosts:4
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@ WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED! @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that the RSA host key has just been changed.

Of course, that last bit is the important part. The host key has been changed. How to fix that at my end? My son said to edit out the line in my ~/.ssh/known_hosts file. However, when I opened Kate to edit it, I saw:

|1|2ZZc4RXTORIrgsDBWb2zqWRRw8s=|ZJCjvrfPLAEPwVQ6lGdYtVhoAK0= ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEAqp3hNrWz5ZWwogg1In70rBynezwkleYbOAgtDdbR7dfrcGJC/deLeprn+bXgfeO058EeHqAeU0be5tn1siui+GWm9rQ1PEfrT46fZCgSWeZVYVcQ5vRQItN/a6XFe00WPWrYEhXwgmM6la2gm8kOa5kCTSDOIN8v5XcqA85Pbnd57zmAcVWejaYndk1SkO9V1ctrxz8yGM6NuN+ThawQaLa1tWuj4aKFNWj2DBc3Dyx1IztUFdN0GcIRRg47qwU7KQGqv/2g77gsRmSvVILrRy1CR82lrsxpo5SdvMkqFJQSz/jyTN1x/6FbGJjAwkhIBQXkpQyxmQwzFb/Hf/pgMw==
|1|qZ+nY7U1kgMnDp26n6sdtbh+lmQ=|KGnxdNek7Rs137p3NgH3ZaLijdI= ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEAqp3hNrWz5ZWwogg1In70rBynezwkleYbOAgtDdbR7dfrcGJC/deLeprn+bXgfeO058EeHqAeU0be5tn1siui+GWm9rQ1PEfrT46fZCgSWeZVYVcQ5vRQItN/a6XFe00WPWrYEhXwgmM6la2gm8kOa5kCTSDOIN8v5XcqA85Pbnd57zmAcVWejaYndk1SkO9V1ctrxz8yGM6NuN+ThawQaLa1tWuj4aKFNWj2DBc3Dyx1IztUFdN0GcIRRg47qwU7KQGqv/2g77gsRmSvVILrRy1CR82lrsxpo5SdvMkqFJQSz/jyTN1x/6FbGJjAwkhIBQXkpQyxmQwzFb/Hf/pgMw==
|1|U+ZwcJShMD52Hxfk+BnxgfDnH4o=|QepSzrHlsR1vchO12+soBb1mAwo= ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEAysa2byLN+E1SeM8Wo7kMGLE+BPAg3nkKg5OhKmssRj945kKuqCBy3wvwVcrfe4zSvVMfotN06tAvmdflFokNXv9ANZJ9qu42HeFxNwkIz04w5E9YeHEG4rTtUW0dSsp13kcaU5Jp3z60C4QNUfZuNOGQmV+yYlOCiLXgR6eYmtkC+/hKZhPkO4GbxwLlEzW5Rzd8vy5czN87Pnr4Z1a/g+T+xKil8B2K41160+GQQNIPfYUCGnA9ccw1kRmWIYV+omJieXiigawUvhnQoHmWRllUhOq6y5jhvQVseO7S+EVFobMFxZ/P2+SzOlg2KaZu/8M0YZtxcrSM8NHnZLq+iw==
|1|b6NemVdIE2FvkU5/cH5FXaDbUks=|Hr4ppmN0hOhCb5ey2NS1yaeuits= ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEAysa2byLN+E1SeM8Wo7kMGLE+BPAg3nkKg5OhKmssRj945kKuqCBy3wvwVcrfe4zSvVMfotN06tAvmdflFokNXv9ANZJ9qu42HeFxNwkIz04w5E9YeHEG4rTtUW0dSsp13kcaU5Jp3z60C4QNUfZuNOGQmV+yYlOCiLXgR6eYmtkC+/hKZhPkO4GbxwLlEzW5Rzd8vy5czN87Pnr4Z1a/g+T+xKil8B2K41160+GQQNIPfYUCGnA9ccw1kRmWIYV+omJieXiigawUvhnQoHmWRllUhOq6y5jhvQVseO7S+EVFobMFxZ/P2+SzOlg2KaZu/8M0YZtxcrSM8NHnZLq+iw==

What the heck? I went to #linuxchix to seek counsel, and rik was around to tell me that that's a hash of the hostnames. He said, "the idea of hashing the hostnames was to stop an exploit [of someone who] got in as one user then using your keys (if you had then in an agent) to ssh in to every other host in your known_hosts file." Which would be a bad thing!

So in the console, I ran ssh-keygen -R zimres.net
and got back: /home/valorie/.ssh/known_hosts updated.
Original contents retained as /home/valorie/.ssh/known_hosts.old

and wooooohooooooooooo I'm in!

Thank you Thomas, rik and the linuxchix!

Thanks to all my commenters, too. Once I knew what was going on, the error message made more sense to me. That's the problem with error messages the first time you see them; you don't know enough to make sense of them. Often I google the error feedback in quotes, and sometimes that gets me the answer I need. Perhaps I should have tried that this time, but whining in IRC worked faster. :-)

Kaudiocreator Returns in KDE4

2010-04-17T15:45:00.000-07:00

UPDATE on Kaudiocreator:

Thanks to Apachelogger, the KaudioCreator package is now available as part of kdemultimedia https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+search?text=kaudiocreator. This is the BEST cd-ripper I've ever used, and I hope the wonderfulness came across to KDE4.

The programmer can be contacted on KDE-Apps: http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/KAudioCreator?content=107645

Audex is also available; somewhat of a fork of this wonderful program. Thanks so much to the programmer to porting to KDE4. I appreciate it very much!

PS: Audex can be found here: http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Audex?content=77125

I also like Sound Juicer, but reinstalling it would have pulled in about 20 other packages, so no! I'm now happily ripping a classical CD, by the way. :-)

Oh, and by the way, I know I can rip CDs inside of Amarok, and I'm glad for that capability. But I'm pretty picky about tags, and like to rip to a directory outside of my collection, so I can check the tags before moving the files inside my collection. That way Amarok displays everything correctly from first play.

Followup note: While I still try KAudioCreator first, I have to use Sound Juicer about a quarter of the time in Lucid. While K "allows" edits to what it finds from Freedb, some those edits aren't used! Also, if the CD has any scratches, it tends to go into a tizzy, and have to be killed. Audex now crashes on startup every time, and leaves me no backtrace. I guess I could run in gdb, but really, no debugging package available? So Sound Juicer is a good fallback, even with all those dependencies. I also tried RipperX again -- still UGH! and also the CLI program abcde. Not only too techie for me, also no choices of tracks or tags.

Lucid beta, bugs, and Alsamixer

2010-04-16T02:48:00.000-07:00

The ongoing saga of running a beta release, I guess. Everything was pretty cool for 10 days or so, but then......

A few days ago, my laptop lost its voice. After doing some update or another, there was NO sound, except an occasional odd clicking noise when instead it should have been playing a music track. In KDE, one can test various sound devices and services in System Settings > Multimedia. This is also, by the way, where you see what backends are available to you, such as Gstreamer, Xine or VLC. This same window is used in Amarok to configure Playback > Phonon. Once sound disappeared, this configuration window in System Settings started crashing, so I filed a bug about that. Actually, it's still crashing, even now that I have sound back.

The nice part about filing that bug is that the crash handler AKA Dr. Konqui now asks you, if certain debugging packages would help display a more helpful backtrace, if you would like to install them. Then it searches the database, fetches the packages and installs them for you. Be sure to reload your report after the installations, of course!

Finally, I went over to Launchpad and filed a bug there about the sound issue, since my tests have revealed that this was a general problem, not a KDE one. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/558910 if you are interested in this issue.

Salient points: aplay -l displays your sound equipment.

Of course first, I always checked Kmix. Often some channels were muted, but unmuting made no difference. I must have done that 20 times or so. I uninstalled Pulseaudio, which made no difference. I tried booting into next older kernel, still no sound. I used the TTY to run a sound file from Music123, which runs below X. It gave no error message; but appeared to be playing the file. No sound.

I also removed the phonon config in ~/.kde/share/config - no change. Rebooting into my original Kubuntu Lucid beta LiveCD, I heard sound again! After days. More updates, but still no sound.

In desperation, I asked in #unbuntu+1 (Freenode). The kindly folks there commiserated, and one person asked about Alsamixer. I remembered using it in opensuse, so I consulted my blog post here, and opened alsamixer in the console, and then used Ksnapshot to take a screenshot of it.

See where it says Speaker, and MM? Jordan_U kindly pointed out that that meant MUTE, and that I could change that by using the arrow keys to highlight the speaker column, and then use the M key to change to unmuted, which is 00 -- none of which makes any sense to me. However, sound now works! I updated my bug with the new information, because while my problem is solved, there is still a venomous bug, crawling around and biting random people!

Now I can get back to work in Amarok. Wonderful IRC people to the rescue once more! Thanks to Jordan_U and the rest of the helpful folks in #ubuntu+1.

Chmod, and rebuilding from scratch

2010-04-09T15:17:00.000-07:00

Before I forget, just a brief note about what I learned yesterday. After some odd errors both in Amarok and during an Amarok re-build, both of which involved permissions, I did a $ sudo chmod 777 /home -R command,* blew away my old Amarok build (going back to empty folders) and successfully rebuilt.

Also, all those tracks with previously un-editable tags -- now editable. So, sudo is no longer required to do a make in $HOME. Perhaps using sudo for that in the first place created some of the problems, so in future, I'll check permissions first!

*I've been advised (thanks, Mamarok!) that 777 is a bad idea, since it gives permission to any and all. chown -R username folder/ is better.

Scripts, Not Just for Making Movies

2010-04-08T02:36:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I offered to write the Handbook for Amarok, my favorite music software. Along the way to that goal, I began publishing the Amarok Insider, which had been on hiatus for awhile. I've heard it said that the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else, and this has proven true for me at least in technical writing. I wanted to learn how to build from source, because the more people do this, the more testing can be done before release, instead of after. This makes for more stable releases, and for the newsletter editor, provides advance experience with new features.

We have wonderful help for building Amarok from source should you be interested in doing so, here: http://blogs.fsfe.org/myriam/2009/09/compiling-amarok-from-git-locally-full-summary/. Right now developers are working on a new backend for Amarok, because Xine and Gstreamer, the two available now, are not satisfactory. VLC has the additional advantage of being cross-platform, and Amarok is available for Linux, Windows and Mac. Phonon-VLC, the new backend, is in rapid development like Amarok is, so testers need to build from source in much the same way. Again, Myriam has written the essential guide to installing and updating: http://blogs.fsfe.org/myriam/2010/04/want-to-test-the-phonon-vlc-backend-here-you-go/.

After using her guides to install Amarok, VLC and Phonon-VLC from source (with invaluable personal support from her, and other developers), I decided to make myself a shortened version, with just the commands I need to update and build, since I have all the dependencies installed, and the proper directory structure built. I realized once I had the short list written, that it looked a bit like a script! Here is my list:

Clean build?
rm ~/kde/build/amarok/CMakeCache.txt
rm ~/kde/src/phonon-vlc/build/CMakeCache.txt

Update phonon-vlc

cd ~/kde/src/phonon-vlc/build
git pull

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/kde/ -DCMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH=$HOME/kde/include/ -DCMAKE_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/kde/lib/ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debugfull $HOME/kde/src/phonon-vlc/

make -j3 && sudo make install

Update Amarok

cd $HOME/kde/src/amarok
git pull

cd $HOME/kde/build/amarok
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/kde -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debugfull $HOME/kde/src/amarok

make -j3 && sudo make install

kbuildsycoca4 --noincremental

After this stroke of inspiration, I looked around for some help in building a bash script, but found only tutorials which didn't seem to apply. When I asked on #linuxchix, rik, chf and joh6nn offered to help. We eventually came up with a Makefile, which unfortunately doesn't really work yet, although I don't understand why yet. Here is our product:

# Makefile for updating and building

.PHONY: all install clean all-clean phonon-vlc-clean phonon-vlc-update phonon-vlc-build phonon-vlc-install amarok-clean amarok-update amarok-build amarok-install

.DEFAULT: install

phonon-vlc-clean:
rm ${HOME}/kde/src/phonon-vlc/build/CMakeCache.txt

phonon-vlc-update:
cd ${HOME}/kde/src/phonon-vlc/build
git pull

phonon-vlc-build: phonon-vlc-update
cd ${HOME}/kde/src/phonon-vlc/build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=${HOME}/kde/ -DCMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH=${HOME}/kde/include/ -DCMAKE_LIBRARY_PATH=${HOME}/kde/lib/ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debugfull ${HOME}/kde/src/phonon-vlc/

phonon-vlc-install: phonon-vlc-build
make -j3
sudo make install

amarok-clean:
rm ${HOME}/kde/build/amarok/CMakeCache.txt

amarok-update:
cd ${HOME}/kde/src/amarok
git pull

amarok-build: amarok-update
cd ${HOME}/kde/build/amarok
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=${HOME}/kde -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debugfull ${HOME}/kde/src/amarok

amarok-install: amarok-build
make -j3
sudo make install
kbuildsycoca4 --noincremental

all: phonon-vlc-install amarok-install

install: amarok-install

clean: amarok-clean phonon-vlc-clean

all-clean: amarok-clean amarok-install phonon-vlc-clean phonon-vlc-install

Two reasons this isn't finished and working: I had a meeting, and rik had to sleep! I did a make -d all and got a TON of output, the end of which is at http://pastie.org/908564 . My console buffer was full of output! Later I hope to have a finished script to present to those who are interested in building packages from source. The problem so far is that the script seems to skip over or error out on the git pull step. Updates later.

Installing Lucid beta -- Adventure Story or Buddy Movie?

2010-04-04T01:52:00.000-07:00

It seemed so simple. I went to Kubuntu.org and downloaded and installed the update yesterday afternoon, no problem! This morning, KpackageKit informed me that I had over 1000 updates, and since I was busy with Alsachat, I decided to just let it go, although I was a bit apprehensive about the power situation. We had a wind advisory going on, and I know that disconnecting during updates is a very bad idea. With about 30 minutes to go, however, KpackageKit crashed! When I tried to use the console (as I should have in the first place), I couldn't because KpackageKit had crashed, and not cleanly quit. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have used the command killall kpackagekit, but I thought it was named "kpackageit" -- and didn't look it up. So I restarted, and got a kernel panic!

I didn't panic, though -- I attempted to start in safe mode, without success. Then I selected the next oldest kernel, and dropped down to the command level. However, I was unable to successfully use apt-get update, even there. And I still couldn't boot into kubuntu. I decided that a fresh install of Lucid beta was the best idea, so I decided to write the disk on Anne's old laptop, which now runs opensuse. The problem I ran into there was that the CD drive wouldn't stay closed with a CD in it! I had to tape it closed to successfully write the CD. And my laptop booted with the LiveCD. But when I got to the place in the install where one must decide where to install it, I really was stymied, and scared to wreck my computer. I don't know the last time I backed up my home directory -- I know, bad Valorie! And I knew it was it was on its own partition, but.....well, I poured out my story in IRC, so here is the rest of the story.... [scroll to the bottom if you don't want to read the gory details!]

valorie: I'm so discouraged
valorie: my laptop is borked
valorie: I downloaded and installed lucid beta yesterday and everything was cool
valorie: today, there were over 1000 updates, and stupidly I told kpackagekit to go ahead and download them
valorie: part way through, it crashed
valorie: but anyway, I tried to re-do them with apt-get
valorie: but I couldn't because of the kpackagekit crash
valorie: now I can't get the computer to boot at all
valorie: tried an older kernel, and apt-get update there
valorie: but it kept throwing error messages
valorie: :(
valorie: I dl'ed and burned the lucid beta CD on this old laptop of my daughter's
valorie: but I'm afraid to bork up my computer even worse
valorie: it does look like my son made a separate partition for /home
valorie: but how do I know which one it is?
valorie: I did an fdisk -l /dev/sda
valorie: and can see how big each of the partitions are
valorie: and I know which one is swap, because it says
valorie: but that leaves 3 other possibilities
maco: blkid helps there
valorie: I don't know what that means
valorie: I see the IDs
valorie: 83, 83, 82, 83
valorie: for /dev/sda5, 6, 7, 8
valorie: this SUCKS
valorie: lucid worked just fine last night
valorie: as an upgrade
crimsun: well, sda5 is your extended partition, and sda7 is your swap
crimsun: so either sda6 or sda8 is /home
maco: valorie: 83, 82, etc... sounds like filesystem types. UUIDs are those loooooooooooong strings that identify the partition itself
maco: try "blkid /dev/sda5" for example
valorie: do I have to run that as root?
valorie: it gave me nothing
maco: i was just explaining what they were because of the confusion above
maco: you can type it without the /dev/.. stuff to just get a list of partitons and UUIDs
maco: do what as root?
maco: what gave nothing?
maco: (blkid does not need to be done as root)
nigelb: apparently yes
nigelb: gives me nothing here too
maco: iiiinteresting. i can run plain old "blkid" as not-root and have it be happy
crimsun: as well it should. access to a block device requires elevated privileges.
valorie: as root, it says 5 has uid=0caf054f-9d98-453d-9ab0-d2baf34bcld0 sectype=ext2 type=ext3
valorie: or pretty close to that
valorie: hard to copy from one screen to the other
maco: apparently i'm in a group i shouldnt be in
crimsun: maco: you upgraded; that makes sense
maco: oh
valorie: 6 & 8 are both ext4
valorie: anyway folks, do you think trying to install over top of my previous install would be the best idea?
valorie: I can't recall how old my most recent backup is
valorie: so I really do not want to wipe out /home!
maco: thats what i always do
nigelb: now, thats better :)
valorie: if people will be here to hold my hand
nigelb: valorie, there always will be :)
valorie: ok, I'm to the scary place
valorie: it advocates shrinking /sda1 from 178.5 GB to 105.2 GB
valorie: Kubuntu in 73.3 GB
valorie: sda5 to 235.3 MB!
valorie: I think that was swap, and I had problems when it was too small before
valorie: gads, I don't know if I have the courage
valorie: does it know which one is /home?
valorie: is it preserving it?
valorie: it leaves 6 unchanged in size
valorie: and 7
IdleOne: valorie: use gparted to display your partitions to you and take a screen shot of it. Make notes on paper in "real words" of which partition is what.
valorie: eliminates 8, which used to be 160 GB
maco: valorie_: are you in manual partition mode?
valorie: abort the install and do that?
maco: if you want to reuse the same / partition, you have to choose "manual partitioning" at the partition step instead of one of the guided ones
valorie: Prepare disk space is where I am
valorie: ok
maco: did you figure out which one is currently / and which is /home ?
valorie: no, I have no clue
valorie: I know 1 is windows
valorie: 7 is swap
valorie: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
valorie: the manual bit expects me to know
valorie: and I know nothing.....
maco: you can mount them and look
valorie: how?
valorie: abort the install?
maco: do you have a desktop right now?
valorie: what do you mean?
maco: or did you do the "just install and don't give me a desktop to use during it" mode?
maco: you're on a live cd right?
valorie: yes
maco: are you able to get to a terminal?
valorie: no, I think I should quit
valorie: this is too scary
maco: no no its ok!
maco: i'll walk you through
maco: let me quickly read back through what you did before
IdleOne: valorie: relax :) remember before you click anything ask yourself this " Did I triple check my double checking?"
valorie: each click so far has been easy
maco: valorie: try sudo mount /dev/sda5 /media ; ls /media and see if that looks like /home or /
valorie: speak english, etc
valorie: maco, there is no way to do that
maco: valorie_: ctrl+alt+f1?
valorie: just the install window
valorie: ah, ok
valorie: ok, no -- it is all abi, config, initrd, system.map, vmcoreinfo, vmlinux
valorie: etc.
valorie: so that must be /, correct?
maco: do you have a separate /boot ?
maco: that looks like /boot
valorie: grub is in there, so maybe
maco: those are the files i see in /boot
maco: ok so we know 5 = boot
valorie: and memtest
valorie: yeah
valorie: ok
maco: now sudo umount /media ; sudo mount /dev/sda6 /media ; ls /media and see what 6 is
maco: if you see root, bin, sbin, var, lib, etc, etc... thats /
maco: if you see your name.... /home
maco: and once you know what that is, since we know 7 is swap, then you can guess what 8 is
valorie: ok, bin, cdrom, etc, home, initrd., etc
valorie: so maybe that's home?
valorie: or perhaps /
maco: thats /
valorie: gotta be root
maco: ls on home in there though
maco: make sure your data isn't really hiding in there
maco: as that'd be bad
valorie: just ls home?
maco: ls /media/home
valorie: k
valorie: nada
maco: ok good
valorie: cool
maco: so then 8 is home
maco: alright back to the installer
valorie: this is making me feel so much better
maco: click on sda5, hit the edit button, and tell it use as /boot, and go ahead and let it format
valorie: control alt which?
maco: probably f7
valorie: nope
maco: try different f#'s til you find it?
maco: (this is what i do)
valorie: 8 did it
maco: ok
maco: click on sda6, hit the edit button, tell it to use as /, and format as ext3 or ext4, as you prefer
maco: click on sda7, hit edit, swap, no mountpoint for swap
maco: click on sda8, hit edit, mountpoint /home, use as ext3 (since thats its current format), and make sure you do NOT have it set to format that partition
valorie: when I click on 5, it brings up a edit partition screen
valorie: new size
valorie: use as
maco: leave the size alone if you want
valorie: format
valorie: mount point
valorie: but use as doesn't have root as a choice
maco: sda5 should be /boot
maco: and thats the mountpoint
maco: sorry, i mixed up when the dialog says "use as" blah. "use as" means "what format do you want?"
valorie: right
valorie: one of the choices is swap
maco: you have ext3 now. you can stick to that or go to ext4 or reiserfs or whatever
valorie: perhaps I was wrong and that was swap?
maco: no, it'll offer all possible filesystems one every partition
maco: since its a new install, if you *wanted* you could make that partition be swap, so it's offering that
valorie: so ext3 journaling file system?
maco: yep
valorie: ok
maco: but i'm assuming you're sticking to the same disk layout you had before
maco: this making sense?
valorie: yes
maco: good :)
valorie: should ANY of them be set "format this partition?
maco: i don't think its necessary, but maybe for /boot might be a good idea since i don't know if it'll actually clear out the old kernels if you dont
valorie: weird, because it shows a check under format for /home and /
valorie: ok
maco: thats because you haven't gotten there yet
valorie: I'll re-look
maco: you'll remove that checkmark when you edit them
valorie: it's grayed out
valorie: the only one that's got a black check is /boot now
maco: you're looking at the table of all the partitions right now, right?
maco: that's read only
valorie: right
maco: you have to click on those partitions and hit "edit"
valorie: so do I do anything to those ntfs partitions?
maco: nah, leave your windows alone
valorie: so click change?
maco: valorie: well i'm not looking at the screen right now, but if the edit button is now the "change" button...sure!
valorie: no, i think forward is the way to do
valorie: otherwise it will create a new partition
valorie: and I don't want that
valorie: correct?
maco: valorie: there's a "new" button and a "edit" one, right?
maco: valorie: you want to use "edit" on each existing linux partition and not use "new" at all
akk: I think I right-clicked on the partition and chose Edit from the context menu.
valorie: right, I edited each
valorie: no new
maco: oh ok
maco: and you got rid of the "format me!" on /home right?
maco: (thats sda8)
valorie: well, it's still got a grayed check mark
valorie: as does 3
maco: but 5 has a black checkmark?
maco: ugh i dont like this UI. it should have *NO* checkmark if it's unchecked. grr.
maco: not a but-look-we-greyed-it-out checkmark to mean unchecked
valorie: 5 has a black checkmark
valorie: yeah, it's confusing
akk: Yeah, having a checkmark at all sounds scary.
maco: ok then i think you're good to hit "next"--just make sure when you get to the end you read the confirmation screen
valorie: but I've tried 3 times ad I can't get rid of it
maco: this is a kubuntu lucid install disk?
valorie: yes, kubuntu lucid beta
valorie: it says that 5, 6, 7 and 8 will be formatted
maco: O_O
valorie: yeah
maco: go back
maco: did you set them to a different filesystem than what they were before? (all ext3)??
valorie: ah, I left a mounted system
valorie: grrr
maco: oooh
maco: sorry. sudo umount /media
maco: then maybe it'll let you edit things properly?
valorie: it will umount, I think
valorie: but I have to go back and redo it
valorie: bleah
maco: sorry :( i should've told you to umount before switching back to the installer
valorie: I'll scroll up -- it will be faster this time
valorie: damn, it's the same
valorie: says all 4 will be formatted
valorie: still with the grayed checkmarks
maco: valorie_: hmm you might need an alternate cd. sounds like a bug.
valorie: yeah, I can't allow that
valorie: :(
valorie: too much there on /home
valorie: gads, burning another damn CD on this machine -- if there is a cd in it, the cd tray keeps coming open
valorie: I had to tape the damned thing shut to get it to burn
valorie: lol
maco: hahaha
valorie: I wonder if my thumb drive is big enough
valorie: rats, I don't have it right now
valorie: :(
valorie: all right, I'll try to burn the alternate CD
maco: valorie: bug filing time too it seems
valorie: I guess as a good netizen, I had better
valorie: searching for liveCD bugs....
maco: ubiquity is the installer package
valorie: bug filed
valorie: now to write another CD
valorie: ok, alternate cd booting
valorie: the autoconfig for network fails, probably because I can't get the wireless to turn on
valorie: can I use the IP address from this machine to manually config?
maco: you can just tell it to skip
valorie: ok
valorie: actually, it is insisting
maco: what?
maco: it doesn't need net to do an install
maco: so it should let you just skip configuration of the interface
valorie: there we go
valorie: ok, i'm to partitioning
valorie: and again chose manual
valorie: then....configure the logical volume manager?
maco: eek!
maco: no lvm necessary
maco: pick the manual-not-lvm one
maco: i've only ever used lvm once, and that was because i *had* to for my system administration class
valorie: guided partitioning
valorie: configure software RAID
valorie: configure lvm
maco: then go to guided partitioning
valorie: configure encrypted
valorie: ok
maco: sounds the most reasonable
valorie: that takes me back to these choices:
valorie: guided:resize /dev/sda1 & use freed space
valorie: use entire disk
valorie: entire disk/lvm
valorie: entire and encrypted
valorie: and manual
valorie: and you already saw the manual choices
maco: and manual is where it brought up the raid stuff?
maco: what the...this is weird
valorie: yes
valorie: maybe guided and use entire disk
maco: no that'd delete everything
maco: hmm i think i need to try this in a vm
valorie: no, not that one
valorie: that just erases the entire disk
valorie: gaaahhh
valorie: oh, duh
valorie: in the manual, I can choose the partitions
valorie: geez
valorie: fear and stress makes me stupid
maco: chamomile tea?
valorie: water, right now
maco: chamomile tea good for getting rid of the stress part
valorie: ok, gonna scroll up and do this
maco: ok
valorie: mount options? label?
valorie: reserved blocks
maco: ignore that
valorie: bootable flag
maco: you don't need to worry about it
valorie: ok,
valorie: for boot -- erase data on this partition
maco: bootable flag goes on your windows i think. iirc, windows won't boot if its not marked bootable, while linux will go "what? grub told me to!"
valorie: hmmm, it makes it sound like I shouldn't erase it
valorie: it can no longer be recovered, etc.
valorie: choices: resize, copy data from another partition
valorie: erase data on this partition
valorie: delete the partition
valorie: done setting up partition
valorie: I assume don't resize
valorie: but erase?
rww: In debian-installer (and Ubuntu alternate CD) speak, delete deletes the partition, erase writes over all the data on it (a la DBAN) and then deletes it, I think.
valorie: the thing is, the header makes it sound like it is going to be erased *anyway*
valorie: "You are editing partition #5 of /dev/sda. This partition is formatted with the ext3 journaling file system. ALL DATA IN IT WILL BE DESTROYED.
valorie: in caps, the last bit
valorie: so I'm thinking my goof in the last go around was telling it I wanted them formatted
valorie: no formatting is probably what I wanted
valorie: ::sigh::
maco: i think this installer makes it slightly clearer than the gui one whether data will be kept. gui one says "format? yes/no" this says "format or keep?" which is a bit clearer IMO
maco: when it shows the list of partitions it puts F if its formatting and K if its keeping, i believe
valorie: so I guess I'm done with 5
maco: ok. now on to the others!
valorie: BUT - if you don't change "use as" --it is "do not use"
valorie: so....
maco: for use as you set what the current partition is
maco: then below that it has a format or keep option
maco: er, what the current filesystem is
valorie: no, it has all the file systems, swap, physical volume for encryption, RAID, LVM, do not use
valorie: and then go back
valorie: I don't see a place to tell it to use 6 as /
valorie: blah
maco: set the filesystem there
maco: for each partition there's a list of things you have to set
maco: "use as" is the filesystem
maco: you also have to set the mountpoint
valorie: right, but it warns above it will be destroyed
valorie: gah
maco: did you not change the "format/keep" part yet?
valorie: which is fine for everything but /home!
valorie: so 8, I think I just don't edit, right?
valorie: do not use
valorie: done setting up this partition
valorie: that seems reasonable to me
valorie: it will want to re-write boot, / and swap
valorie: to re-write
valorie: and don't touch /home
valorie: correctomundo?
valorie: finish partitioning and write changes to disk.....
valorie: there is no K, by the way
valorie: F or nothing
maco: if you do not use 8 it wont know to mount it as /home
maco: but then again, you can always edit /etc/fstab to TELL it to use that as /home after installation's done anyway
valorie: but if I format it, it's dead
maco: I'm pretty sure you can inform it of what format to use AND tell it to keep the data
maco: it should be one of the other questions on the partition edit screen
valorie: no, it isn't
maco: got a camera on-hand? i gotta see this
valorie: it has all thefile systems, swap, physical volume for encryption, RAID, LVM, do not use
valorie: and then go back
maco: yes but those are the options for "use as:" right?
valorie: yes
maco: there are more questions than just "use as"
maco: one of them should be asking whether to format or keep the data
valorie: Partition settings:
valorie: use as: do not use
valorie: blank
valorie: bootable flag: off
valorie: blank
maco: if you change do not use to the filesystem, that blank line might change to "format/keep"
valorie: resize
valorie: copy data
valorie: no, then it changes the menu
valorie: use as: ext3
valorie: mount point
valorie: mount options
valorie: label
valorie: etc.
maco: ok chck out mount options then
valorie: right above it says: All data in it WILL BE DESTROYED
maco: because it hasnt been set to "keep" mode yet
maco: just have to figure out where that mode is hidden
valorie: ok, noatime
valorie: relatime
valorie: nodev
valorie: nosuid
* maco shakes fist at screen
valorie: noexec
valorie: ro
valorie: sync
valorie: usrquota
valorie: rgpquota
maco: ok thats not sounding like it
maco: what's after "etc."
valorie: reserved blocks
valorie: typical usage
valorie: bootable flag
valorie: resize
valorie: copy data
valorie: erase data
valorie: delete
valorie: done
maco: if you go to "erase data" what does it say?
valorie: that's the one that warns that it will overwrite with random chars
maco: hrmph
valorie: I don't see a way to do it except do not use
maco: did you go to "mount point" yet?
maco: does it maybe offer it in there?
valorie: no
valorie: no choice of home
maco: i mean does it offer the dont format thing in there?
valorie: oh, I'm wrong, it does offer home
valorie: but still warns that it will be destroyed
valorie: even if I choose home, then go back and remove the formatting option
valorie: the /home bit disappears
valorie: so I'm guessing the editing is the only way
valorie: oh, I could send the pic to your email
valorie: duh
maco: hmm ok. i *know* pre-lucid had a way to set the filesystem AND keep the data
maco: i used it a bunch during installfests
valorie: gosh, brain is dead
valorie: so, finish partitioning and write changes to disk?
maco: hang on i wanna see this picture...
maco: can you take a pic of the page before that? the one that lists "use as" and "mountpoint" and such?
valorie: ok, I'll go back to that
valorie: sending
maco: valorie: ooooh i see a reason!
maco: valorie: that one is currently ext4
maco: so picking ext3 would mean changing its format
maco: try picking ext4 in the "use as:" and see if suddenly you're allowed to not-format
valorie: voila!
valorie: you are right
valorie: so should I go back and change any of the others?
maco: /home is the only one you care about saving
valorie: ok
valorie: yay!
valorie: I guess my question better would have been
valorie: is there a use to have them all formatted the same?
valorie: ext3 or ext4
valorie: etc.
maco: ext4 for /boot and / tends to mean faster boot
valorie: ok, I'll go back and change 'em
valorie: good grief
valorie: so they are all ext4
valorie: now finish and start partitioning?
valorie: right, maco?
maco: yep
valorie: soooo scary
valorie: it's happening....
valorie: booting......
valorie: gonna unhook here and see...
valorie: btw, /home seems to be fine
valorie: you rock, maco
valorie: and I owe you big-time
maco: yay!
valorie: next, install konvi and uninstall amarok
maco: uninstall amarok???
valorie: I build it from git
valorie: has to be uninstalled first, though
valorie: what the hell
valorie: even though Knetworkmanager can see my wireless
valorie: it will NOT connect
valorie: no matter how many times I tell it to
valorie: grrrrrrrrr
valorie: finally!
valorie: had to restart

Thus endeth the lesson. One bug filed, two CDs burnt, one laptop restored to workability. All in only FIVE HOURS! I certainly wish I had filed a bug when KpackageKit crashed, but I've filed a few from a crash, and without all the -debug and -devel packages installed, they aren't much use. AND I wish I'd thought to look at the spelling of KpackageKIT. On the upside, I installed a new distro version without using Thomas' time. I do owe Maco for 5 hours of work, for sure! I would like to thank crimsun, nigelb, rww, and akk for their help also. #ubuntu-women, you rock!

While preparing this blog post, I needed to remove a bunch of IRC cruft like time stamps, such as [22:53:43] and [03:49:53]. It seemed like a good time to use regular expressions (regex) to remove them in my favorite text editor, Kate. Thanks so much to Afuna on #ubuntu-women who helped me learn a bit. By the way, the magic regex was: \[[0-2][0-3]:[0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}\] . And I understand *why*! Thanks again, Afuna!

I love geeks! on IRC

2010-04-01T19:42:00.000-07:00

Happy April Fools! I shared a link I got in #amarok, with the #linuxchix channel, and got the most fun command suggestions! All commands are in italic., interspersed with a few comments which might help you make sense of them. Add more commands in comments! Click http://xkcd.com and try date
apt-get moo (add "-v", "-vv" and even more "v")
man cat
find kitten (a game)
man next
man last
vim
nano
ed
bash
top
echo
pwd
make me a sandwich
rm
mkdir
more
wget
xyzzy*
curl (as an alias of wget)
who
whoami
su
sudo
*chf: "xyzzy" is the magic word of a text adventure game. Used in the right place as a command, it does something, everywhere else it outputs "nothing happens."
kill
cat
ping
joh6nn: if you type "display" for today's, type next
more
maria: apparently it likes finger, but I feel strangely cheated that it doesn't know what touch is
sudo reboot
xkcd
sudo make me a sandwich
cheat
locate
look
go west
thykier: mmm, it responds to CTRL + L (although it is a little weird to trigger CTRL in the terminal)
thykier: you can actually play that game
thykier: nice song though (and stay clear of "south")
maria: thykier: it's easy to go south if you know how to avoid the obvious :)
go
go down
asl
ssh
light lamp
goto

Curiosity, or How We Go Down the Rabbit Hole

2010-03-30T17:14:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to the scientists at the Hadron Collider, who have made this gigantic machine act as a time machine. In an interview (which I can't find on NPR or on the BBC!), one of the scientists defended the large multi-national investment in the collider, and in basic science in general, mentioning that most science is done to satisfy curiosity, without thought to where the findings will lead, or their practical applications. And yet, modern technology is built on the foundation of work wrought by those curious people who followed their interests where they led, even down rabbit holes, across oceans or under them, or out into space.

In Free and Open Source Software, we do the same thing. Of course sometimes both scientific research and programming are done to scratch an itch, or solve a discrete problem. But large projects are done by people with a vision of what they want to create, and the enthusiasm to draw others to help in the programming, documentation, dissemination, and advertising. I've recently gotten involved with Amarok, writing the Handbook and the Insider newsletter. It's been great getting to know the team in IRC, on the mail lists and on the Forum. It was very exciting to participate in the release of 2.3, after seeing all the work that had gone into it.

And yet we continue to hear complaints about the 2.x series not being the "perfect" 1.4! Sometimes in shockingly emotional language. The other day I read the comments on a Reddit.com forum post hating on 2.3 for lack of comment support, and have been digesting them ever since. Post is at http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/bjae6/amarok_2_is_still_after_years_of_waiting_for/, and comments are supported in 2.3, but are not searchable. Some of the verbiage is appalling: "I hate Amarok with almost every fiber of my being," "Amarok 2 is the reason I lost faith in the open source doctrine," and the summation of almost all the criticism, "They screwed up big time when going to 2.x, the forums had all kinds of constructive feedback but they couldn't hear anything and refused to listen with their head up their ass. My faith is lost in them." Hear we hear the longing for Eden, a mythical past when that perfect software created the ultimate music experience. I believe this is why the emotion can run so high.

While I agree that 1.4 was wonderful, it is in the past. It's done, and Eden is myth. If the developers didn't have a vision of an even better music experience, they probably would have moved on to a different project by now, and done bug-fixes only, if that. When you look at popular free projects, that's how it goes! Progress or slow death. This happens with companies, too. Some entrepreneur gets an idea, builds a company around that idea -- and then either becomes Manager in Chief, and stops innovating, or recruits a manager, and moves on to the Next Big Idea. Mark Shuttleworth has recently done that in Canonical, where he handed over the managerial duties to Jane Silber, so he can focus on the parts of the project that he still finds engaging. The Amarok developers have moved on, and I'm grateful they are still interested in creating a perfect music experience.

Those folks who believe Amarok 1.4 *is now* the perfect music experience, have the right to support and extend that. That is what free and open software is all about. I might think they are jumping down a rabbit hole, but what's wrong with that? People are still reading and enjoying Alice in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass. Not everyone is a programmer; I am not, and not interested in learning. I do enjoy technical writing, and helping people solve their problems, and I've made myself a job on the Amarok team. Rather than looking back to a mythical, perfect past, why not find a way to contribute NOW, and create progress and change?

=====
Also posted as a reply to the Reddit.com forum post. -v

End of the Line

2010-03-27T03:09:00.000-07:00

I hope you've discovered RadioLab, either on NPR (National Public Radio) or on the web. If not, check them out. Tonight I heard the most beautiful stories; beautiful and heart-breaking. This one struck me most, because we're at this place with my dad. He broke his hip before Christmas, and now is healed enough in body to move out of the rehab place, but his mind -- well, just listen to the story. He's there, at the end of the line. And I wish the Regency had a bus stop out front.

http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2010/03/23/the-bus-stop/

Ada Lovelace Day

2010-03-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

I started this blog a bit too late to blog on AL Day. But I was inspired by many of the great posts I read, and did post http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/lovelace-the-origin-2/ via ping.fm, and have continued to read many inspiring posts. Two of my recent favorites are Magni's: http://magnio.livejournal.com/600864.html and this one about Deb Richardson, Linuxchix founder: http://icanrunsoucantoo.blogspot.com/2010/03/ada-lovelace-day.html, which I saw on http://findingada.com/

Amber Graner posted a wonderful long blog about many of the women in Ubuntu-Women: http://www.ubuntu-user.com/Online/Blogs/Amber-Graner-You-in-Ubuntu/Women-In-Near-and-Around-Ubuntu-Celebrating-Ada-Lovelace-Day-Part-1. I've recently come to know Amber and many of these women, and it was great to read more about them. And here are some of women I've met in KDE and Amarok: http://blog.lydiapintscher.de/2010/03/24/ada-meet-katies-posse/

I definitely plan to blog on Ada Lovelace Day 2011!

IRC - Timewaster or Productive?

2010-03-26T03:39:00.000-07:00

Tonight has proven to me that IRC is productive. First the fine folks at #linuxchix helped me get sound working on Anne's old laptop. Then the people in #opensuse-kde helped me prune my somewhat warty repository list, even writing out the commands I would need to remove the extras, such as zypper rr home:wstephenson:branches:KDE:KDE4:UNSTABLE:Desktop.

I had a duplicate, too -- the same repository from two different mirrors. I thought I hadn't gotten anything from it after all that, but yaloki said, "to see whether you have a package from the packman repository installed on your system: rpm -qa --qf='%{NAME}-%{VERSION} %{VENDOR}\n'|grep -i packman." I did, and so removed one but not both. Finally, remur_030 suggested that "afterwards 'zypper dup' so everything has a proper install backed by repositories." That is working away right now in the little laptop next to me.

In short, if you need some technical help, hop on IRC, and ask! Googling is good, thinking is good, and it's also good to hang out and answer questions too. It was a productive night, as I got help in those two channels, and also the suggestion in #amarok that I aggregate this blog on Planet KDE, which I did.

The Adventure Begins!

2010-03-25T23:08:00.000-07:00

Linux now has its own blog, and I'll begin with the latest. My daughter Anne contributed her old laptop, in which son Thomas installed OpenSuSE. I thought it might be fun to install Amarok and see how a new user sees it, but to my surprise, it's part of the standard install. However, the version was ancient, so an upgrade was in the works. To my delight, Konversation was also installed, so I could hop right onto IRC and ask a few questions in #suse. Unfortunately, they were hating on KDE4 and Amarok2 in there, so not very helpful!

The #opensuse-kde channel (on Freenode IRC) was much more helpful and friendly. This is an old Compaq Windows XP machine, so it was a bit of a challenge to get current software up and running. One of helpful websites was http://software.opensuse.org/search?baseproject=openSUSE:11.2&p=1&q=amarok+2.3, where you can search for any package name, and see what is available in all repositories, even private ones. I was able to find Amarok 2.3 in "unstable," but I'm happy to report that now that all parts are installed, it seems *very* stable. Just getting everything installed took quite awhile, as Open Office decided it wanted updating as well. Plus the Yast/Zypper system is enough like the apt-get system of K/ubuntu to cause me quite a bit of confusion. I tried to copy/paste as much as possible, so as not to mess up command structure.

I guess Kubuntu packagers have spoiled me, though. I found that the backend, which is the part of Amarok that allows the sound to come through the speakers, wasn't included in the base install! When I tried to configure Phonon and make sure the sound card was working, Amarok instantly crashed. So I located the newest Phonon I could find, and phonon-backend-xine, and installed them. What kind of laggard packaging system is this!

Now I could configure my sound system at last, but the sound card test gave no sound, and I recalled that I'd seen a notification on each startup that the sound card was giving up.

So, no sound. Install drivers? I checked the Nvidia website, but they don't have a driver for such an old sound card. The website explained that such drivers are part of the linux kernel, so I don't have to worry about it! OK -- helpful people in Linuxchix (irc://irc.linuxchix.org/linuxchix) helped me test Alsa. sudo alsamixer showed me the channels, and I unmuted the few channels which were muted, such as line, line jac, mic and mic boost. That seemed to make no difference, so the next thing to check was Alsaplayer (not installed) or aplay, but aplay never started.

Next, cat /etc/group. The only group I'm a member of is video, so I had to add myself, sudo vi /etc/group. I usually use Kate, but it wasn't installed, so vi it was. i to insert, arrow keys to move about, escape to return to command mode, :x to write (save) and exit.

Why wasn't I automatically added to these groups when I installed Pulseaudio? Good question. I've never had to edit groups before, and I've been using Linux for ..... over 10 years, I guess. Anyway.

To add myself to the necessary groups, I made the line audio:x:17:pulse into audio:x:17:pulse,valorie, and the same with pulse-access, then escape and :wq to write and quit. Finally, I closed all running programs and restarted the computer. Upon starting up Amarok, and testing Pulsaudio (the sound card no longer shows up as an entry), it worked! SOUND!

Since I've not transferred any of my music tracks to the laptop yet, I used Magnatune, and listened to some beautiful classical music, courtesy of the band Asteria. Thank you to Anne, to Thomas, to OpenSuSE and the fine folks in #opensuse-kde, Christoph Franzen (chf) and the rest of #linuxchix, and the fine developers of Amarok. Finally, thanks to Mackenzie Morgan (maco) for helping me make this entry vi-correct. Vi manpage online: http://ss64.com/bash/vi.html

Ultimately, this old laptop will be available for my grandson Oscar to play Qimo on. I'll put on some of my favorite music too, so if we lug it up to the cabin, Amarok will be useful for more than learning and testing!