SeaGL's Call for Presentations open through August 6th

SeaGL is a grassroots technical conference, in Seattle, dedicated to spreading awareness and knowledge about the GNU/Linux community and free/libre/open-source software/hardware. We welcome speakers of all backgrounds and levels of experience – even if you’ve never spoken at a technical conference.

http://seagl.org/news/2017/06/19/CFP-open.html

This year's conference is on Oct 6 & 7 and will take place at Seattle Central College.

Ubuntu Community Appreciation Day - Thank you!

See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UCADay for more about this lovely initiative.

Thank you maco/Mackenzie Morgan for getting me involved in Ubuntu Women and onto freenode.

Thank you akk/Akkana Peck, Pleia2/Lyz Joseph, Pendulum/Penelope Stow, belkinsa/Svetlana Belkin and so many more of the Ubuntu Women for being calm and competent, and energizing the effort to keep Ubuntu welcoming to all.

Thank you to my Kubuntu team, Riddell/Jonathan Riddell, apachelogger/Harald Sitter, shadeslayer/Rohan Garg, yofel/Philip Muscovak, ScottK/Scott Kitterman and sgclark/Scarlett Clark for your energy, intelligence and wonderful work. Your packaging and tooling makes it all happen. The great people who help users on the ML and in IRC and on the forums keep us going as well. And the folks who test, who are willing to break their systems so the rest of us don't have to: thank you!

There are so many people (some of the same ones!) to thank in KDE, but that's a separate blogpost. Your software keeps me working and online.

What a great community working together for the betterment of humanity.

Ubuntu: human kindness.

The Forgetting, and remembering

My mother died of Alzheimer's disease, and my dad is disappearing in a similar way. He's not been diagnosed with Alz., but what's the difference? His memory and personality are both diminishing, just as hers did. Looking at all the literature, it seems that he is in the final stage, in fact.

The http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_stages_of_alzheimers.asp#stage7 :

Very severe cognitive decline
(Severe or late-stage Alzheimer's disease)
In the final stage of this disease, individuals lose the ability to respond to their environment, to carry on a conversation and, eventually, to control movement. They may still say words or phrases.
At this stage, individuals need help with much of their daily personal care, including eating or using the toilet. They may also lose the ability to smile, to sit without support and to hold their heads up. Reflexes become abnormal. Muscles grow rigid. Swallowing impaired.

These details are mostly true for my dad, although he still holds up his head. So far, he eats well, although sometimes must be prompted to do so. He lives in the wheelchair though, and rarely if ever moves his body.

When my mother was losing her mind, she had some bizarre theories of her problems and quite destructive paranoia, and I mourned her loss constantly. When she died, I found that all that grief was just a waste; I had to grieve her death anyway. So when my dad started down the same road, after my first rebellion against it, I thought it through, and decided to do things differently this time. I uncluttered my life, and started doing that to the house too. I said no quite a bit, and shed jobs and tasks like crazy. Until I got bored! That was the point at which I started reading email again, started visiting IRC more often, and began pitching in as I had time and interest.

So as my dad is slipping away, we're making progress on the house, and life is pretty peaceful and delightful. I'm able to enjoy the time I spend with Dad, and also the days I have to skip my visits, whether it's for a local meeting or a trip to Europe. When he goes, I'll grieve his death, but I'm not finding this process painful. It helps a lot that I alternate visits with my sister, so the pressure is shared, and he's in a nursing home, so neither of us is changing his diapers or brushing his teeth. I don't think suffering is a healthy response to his slow death, so I'm choosing instead to enjoy the time I have left with my dad.

Oddly enough, it helps to read up on Alzheimer's; what it is, and what progress is being made in the fight against it. This is important, because my generation, the baby boomers, are entering their sixties. This disease could bring the health care establishment to its knees, all around the world.

I've just finished a remarkable book, called The Forgetting - Alzheimer's: Portrait of an Epidemic, by David Schenk. It's a really great synthesis of history, experience, research, and thinking about dementia. Just for myself, I'm going to copy part of what he says in Chapter 16, called Things To Avoid, on page 228:

Doctors cannot yet cure Alzheimer's, or prevent it, or even mask its symptoms for very long. But hundreds of studies have begun to produce a pointillist portrait of how people can help themselves--things to do for the body, mind, and spirit that might reduce the risk of getting the disease, or at least delay its onset:
     Avoid head injuries,
     Avoid fatty foods,
     Avoid high blood pressure,
     Eat foods rich in antioxidants, which eliminate damaging free-radical molecules. Eat, specifically, prunes, raisins, blueberries, blackberries, kale, strawberries, spinach, raspberries, brussels sprouts, plums, alfalfa sprouts, broccoli, beets, oranges, red grapes, red peppers, and cherries. (Foods listed according to their antioxidant content, in descending order.)
     Eat foods rich in folic acid, and in vitamin B6, B12, C, and E.
     Eat tuna, salmon, and other foods rich in fatty acids.
     Don't drink too much alcohol. (A moderate amount might be slightly beneficial.)
     Don't skimp on sleep. (Sleep is rejuvenating to the brain and the body; sleep seems to play a very important role in long-term memory formation.)
     Exercise.
     Maintain a high level of social contact (and consider marriage--one study shows fewer married people getting Alzheimer's).
     If you are a woman past menopause, consider estrogen replacement therapy. (Some studies suggest it may reduce Alzheimer's incidence by as much as half.)
     If you like to chew gum, continue chewing gum.....
     If you regularly take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen for another reason, continue. (Some studies show a benefit.)
     Get a thorough education.
     Keep your mind active. Read, discuss, debate, create, play word games, do crossword puzzles, meet new people, learn new languages. Studies show that people with very high levels of education, while not immune from Alzheimer's, do tend to get the disease later than others.

That last paragraph supports the work I began when we first got our Coleco ADAM computer. I've learned how to use computers to edit newsletters, do genealogy research, use and administer mail lists, forums, newgroups, websites. I used Macs, some Windows machines, and then found my true home in FOSS, and the communities I found there: KDE, Kubuntu, Linuxchix, the Ubuntu Women, and Linuxfest Northwest.

Temptation

Chani recently blogged about How to Not be a Rockstar. It's excellent, give it a look. And her piece got me thinking about how we are always being tempted, by social pressure, by advertising, by the oppressive side of our culture, to worry about the surface of reality, instead of engaging with actual life.

Often, parents have taught us to be obedient and pleasant, rather than capable and independent. That's easy to understand; they get kudos for having obedient and pleasant children, and disapproval for raising kids who rock the boat, are messy, creative, loud or otherwise 'out of the norm.' Also, obedient and pleasant children are easier! So most of us have that early training to overcome. There is nothing wrong with being pleasant, but knowing how to do stuff, and not being afraid to do it, are what is needed to build a life.

In school, most of us have teachers who carry on with that program, and try to help us get good grades, and pass tests. How many of us are lucky enough to have teachers who challenge us to learn, who whet our curiosity, and then teach us how to find our own answers? Of course schools are established to enculturate children, and to pass along the basic canons of knowledge. Should the good school, the excellent teachers stop there, or use that as the foundation for life-long learning? I have nothing against good grades, and passing tests, but those are merely the appearance of learning. What good does it do to have good grades, if you haven't really mastered the material? If you've only been exposed to what's on the test; and don't know or don't take the time to learn more?

What is taught in home and school is only part of the problem facing children and teenagers. School social systems are often so toxic to kids that they learn to hide their true selves, rather than learning who they are, what they want, and what sort of people suit them as friends, lovers and collaborators. Aren't these the keys to a happy, successful life? Or do we really want to produce cogs which fit into society's machine, producing the same old stuff?

I think this weakness, this worship of the shallow in our culture is what has fueled the growth of both art and FOSS communities. We humans long to produce work that improves the world, and collaborate with people who share our values. In FOSS communities there are a multitude of ways to create cool stuff, whether we love coding or art, design or making great UI, writing or making websites. I think everyone who contributes is not only 'scratching their itch,' but also making the world a better place, and changing our culture for the better at the same time.

Why we do this crazy thing we do

Looking through a nice blog by Andreas Schilling, I found this classic linked:

It catches very well why we're here, and perhaps why you are reading this blog.

Also, if you are mentoring in GSoC or Season of KDE this year, remind yourself what motivates you and your students, both. We all want to make the world a better place.

The water we swim in

Healthy relationships. I've been thinking about them not in my personal life, but in terms of teams in free software. When I first began contributing, it was within a team creating an application (Amarok), so rather small. Then I became active in Ubuntu-Women, which is larger, but still not huge. Then Kubuntu, then the larger Ubuntu community, and now KDE, which is truly enormous.

In all of these projects, communication and trust are paramount. Dialog which fosters creativity and progress is only possible when people enlarge their trust in one another. Along the way to the highest trust levels, many barriers will come down, as people allow them. Sometimes these barriers are invisible, until someone points them out.

I thought I'd seen a cartoon illustrating this story, but a web search tells me it's a story by David Foster Wallace:

Two young fish meet an older fish, who asks them “How’s the water?” The younger fish look at each other and say, “What the hell is water?”

I was reminded of this story recently while observing the various reactions to the removal of the Community link on Ubuntu.com, the portal to the Ubuntu project. The link is coming back, so I'm not complaining. However, what I've noticed is that most of the people discussing the issue seem to be talking past the folks they are hoping to connect with. The emotions expressed range from puzzlement, to shock and outrage, with little understanding on the other "side" on the perceptions causing these reactions.

So how is the water? To me, the drama played out completely predictably, because any time you have one company selling a product, and volunteers working in that same project, you will have class issues, and class is like the water fish swim in. People are often not aware of it, and thus have difficulty dealing with their emotions around it, because they have been taught to ignore it, or even that it doesn't exist. So when the designers removed the link, it was felt as a slap to the face of community members, while the designers see it as just a step to a clean, functional design. The conversation about this change at the recent vUDS clearly betrays this lack of understanding of the other on all sides. http://summit.ubuntu.com/uds-1305/meeting/21740/community-1305-ubuntu-website-planning/

There is no such thing as a culture without class. There are always power imbalances, and privileges. However, that doesn't mean that class is the death of the Ubuntu project, or that volunteers and companies can't happily co-exist. They can, but the fact of class must be acknowledged, and those with privilege and power must realize what they have, and use them on behalf of the project.

A healthy culture has hierarchy, but not one based on domination. In fact, in FOSS that is part of what we are attempting to dislodge, right? We want our hierarchies to be constructed for function, not to rule over us. For instance, those who demonstrate their skill in packaging or coding are given the right to upload to the repositories. And those who grant them that right are those who already have built their reputations by using their skill and trustworthiness in that domain.

Recently there has been a breakdown -- or an apparent breakdown -- in that hierarchy of function in Ubuntu. And I think that both those inside Canonical and those outside, perceive that the other is the one causing that break. So, some repair is needed.

All of our differences can be overcome as we build (or re-build) trust. However, all sides of the issue will need to think about, process emotion about, and finally discuss openly what has gone on. The replacement of the Community link alone will not mend this breach, nor will brief virtual UDS sessions. In fact, I think the lack of in-person face-to-face interaction is allowing this divide to grow.

Folks, we don't want resentment and suspicion to grow, so we are all going to need to work on this if the Ubuntu project is going to continue to thrive as a free software enterprise. In my opinion, thinking about and discussing class issues are fundamental to that effort.

This blog appears on the Linuxchix, KDE and Ubuntu planets, and these issues of class appear in all teams. Health and progress are the goal, and honest dialog is the means. I propose we look one another in the eye and start a conversation. These are difficult dialogs, but our health is at stake.

Intentional community

This blog is generally seen in the planets for Ubuntu, KDE, and Linuxchix. These are all FOSS intentional communities, by which I mean that the founders and members form a community to in which they can create. I found Linuxchix first (thanks, Megan!), and I loved how welcomed I was, although I was still at the time using Windows. How many linux channels welcome an mIRC user? The longer I hung out there, the more I learned, and the more I was impressed by all the different work the community members were doing out in the greater FOSS world. I also loved that it was women and men working together to make FOSS a better place for women.

When I ended up using Kubuntu (after trying Mandrake and then Gentoo, and GNOME/Ubuntu), some of the Ubuntu Women members welcomed me onto Freenode. When I found that that freenode was where the Amarok team hung out as well, I added the server to my Konversation server list. Members of both of those teams made me welcome, taught me some of the Freenode quirks, and I learned a bit more about how Linux is made. Lots of teams, loads of projects, each with their own culture and ways of working. Because Ubuntu and KDE both have a Code of Conduct, I felt somewhat safe, although I had heard lots of horror stories about linux channels on freenode and elsewhere. After experiencing some quite frightening attacks in the Linuxchix channels, I learned how resilient a community can be, and how creative security can be -- even fun.

So, codes of conduct. In the wake of the recent controversy following PyCon, one of my friends said that they imply that all men are assholes. This surprised me. Linuxchix has two rules: Be polite. Be helpful. All people are expected to follow them; I see the rules as intentional community. We want polite and helpful resources, so those are the rules for everyone. The Ubuntu CoC has grown a bit through the years, but is still phrased positively: http://www.ubuntu.com/project/about-ubuntu/conduct. I prefer the old shorter one, but both are focused on creating a helpful, respectful community.

I like the KDE CoC a lot. Once I found it, I felt much better about becoming involved. It reminded me very much of the simple Linuxchix rules.

This Code of Conduct presents a summary of the shared values and “common sense” thinking in our community. The basic social ingredients that hold our project together include:

• Be considerate 

• Be respectful 

• Be collaborative 

• Be pragmatic 

• Support others in the community 

• Get support from others in the community -- quoted from http://www.kde.org/code-of-conduct/ 

In my opinion, there is nothing in any of these codes or rules that blames men, or is negative. They paint a picture of a place where we want to work, and hang out with friends afterwards. I'm an older woman as the name of this blog implies, and I don't want to pretend to be a guy to collaborate without hassle. I want to be myself, and be welcomed for the skills and passion I bring. I also want more women and other minorities to feel welcome. A boy's club is not welcoming, and linux has that reputation. Too often well deserved.

So I ask each of my readers, what do you want? Is your behavior creating what you want? This is not aimed at men, by the way. All of us create our culture together, intentionally or not. I hope we will more consciously make our community the most pleasant, welcoming and creative in all of FOSS.

[Note on PyCon: The entire controversy has left me feeling sick. Congratulations are in order to the conference staff and leadership, who conducted themselves well. Yet they now have this mess connected to their fine conference, rather than good memories. There are no winners here, from what I can see. Since I didn't attend, and am not part of that community, no comments on PyCon itself or the controversy will be published here.]

Celebrate Ada Lovelace Day!

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!

Contributions of Non-Technical People

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!

UDS-O Wrapup

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!

OpenWeek session: Introducing Kubuntu

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

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

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!

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

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.

Help the Graner Family

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.

Surviving, Thriving at Ubuntu Developer Summits

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.

Off to CLS and OSCON

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.

Girls Using *Buntu -- Win a Netbook!

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. :-)

Installing Lucid beta -- Adventure Story or Buddy Movie?

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!

Ada Lovelace Day

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!