Richard A. Johnson

This weekend, April 4^th and 5^th, is the annual Flourish Conference, a decent sized free software conference held at the University of Illinois at Chicago. This years guest speakers include Bruce Perens, John ‘Maddog’ Hall, James Bottomley, Brian Fitzpatrick, Ben Collins-Sussman, and me of course, plus many more. Some of the events being held include a mini-BarCamp, a Hack-A-Thon, and a Web Framework battle. If you are in or around Chicago, I hope to see you there! I will be giving a talk on the KDE community as well as KDE 4.

Lighter side of things, I updated my Vista box to SP1 this past week. I haven’t been attacked by the driver issues and what not, but I am getting killed every time I let the computer fall asleep. I can click my mouse button to wake the computer up, but upon wakeup, neither the keyboard or the mouse work. I was going to file a bug report, however I was unable to find their bug tracker

I see we are now a few weeks away from the 8.04 release. That is pretty groovy. Is it me or did this release cycle seem to go on forever? Dapper was 9 months yet seemed faster. Edgy was 3 months and was really fast. Feisty and Gutsy flew by, but Hardy, heck we still have a few weeks to go. What a busy cycle. I am excited with a lot of the new features with our beloved Kubuntu release. Thus far, Kubuntu Hardy with KDE 4 has been rock solid. The only issue I had during this entire cycle was the libc6 issue. Remember that one? That was fun

My blog was recently updated to WordPress 2.5. I am not sure yet if I really like the whole new admin interface just yet. It seems a bit slower than the previous releases, but it does look a tad bit better in most ways. I didn’t have any problems either. Gotta love those one-click installs that Dreamhost provides. All I had to do was just update the database and rock on. None of the problems like with the previous 2.2.x releases that drove many of us up a wall.

Oh well, here’s to you and hoping that I see you at Flourish! Take care!

Working on my ‘inbox zero’ project right now after a day of enjoying the lovely Chicago weather we are having right now. One thing that strikes me are the amount of mailing lists I seem to be subscribed to. I am currently sitting at about 50 mailing lists. Honestly, this sounds ridiculous, like totally impossible to keep up with. I know there are a few local ones I could probably ditch that I really don’t follow 100%, but I do like knowing when there is a meeting locally that I can show up at and learn something. Out of these 50 lists, between 40 and 45 are development based. How in the hell could I possibly follow 40/45 development lists? I don’t respond to every email in the list but I have and still do communicate on everyone of the lists, one way or another.

My current list subscription looks like this: For Ubuntu there are; Kubuntu (-devel and -users), Ubuntu Translations (I only know English, however this is a very important channel, as I can pimp packages ready for those hard working translators to attack), 3 MOTU channels (MC, MM, and MOTU), LP, IRC, IllinoisTeam (nobody even uses this, goodbye), Fridge, Docs, Ubuntu dev, 8.04 Commits, ChicagoTeam, Bug squad. The I have a mix of local channels ranging from the LUGs, to hackers and language communities. Then I have a few Foresight development lists, some Debian development lists, and then most of the KDE development lists.

Actually, 49 lists. One of those lists is the Hardy commit list, no responding, just keeping up with who is uploading what. So I ask you, how many lists do you follow? How many do you actively respond to? Is 49 or 50 way to many? Is 49 or 50 total developer newb status? If you follow these many lists or more, how do you do it? What is your magic?

Want the current KDE 4 goodness in Ubuntu or Kubuntu 8.04? If so, simply install kubuntu-kde4-desktop and enjoy! Current version is 4.0.2 with 4.0.3 due out towards the beginning of April.

night · mare [nayht-mare]

1. a terrifying dream in which the dreamer experiences feelings of helplessness, extreme anxiety, sorrow, etc.
2. a condition, thought, or experience suggestive of a nightmare: the nightmare of his years in prison.
3. (formerly) a monster or evil spirit believed to oppress persons during sleep.

That is the definition of nightmare according to Dictionary.com.

How many people had those feelings expressed in the definition? Well, from looking at the bug report, forum thread, mailing lists, and IRC, I think some may agree it was a nightmare. I am here to tell you that it was nothing more than a bad dream however.

A bad dream? Rich, you have got to be out of your mind! True, but I am always out of my mind, nothing new here.

Lets think about it for one minute. This libc6 issue didn’t occur in Dapper, Edgy, Feisty, or Gutsy, it occurred in Hardy. Hardy is currently in, what we like to refer to as, a development cycle or unstable release. Did it render our systems useless? Of course it did, but guess what? We have these great things called Live CDs, not only so you can test out Ubuntu or Kubuntu, but so you can also fix breakage that comes your way. Think about other operating systems where you don’t have this option. Sure, they may have a rollback option (which I am sure we will see eventually in Linux), or you may be one of the lucky ones where selecting “repair” from the installation CD fixes your problem, but most of the time with those other systems, you have to do some R&R, and I don’t mean rest and relaxation, I mean reformat and reinstall. Thank goodness for those Live CDs though, as I have seen more people fix their Windows machine with a Live CD more so than they have with the Windows CD or DVD that they paid hundreds for.

But still, MY SYSTEM DIDN’T WORK AFTER THIS UPGRADE! THAT’S RIDICULOUS! No it isn’t, you are using a distribution release that is meant for developers and for those who are not faint of heart.

OK FINE! BUT WHY WASN’T THERE TESTING DONE ON THIS!?! There was, it broke your system didn’t it? You tested it, now the developers know it didn’t work. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Pre-releases of Hardy are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.

Hey, don’t get me wrong, I was just as pissed off as many of you were, and actually on a couple of occasions spoke before thinking when this happened last night. We are human, we make mistakes, and we learn from our mistakes. With this being the only major issue I have seen come across during the Hardy development cycle, I have to say, we have learned a lot over the past few years if only one nightmare, or really a bad dream, occurred during a development cycle.

So remember, before you go off saying “I thought Ubuntu had a QA process”, or “Why wasn’t this tested?” Remember, in a development cycle, the people using and working with the OS are the QA process and they are the same people testing it.

The FIX took me no more than a few minutes in order for me to get my system(s) back up and running, probably less time than it took for me to bitch on IRC last night, or more time than it took some of you to bitch in an email, a bug report, or a forums post. I was always told that cooler heads prevail, and I seen that first hand. The people in the forums last night with the cooler heads, they had a quick howto on fixing the problem in a matter of minutes, they didn’t flip out claiming their company went out of business or something dramatic because an unstable version of their OS broke.

So with that said, this was nothing more than a bad dream

I just learned the hard way. I updated all 3 about 15 minutes ago, and lets just say, none of them work. I can get to TTY, but can’t log in. malloc this and malloc that everywhere.

Thank God for my Foresight install! Otherwise, like I just told Ken Vandine, if it weren’t for Foresight, I would be watching TV right now :p So I guess while I have Foresight up and running, KDE 4.0.2 as well baby, I might as well work on some Foresight bugs now.

Talk about irritating, I was working on my 5-a-day and my really-fix-its. Now I will work on a small https issue, some rebranding for Foresight KDE 4, and maybe even some documentation. Get ready Ken, here I come! Prepare to upload

/me ssh’s into Og’s box and does ‘sudo conary update group-kde-dist’

Celeste, I have no problem going off-topic every now and then with a blog post, I am used to people yelling at me already

Anyways, in response to your 5 artists 5 songs post, here are mine:

Sammy Hagar

• Cabo Wabo (really by Van Halen, but it is Sammy’s song!)
• Eagles Fly (really by Van Halen, but Sammy made the song!)
• Shaka Doobie
• Mas Tequila
• One Sip

The Beatles

• Yesterday
• Hey Jude
• Let it be
• Yellow Submarine
• Come together
• truthfully, there isn’t a Beatles song that isn’t my favorite

Led Zeppelin

• Dazed and confused (man those were the days)
• Stairway to heaven
• Black dog
• Moby Dick
• Kashmir

Pink Floyd

• Comfortably numb
• Time
• The great gig in the sky
• Wish you were here
• Another brick in the wall (Pt. 1 and 2)

Brittany Spears
Eric Claptop

• Tears in heaven (I still shed a tear during this tune)
• Layla
• Crossroads (this is more Robert Johnson, but you can hear Eric wailing away with Cream)
• Cocaine
• Wonderful tonight (my karaoke song on every date)
• and a lot more…

This is tough to list my top 5, as I have a lot of blues and reggae favorites that are up there as well. People like BB King, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Robert Johnson, Blind Boy Fuller, Mephis Minnie, Bo Diddley, Bob Marley, Buju Banton, Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff, and many more. Janis Jopplin is another favorite of mine. OK, I could go on forever, but now I will list my 5 friends who I want to see there 5 groups 5 songs. Those people are Ken Vandine, Kevin Harriss, Jorge Castro, Stephen Stalcup, Jonathan Jesse, and everyone’s favorite, Juan Carlos Torres.

Now for on-topic talk, remember to do your 5 A Day, and remember to drink your Ovaltine!