Category: Ubuntu

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  • Up early, down to breakfast.
  • First session was on what to do about ubuntu-dev-tools, a set of scripts that make Ubuntu developers’ lives easier. Mostly the goals were to get all the relevant ones into Debian and split the rest into more topical packages. (blueprint, notes)
  • Next was a session on integrating applications that ship by default with the Unity interface. Most of the ideas revolved around adding items to the right-click menu for each of the icons in the launcher bar (that’s the spiffy icon bar on the left if you’re using the latest Ubuntu) or little progress bars in the icons for things like downloads. (blueprint, notes)
  • Then there was a session on what the default email client should be in the next Ubuntu release. It was decided that Mozilla Thunderbird will get the nod if certain conditions are met (the most onerous being enough space on the CD). (blueprint, notes)
  • Next I attended a session reviewing the Linux kernel configurations for the various flavors of Ubuntu. This was every bit as boring as it sounds. (blueprint, notes)
  • After lunch everyone got together for a group photo (if you zoom in you can see me towards the front on the left).
  • There was a session discussing the relationship between Ubuntu and GNOME. There was a bit of tension as the two projects have started moving in different directions and those differences haven’t always been communicated with the utmost tact and diplomacy. (blueprint, notes)
  • Next was a pretty interesting discussion on session saving, or saving the set of open programs and their state when you log out. This was removed in the last release but they’re looking to put it back in, though in a less hackish way than before. (blueprint, notes)
  • Last meeting of the day was a session on how to reduce the number of patches carried in Ubuntu packages. This session quickly degenerated into a review of specific patches against GNOME packages. (blueprint, notes)
  • The OEM team had its team dinner, which started as a cocktail hour, then moved to a nearby restaurant for pizza (again!) and beer, then to another place for even moreCorinthia Hotel By Night beer. I got to know my new teammates a bit, and got to chat with the likes of Jono Bacon, Stuart Langridge, and Ken VanDine. Eventually I made it back to my room and promptly passed out.

Stuart Langridge

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  • Up early; down to breakfast.
  • Went to a Unity Design Feedback session in which I lamented aloud the lack of sloppy focus support. Others raised points both positive and negative about the design and we got some clues about how some of the current issues will be resolved in this cycle. (notes)
  • Next up was a session on debugging suspend and hibernate support. The presenter had some interesting ideas about how to get debug information from the kernel when it freezes before things like video are brought up. The basic idea was using either the PC speaker or a keyboard LED to encode the state of the system. This would be recorded using a camera or audio recorder and sent to the developers, who would have the tools to extract the data. (blueprint, notes)
  • I then went to a session on dual-monitor support. The general idea of this was that the current way of setting up multiple monitors is crap and that it can be done much more intelligently. (blueprint, notes)
  • Last up before lunch was a session about porting Gwibber to GTK3. I’m a huge fan of Gwibber in general, but it takes up far too many resources in its current state. Happy to hear they’re moving all the logic into the back end and rewriting a very simple client in Vala. (blueprint, notes)
  • After lunch I went back to my room to relax a bit. Tried to call Emily but I guess my timing was not as good as I had thought.
  • Next was a session on Ubuntu’s distributed development processes. (blueprint, notes)
  • After that I went to a riveting session on postinst scripts for kernel packages and how to align them better with upstream initramfs-tools. (blueprint, notes)
  • Last session of the day was a Q&A with Mark Shuttleworth about governance in the Ubuntu community. He answered questions about how decisions like those around Unity and Banshee were made and how processes like those could be improved. (notes)
  • After dropping my bag in my room I met up with a large group heading to the Invisible Exhibition. Some members of the Hungarian Ubuntu Local Community team were gracious enough to guide us through the extensive public transit system Invisible Exhibition Ito the exhibition and arrange for English-speaking guides for us. The exhibition itself consisted of several environments which we had to navigate and interact with in total darkness, simulating the everyday life of a blind person. There was a cabin, a forest, a busy street, a statue garden, an apartment, and a bar. In each place we tried to find our way around using only touch and hearing, helping each other as best we could. The statue garden had replicas of famous statues which we had to try to identify just by touching them. In the bar we were given the chance to buy a drink. Not being familiar at all with the coin of the realm made this a challenging and entertaining endeavor. Surprisingly enough I only messed up the value of one coin and I was able to enjoy a beer in total darkness.
  • When we had re-acclimated ourselves to the light we took a streetcar back toward the hotel and ended up at a little Italian restaurant where we had pizza (again!) and talked a while before heading back.

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  • Up early, still a bit woozy from jet lag (or perhaps an overabundance of cheap beer). Breakfast in a beautiful gallery encased almost entirely in glass. Lots of natural light. Helps with the waking up.
  • First session of the day was a discussion with some of the Qt developers. They talked about some features and upcoming Qt releases. (blueprint, notes)
  • I was still feeling a bit off and perhaps I overdid it at breakfast, but I decided to take a break during the second session and have a brief nap in my room.
  • Next up was a session on Ubuntu One and its model for sharing files with other people. Several paradigms for sharing were discussed including public sharing, private sharing, and collaboration. The main sticking points were how to handle each type gracefully and expose the options to do so to the user without overwhelming them. (blueprint, notes)
  • Following that I attended a session checking up on Ubuntu’s relationship with Debian. I’m told that in the past these sessions got pretty heated, but judging from the tone of this particular session things must be improving. (blueprint, notes)
  • After lunch I spent some time in the super secret OEM private room, where I got a preview of some upcoming projects and some really cool toys.
  • Next I went to a session discussing uploading packages by committing to a package branch rather than uploading a whole source package to the builder. There are some technical nits that need picking on the bzr side (of course they use bzr 🙂 ) but it looks like it could streamline the packaging process a bit. (blueprint, notes)
  • Last session of the day was a discussion of simplifying Ubuntu’s hardware verification tool. Apparently there are several versions of it floating around used by different groups and the goal is to merge all of them into a single code base. (blueprint, notes)
  • After the sessions a few of us rented bikes from the concierge desk and took a little sightseeing ride around the city. We rode across the Danube into Buda (our hotel is in Pest) and along some riverside trails before finding a pathway to a Parliament Buildinglittle island in the middle of the river. We rode around the island a bit, spotting some ruins, a bird sanctuary and even an Ultimate Frisbee game. We eventually found a nice beer garden where we stopped for dinner and drinks. I finally had some dark beer the name of which I couldn’t pronounce and some pizza which I could also not pronounce but it had mushrooms, broccoli, and corn on it. Pictures of the sightseeing ride and from the rest of the trip can be found on my flickr page.
  • As it was getting dark we headed back to the hotel. A relatively early night.

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  • After several hours attempting to sleep on the plane, gave up and decided to watch The Green Hornet. Not bad from what I saw, but what I saw didn’t include the last 20 minutes since we landed just as the movie was reaching its climax. Going to have to Netflix it just to watch the end.
  • We landed in Frankfurt just late enough for me to miss my connecting flight to Budapest. Seven others were in the same boat. We banded together to support each other as we navigated the Frankfurt airport on the wild goose chase that was our attempt to get scheduled on another flight. As we deplaned on the tarmac we were met with a shuttle bus for people heading to Budapest. They rushed us back to the terminal but we were stymied at passport control and sadly were not able to make the flight. The nice folks from the airport apologized profusely and guided us to the Lufthansa desk so we might get rebooked. Unfortunately the Lufthansa folks couldn’t do anything for us, as we’d all originally booked on US Airways. Even more unfortunately, the US Airways desk was outside the security perimeter (As an aside, what is the point of the whole “Star Alliance” thing if they can’t just call each other to get someone on a flight? As another aside, the Frankfurt airport is HUGE). We exited passport control again (I have TWO German stamps on my passport for the price of one!) and took the airbus to the other terminal. Once there we tracked down the US Airways ticketing desk and rebooked on Malév Hungarian Airlines for a flight two hours later. We tracked down the Malév check-in desk then headed back through security and found our gate. After a couple of hours spent joking about what else might keep us from getting to Budapest we finally boarded and were on our way.Malév Hungarian Airlines
  • Landed in Budapest around noon, only three hours after I’d planned to. Traded in some dollars for Hungarian forints and hopped on a shuttle bus to the hotel.
  • Emailed my new manager asking where I might meet him then took a much-needed shower. Got a response by the time I was done and headed down to the main floor to start my first day of work.
  • Spent most of the afternoon meeting various Canonical and Ubuntu folks and attending UDS sessions.
  • The session on cleaning up the startup apps was pretty interesting. It was more about cleaning up the UI for setting startup apps, but there was some discussion of what should be there by default. (blueprint, notes)
  • Also attended the session discussing whether to continue limiting the size of CD images to 700MB (I know that sounds weird). Points were raised about how many folks actually burn the images to CD vs. using a USB thumb drive and whether the DVD image might be made smaller. (blueprint, notes)
  • After the sessions was a meet-and-greet where everybody was able to schmooze it up over free food, beer, and wine. Speaking of schmoozing, I met Mark Shuttleworth and got to talk to him for a few minutes. I managed not to ask him about space (I’m sure he gets that a lot) and he said he was very excited about what the OEM team (which I’ve joined) is doing and  how it will help spread Ubuntu to the masses.
  • Caught up with Lyz Krumbach and a couple of my new coworkers. Heard some stories of past UDS shenanigans. Apparently the UDS in Brussels was legendary. They told me tales of pants dropped and cut rear ends.
  • Once the free beer ran out we took the party to a nearby bar. Discussion ranged from perspectives on working for Canonical to Lyz’s perspective as a community member and mine as the new guy and what type of beer is popular in Australia.
  • Got back to the room way too late. This is the start of a pattern.

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As I’m sure many of my very few readers will have heard by now, I’ve made an exciting career move. As of this past Wednesday I am no longer working at Timesys. Starting Monday May 9 I will be an employee of Canonical Ltd., otherwise known as the corporate backer of the Ubuntu Linux distribution. I will be joining the OEM Services team, which helps customize Ubuntu for new hardware, such as tablets and laptops. I’m also very excited to say that my first day will be at UDS in Budapest, Hungary.

I can’t begin to describe how much I’ve enjoyed working with my friends and colleagues at Timesys. I learned more in my three and a half years there than in all my years of schooling. Each member of the engineering team — from the coders to the manager — is a rock star at what he does, which was a little intimidating when I started. But they all helped me find my place on the team, and each helped me to become a better programmer and engineer.

I will be working from Canonical’s Pittsburgh headquarters (a.k.a. my house). I will miss commuting to downtown every day, and seeing these folks who have become my friends. I will also miss the wonderful lunch options that Downtown Pittsburgh has to offer (though I suspect my waistline won’t). I will be sure to visit Timesys from time to time to drink their beer, and I will even consider the CEO’s offer to let me rent my old cube. 😉

In the meantime I want to wish everyone at Timesys the best of luck, and hope that they show enough respect to at least wait until Monday to raid my desk.

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  • Up early; to work.
  • Driver work continues, but no real progress made. Vendor people are working in parallel, so with luck one of us will find the answer soon.
  • Excited about the Gnome 3 release. Been using it at home for a while from the Ubuntu PPA. I’m told the experience is better on other distributions but I have it working well enough for now. I’ll probably check it out on my laptop when it hits Debian Unstable.
  • Home to play some more Mass Effect 2. It’s becoming an addiction already. I hope that the weather gets nice enough soon to draw me away.

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Ada Lovelace Day

March 24th is Ada Lovelace day, which in the words of a good friend of mine, “[reminds] us all that ‘Girls can’t handle programming’ isn’t just wrong and stupid, it’s historically hilarious”.

It’s a day when many of us in the computer industry set aside some time to recognize our female colleagues and comrades who inspire us and help us along the way.

There are two women I’d like to recognize today for making my computing life all the more pleasant:

pleia2 Lyz Krumbach, along with the other members of the Ubuntu PA team, helped me to come out of my shell on IRC and make contributions to discussions as well as (meager, yet proud contributions) to the Ubuntu Project itself. She is a Linux sysadmin by day and devotes much of her spare time to the Ubuntu and Debian projects as a software packager, educator, and advocate.  Her name has been appearing in the blogs of many, on this day of recognition, in the Ubuntu and Debian projects and beyond, and I thought I’d take this opportunity to add my name to the list.
Emily It would be criminal of me to discuss the women in tech who have influenced my life without mentioning my blushing bride-to-be, Emily Oleksyk. We worked at the same company a few years ago where I was instantly impressed with her easygoing manner and confidence in a company full of stodgy old men (and a stodgy young me). And this was before we were even introduced! She’s ten times the programmer I’ll ever be and she’s even gracious enough to let me think she doesn’t know it.
I should also mention that Emily comes from an impressive tech pedigree. Her mother’s cousin, Isabelle French, was National President of The Society of Women Engineers from 1964-1966 and was actively involved in the organization long before and after. She was also the first woman to graduate with a degree in radio engineering from Tri-State College in Angola, IN in 1944. With someone like that to look up to it’s easy to see why Emily rocks as hard as she does.