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 to 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.
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.
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.
to 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.