Posts | Tags | Archive

FOSDEM 2009

Some stuff I want to reminder for next year's FOSDEM:

  • Carry a power bar with at least 3 outlets. Power plugs are a limited resource. With a power bar at FOSDEM you always will be able to get power for your laptop/gadgets and make new friends. All at the same time!
  • Make a backup schedule, in case the talk you wanted to attend run out of space.
  • Häagen-Dazs next to LUIZA/LOUISE metro station is good for breakfast and dessert. And there is wifi!

End of backports and about KDE in Lenny

About a week ago I updated the KDE 4.1 backports for Lenny with the fourth and last revision of KDE 4.1.
As previously announced, this will be the last update available at http://kde4.debian.net

What is next?

The repository will continue there, so Lenny users can choose between KDE 3.5.9+ and KDE 4.1.4. But since 4.1.4 packages are not official, they do not have support: no bugs in the BTS or security updates.
If you are using Debian Lenny for stability and security purposes, you should use KDE 3.5.

Testing users (future squeeze, current Lenny) can continue using them until KDE 4.2 reaches testing. Again, remember, no bugs in the BTS or security updates, but they will get a clean upgrade to KDE 4.2 in the near future.

Unstable users. I have found that there are people using unstable with the backports, when they should be using experimental KDE 4.1. If this is your case, you can stick with 4.1.4 until KDE 4.2 reaches unstable or switch to experimental in a few days and get KDE 4.2 (no yet! it needs to be released first :) ).

Last, but not less important, thanks to all the people helping with the backports: MoDaX for helping as backup and the rest of the Qt/KDE team who worked in the experimental packages. HE, zobel and aba for his sysadmin tasks. apol for allowing me torture his PowerPC machine. All those who translated the instructions into their languages and
helped to others users in mailing lists and forums.

A quick note about KDE 3.5 to be released in Lenny

As most of you have realized, the packages of KDE 3.5 in Lenny and unstable are a mixture of KDE 3.5.9 and 3.5.10. Given that KDE 3.5.10 was released after Lenny was frozen, we could not push this new version into Lenny, however the KDE 3.5 packages were patched about June last year with the latest changes in KDE 3.5 from the KDE subversion. This means some of the modules with the version 3.5.9 are exactly the same that is shipped as 3.5.10.
The only "big" stuff missing are the kicker improvements shipped in kdebase and some bug fixes in kdepim. But in global, it is closer to KDE 3.5.10 that to KDE 3.5.9. If you want to see what changes are you missing, check the KDE 3.5.10 changelog.


New Year's proposal: look at your reported bugs!

Happy New Year everybody!

I have a little New Year's proposal for you all, users and developers.

Take a look to the bugs you have reported in Debian, this can be very easily done by browsing:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?submitter=USER@DOMAIN.NET
where USER@DOMAIN.NET is the email address you used for reporting. Then update the bug reports information in the following way:

  • If the bug is already fixed, send an email to BUGNUMBER-done@bugs.debian.org with a quick explanation like "it is not reproducible anymore" and the bug will be closed.
  • If the bug is still there, send a email to BUGNUMBER@bugs.debian.org and specify all the new information you are able to add: newer software version where it still applies, way of reproducing the bug.

Alternatively, you can look at the bugs of your favorite package and help the maintainer. Go to http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?pkg=PACKAGE replacing PACKAGE with the application name, look at the bugs and send a email to BUGNUMBER@bugs.debian.org with all the information you can gather about the bug: if you can reproduce it (and if yes, how), versions affected, also you can make a patch...:) etc.

Above, I only gave basic hints of how to interact with the Debian BTS, if you want to know more, read the documentation at http://www.debian.org/Bugs/.

© Ana Guerrero Lopez. Built using Pelican. Theme is subtle by Carey Metcalfe. Based on svbhack by Giulio Fidente.