Re: hwinfo package not available-black screen during Vivid boot

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday, March 27, 2015 06:26:14 PM Felix Miata wrote:
> http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/h/hwinfo/ has the packages,
> though they are old. Neither apt-get nor aptitude acknowledge their
> existence on my fresh minimalist HTTP en_US Vivid installation with sddm
> and kf5 added. Apparently something is supposed to be installed/used in its
> stead when various Google hits in the forums say use hwinfo (with X not
> working). What package would that be?
> 
> The reason I'm asking is there is a conflict between hwinfo and monitor-edid
> (run from booting something else) and vbeinfo (run from Vivid's Grub2
> cmdline). I want to get both sets of info from Vivid before searching for
> any existing bug or considering if a new bug should be reported. No matter
> what I put for gfxmode and/or gfxpayload on Vivid's Grub2 kernel cmdline
> (editing at runtime), I get nothing on screen from the time between Grub
> menu and Greeter, unless instead of either or both I use video=1440x900@60.
> This is the same problem reported by the 2nd poster on
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1474799 five years ago, which was
> never resolved for any of its participants.
> 
> Also FWIW, running MC on any of the ttys, the charset used is wrong, so the
> single box characters are drawn using multiple other characters, making a
> mess of screen output not only normally, but extra when MC popups should be
> clearing.

hwinfo was removed during Saucy development because it was broken (which is 
why Vivid's apt/aptitude don't install it.  It's not present in the packages 
file for Vivid.

Here's what's documented as the removal rationale:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hwinfo/+publishinghistory

Removal requested on 2013-09-06.
Deleted on 2013-09-06

uses deprecated and broken hal, unmaintained in Debian, obsolete, LP#1221254

Scott K

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Re: upgrade udev on Ubuntu 14.04

[Scott Kitterman]

On Saturday, March 14, 2015 06:27:14 PM Aron Xu wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 4:33 PM, Qiang Huang 
> 
> wrote:
> > Hi list,
> > 
> > I'm a Docker user, for some reason, I need to use Docker on Ubuntu 14.04
> > with devicemapper driver, but we got a serious problem because udev on
> > Ubuntu 14.04 is too old to support sync, see details:
> > https://github.com/docker/docker/issues/4036
> > 
> > Seems no one ever got around of this problem, I wonder if we can upgrade
> > udev
> > on Ubuntu 14.04 in a smooth way, e.g. from udev 204 to udev 208.
> > (RHEL7 with udev 208 don't have this problem, so I assume udev 208 would
> > work)
> 
> Please ask (and help) back-porting it, that's what -backports repository
> lives for. See the procedure:
> 
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBackports
> 
> Pushing a new major version to -updates repository does not work with
> current policy except some extreme situations (in theory).

Note this from the backports page:

> Continued Functionality of Reverse-Dependencies
> 
> In addition to the backported package itself working, any other software
> that depends on the backported package must continue to run with the
> backported package installed, and any package that has a build-dependency
> on the backported package must build with the new package installed.

Udev has potential impact on a LOT of packages.  It's part of ubuntu-minimal, 
so present in all Ubuntu installations and configurations.  I'm not sure it's 
feasible to validate non-impact for an official backport.

The Ubuntu tech board is in the midst of discussion about supporting docker in 
older releases, so I would imagine they will have to consider how to handle 
this.  I don't think it's straight forward for -backports either.

Scott K

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Re: DebianImportException of FeatureFreezeException for Debian packages?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Sunday, February 22, 2015 06:41:19 PM Ole Streicher wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am trying to get the stable version of python-astropy [1] from
> experimental into Ubuntu so that it can be shipped with 15.04. However,
> I am a bit confused what I should do: I already filed a
> DebianImportException [2] (since it comes in Debian experimental due to
> Debian Freeze) a few hours before the DebianImportFreeze, which
> expectedly was not accepted in time. Now, since both freezes are in
> effect, should I just wait or should I also issue a FFe?
> 
> The package is a basic tool for astronomers and just hit its first
> stable release. The release is well-tested (with two release candidates)
> on all Debian platforms (it comes with an extensive unity test
> collection that is executed during the package buildprocess), and it
> builds on i386 and x86_64 in a private Launchpad repository [3].
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Ole
> 
> [1] https://packages.debian.org/source/experimental/python-astropy
> [2] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/python-astropy/+bug/1423665
> [3] https://launchpad.net/~olebole/+archive/ubuntu/astro-vivid/+packages

What you want now is an FFe.

Scott K

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Re: Go 1.3 is unmaintained/unsupported upstream

[Scott Kitterman]

On Saturday, February 14, 2015 05:00:29 PM Martin Pitt wrote:
> Robie Basak [2015-02-13 17:39 +]:
> > But this is the way the world is going, and something I think Ubuntu
> > needs to adapt to.
> 
> I heavily disagree for something as fundamental as a
> toolchain/compiler, but we've had this conversation a lot of times
> already :)
> 
> > I'm not sure how, though. In theory, if their quality is good, could
> > we SRU and rely on their backward compatibility guarantee?
> 
> It's great to hear that there now is some effort to maintain backwards
> compatibility. When we started to adopt Go, there wasn't even that,
> but it was still in the early stage of "anything goes". If there is
> some enforced backwards compatibility now, it does sound prudent to
> re-discuss the maintenance/upgrades indeed.
> 
> > Would we really need to rebuild all reverse dependencies?
> 
> If we'd update Go in a stable release, then we must make sure that all
> reverse dependencies are still *buildable* and still work without a
> regression. IMHO they don't actually need to be rebuilt as SRUs too in
> the sense of doing 70 no-change uploads. We'd only need to upload
> those reverse deps which need sourceful changes to build and/or work
> with a new Go compiler (and then need to have an SRU exception for
> this).

Before libclamav stabilized, we had to do things similar to this.  We not only 
rebuilt them, but also tested they still worked (at least lightly).  That was 
part of the TB approved conditions for the SRU exception.  It takes a lot of 
work, but we have established for a somewhat similar situation it can be done 
and successfully mitigate SRU regression risks.

Scott K

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Re: Go 1.3 is unmaintained/unsupported upstream

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday, February 13, 2015 18:17:29 Martin Pitt wrote:
> John Lenton [2015-02-13 16:26 +]:
> > Go 1.3.3, which we are shipping in Vivid, is unmaintained upstream¹
> > (yes, despite being released less than six months ago).
> > 
> > Would it be possible to move to 1.4 in vivid?
> 
> Better be quick, feature freeze is next Thursday :-) If you
> prepare/upload a package and ensure that all packages that
> build-depend on it are still working (we have 76: reverse-depends -b
> src:golang), it should be fine. I suggest staging that in a PPA, and
> once everything builds, upload the new golang-go, and any package
> which needs updates to build with 1.4.
> 
> > This wouldn't fix the fact that it will become unmaintained in
> > Vivid's timeframe
> 
> It's in universe, so inherently unsupported, and I figure at the
> moment folks developing with Go would rather use some backports or a
> PPA anyway?

Perhaps Go and the redepends should be removed from the archive then?

Scott K

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Re: virtualbox dependency

[Scott Kitterman]

The virtualbox package recommends virtualbox-dkms.  On an Ubuntu system in 
it's default configuration that would mean that anytime you installed 
virtualbox or virtualbox-qt, virtualbox-dkms would be installed.  If Mint 
doesn't do that, you should probably take this up with Mint developers.  It's 
not an Ubuntu issue.

Scott K

On Thursday, December 04, 2014 01:29:27 AM Istimsak Abdulbasir wrote:
> Actually, Virtualbox should install those dependencies by default. Would
> make sense if vbox won't run without it.
> 
> On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 6:56 PM, Simos Xenitellis  > wrote:
> > 
> > On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 8:14 PM, Scott Richardson
> > 
> >  wrote:
> > > virtualbox-qt (4.3.10-dfsg-1) requires virtualbox-dkms. Without this, I
> > 
> > get
> > 
> > > the following error when I try to start a virtual machine:
> > > 
> > > Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)
> > > 
> > > The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver (vboxdrv) is either not loaded or
> > 
> > there
> > 
> > > is a permission problem with /dev/vboxdrv. Please reinstall the kernel
> > > module by executing
> > > 
> > > '/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup'
> > > 
> > > as root. If it is available in your distribution, you should install the
> > > DKMS package first. This package keeps track of Linux kernel changes and
> > > recompiles the vboxdrv kernel module if necessary.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > However, /etc/init.d/vboxdrv does not exist. But if I install
> > > virtualbox-dkms manually my virtual machine will start up. It seems like
> > > virtualbox should at least suggest virtualbox-dkms be installed.
> > 
> > The command should have been
> > 
> > sudo dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-dkms
> > 
> > Perhaps the error message should be updated to the new command.
> > 
> > Simos
> > 
> > --
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> > Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
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Re: Devuan

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, December 01, 2014 04:31:55 PM Diego Germán Gonzalez wrote:
> El 01/12/14 a las 15:45, Michael Hall escibió:
> > Please do keep an eye on Devuan's development, and participate in it if
> > you are interested in the direction they are taking. But I think we can
> > all agree that it is*far*  too early to start thinking about rebase-ing
> > off of it.
> 
> I only seek to comment that it would be interesting to pay attention to
> the project. I do not know why it ended in a discussion about systemd or
> its alternatives. or why it created so many negative reactions.
> It is not the first time that Ubuntu takes a fork (libreoffice, libav)
> and I think that negative reactions as exaggerated discourage
> participation of users

The only reason Devuan exists is some people "don't like" for a large value of 
"don't like" systemd, so if you bring it up, systemd is automatically in the 
picture.

Personally, as someone who participates in both Ubuntu and Debian development, 
I'm entirely sick of the topic.  While I don't want to discourage user 
participation generally, I don't think this is a productive line of 
conversation.

Scott K

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Re: Devuan

[Scott Kitterman]

I'm not a list admin, so it's only my opinion.  I don't have any power stop 
anyone from saying anything.  People can discuss whatever they want that's 
related to Ubuntu development (thus the name of the list).  Personally, I 
think discussion of other potential Debian derivatives doesn't qualify.  Other 
people may feel differently.

What you might consider is that many Ubuntu developers don't bother to 
subscribe to this list since the signal to noise ratio is low.  If you lower 
it, then more will unsubscribe.  

This is supposed to be a list where developers and non-developers can interact 
and discuss Ubuntu development, but in the past developers have just 
unsubscribed when it got to unpleasant.

We really, really don't need the Debian systemd flames leaking into Ubuntu.  
Posting about it here is, in my opinion, only going to have a negative result.  
Most (if not all) of the Ubuntu developers who work on the core platform 
(including init) are also involved in Debian, so it's not like we aren't well 
aware of it.

Scott K

On Monday, December 01, 2014 18:11:20 Alexander Hanff wrote:
> Who died and made you god of what people can and cannot discuss on this
> list.  Diego spotted an interesting new development which he brought to the
> attention of the list with the suggestion that it might potentially be
> useful to Ubuntu in the future - that is completely relevant and completely
> acceptable content to post - you have zero right to come down on him and
> accuse him of being off-topic just because you don't like the idea, so
> please, get off your high horse.
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: ubuntu-devel-discuss-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com
> [mailto:ubuntu-devel-discuss-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Scott
> Kitterman
> Sent: 01 December 2014 18:03
> To: ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Re: Devuan
> 
> As I explained, it's not relevant.  I get you think it is.  I disagree.  The
> mail (since you care to debate it) is also based on a false premise.  There
> is no requirement in Debian to use systemd as the init system.  It is the
> default.  It's trivial to retain sysvinit and possible to use upstart.
> 
> None of which is relevant to Ubuntu which has never offered init system
> choice and moved off of sysvinit last decade.
> 
> Scott K
> 
> On Monday, December 01, 2014 05:58:37 PM Alexander Hanff wrote:
> > I don't think your response was called for Scott - whether you agree
> > or not with the suggestion doesn't make it any less relevant.  To say
> > it is off-topic is ridiculous, it is absolutely relevant to Ubuntu
> > development and was something Diego wanted to point out as a potential
> > option for Ubuntu in the future.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > -Original Message-
> > From: ubuntu-devel-discuss-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com
> > [mailto:ubuntu-devel-discuss-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of
> > Scott Kitterman
> > Sent: 01 December 2014 17:42
> > To: ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com
> > Subject: Re: Devuan
> > 
> > On Monday, December 01, 2014 11:22:22 AM Diego Germán Gonzalez wrote:
> > > I just learned of the launch of Devuan https://devuan.org/ A fork of
> > > Debian which eliminates the requirement to use systemd, and promises
> > > to build a less bureaucratic and more friendly community towards the
> > > derived distros Will have to see how the project evolves, but if
> > > they do not be a bad idea that Ubuntu will begin to rely on it
> > 
> > That's rather unrelated to Ubuntu development.  Ubuntu has taken it's
> > own decisions on init systems for some time (it wasn't in this decade
> > that Ubuntu last had a release that used sysvinit).
> > 
> > Please stay on topic.



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Re: Devuan

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, December 01, 2014 14:17:57 Diego Germán Gonzalez wrote:
> El 01/12/14 a las 14:11, Alexander Hanff escibió:
> > Who died and made you god of what people can and cannot discuss on this
> > list.  Diego spotted an interesting new development which he brought to
> > the
> > attention of the list with the suggestion that it might potentially be
> > useful to Ubuntu in the future - that is completely relevant and
> > completely
> > acceptable content to post - you have zero right to come down on him and
> > accuse him of being off-topic just because you don't like the idea, so
> > please, get off your high horse.
> 
> A distro is much more than a bit of code. Devuan uses systemD it as an
> excuse to create a more open, less bureaucratic and more friendly to the
> derivative distrio community.
> Anyway Debian recently modified its decision not to mandate systemd
> after  protests within the community

Nonsense.  It was never mandatory.

Scott K

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Re: Devuan

[Scott Kitterman]

As I explained, it's not relevant.  I get you think it is.  I disagree.  The 
mail (since you care to debate it) is also based on a false premise.  There is 
no requirement in Debian to use systemd as the init system.  It is the 
default.  It's trivial to retain sysvinit and possible to use upstart.

None of which is relevant to Ubuntu which has never offered init system choice 
and moved off of sysvinit last decade.

Scott K

On Monday, December 01, 2014 05:58:37 PM Alexander Hanff wrote:
> I don't think your response was called for Scott - whether you agree or not
> with the suggestion doesn't make it any less relevant.  To say it is
> off-topic is ridiculous, it is absolutely relevant to Ubuntu development and
> was something Diego wanted to point out as a potential option for Ubuntu in
> the future.
> 
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: ubuntu-devel-discuss-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com
> [mailto:ubuntu-devel-discuss-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Scott
> Kitterman
> Sent: 01 December 2014 17:42
> To: ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Re: Devuan
> 
> On Monday, December 01, 2014 11:22:22 AM Diego Germán Gonzalez wrote:
> > I just learned of the launch of Devuan https://devuan.org/ A fork of
> > Debian which eliminates the requirement to use systemd, and promises
> > to build a less bureaucratic and more friendly community towards the
> > derived distros Will have to see how the project evolves, but if they
> > do not be a bad idea that Ubuntu will begin to rely on it
> 
> That's rather unrelated to Ubuntu development.  Ubuntu has taken it's own
> decisions on init systems for some time (it wasn't in this decade that
> Ubuntu last had a release that used sysvinit).
> 
> Please stay on topic.
> 
> Scott K
> 
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Re: Devuan

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, December 01, 2014 11:22:22 AM Diego Germán Gonzalez wrote:
> I just learned of the launch of Devuan
> https://devuan.org/
> A fork of Debian which eliminates the requirement to use systemd, and
> promises to build a less bureaucratic and more friendly community
> towards the derived distros
> Will have to see how the project evolves, but if they do not be a bad
> idea that Ubuntu will begin to rely on it

That's rather unrelated to Ubuntu development.  Ubuntu has taken it's own 
decisions on init systems for some time (it wasn't in this decade that Ubuntu 
last had a release that used sysvinit).

Please stay on topic.

Scott K

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Re: Why Ubuntu doesn’t support certain form of shebang for Python?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, November 11, 2014 15:52:22 Neal McBurnett wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 05:19:38PM -0500, Barry Warsaw wrote:
> > On Nov 11, 2014, at 11:48 AM, Neal McBurnett wrote:
> > >I'm glad that python2 is in Debian and Ubuntu (do you know offhand which
> > >releases?).  Which distros is it still not supported in?  Are they likely
> > >to catch up?
> > 
> > Sorry, I don't know off-hand.
> > 
> > >Do you see a path to a world where compliance with PEP 0394 is the right
> > >approach, making the transition to python3 easier?
> > >
> > >  http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0394/
> > 
> > I suspect PEP 394 will mostly be a reflection of reality rather than a
> > driver of downstream policy.  E.g. I think it will be a very long time,
> > if ever, that you'll see PEP 394 recommend, or widespread de facto
> > adoption, of /usr/bin/python pointing to Python 3.  Maybe by Python 4
> > .
> > 
> > Hopefully though PEP 394 will stop other distros from doing insane things
> > like was done with that one existing "adventurous" outlier.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > -Barry
> 
> I should have clarified my point better.  Scott's message recommended
> putting python, rather than python2 in shebangs, since it works in more
> distros.  That seems to be In contrast with PEP 394, which says to use
> python2 rather than python, unless the code works in both python 2.x and
> python 3.x.  That is in order to facilitate migration, and it would be
> necessary before anyone could make the next step you talk of (pointing
> python to python 3).
> 
> That's why I'm wondering where the PEP 394 approach doesn't currently work,
> and when we might indeed recommend following the current PEP 394 standard.

Personally, I think PEP 394 was a mistake.  As I said, there is no single 
shebang you can use that will get the correct result on all distros.  
/usr/bin/python works on all but one.  Creating /usr/bin/python2 as an 
attempted fix for their insanity didn't actually solve the problem anytime 
soon.

If /usr/bin/python ever points to a python3 version in Debian/Ubuntu, then 
it's likely I'm not involved in the maintenance anymore.  The sane plan would 
be just to retire it when python2.7 is no longer supported and just use 
/usr/bin/python3 (or whatever) after that.  There's no benefit and only risk of 
pain to ever switching /usr/bin/python to point to python3.  Even after 
python2.7 is removed from the archive, people will compile their own, so why 
ask for trouble.

Scott K

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Re: Why Ubuntu doesn’t support certain form of shebang for Python?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, November 11, 2014 13:04:38 Rodney Dawes wrote:
> On Tue, 2014-11-11 at 18:02 +0100, GatoLoko wrote:
> > Since different distributions and unix systems may have different paths,
> > you may want to use the env utility in a shebang like "#!/usr/bin/env
> > python2".
> 
> Using /usr/bin/env will cause problems in certain conditions, such as
> when running under a virtualenv and other such environments.
> 
> Also, for python 2.x scripts, you should always use /usr/bin/python, and
> if python3 is required, /usr/bin/python3. There is no guarantee that
> "python2" will be a valid command.

The problem is that one Linux distro went insane and pointed /usr/bin/python 
at a python3 version, which is the only reason the PEP creating 
/usr/bin/python2 exists, so thanks to them there is no common shebang one can 
be sure will always work.  /usr/bin/python works fine everywhere but one 
distro, so that's what I'd use too.  /usr/bin/env python{2} is fine for 
developer oriented packages where they may want to override the default python 
version in some contained environment, but risky for things that are part of 
an actual system.

Scott K

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Re: Our Networking Story

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday, March 07, 2014 12:57:37 Robie Basak wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 06, 2014 at 01:32:17PM -0800, Benjamin Kerensa wrote:
> > Why was it  necessary to have discussions internally when they could
> > have been open by default?
> 
> (wearing both my Canonical and Ubuntu hats)
> 
> Are Canonical employees not allowed to speak to each other now? I think
> you're being unreasonable. As far as I can tell, Bryan spoke to his
> colleagues about specific problems, reached consensus with his
> colleagues that these are real problems that affect Ubuntu more
> generally, and has brought his problem set and thoughts up for public
> discussion on public mailing lists and at UDS. He's done this (as far as
> I can tell) before any implementation, or even any thought as to what
> any decision Ubuntu makes should be.
> 
> Note that I (Canonical Server Team + Ubuntu Server Team) am as new to
> this as you are. I'm not aware of any prior internal discussion. The
> first I heard of this was when he asked, on a public IRC channel, to
> have the blueprint that he'd written approved, and I (remember, I'm
> Canonical staff) asked him to email the public list to make sure that
> his concerns reach as wide a public audience as possible.
> 
> He's done exactly the right thing, and now you're berating him for this?

That's good to know.

On the subject of not berating though, that was not at all clear from the 
initial message.  It could well have been a synonym for "we've worked this out 
internally and now we're going to roll out to the community what we decided".  
It's not like that doesn't happen either.  

Scott K

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Re: Our Networking Story

[Scott Kitterman]

On Thursday, March 06, 2014 14:48:52 Bryan Quigley wrote:
> We've had a lot of internal Canonical discussions about our networking
> story and before going to a UDS session [1] it was suggested to post to
> ubuntu-devel.
> 
> *Network Restart*
> I'd like to start by asking each of you what you think is the correct way
> to restart networking on Ubuntu server?  Feel free to write it down and
> include it in any replies :).
> 
> It turns out our documentation has been wrong and the following are not
> correct and more importantly don't work consistently over 10.04/12.04/14.04
> [2]:
> sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
> sudo restart networking
> 
> The correct way I've been told is to use the ifupdown scripts. It's
> important to note that this is different on the desktop due to
> network-manager.
> 
> I feel we need to publicly discuss if we really want the ifupdown scripts
> to be the only supported way to manage/restart networking.  We've been
> communicating the opposite for quite some time now..
> 
> Related question:
> Do we not support giving users the ability to restart networking equivalent
> to rebooting the system?  (Upstart is used when booting, not when manually
> doing the ifupdown scripts).
> 
> 
> *More complicated network setups*
> There are many bugs in regards to bonds/vlans/bridging and other more
> complex networking setups.  It appears like it might be a limitation to how
> ifupdown is designed.
> 
> We have had cases where the MTU needs to be set using a pre-up or post-up
> option in the interfaces file instead of a plain MTU line.
> Bond interfaces can cause significant pausing in boot/network restart
> The ifupdown script doesn't actually work on bonded interfaces [3]
> 
> race condition updating statefile "sometimes networking interfaces won't
> come up" - was fixed [4]-
> 
> We are seeing many more of cases involving complicated networking setups
> and with more OpenStack deployments this is going to become more of the
> norm.
> 
> My understanding is that ifupdown was not designed to handle a parallel
> boot process like Upstart or systemd.  I'm guessing there are a lot more
> bugs lurking due to that, aside from some other issues with the codebase
> [5].
> 
> *Future Releases*
> NetworkManager everywhere?  systemd-networkd?
> 
> Thanks for discussing,
> Bryan
> 
> 
> [1]
> https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/servercloud-1403-networking
> [2] If you want to see where those actually work see my document here:
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OBN3efJ1LmA0-0DzD3K0eUkIuQdscxLQ-QO1yi3b
> HeM/edit [3]
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ifenslave-2.6/+bug/1254120 [4]
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ifupdown/+bug/1160490 [5]
> http://pureperl.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-debian-ifupdown-package-and.html

Whatever the solution is for this, it's a problem that Ubuntu and Debian 
share.  Now that (eventually) we will single up on a common, modern init 
system, I think it's critical to work with the relevant Debian stakeholders on 
a common approach.

Debian also has a stack of bugs around cases that ifupdown doesn't support 
well and there have been discussions about the best way to move forward, but 
they have (so far) foundered of a lack of knowledgeable manpower to do the 
work.  Perhaps working together, Debian and Ubuntu can get it done.

I don't know what the right answer is myself, but based on some of these prior 
discussions and my own experience with NetworkManager on the desktop, I'm 
pretty sure that's not it.

Scott K 

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Re: [nvidia-graphics-drivers] frustration with slow Nvidia drivers release schedule

[Scott Kitterman]

AG Restringere  wrote:
>> If you have a support contract with Canonical, then maybe Canonical
>has a
>> support obligation, but Ubuntu, in particular for proprietary
>software,
>has no
>> support "obligation".
>
>No, that's not it, let's not confuse the issue, the commercial side and
>Canonical has nothing do with what I'm currently advocating. I never
>mentioned Canonical because I was distinguishing this from the
>commercial
>side of things.  This is purely a community support and engineering
>best-practices issue, not a commercial issue. The Linux Kernel guys
>have no
>commercial contracts with us but they embrace "best practices" and use
>the
>best recommendations to make sure they provide the best support for the
>Kernel. It's not commercial it's a community support obligation and
>engineering best-practices.
>
>This is the basis for the open-source Linux community, people helping
>each
>other to obtain the best possible systems.  It's also the purpose of
>Ubuntu, "I am because of who we all are" and "Linux for human beings". 
>To
>suggest that we need commercial contracts just to get proper device
>support
>for very mainstream and common graphics cards defeats the whole purpose
>of
>open-source Linux distributions, you might as well get an Apple Mac or
>Windows computer, there's no point to it.  It's like saying we need a
>commercial contract with the Linux Foundation just to get support for
>Intel
>and AMD CPU's, it's absurd.
>
>
>On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 3:35 PM, Scott Kitterman
>wrote:
>
>> If you have a support contract with Canonical, then maybe Canonical
>has a
>> support obligation, but Ubuntu, in particular for proprietary
>software,
>> has no
>> support "obligation".
>>
>> Scott K
>>
>> On Friday, September 06, 2013 15:14:55 AG Restringere wrote:
>> > It's very simple:
>> >
>> > Nvidia "certifies" a driver in the "long lived branch", when it
>releases
>> a
>> > new stable driver it recommends every Linux user to install that
>driver
>> > immediately for the best experience.  Ubuntu has a support
>obligation
>> make
>> > the latest most up-to-date "certified" drivers available to all
>users of
>> > currently supported versions especially 12.04 LTS, 13.04 and 13.10.
> If
>> > Ubuntu publishes out-of-date drivers and doesn't replace them when
>> there's
>> > a newer one available it's a major problem.  Graphics drivers,
>second to
>> > the Linux Kernel itself and networking/wifi drivers, are the most
>> important
>> > drivers on a desktop system, they require a very consistent and
>high
>> level
>> > of maintenance to keep a system in good working order.
>> >
>> > *Linux x86/IA32*
>> > Latest Long Lived Branch version:
>> > 319.49<
>> http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-ia32-319.49-driver.html>
>> > <--
>> > this is the STABLE driver, anything before this is out-of-date
>> > Latest Short Lived Branch version:
>> > 325.15<
>> http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-ia32-325.15-driver.html>
>> > <--
>> > this is the BETA driver, for testing purposes
>> > Latest Legacy GPU version (304.xx series):
>> > 304.108<
>> http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-ia32-304.108-driver.html>
>> > <--
>> > this is for legacy users, those with old graphics cards
>> > Latest Legacy GPU version (71.86.xx series):
>> > 71.86.15<
>> http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-ia32-71.86.15-driver.htm
>> > l> <--
>> > these are all other legacy drivers for even older cards
>> > Latest Legacy GPU version (96.43.xx series):
>> > 96.43.23<
>> http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-ia32-96.43.23-driver.htm
>> > l> <--
>> > Latest Legacy GPU version (173.14.xx series):
>> > 173.14.37<
>> http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-ia32-173.14.37-driver.h
>> > tml> <--
>> >
>> > http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix
>> >
>> > On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 2:52 PM, Jordon Bedwell
>
>> wrote:
>> > > On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 1:50 PM, Paulo Roberto de Oliveira Castro
>> > >
>> > >  wrote:
>> > > > Yes, that is what I was trying to say.
>> > > > They want it work and to be as fast as it can be, without
>worrying
>> about
&

Re: [nvidia-graphics-drivers] frustration with slow Nvidia drivers release schedule

[Scott Kitterman]

If you have a support contract with Canonical, then maybe Canonical has a 
support obligation, but Ubuntu, in particular for proprietary software, has no 
support "obligation".

Scott K

On Friday, September 06, 2013 15:14:55 AG Restringere wrote:
> It's very simple:
> 
> Nvidia "certifies" a driver in the "long lived branch", when it releases a
> new stable driver it recommends every Linux user to install that driver
> immediately for the best experience.  Ubuntu has a support obligation make
> the latest most up-to-date "certified" drivers available to all users of
> currently supported versions especially 12.04 LTS, 13.04 and 13.10.  If
> Ubuntu publishes out-of-date drivers and doesn't replace them when there's
> a newer one available it's a major problem.  Graphics drivers, second to
> the Linux Kernel itself and networking/wifi drivers, are the most important
> drivers on a desktop system, they require a very consistent and high level
> of maintenance to keep a system in good working order.
> 
> *Linux x86/IA32*
> Latest Long Lived Branch version:
> 319.49
> <--
> this is the STABLE driver, anything before this is out-of-date
> Latest Short Lived Branch version:
> 325.15
> <--
> this is the BETA driver, for testing purposes
> Latest Legacy GPU version (304.xx series):
> 304.108
> <--
> this is for legacy users, those with old graphics cards
> Latest Legacy GPU version (71.86.xx series):
> 71.86.15 l> <--
> these are all other legacy drivers for even older cards
> Latest Legacy GPU version (96.43.xx series):
> 96.43.23 l> <--
> Latest Legacy GPU version (173.14.xx series):
> 173.14.37 tml> <--
> 
> http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix
> 
> On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 2:52 PM, Jordon Bedwell  wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 1:50 PM, Paulo Roberto de Oliveira Castro
> > 
> >  wrote:
> > > Yes, that is what I was trying to say.
> > > They want it work and to be as fast as it can be, without worrying about
> > 
> > it.
> > 
> > I'm out of this one, the straw man just came out.
> > 
> > --
> > Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list
> > Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com
> > Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss

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Re: Source packages appropriate by default?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, July 24, 2013 11:00:40 AM Daniel J Blueman wrote:
> Perhaps we have two issues here:

> The 20% additional download due to sources [1] would help both issues,
> but perhaps of bigger impact, trusting the country-level mirror for
> the security updates?
...
You aren't.  Security updates are pushed first to security.ubuntu.com and then 
copied to archive.ubuntu.com and mirrored from there.  The security pocket 
isn't mirrored so you always hit it directly and if a country mirror lags, you 
get the package from security.ubuntu.com.  Also, the signing key is the same 
Ubuntu archive signing key whether you're getting a package form 
archive.ubuntu.com or a country mirror, so you aren't trusting the country 
mirror cryptographically either.

Scott K

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Re: Source packages appropriate by default?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, July 23, 2013 08:21:40 AM Jordon Bedwell wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 6:32 AM, Scott Kitterman  
wrote:
> > Assuming add-apt-repository was installed by default, it's close.  I think
> > something like this might be reasonable (imagine some policykit or
> > whatever it is called now magic here):
> > 
> > $ sudo apt-get source hello
> > Reading package lists... Done
> > Building dependency tree
> > Reading state information... Done
> > E: You must put some 'source' URIs in your sources.list
> > Would you like 'source' URIs to be added? (y/N)
> > Y
> > deb-src lines have been added to your sources.list.
> > ...
> > Get:9 http://archive.ubuntu.com saucy/main Sources [1,001 kB]
> > Get:10 http://archive.ubuntu.com saucy/restricted Sources [6,578 B]
> > Get:11 http://archive.ubuntu.com saucy/universe Sources [6,071 kB]
> > 
> > In other words, it's, I think, possible to make it roughly as easy as it
> > is
> > now to get source without having the sources.list "cluttered".  For users
> > of our releases, I doubt it saves much, but that would be a way to do it
> > that both avoids whatever amount of bandwidth usage is involved until the
> > user opts in to it, but preserves ready access to the source that I think
> > is important.
> Depending on how clever and one-off you want to be you could also just
> give them the http url to the source as well.  It shouldn't be that
> hard to guess since apt already has most of the information needed to
> just generate the URL from a chosen apt server in the normal deb.
> This would allow for one-off downloads (for example somebody needs to
> look at the way debian does some of it's compiles so they can
> replicate without a package so they grab the source for nginx --
> that's a one-off IMO if they would never use any other source
> package.)
> 
> Though I personally like a default command that would be something
> like add-apt-default-sources so you can also give them the ability to
> run that command and disable sources too (but you can already do that
> via the GUI and terminal by editing /etc/apt/sources.list and such.)

Before we run off and expend a lot more effort on this, I'd like to see 
something other than handwaving that this is really is a significant issue.

/ubuntu/dists/raring-security/main/source

[ ] Release 24-Jul-2013 01:16   106
[ ] Sources.bz2 24-Jul-2013 01:16   32K
[ ] Sources.gz  24-Jul-2013 01:16   38K

For end users, how much is really downloaded?

/ubuntu/dists/raring-updates/main/source

[ ] Release 24-Jul-2013 01:16   105
[ ] Sources.bz2 24-Jul-2013 01:16   50K
[ ] Sources.gz  24-Jul-2013 01:16   62K

/ubuntu/dists/raring-updates/universe/source

[ ] Release 24-Jul-2013 01:16   109
[ ] Sources.bz2 24-Jul-2013 01:16   64K
[ ] Sources.gz  24-Jul-2013 01:16   77K

It doesn't seem like a lot.

Scott K

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Re: Source packages appropriate by default?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, July 23, 2013 08:12:16 AM Robie Basak wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 03:02:02AM -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > So those are a couple of examples of what I think is definitely not what
> > we
> > want.  I'm open to discussion about alternate ways to preserve easy access
> > to the source.
> 
> How about:
> 
> $ sudo apt-get source hello
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> E: You must put some 'source' URIs in your sources.list
> E: Type "add-apt-repository sources" to do this automatically for you.
> $ sudo add-apt-repository sources
> deb-src lines have been added to your sources.list.
> Now type "apt-get update", and then "apt-get source ..." will work.
> $ sudo apt-get update
> (...)
> $ sudo apt-get source hello
> (works)
> 
> To do this, we'd need to patch apt to add the second error line, and
> implement "sources" to add-apt-repository.

Assuming add-apt-repository was installed by default, it's close.  I think 
something like this might be reasonable (imagine some policykit or whatever it 
is called now magic here):

$ sudo apt-get source hello
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: You must put some 'source' URIs in your sources.list
Would you like 'source' URIs to be added? (y/N)
Y
deb-src lines have been added to your sources.list.
...
Get:9 http://archive.ubuntu.com saucy/main Sources [1,001 kB]   

Get:10 http://archive.ubuntu.com saucy/restricted Sources [6,578 B] 
  
Get:11 http://archive.ubuntu.com saucy/universe Sources [6,071 kB]  
  
...
apt-get source lightdm-kde
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree   
Reading state information... Done
NOTICE: 'lightdm-kde' packaging is maintained in the 'Git' version control 
system at:
git://git.debian.org/pkg-kde/kde-extras/lightdm-kde.git
Need to get 1,386 kB of source archives.
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy/universe lightdm-kde 
0.3.2.1-1ubuntu2 (dsc) [1,543 B]
Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy/universe lightdm-kde 
0.3.2.1-1ubuntu2 (tar) [1,379 kB]
Get:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy/universe lightdm-kde 
0.3.2.1-1ubuntu2 (diff) [5,088 B]
Fetched 1,386 kB in 1s (807 kB/s)   
apt-get source lightdm-kde
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree   
Reading state information... Done
NOTICE: 'lightdm-kde' packaging is maintained in the 'Git' version control 
system at:
git://git.debian.org/pkg-kde/kde-extras/lightdm-kde.git
Need to get 1,386 kB of source archives.
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy/universe lightdm-kde 
0.3.2.1-1ubuntu2 (dsc) [1,543 B]
Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy/universe lightdm-kde 
0.3.2.1-1ubuntu2 (tar) [1,379 kB]
Get:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy/universe lightdm-kde 
0.3.2.1-1ubuntu2 (diff) [5,088 B]
Fetched 1,386 kB in 1s (807 kB/s)   
(and so on)

In other words, it's, I think, possible to make it roughly as easy as it is 
now to get source without having the sources.list "cluttered".  For users of 
our releases, I doubt it saves much, but that would be a way to do it that 
both avoids whatever amount of bandwidth usage is involved until the user opts 
in to it, but preserves ready access to the source that I think is important.

Scott K

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Re: Source packages appropriate by default?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, July 23, 2013 06:59:43 AM Robie Basak wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 01:51:46AM -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > I think most developers would believe the current situation is
> > appropriate.
> 
> I disagree.
> 
> > By default users have the same access to source and binary packages and
> > for a free software distribution, that is the ethically correct approach.
> Indeed, but you never replied to my original response to your concern.
> By "same access", do you specifically require the mechanism to be to
> keep users' local apt caches maintained with source entries? If so, why
> is such a mechanism necessary to fit the spirit of Free Software? If the
> user still has easy access to the source, why is this not sufficient?
> 
> I'm happy to discuss what "easy access" might actually mean, but I see
> no reason that it should require the waste of users' bandwidth and time.

Sorry.  I didn't mean to ignore you.

What's easy?  For example, I think "install more packages to get the tools to 
get the source" (use pull-lp-source in ubuntu-dev-tools) doesn't qualify.  
There are tons of documentation all over the web and other places as well that 
assume apt-get source works.  

I think access using installed tools that are normally used for the job (wget 
is installed (I think) by default, but I don't think having to go to a web 
page to find a URL and then wget'ing the components of the source package is 
easy either.

So those are a couple of examples of what I think is definitely not what we 
want.  I'm open to discussion about alternate ways to preserve easy access to 
the source.

Scott K

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Re: Source packages appropriate by default?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, July 23, 2013 11:02:00 AM Daniel J Blueman wrote:
> By large, developers are uninterested in this, but it is important for
> users and where we use Ubuntu.
> 
> Anyone care to comment on how we can progress this?

I think most developers would believe the current situation is appropriate.  
By default users have the same access to source and binary packages and for a 
free software distribution, that is the ethically correct approach.

Scott K

> On 15 July 2013 13:32, Daniel J Blueman  wrote:
> > From earlier feedback, there were no overriding reasons why package
> > sources should be enabled by default.
> > 
> > We not only save congestion on security.ubuntu.com, but quite a lot of
> > country-level mirrors point to Canonical's servers, which are
> > relatively distant and slow (~80KB/s from here), so this is a win.
> > 
> > So, what's the path to change this?
> > 
> > On 21 May 2013 22:04, J Fernyhough  wrote:
> >> On 21 May 2013 13:55, Robie Basak  wrote:
> >>> What if we provided a reasonable message if no deb-src lines are
> >>> defined, with a single simple command to add them and run "apt-get
> >>> update" for you?
> >> 
> >> I don't think it would even need that - software-properties (Software
> >> & Updates) already has the necessary checkbox. All that is needed to
> >> enable sources is to tick that box.
> >> 
> >>> From a technical point of view, does mirroring the deb lines into
> >>> deb-src lines work in all cases? Would doing so break anything?
> >> 
> >> This is effectively what Software Sources does under-the-hood.
> >> 
> >> I have to agree, if the amount being downloaded is not trivial (which
> >> I thought it was) then there's no need to have them enabled by default
> >> when it's very easy to turn them on. One of the first things I do on
> >> any new install is disable those that aren't needed.
> >> 
> >> Jonathon
> >> 
> >> (to the list this time)
> >> 
> >> --
> >> Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list
> >> Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com
> >> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> >> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss> 
> > --
> > Daniel J Blueman

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Re: Privacy features in Touch (cyanogenmod)?

[Scott Kitterman]

Marc Deslauriers  wrote:

>On 13-06-23 03:41 AM, Benjamin Kerensa wrote:
>>> Canonical Engineers have pretty much ignored the proposal of even
>one member of
>>> the Ubuntu Tech Board in regards to user privacy.
>> 
>>> What makes you believe if Canonical ignores a former security team
>>> member/current tech board member and the EFF that they will give
>anyone else's
>>> proposal the time of day?
>
>That is completely untrue. I looked at the proposals and the opinions,
>and I
>disagree with them. Just because I disagree with someone's opinion on
>what an
>adequate level of privacy is doesn't mean I've ignored them.
>
>I want Ubuntu to be as capable and usable as other operating systems,
>and this
>includes having a global search that returns Internet results.
>
>> 
>>> The sad thing is the community does nearly as much work to produce
>Ubuntu but
>>> has almost no say in its direction or features.
>
>That is also untrue.
>
>> 
>>> I think at this point the best option for privacy is to install a
>community flavor.
>
>Are there any community flavors that are specialized in privacy?

AFAIK, none of the non-Unity flavors send local search results across the 
network by default. This seems to me a very reasonable approach for default 
behavior. I don't think it's necessary to specialize in privacy to take such an 
approach. 

Scott K


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Re: Privacy features in Touch (cyanogenmod)?

[Scott Kitterman]

Martin Albisetti  wrote:

>On Sun, Jun 23, 2013 at 11:45 AM, Scott Kitterman
> wrote:
>> I think you're throwing the CoC at someone for expressing dissent is
>worse.
>> It's not like he's expressing a perspective that's not reasonably
>widely held.
>
>It is unrelated to this thread, where, as I pointed out, has been
>positive and actually in favor of better and more efficient privacy
>and security. Throwing in a different topic only serves to derail the
>conversation.
>This is not expressing dissent with what is being discussed, this is
>expressing dissent with something that's part of a different
>conversation.
>Lets keep the Ubuntu world a nice place to be in.
>
>There is a specific part of the CoC that addresses this point, where
>you are unhappy with a decision that has been made in the project:
>
>"We value discussion, data and decisiveness
>
>We gather opinions, data and commitments from concerned parties before
>taking a decision. We expect leaders to help teams come to a decision
>in a reasonable time, to seek guidance or be willing to take the
>decision themselves when consensus is lacking, and to take
>responsibility for implementation.
>
>The poorest decision of all is no decision: clarity of direction has
>value in itself. Sometimes all the data are not available, or
>consensus is elusive. A decision must still be made. There is no
>guarantee of a perfect decision every time - we prefer to err, learn,
>and err less in future than to postpone action indefinitely.
>
>We recognise that the project works better when we trust the teams
>closest to a problem to make the decision for the project. If we learn
>of a decision that we disagree with, we can engage the relevant team
>to find common ground, and failing that, we have a governance
>structure that can review the decision. Ultimately, if a decision has
>been taken by the people responsible for it, and is supported by the
>project governance, it will stand. None of us expects to agree with
>every decision, and we value highly the willingness to stand by the
>project and help it deliver even on the occasions when we ourselves
>may prefer a different route."
>
>The decision has been made, if you still have an issue take it up with
>the proper team.
>
>
>> Personally, I think lack of control over privacy is one of the major
>> shortcomings in all the major offerings available today and if Ubuntu
>Phone
>> were to significantly distinguish itself in this regard it would be a
>positive
>> discriminator in it's favor for users.  Phones are a bit trickier
>though
>> because in many cases (virtually all in the US) the "customer" for a
>phone OS
>> is either the hardware manufacturer or the telco.  These customers
>may have a
>> different perspective on privacy, so I think it's quit natural that
>there's
>> tension on this topic.
>
>Right, and while people who care about privacy over features is a
>market, it is a small one and not one we are targeting as a project,
>or ever have.
>There are plenty of other folks addressing it, so measuring our
>decisions against other people's goals can only lead to discomfort.
>
>Please let this thread continue its course, and if you have any other
>issues open up a new channel of communication.

I think your replies to both of us make his point rather better than he did.  

It's just a fact that the non-Unity flavors are better configured for privacy 
and flinging the CoC at people who say so doesn't change that.  That also seems 
to me like something that totally on topic.

No need to throw the CoC at me again in another reply.  I'm done with this 
thread. Sorry for being confused about this being a list where Ubuntu 
development is discussed. 

Scott K



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Re: Privacy features in Touch (cyanogenmod)?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Sunday, June 23, 2013 11:31:29 AM Martin Albisetti wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 23, 2013 at 4:41 AM, Benjamin Kerensa  
wrote:
> >> > Unfortunately all Ubuntu seems to be working on is features that
> >> > create privacy concerns (like the scopes sending search requests to
> >> > Canonical servers).
> >> > 
> >> > ...
> >> 
> >> Ubuntu is an operating system, not a person. Neither you nor I get to
> >> decide priorities for Canonical engineers. But anyone is welcome to
> >> implement privacy features and propose them for inclusion in Ubuntu.
> > 
> > Canonical Engineers have pretty much ignored the proposal of even one
> > member of the Ubuntu Tech Board in regards to user privacy.
> > 
> > What makes you believe if Canonical ignores a former security team
> > member/current tech board member and the EFF that they will give anyone
> > else's proposal the time of day?
> 
> It was not ignored, it was read, understood and taken into account.
> The fact that someone thinks that within their own domain of
> expertise, a feature should be disabled, it doesn't mean that in the
> overall context it should.
> The trade-off of the scopes features was well understood and just like
> many other controversial decisions that have been made over the years,
> it was decided that overall it would benefit the project the most in
> the mid/long-term.
> 
> > The sad thing is the community does nearly as much work to produce Ubuntu
> > but has almost no say in its direction or features.
> 
> Please don't troll a random thread that only vaguely overlaps with a
> topic you are personally unhappy with. So far the conversation has
> been friendly, productive and positive.
> I expect much more from someone with a position of leadership in the
> community reviewing candidates for approval of official members, and
> so does the Code of Conduct[1].
> 
> > I think at this point the best option for privacy is to install a
> > community
> > flavor.
> 
> Or just perform 3 clicks and disable the scopes connecting to the
> servers to send your query and return smarter results.
> 
> 
> [1] http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/conduct

I think you're throwing the CoC at someone for expressing dissent is worse.  
It's not like he's expressing a perspective that's not reasonably widely held.

Personally, I think lack of control over privacy is one of the major 
shortcomings in all the major offerings available today and if Ubuntu Phone 
were to significantly distinguish itself in this regard it would be a positive 
discriminator in it's favor for users.  Phones are a bit trickier though 
because in many cases (virtually all in the US) the "customer" for a phone OS 
is either the hardware manufacturer or the telco.  These customers may have a 
different perspective on privacy, so I think it's quit natural that there's 
tension on this topic.

Scott K

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Re: Source packages appropriate by default?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, May 20, 2013 11:25:50 AM Jordon Bedwell wrote:
> On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 11:19 AM, Scott Kitterman  
wrote:
> > Apt will error out that it can't find the package.
> > 
> > I think that if we are distributing binaries, we should (perhaps must, I'm
> > not sure) enable the source repositories in order to , as a free software
> > distribution, provide the source that goes with the binaries we
> > distribute.
> Required to make them available, but that doesn't mean they have to be
> enabled inside of apt and all the source packages are readily
> available via packages.ubuntu.com which means you are already
> complying with the GPL by making them readily available.  Even with
> that said I'm inclined to disagree with disabling them, 4MB is trivial
> now days.
> 
> I'm more surprised that people are more upset about 4MB than the 5%
> that is still claimed by the system for the system which adds up to a
> lot more than 4MB on some systems which on a even a small 32GB SSD is
> what, 1.5GB?

I think that's legally sufficient, but not in the spirit of free software.

Scott K

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Re: Source packages appropriate by default?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, May 20, 2013 06:16:53 PM Benjamin Drung wrote:
> Am Montag, den 20.05.2013, 23:09 +0800 schrieb Daniel J Blueman:
> > When installing Ubuntu, I always see the source packages enabled by
> > default.
> > 
> > For all the general users I install Ubuntu for (including servers),
> > it's an utter waste of bandwidth for everyone, particularly when
> > automatically checking once a day. This is amplified eg in schools
> > without transparent webcaches etc.
> > 
> > Anyone get the same feeling that we should have source packages an opt-in?
> 
> I agree that we should disable the apt-src entries by default. It's easy
> to enable the apt-src entries for a developer.
> 
> What happens when you run "apt-get source" with disabled apt-src
> entries?

Apt will error out that it can't find the package.

I think that if we are distributing binaries, we should (perhaps must, I'm not 
sure) enable the source repositories in order to , as a free software 
distribution, provide the source that goes with the binaries we distribute.

Scott K

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Re: Linux Mint lockscreen

[Scott Kitterman]

On Sunday, May 19, 2013 12:16:38 AM Thomas Novin wrote:
> On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 3:55 PM, Jeremy Bicha  wrote:
> > On 18 May 2013 09:50, Thomas Novin  wrote:
> > > Check out the lockscreen provided by Linux Mint (package
> > > cinnamon-screensaver). Looks really good, would be nice to have it in
> > > Ubuntu.
> > 
> > It's already available:
> > 
> > https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cinnamon/
> > 
> > It could use people that care about it to make sure that it's
> > well-maintained in Ubuntu though.
> > 
> > Jeremy
> 
> Available as a package but I meant it would be nice if it was a part of
> default Ubuntu. I've tested this package from
> http://ppa.launchpad.net/gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-stable but it's
> buggy, cannot resume from suspend sometimes because of it.

For the default Ubuntu look, you'd have to talk to someone at the Canonical 
design team.  No one in the Ubuntu community has decided such things for 
several years.

Scott K

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Re: Aptitude installed by default on 13.10?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Thursday, April 11, 2013 06:36:45 PM Brett wrote:
> Seeing as this isn't dying anytime soon I'll jump in.
> 
> > Freeing them from what, learning? Granted, the average user isn't
> > interested in learning but they would be free to reject the opportunity
> > if they so chose. *That's* freedom.
> 
> There is nothing - *nothing* that is stopping anyone from installing
> whatever they want on Ubuntu. Canonical are doing the *smart*
> engineering decision and officially supports *one* tool that gets the
> job done. And the few people that disagree with the tool are more than
> welcome to hop on the servers graciously hosted by Canonical to download
> other tools.
> 
> I'm shocked that people get their panties in a bunch over this 'give me
> more choice!' issue since, as stated before, *one* default program that
> gets the job done has always been an Ubuntu policy.
> 
> > I had dumped Ubuntu and gone back to Debian, mostly because of Marvelous
> > Mark's autocratic attitude. Just recently decided to try Ubuntu again to
> > see what had changed. After reading the attitude that, at least, some of
> > the devs display here about determining for the user what's best for
> > him/her, I guess I'll settle in with Debian and just lurk on this list.
> 
> So what do you want in an OS? A 16-DVD installer of Ubuntu so that
> everyone will be just so happy that we have every single program ever
> installed? God forbid we deprive those poor souls of choice. Let's ask
> if they want auto-fsck enabled, or automount (because some users won't
> want their USB drives automounted, how uncivilized!).
> 
> I'm shocked that people can have this kind of though-process. People
> just want to use their goddamn computers - even something as simple as
> 'what search engine would you like to use?' distracts and complicates
> the computing experience - Just look at Windows. Watch users get so
> confused when Windows has eight million dialogues asking users what they
> want to do. There's a delicate balance between KDE's
> option's-galore-insanity and Gnome's brink-of-stupidity-simplifications.
> And Ubuntu's currently the only OS that is sane enough to *mostly* see
> this balance (sadly, they're still pulled back by Gnome's methodical
> destruction of their frameworks).
> 
> FYI, I'm not a Canonical member nor an Ubuntu member, so don't take my
> words as official.

One other point that I think is relevant is that this list is meant for 
user/developer interactions, but it's required for no one to be here.  ubuntu-
devel and ubuntu-devel-discuss got split into two lists a long time ago 
because it was hard to have a reasonable conversation on the old, combined 
ubuntu-devel.  In the past, this list has been a forum for users to flame 
developers over things they thought had been done wrong.

The result of a hostile environment for discussion is that developers 
unsubscribe.  There are a lot fewer subscribed now than there were when the 
list was first created.  If you want there to be a forum where developer and 
non-developers can regularly interact and discuss issue of interest to both 
groups, it's incumbent on people to make this list something people want to 
participate in.

Scott K

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Re: Aptitude installed by default on 13.10?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, April 09, 2013 12:24:47 PM Brett Cornwall wrote:
> On 04/09/2013 12:17 PM, Alexandre Strube wrote:
> > Why?
> 
> Because aptitude is the successor to apt-get, endorsed by the community
> that does all the packaging for this OS, is more stable, and has better
> dependency handling (indeed, promotes better dependency setting). It
> makes no sense to keep a less feature-rich and complete tool that has
> long been replaced. Space on the CD was the original reason (along with
> some canonical employee saying it was 'too complex' for some reason)

It is in no way a successor to apt.

Scott K

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Re: Aptitude installed by default on 13.10?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, April 09, 2013 12:27:28 PM Brett Cornwall wrote:
> On 04/09/2013 12:19 PM, Andrew Starr-Bochicchio wrote:
> > This is actually being debated over on debian-devel as we type. So
> > some piece of text from the Debian FAQ that simply hasn't been updated
> > in a long time doesn't trump anything.
> 
> So the reason for not even considering this as an option is because
> someone has decided to spark conversation against recommending aptitude
> after it's been recommended for years? That's not very good logic.
> 
> Thank you for the thread.

Other way around.  It was recommended in Debian for Lenny because at the time 
the apt resolver had some issues that have long since been resolved.  Touting 
aptitude as great because of the Debian release notes is making present virtue 
out of past necessity.

Scott K

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Re: Unity-2d packages in Raring

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, April 01, 2013 10:15:41 PM Colin Law wrote:
> On 1 April 2013 22:11, Jordon Bedwell  wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 4:08 PM, Colin Law  wrote:
> >> Just out of interest does anyone know why, on Raring, I keep getting
> >> updates for unity-2d packages when unity-2d is, I thought, dead and
> >> buried?
> > 
> > Seems odd unless you are less than 12.10 but there could always be a
> > deprecation period.
> 
> I am on Raring.
> $ apt-cache policy unity-2d
> unity-2d:
>   Installed: 6.12.0daily13.04.01-0ubuntu1
>   Candidate: 6.12.0daily13.04.01-0ubuntu1
>   Version table:
>  *** 6.12.0daily13.04.01-0ubuntu1 0
> 500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring/universe i386
> Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
> 
> I do notice that they are all (unity-2d, unity-2d-spread and so on)
> only a few kB each, perhaps they are just placeholders to satisfy
> dependencies that have not been cleaned up yet.  On the other hand I
> am getting updates to them every few days which seems odd.

They are transitional packages that depend on unity to smooth updates.  Every 
time unity gets updated, they get updated too.

Scott K

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Re: Why there are many discussions in ubuntu-devel recently but not here?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday, March 08, 2013 12:26:51 PM Dmitrijs Ledkovs wrote:
> On 8 March 2013 00:42, Ma Xiaojun  wrote:
> > As title.
> 
> ubuntu-devel is open to post by ~ubuntu-developers, or moderated if
> posted by others.
> ubuntu-devel-discuss is open to post by anyone.
> 
> Typically ubuntu-devel is usually more technical.
> Recently ubuntu developers started to discuss a lot of project wide
> changes that affect all developers hence the increase of discussions
> on that mailing list.

I would also add that there was a time when this list was primarily a vehicle 
for users to behave rudely towards developers, so a lot of devs unsubscribed.  
That also cuts down on the communications on this list.

Scott K

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Re: Ubuntu and derivatives (Re: Ubuntu.com Download Page)

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday, January 25, 2013 03:13:54 PM Allison Randal wrote:
> On 01/25/2013 02:38 PM, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > Ubuntu.com is an element of Canonical marketing.  Don't be confused into
> > thinking it's more than that.
> 
> Each flavor has a dedicated landing page: kubuntu.org, edubuntu.org,
> xubuntu.org, ubuntustudio.org, mythbuntu.org, lubuntu.net. The one for
> *U*buntu (with *U* for Unity  is ubuntu.com.
> 
> The centralized page for the Ubuntu *Project* is wiki.ubuntu.com. This
> seems right to me, as it's open for collaborative ownership by all
> flavors, all members. It'd be quite appropriate to add a prominent link
> from the main page of the wiki to:
> 
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DerivativeTeam/Derivatives

I know all that, but AFAIK there is no one not an employee of Canonical that 
is involved in decision making about ubuntu.com.

Scott K

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Re: Ubuntu and derivatives (Re: Ubuntu.com Download Page)

[Scott Kitterman]

Ubuntu.com is an element of Canonical marketing.  Don't be confused into 
thinking it's more than that.

Scott K

On Saturday, January 26, 2013 12:32:44 AM Vesa Paatero wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Thanks for you message, Volkan. I also noticed at some point that the
> Ubuntu website says surprisingly little about the variants, even the
> officially supported variants. I have an Edubuntu installation since
> 2007 and I'd appreciate better information as a basis for
> decision-making between Ubuntu and Edubuntu and other variants.
> 
> It seems that there is some information about the interrelationship of
> variants (or derivatives) but it is not easy to find. Dmitrijs already
> brought up the link
> http://www.ubuntu.com/project/about-ubuntu/derivatives and I like how
> the page
> 
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DerivativeTeam/Derivatives
> 
> presents a classification for the variants: "Official editions",
> "Recognized flavors", "Customizations"... with a few words about what
> each class is about.
> 
> Whereas the owner(s) of Ubuntu are doing well in allowing the
> derivatives/variants to coexist peacefully with Ubuntu, it seems that
> they prefer to keep ubuntu.com the home page of exactly Ubuntu rather
> than an umbrella for the whole family of derivatives.
> 
> In theory, someone could make e.g. a wiki-styled documentation site
> about the essential differences between derivatives, such as what you
> can and what you can't install in a given derivative compared to the
> main line of development (Ubuntu), but the challenge comes from how
> swiftly these things change from release to release. And I'd guess that
> most applications can be installed to any derivative, the difference
> between derivatives being more about what is installed by default.
> 
> Vesa
> 
> 25.01.2013 16:34, Volkan Gezer wrote:
> > I think most people don't know that Kubuntu, Lubuntu and Xubuntu
> > versions are officially supported by Ubuntu.
> > 
> > I highly suggest you telling in download page something like that:
> > 
> > 
> > "Ubuntu is using Unity desktop environment.
> > 
> > We also have official distributions for KDE, XCFE  environments
> > too..."
> > 
> > to give a link to other official Ubuntu distros. You can also add a
> > page which users can reach in one click to these distributions and
> > comparison.
> > 
> > -Volkan

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Re: package dependencies on versions

[Scott Kitterman]

Robie Basak  wrote:

>On Wed, Nov 07, 2012 at 09:54:01PM +0100, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
>> Hi folks,
>> 
>> I could use some little assistance in packaging and version
>dependencies.
>> 
>> My remdine source package creates a bunch of binary packages:
>> 
>> * 'redmine': metapackage pulling in redmine-core and one
>redmine-pgsql, redmine-mysql or redmine-sql
>> * 'redmine-core': the actual redmine code
>> * 'redmine-mysql' / 'redmine-pgsql' / 'redmine-sqlite': metapackage
>pulling in the database backend dependencies
>> 
>> Now, I'd like to make sure, that all of these packages are always on
>the same version by dependencies.
>> 
>> How can I do that ?
>
>Your other binary packages could use fixed version dependencies like:
>
>Depends: redmine-core (= ${source:Version})
>
>See deb-substvars(5) for details.
> 
>There may be a better way that I'm not aware of though.

Redmine is already packaged.  Why are you making a new package?

Scott K


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Re: EFF & Privacy; hopefully Ubuntu will listen to users

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, November 05, 2012 02:27:06 PM Rodney Dawes wrote:
> On Mon, 2012-11-05 at 13:58 -0500, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > > I don't know if it's been done before or not, but perhaps the Release
> > > Team, and Tech Board, should take up any concerns related to some of the
> > > Canonical projects' involvement in that process, with the appropriate
> > > members of Canonical staff, including Mark (who is on TB anyway). Again,
> > > another discussion that would have been great to have at UDS with
> > > everyone in the same room, but which seems to perpetually get
> > > complaints, and perhaps not discussed at appropriate times.
> > 
> > It was extensively discussed at UDS-R and I believe things will go better
> > in the next cycle.  I realize that Mark's SABDFL veto is part of existing
> > Ubuntu processes.  I don't have any disagreement with his authority to do
> > so.  I do think it is mistaken for development teams (generally, but not
> > inevitable) from inside Canonical that plan on getting in that way.
> 
> Great. I know for Ubuntu One at least, we try to align with the schedule
> and meet the freeze deadlines and requirements as best as possible,
> though sometimes we do have to slip. However, I also push for my team at
> least to not have to do freeze exceptions unless it's absolutely
> required, and try to be as strict about what we can or can't put in our
> stable branches (and the accompanying releases) at that point, as the
> SRU and release teams would be, since I'm the one doing the packaging
> for all our projects.

In case you missed the sessions, the short version of the discussion is that 
we've moved feature freeze to the right to give more development time (IIRC 3 
weeks), but the release team will be substantially more strict about what it 
gives an exception to this next cycle.

Scott K

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Re: EFF & Privacy; hopefully Ubuntu will listen to users

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, November 05, 2012 01:19:51 PM Rodney Dawes wrote:
> On Mon, 2012-11-05 at 12:11 -0500, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > On Monday, November 05, 2012 11:53:03 AM Rodney Dawes wrote:
> > ...
> > 
> > > There were large changes to address some specific user concerns around
> > > the dash search, that went in after various freezes were in effect.
> > 
> > ...
> > That's also true of the shopping bits of dash search itself, so without
> > time travel, having it be any way is impossible.  Perhaps if Canonical
> > had decided to work within the existing Ubuntu release process, this
> > could have been landed earlier with a lot less heat/light since there
> > would have been lots of time to consider the best approaches for various
> > issues.
> 
> I don't know all the specifics of how they went in, or the exact course
> of process they took, but I do know they landed after freezes, and part
> of 'within the existing Ubuntu release process' includes 'sabdfl
> override' which the feature itself may or may not have fallen under.
> 
> Either way, some of the changes landed extremely late (even after the
> feature itself), to help address some of the user concerns. That was
> the only point I'm making. I don't disagree that it would be better if
> some of the teams would align better with the release process. It
> certainly would be. However, there are also also some issues with doing
> that as relates to the Canonical 'skunkworks' projects which Mark also
> blogged about recently.
> 
> I don't know if it's been done before or not, but perhaps the Release
> Team, and Tech Board, should take up any concerns related to some of the
> Canonical projects' involvement in that process, with the appropriate
> members of Canonical staff, including Mark (who is on TB anyway). Again,
> another discussion that would have been great to have at UDS with
> everyone in the same room, but which seems to perpetually get
> complaints, and perhaps not discussed at appropriate times.

It was extensively discussed at UDS-R and I believe things will go better in 
the next cycle.  I realize that Mark's SABDFL veto is part of existing Ubuntu 
processes.  I don't have any disagreement with his authority to do so.  I do 
think it is mistaken for development teams (generally, but not inevitable) 
from inside Canonical that plan on getting in that way.

Scott K

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Re: EFF & Privacy; hopefully Ubuntu will listen to users

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, November 05, 2012 08:32:35 AM Benjamin Kerensa wrote:
> > Or is it the case that nobody bothered to file a blueprint? Bear in mind
> > that anybody in the community can create blueprints for UDS, not just
> > Canonical.
> 
> Anyone can create one but Canonical does approve them.

There are a variety of people that can approve specs for different reasons 
related to the work they do on Ubuntu.  Not all of them work for Canonical.

Scott K

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Re: EFF & Privacy; hopefully Ubuntu will listen to users

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, November 05, 2012 12:14:51 PM Jeremy Bicha wrote:
> On 5 November 2012 11:53, Rodney Dawes  wrote:
> > There were large changes to address some specific user concerns around
> > the dash search, that went in *after* various freezes were in effect.
> 
> One example is http://pad.lv/1065652 which while obviously a user
> interface change, happened after Final Freeze without the typical
> paperwork; presumably because it was *that* critical to mitigate the
> privacy concerns.

The release team was aware of that one.  It was approved on IRC, IIRC, after 
review of screen shots of the intended change.  It was without the normal 
coordination (UIF exceptions are mostly about making sure that the change has 
been coordinated with -docs/translations), but it was also not done without 
the release team knowing.  This is exactly the kind of thing that could have 
been landed a lot more smoothly if the entire shopping lens change hadn't been 
landed so late in the release.

Scott K

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Re: EFF & Privacy; hopefully Ubuntu will listen to users

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, November 05, 2012 11:53:03 AM Rodney Dawes wrote:
...
> There were large changes to address some specific user concerns around
> the dash search, that went in after various freezes were in effect.
...
That's also true of the shopping bits of dash search itself, so without time 
travel, having it be any way is impossible.  Perhaps if Canonical had decided 
to work within the existing Ubuntu release process, this could have been 
landed earlier with a lot less heat/light since there would have been lots of 
time to consider the best approaches for various issues.

Scott K

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Re: Are UI developers all left handed?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, August 08, 2012 02:35:00 PM Felix Miata wrote:
> On 2012/08/08 12:16 (GMT-0400) Phillip Susi composed:
> > Felix Miata wrote:
> >>  You're under 40, right? Under 30 too? 20?
> > 
> > 33 actually, though I don't see what that has to do with the price of
> > tea in China.
> 
> Sadly obvious. If you've not studiously watched people over 50 or 80 try to
> use a computer you should. Then you should be able to discover some
> important realities about UI usability.
> 
> >>  We all must navigate to a clicking point before clicking. You seem
> >>  to be assuming moving a mouse pointer is always easy. It isn't. Put
> >>  on your carpal tunnel or arthritis gloves and try it. Even just
> >>  using the wrong hand might give you some idea. Maybe the Windows 8
> >>  devs have discovered what the OP is getting at.
> > 
> > I am not aware of CTS or arthritis having a bias towards one side or
> > the other.  I assume only that whether you must move to the left or
> > the right, either is equally hard or easy.
> 
> A natural proclivity on grasping it to send the pointer away from most
> likely targets is unhelpful, and even more so when CTS or arthritis makes
> every mouse movement difficult. According to the OP, toward upper right is
> the natural proclivity of a right-hander, while toward upper left is the
> natural proclivity of a left-hander, making natural proclivity helpful to
> left-handers and detrimental to right-handers who use Unity and Gnome Shell.
> My point is it is even more detrimental for those for whom mouse movement
> is difficult.

Speaking as an almost 50, left-handed-but-got-forced-to-start-right-handed-
with-mice-because-that-is-how-the-worked-back-then, occasional RSI sufferer who 
now switches the mouse from one side to the other as needed when the RSI 
starts to act up ...

I've never felt like the U/I design of any computer was left handed or right 
handed.  The LTR aspects of the design work because of the sequence people 
read in.  It should be (and I thought was) reversed in RTL languages.

Being someone with a reasonable amount of experience using a mouse with both 
hands, I can't say I've ever noticed a difference other than it takes a bit of 
getting used to whenever I switch.

On the KDE plasma-netbook interface you can switch windows either by hitting 
the upper left corner or clicking on the right most widget on the panel (which 
is at the top).  In that case, where I could do equivalent actions either way, 
I found myself going to the top right, even though it was slightly harder 
(requires a click) because that was how I started doing it.

My conclusion is that this is most a matter of habit and experience and none 
of us can generalize from our individual experiences about what is intuitive.  
The only way to discover that is find someone who's never used a computer 
before.  For people with any experience at all, they work best with something 
like what they've used before.

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Re: irqbalance as ubuntu-server dep...

[Scott Kitterman]

On Thursday, July 12, 2012 11:26:17 AM Daniel J Blueman wrote:
> On 10 July 2012 22:34, Scott Kitterman  wrote:
> > On Tuesday, July 10, 2012 09:47:33 PM Daniel J Blueman wrote:
> >> Hi Ubuntu devs,
> >> 
> >> I've been wanting to raise the question about if ubuntu-standard
> >> should depend on irqbalance, since the benefits of irqbalance in a
> >> typical non-server environment are questionable.
> >> 
> >> In fact, I see it clocking up time, causing more context switches and
> >> wakeups. This is clearly a step backward for mobile and even desktop
> >> users. The documentation [1] shows the use-cases it was designed for,
> >> ie heavy server load.
> >> 
> >> It would be far better as a dependency in an Ubuntu server
> >> installation. What do you guys think?
> > 
> > My recollection is that it was added to the seeds for the server use case,
> > so I think this makes sense.
> 
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-meta/+bug/1023020
> 
> Is a debdiff suitable for the ubuntu-standard metapackage, or should I
> present a bzr branch?

Ubuntu metapackages are generated from seeds.  See:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SeedManagement

This is trivial to change, but I'd like to see a bit more agreement than my 
vague recollection before doing it.

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Re: irqbalance as ubuntu-server dep...

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, July 10, 2012 09:47:33 PM Daniel J Blueman wrote:
> Hi Ubuntu devs,
> 
> I've been wanting to raise the question about if ubuntu-standard
> should depend on irqbalance, since the benefits of irqbalance in a
> typical non-server environment are questionable.
> 
> In fact, I see it clocking up time, causing more context switches and
> wakeups. This is clearly a step backward for mobile and even desktop
> users. The documentation [1] shows the use-cases it was designed for,
> ie heavy server load.
> 
> It would be far better as a dependency in an Ubuntu server
> installation. What do you guys think?

My recollection is that it was added to the seeds for the server use case, so 
I think this makes sense.

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Re: multiple reports of same bug-needs fixing

[Scott Kitterman]

Ben Greear  wrote:

>On 06/01/2012 10:55 PM, Scott Kitterman wrote:
>> Jordon Bedwell  wrote:
>
>> It is a simple fact that if you want developers to participate on
>this list,
>> then it's up to you to make it a place they want to participate. 
>AFAICT, most
>> developers don't because they got tired of the tone from many (not
>all) non-
>> developers.
>
>Developers could at least acknowledge the issue and indicate that
>they are working on it (or not).  People can understand when things are
>slow to be fixed, but just being ignored does not help.

Usually if someone is working on an issue and there's a list message about it, 
it'll get mentioned as long as people are aware of it, but there's really no 
way to know the reverse. I'm personally reluctant to get involved in 
discussions unless there's a good chance I have both the time and knowledge to 
fix the bug.

I understand the frustration, but there's just not enough people to address 
everything.

Scott K


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Re: multiple reports of same bug-needs fixing

[Scott Kitterman]

Jordon Bedwell  wrote:

>On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 8:49 PM, Phillip Susi  wrote:
>> Do you consider repeating a question on IRC once every minute
>spamming?  Every 5 minutes?  Most people would say yes.  You take that
>time out to once an hour and in that time frame new people often join
>the channel, or come back from AFK and tend not to read everything that
>was said while they were gone, so repeating after an hour is likely to
>get someone's attention that otherwise would not have noticed.
>
>On IRC I would not.  I don't know how subjective that POV is, we see
>repeats on development IRC's all the time, often not that spread apart
>and nobody gets bothered by it.  That is on... #ruby, #ruby-lang,
>#python and others.  If it was email I still would not, as I would not
>see the 'repeats', my mail client, as well as the service I use
>automatically hides accidental or perpetual repeats as to reduce
>clutter.  I would hope that most Gmail users also agree since they
>have the same feature except it doesn't hide them, just minimizes them
>(but my client actually hides them.)
>
>The time frame is subjective though, an hour could be a day, so... by
>that... he did not 'spam' as you put it.
>
>> On a mailing list, the audience isn't changing frequently and the
>messages generally are all read so if nobody replies, it is probably
>because either nobody knows, or nobody cares.  Often times people go 24
>hours or more before catching up on reading the list, so that isn't
>even enough time for everyone to have seen your message, and had a
>chance to reply.  Given those two factors, repeating yourself every day
>is a waste of everyone's time.
>
>Not caring is one of the big problems I see quite often, and as
>somebody who has an Ubuntu email, if you don't care we have bigger
>problems to deal with other than bugs that are considered unimportant
>(as another put it) and never responded to.  Big project is not an
>excuse to at least respond.  Picking your battles is entirely
>different then knowing and acknowledging future battles.  I think you
>wasted your own time (while blaming him for 'wasting your time' by
>responding with something other then a proper answer.  What I am
>saying is you've created your own inefficiency by responding at all
>and then blame him for creating one too.
>
>Perhaps the more prudent to (when somebody files a bug) tell the user
>in the success message "if this ticket is not responded to within 2
>weeks please ping a developer via [insert mailing list email]" and
>also (which is quite easy) do the same to users who don't post,
>stating something to the effect of "this ticket is still rather new
>and less then two weeks old, please do not ping any developers" and
>"this ticket is older than two weeks, if you are experiencing this
>problem please ping a developer" This would curve this so called spam,
>somewhat. People will still ignore it, such is life, but being more
>intuitive from your bug system would ultimately create more
>efficiency.
>
>There are even other ideas, such as just creating a ping button on the
>tracker itself one that would first ping bugsquad and then after it's
>been confirmed or otherwise pings a developer or the team behind the
>package or feature.  This would keep people off the mailing list...
>And you could even limit it globally to two weeks or whatever.
>
>That said... If your email client and you aren't efficient enough to
>figure out that they are repeats we are starting to see why you can't
>respond in a timely fashion.  Though I still find it ironic you state
>it's a waste of your time for him to do this yet you wasted your own
>time by telling him he wasted your time.  Regardless of changing
>subjects and changing text in the email one should be able to quickly
>deduce it as a repeat and skip over it... by the subject alone.

Or even easier, unsubscribe from a list with perceived low signal to noise 
ratio.

I agree that using the word spam was over the top, but that doesn't in turn 
give you the right to assume developers don't care.  We certainly do, but we 
can't do everything.  Multiple posts on the same topic to this list simply 
don't help.  What they cause is developers looking up the unsubscribe 
instructions.

It is a simple fact that if you want developers to participate on this list, 
then it's up to you to make it a place they want to participate.  AFAICT, most 
developers don't because they got tired of the tone from many (not all) non-
developers.

We don't need more ways for people to clamor for attention to get their pet 
bug fixed.  We need more people fixing things.  BTW, other than commercial 
support, the other way to get more attention paid to your problems is to get 
involved in the project.  Even if you aren't up to being a developer, Ubuntu 
is big enough that anyone can contribute if they care to.  I certainly do pay 
more attention to issues raised by people I know are active in the project.

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Re: multiple reports of same bug-needs fixing

[Scott Kitterman]

On Thursday, May 31, 2012 02:00:21 PM Paul Graydon wrote:
> On 05/31/2012 01:41 PM, Jeremy Bicha wrote:
> > On 31 May 2012 18:58, Lindsey Augustine  wrote:
> >> All these bugs describe the same problem: Max Brightness at boot. There
> >> are
> >> a lot of people with this problem.
> >> 
> >> Will the developers please address these reports?
> > 
> > Please stop spamming this list. It is spam to post basically the same
> > thing three days in a row. Repeating yourself won't help the bug get
> > fixed any sooner.
> > 
> > Jeremy
> 
> Whilst I agree with you that the repeated spamming is annoying and
> shouldn't be happening (and is possibly counter-productive at best),
> it's worth pointing out that the earliest one of those bug reports was
> triaged around 6 months ago by pitti, and there has been absolutely no
> official communication on the ticket, not even a brief message.  As far
> as people know what to them seems a trivial bug means squat diddly to
> Ubuntu, and no one is interested in fixing it.  Is it really surprising
> that after 6 months people might be a little frustrated and resorting in
> this?

It's quite reasonable that people get frustrated, but 'resorting to this' 
isn't productive.  There are more bugs than there are people to fix them and in 
a community project like Ubuntu screaming loudly doesn't help.  It is, in fact 
(as you suggest is a possibility) generally counter productive.

If someone really wants an escalation path to get some attention on a bug, 
they should go buy a commercial support contract from Canonical (they aren't 
very expensive in the scheme of things) and complain through that path.  I'd 
imagine there's more attention being paid to bugs that customers complain 
about.

Scott K

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Re: How to install Precise without getting screwed?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, April 11, 2012 08:44:18 PM Dane Mutters wrote:
> For what it's worth, I came into this discussion hoping to outline specific
> problems in the GUI design process and come to useful conclusions about how
> to fix it.  It would seem that, while many of the people here are, indeed,
> worth talking to, there are enough who are certainly not, that such an
> effort is basically wasted.  I'm sorry that this list is insufficiently
> tolerant/intelligent/wise to value what would, in other circles, be
> worthwhile conversation.

Part of the problem you're having in this discussion is that Ubuntu developers 
don't develop Unity.  It's a separate project within Canonical that operates 
much like any upstream does.  The distribution developers have some influence 
and do, in some cases, contribute to it, but it's not primarily their work.

If you're trying to reach the driving minds behind Unity, this isn't the right 
place.  There is a mailing list, called unity-design or some similar title 
that might be better.

Scott K

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Re: How to install Precise without getting screwed?

[Scott Kitterman]

Dale Amon  wrote:

>On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 02:01:22PM -0500, C de-Avillez wrote:
>> A lot of people left KDE when KDE4 was put out. A lot returned,
>others
>> went elsewhere. A lot of people will leave Gnome3, or
>> . It happens,
>> people (in general) do not like change. But if I do not like
>something,
>> and I want to _help_ change it, I need to put out a very clear
>> statement of what I think is wrong *AND* why I think it 
>> is wrong.
>
>That is not really the nature of the discussion. Ubuntu
>is a product. Real people use it in business and often
>in mission critical applications. If Ubuntu wishes to
>gain market share, then it must meet customer needs and
>not cause undue havoc with the operations of companies
>all over the world. That is what has been quite clearly
>stated, not as a rant and in a measured and professional
>tone, by professionals who have advocated the use of your
>product. 
>
>You need to be nice to the people who do that. It is not
>my job to help you build your product. My job is to 
>develop my own products using your (or another if necessary)
>platform that is suitable to purpose.
>
>> I have not seen this here.
>
>You are looking for a primarily technical discussion.
>This has been primarily a business operations discussion.
>That is something I am sure Mark Shuttleworth should
>understand and appreciate.

There is a significant difference between Ubuntu, the FOSS Linux distribution, 
and Canonical, the corporation. If you want to have a business discussion, it 
should be with someone with an @canonical.com or some thirdy party business/ 
consultant.  In the context of a Linux distribution being more technically 
focused is quite appropriate and expected.

Unless you're writing a check to someone, you aren't a customer.

Scott K

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Re: How to install Precise without getting screwed?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, April 11, 2012 12:39:51 AM Dane Mutters wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 9:26 PM, Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre <
> 
> mathieu...@ubuntu.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 11:46 PM, Dane Mutters  wrote:
> > [...]
> > 
> > > So, now that we've gotten some matters of conduct out of the way (we
> > 
> > have,
> > 
> > > haven't we?), does anyone care to suggest what to do about making the
> > 
> > GUI(s)
> > 
> > > of Ubuntu more usable for those who aren't OK with the current
> > > offerings?
> > 
> > Have you considered trying the other window manager that are available
> > for installation? Between Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu which each install
> > their own different window manager by default; and being able to
> > install GNOME Shell (gnome-shell) to replace Unity (or
> > gnome-session-fallback for a GNOME2-like look), there's a fair amount
> > of choice.
> > 
> > No matter which option you'll choose, there is bound to be some amount
> > of change in the look and feel, since even GNOME is moving away from
> > what you're used to seeing in 10.04 with the two panels. That will
> > mean some amount of relearning, with a varying transition period
> > depending on your choice.
> > 
> > As far as I can tell, from an LTS to LTS upgrade perspective it's all
> > a matter of choosing whether you want to spend increasing amounts of
> > time figuring out how to get the same look you were used to, or
> > spending a (relatively) finite amount of time relearning interface to
> > familiarize yourself with . That's true
> > for all other distros at this point in time, the difference is that
> > Ubuntu has chosen to go with Unity as the default window manager for
> > Ubuntu Desktop installs (as opposed to Kubuntu or others).
> 
> There's somewhat more to it than that.  The major issue (among many other
> issues) is that the new GUIs don't do the things that used to be available
> on the old one (Gnome 2).  Example: I can't add a good system monitor to
> Gnome 3 because the old gnome-system-monitor applet (being an applet at
> all, apparently) is incompatible with Gnome 3.  There are Gnome Shell
> implementations that are buggy and incomplete, of course, but I see no good
> reason to use a buggy and incomplete  if a fully-functional
> version has been available for years.
> 
> Of course, that's just a minor example, and won't be relevant for everyone;
> but the overall principle is important: what used to work no longer works.
> This goes beyond simply learning to click the new places; it's a matter of
> missing functionality and bugs.
> 
> 
> Scott, you said that Canonical is railroading Ubuntu to use Unity.  Is this
> 100% certain?  Also, is it 100% certain that Unity *must* continue in the
> direction it's currently moving in?  It seems to have been optimized for
> netbooks, and as such, lacks much of what desktop (and large laptop) users
> find essential and/or appropriate.  Do you know if there will be a
> "desktop-centric" version in the foreseeable future?  Has there been any
> discussion of it?  Finally, would a petition with, say, 100,000 signatures
> (or whatever large number seems appropriate), delivered to Mark
> Shuttleworth, be enough to get some say in this?

They are on a path.  The chances of them getting off the path in the near term 
are, IMO, nil.  Your criticisms aren't unique, so I don't think they will get 
anywhere.  Their view seems to be something like, "We understand it's different 
and uncomfortable to change, but in the long run, you'll love it - trust us."

I don't know more than anyone else about what their future plans are (probably 
less since I'm not a Unity user).  

That said, if you can find specific things you are having problems with and 
make 
specific suggestions about how to solve the problems that are generally their 
direction, you've got a chance of being heard.  "Go back to what it was" has 
no chance at all.

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Re: How to install Precise without getting screwed?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, April 10, 2012 08:46:23 PM Dane Mutters wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 2:24 PM, Scott Kitterman 
wrote:
> > On Tuesday, April 10, 2012 12:26:22 PM Robert Holtzman wrote:
> > > On Sat, Apr 07, 2012 at 10:26:50PM -0700, Dane Mutters wrote:
> > ...
> > 
> > > Oh,come on. Let's not start this again. What is it about the various
> > > Ubuntu lists that causes the Manners Police to fire up their computers
> > > to pop out how we unwashed masses should comport ourselves every time
> > > the discussion gets a little spirited?
> > > 
> > > I assume the people on this list are adults, capable of reading things
> > > like "pinhead", "stupid", "moron", etc without getting the vapors and
> > > reaching for the smelling salts.
> > 
> > Certainly.  The delete key works great for such cases.  If you want to
> > contribute to the Ubuntu community in a way that is going to be effective,
> > then
> > poorly written rants aren't the best way to go about it.
> > 
> > Scott K
> 
> So, now that we've gotten some matters of conduct out of the way (we have,
> haven't we?), does anyone care to suggest what to do about making the
> GUI(s) of Ubuntu more usable for those who aren't OK with the current
> offerings?
> 
> I think we've outlined the problem fairly well (thanks to those who have
> posted thus far), though further explanation would, of course, be welcome,
> should something be missing.
> 
> Scott K, you've typically been a voice of reason on the Ubuntu mailing
> lists in the past; do you have any insights?  Anyone else?

Ubuntu is on a train and that train is called Unity.  The tracks are being 
laid within Canonical and it is very difficult to influence where they are 
being 
put down from the outside.  The Canonical design team has started to engage 
the community to discuss some of the relevant issues (although I haven't been 
following the details).  You should accept that you aren't going to make major 
changes in where Unity is headed.  It just isn't going to happen from the 
outside.

You can either get on this Unity train or pick another one.  Those are really 
the choices.  Personally, I run Kubuntu.  Xubuntu is also very popular.  I 
believe that there is a community forming around the idea of trying to 
similarly provide a Gnome 3 experience from within the Ubuntu project.  You 
need to figure out which one you like best.  They all have their advantages and 
disadvantages.

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Re: How to install Precise without getting screwed?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, April 10, 2012 12:26:22 PM Robert Holtzman wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 07, 2012 at 10:26:50PM -0700, Dane Mutters wrote:
...
> Oh,come on. Let's not start this again. What is it about the various
> Ubuntu lists that causes the Manners Police to fire up their computers
> to pop out how we unwashed masses should comport ourselves every time
> the discussion gets a little spirited?
> 
> I assume the people on this list are adults, capable of reading things
> like "pinhead", "stupid", "moron", etc without getting the vapors and
> reaching for the smelling salts.

Certainly.  The delete key works great for such cases.  If you want to 
contribute to the Ubuntu community in a way that is going to be effective, then 
poorly written rants aren't the best way to go about it.

Scott K

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Re: How to install Precise without getting screwed?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, April 02, 2012 08:58:20 PM Dale Amon wrote:
> Oh and did I mention that some are only accessible
> by ip or have unique ssh ports for security? I'm
> not very good at remembering those at 3am.

That's what ~/.ssh/config is for.

Scott K

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Re: "Fix released" before "Fix committed"?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, March 20, 2012 10:31:21 AM Andreas Hasenack wrote:
> I don't get this:
> 
> andreas@nsn7:~/bzr/landscape-client$ bzr branch
> ubuntu:landscape-client landscape-client-12.04-0ubuntu1
> Most recent Ubuntu version: 12.04-0ubuntu1
> 
> 
> Packaging branch version: 11.07.1.1-0ubuntu2
> Packaging branch status: OUT-OF-DATE
> Branched 40 revisions.
> 
> 
> andreas@nsn7:~/bzr/landscape-client$
> 
> How come the package be in the archive already, but the branch is not
> committed?

Unless someone bothers to manually commit to the UDD branch, that's the normal 
case.

Scott K

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Re: Update duplicity

[Scott Kitterman]

On Saturday, March 03, 2012 07:35:13 PM Andreas Moog wrote:
> On 03.03.2012 19:18, Dan Lange wrote:
> > v0.6.17 was released three months ago but Ubuntu hasn't updated their
> > packages for 11.10 (oneiric). Is there something blocking this or has
> > Duplicity slipped through the cracks?
> 
> We generally do not package new upstream versions for previous releases
> of Ubuntu due to the risk of introducing regressions. If there is a
> particular bug you like to get fixed, have a look at the Stable Release
> Upgrade procedure outlined at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates

Precise does have 0.6.17, so you'll see it in 12.04.  If you'd like to see the 
package as a whole for 11.10, backports is what you should be looking into:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBackports

Scott K

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Re: nginx package

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, February 22, 2012 02:44:13 PM Bedwell, Jordon wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 2:41 PM, Scott Kitterman  
wrote:
> > On Wednesday, February 22, 2012 02:39:08 PM Bedwell, Jordon wrote:
> >> On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 2:28 PM, Deni Bertović  wrote:
> >> > I am on Ubuntu 11.10.
> >> > 
> >> > Like i pointed out above. On a fresh install I do:
> >> > 'apt-get install nginx'
> >> > 
> >> > This install the necessary packages.
> >> > After that i do:
> >> > 'apt-get remove nginx'
> >> > 
> >> > And it does not remove the other packages (nginx-full and -common)
> >> > I then try:
> >> > 'apt-get autoremove'
> >> > 
> >> > And nothing happens. I fail to see how this is an issue with my
> >> > system
> >> > if
> >> > it's a fresh install of Ubuntu.
> >> 
> >> You need to pass --purge or use purge to remove the currently being
> >> uninstalled sub-packages.  autoremove is used to remove old remnants,
> >> I use it with --purge to try and catch old packages at the same time
> >> as removing the current package but you must always purge too.
> > 
> > No.  That isn't what purge does at all.
> 
> Is that so?
> 
> purge
>   purge is identical to remove except that packages are
> removed and purged (any configuration files are deleted too).

Yes.  The difference between remove and purge is the deletion of configuration 
files.  It has no affect on what packages are removed.

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Re: nginx package

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, February 22, 2012 02:39:08 PM Bedwell, Jordon wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 2:28 PM, Deni Bertović  wrote:
> > I am on Ubuntu 11.10.
> > 
> > Like i pointed out above. On a fresh install I do:
> > 'apt-get install nginx'
> > 
> > This install the necessary packages.
> > After that i do:
> > 'apt-get remove nginx'
> > 
> > And it does not remove the other packages (nginx-full and -common)
> > I then try:
> > 'apt-get autoremove'
> > 
> > And nothing happens. I fail to see how this is an issue with my system
> > if
> > it's a fresh install of Ubuntu.
> 
> You need to pass --purge or use purge to remove the currently being
> uninstalled sub-packages.  autoremove is used to remove old remnants,
> I use it with --purge to try and catch old packages at the same time
> as removing the current package but you must always purge too.

No.  That isn't what purge does at all.

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Re: Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Scott Kitterman]

On 11/01/2011 01:42 PM, Jeff Hanson wrote:

What annoys me more is the third-party use of both /usr/local and
/opt.  I would rather get rid of /opt.  I consider /usr/local the
proper place for anything not handled by a package manager.


FHS has a very specific purpose for /opt and it's different than /usr/local.

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Re: Brainstorming for UDS-P

[Scott Kitterman]

Rodney Dawes  wrote:

>On Wed, 2011-10-12 at 04:44 -0400, Martin Owens wrote:
>> On Tue, 2011-10-11 at 09:39 -0400, Rodney Dawes wrote:
>> > The Fluendo plug-in is the only fully legal MP3 codec
>implementation
>> > there is to use. 
>> 
>> You don't know that for sure Dobey, libmad has never gone to court
>and
>> it's status is a guess. Perhaps a very good guess, but a guess just
>the
>> same. Of course if we took the same actions for other free software
>with
>> patent issues we'd also mark the linux kernel as non-free and kick
>that
>> out too. *inconsistent*
>
>Given that libmad is GPL and has not paid license fees to implement the
>MP3 codec, it is not legal. Whether or not you disagree with the
>validity of patents or not is irrelevant. Under the current laws, the
>Fluendo implementation is currently the only legal one in countries
>where patents hold any weight in the legal system. Let's not turn this
>thread into an argument about patent issues.

Fine, but independent of this specific instance "patented" is not the standard 
relevant for Ubuntu. No non-trivial software is not affected by patents, so 
Ubuntu only worries about actively enforced patents.

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Re: Brainstorming for UDS-P

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday, September 23, 2011 09:56:17 PM Allison Randal wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> While we're all in the final preparations for Oneiric, it's round about
> that time in the cycle to start thinking about plans for the next cycle.
> What's on your mind?
> 
Will we sync from Testing or Unstable this cycle?

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Re: Brainstorming for UDS-P

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday, September 23, 2011 09:56:17 PM Allison Randal wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> While we're all in the final preparations for Oneiric, it's round about
> that time in the cycle to start thinking about plans for the next cycle.
> What's on your mind?

Having a release where the release team wasn't flooded with last minute feature 
freeze exception requests from Canonical projets like Ubuntuone and Ayatana.

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Re: Brainstorming for UDS-P

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, September 26, 2011 06:58:45 PM Barry Warsaw wrote:
> The python-dbus issue is a tricky one.  I understand that it's a blocker for
> KDE.

Python-opengl is another one.  

While I know PyQt4 and PyKDE4 have Python3 ports, I have not examined how 
complete they are, but I'm sure they need more upstream work as well.  There 
are also quit a number of Python based applications that, AFAIK, are unported 
in KDE.

If you aim your minimum Python version at 2.6, it's not that hard to write 
code that works with both python and python3.  If you want a "P" target for 
Python3, I'd suggest getting Ubuntu custom code working in either so that we 
can through the switch when ready would be a really good goal.

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Re: Brainstorming for UDS-P

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, September 26, 2011 03:58:56 PM Rodrigo Moya wrote:
> On vie, 2011-09-23 at 21:56 +0100, Allison Randal wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > While we're all in the final preparations for Oneiric, it's round about
> > that time in the cycle to start thinking about plans for the next cycle.
> > What's on your mind?
> 
> as GNOME upstream is moving to use PackageKit and systemd more and more,
> I think it would be great, since these 2 provide well known DBus
> interfaces, to implement those DBus interfaces in our stack (aptdaemon
> and ¿ubuntu-system-service?)
> 
> cheers

We used packagekit/kpackagekit in Kubuntu for several cycles.  It's really not 
well oriented towards Debian style packaging (Debian released Squeeze with no 
KDE GUI package manager rather than use a packagekit based solution).  We've 
recently switched to a Debian native solution that I think will work better 
for Kubuntu.  RPM and Debian packages are very different in a lot of ways and 
I'm skeptical that something written for RPM is going to be suitable.

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Re: Brainstorming for UDS-P

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday, September 23, 2011 09:57:09 PM Barry Warsaw wrote:
> On Sep 23, 2011, at 08:12 PM, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> >On Friday, September 23, 2011 07:55:24 PM Barry Warsaw wrote:
> >> * Python 3 only on the CDs.
> >
> >Not feasible for Kubuntu unless an upstream Python 3 port for python-dbus
> >appears (which python-qt4/pykde4 can support).
> 
> Yep, I fully expect there will be some critical packages that we'll have to
> port ourselves, mostly because upstream won't have done them yet.  Allison
> started a list of these for UDS-O so I think we have good data to start
> from, but will likely need updating.  We can hash that out at UDS-P.

python-dbus may present a particular problem.  Last I heard, upstream was not 
planning a straight port to python3.  They were planning to use gobject 
introspection.  This is a problematic choice for supporting a cross-desktop 
technology.

Even if we were to do our own python-dbus python3 port, the relevant parts of 
python-qt4 and pykde4 would also have to be ported.

If we're serious about a python3 only desktop in "P", then I think some 
upstream coordination now is essential.  KDE 4.8 (the version we would expect 
to use for "P" for Kubuntu) dependency freeze is November 3.  There isn't a 
lot of time to coordinate this with upstream.

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Re: Brainstorming for UDS-P

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday, September 23, 2011 07:55:24 PM Barry Warsaw wrote:
> * Python 3 only on the CDs.

Not feasible for Kubuntu unless an upstream Python 3 port for python-dbus 
appears (which python-qt4/pykde4 can support).

> * Python 2.6 dropped.

Yes.  We should do this as part of the toolchain setup for P so it's in place 
for the first autosync (this will require a decision pre-UDS).

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Re: New feature request for Software Center - Tag as outdated

[Scott Kitterman]

Erlan Sergaziev  wrote:

>There are a lot of packages even in Oneiric that are 1-2 versions
>behind 
>stable upstream.
>
>I would suggest therefore that Software Center has a feature where
>users 
>will be able to tag certain packages as outdated like in arch.
>
>Tagging should have the following benefits:
>
>1) The number of users tagging a package will indicate the "heat" of
>the 
>need of package's new version.
>2) An email message should be sent to the main package maintainer. If
>no 
>response received say within 3 months, the package should be declared 
>unmaintained and so other packagers can chime in.

Ubuntu doesn't have dedicated package maintainers, so there isn't a need to 
track for this purpose. Also, there are a number of tools developers use to 
keep track of needed updates. Software Center isn't used for this.

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Re: Fwd: Re: Eventually drop the top-panel?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, June 27, 2011 05:50:31 PM Kai Mast wrote:
> Argh, got sent to the wrong email. Is the Reply-To-Element missing on
> the List?

No.  It's not missing.

Scott K

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Re: GNOME Panel dropped in 11.10

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday, May 06, 2011 12:23:40 AM Francis Bolduc wrote:
> When computers are concerned, I'm usually stubborn and conservative. I
> know exactly what I like and dislike and I do everything I can to get
> rid of what I dislike on my own computer.

JFTR, that sounds a lot like the KDE target audience.  My experience with 
seeing other long term Gnome users switch is that they are initially 
overwhelmed by the number of options and the customability, but once they get 
over trying to tweak everything, just because they can, and take a little time 
to get to know the environment and what works for them, it often turns out 
pretty good.

Scott K

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Re: Congrats on 11.04

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday, April 29, 2011 10:42:50 PM John Moser wrote:
>   - Installing Gnome3 from the PPA really does completely hose the 
> system; after that, Unity and Gnome-classic break, only Gnome-shell 
> works, and Gnome-shell doesn't work with my ATi card (it skews the 
> contents of windows diagonally, ad uselessness).  Imagine that, I 
> ignored the warnings and something bad happened.
> 
> Like I said, Ubuntu is Microsofting gnome-shell.  They're using their 
> market clout to squash a product that's better than theirs.  I'm waiting 
> to see Canonical try to absorb the GNOME team.

I wouldn't read too much into this.  Due to the timing of the Gnome 3.0 
release it really didn't (from a purely technical point of view) make sense to 
update everything to 3.0, so what you need for Ubuntu 11.04 and Gnome 3.0 are 
out of sync.  Several of the first uploads today when Oneiric opened were 3.0 
versions of Gnome things.

I expect you'll find Gnome Shell working much better in 11.10 than it does in 
11.04 as the timing is much better.

Speaking as someone who uses neither, I think there's no news here, just the 
timing didn't work out very well and the Ubuntu desktop developers quite 
reasonably focused on making the default system they were shipping work well 
for the release.

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Re: Congrats on 11.04

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday, April 29, 2011 10:33:20 PM Martin Owens wrote:
> Oh woe! Won't someone let me write cool stuff in python?

Yes.  python-kde4 and python-qt4 would love to let you do that.

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Re: [Oneiric-Foundations-Topic] networked client app updates

[Scott Kitterman]

Jan Claeys  wrote:

>John Rowland Lenton schreef op do 21-04-2011 om 18:23 [+0100]:
>> * recently we had to upgrade couchdb in lucid for replication to
>work,
>>   and the upgrade broke replication with the old version (which was
>the
>>   reason we needed to upgrade), as well as potentially breaking couch
>>   apps that only worked with the older version. What we ended up
>doing
>>   was putting the fix in backports as the less onerous of the
>>   non-world-breaking options we had. 
>
>Wasn't it possible to make the new U1 client(s) depend on a new package
>'couchdb-for-u1' (just an example name) which installs in a different
>location/namespace and doesn't interfere with the LTS version of it?
>
Code copies complicate security support and post release maintenance. It's not 
forbidden, but definitely discouraged.

Scott K


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Re: [Oneiric-Foundations-Topic] networked client app updates

[Scott Kitterman]

On Thursday, April 21, 2011 01:23:52 PM John Rowland Lenton wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:29:22 -0400, Scott Kitterman  
wrote:
> > Go through the tech board (as Landscape did) and show your QA/updating
> > process is sufficiently robust to be able to ship needed feature updates
> > in *-updates. While this doesn't scale well and doesn't work at all for
> > clients without someone working on updating specifically for Ubuntu, for
> > Ubuntu One it should be doable.  The larger issue is updates to client
> > libraries that have other users.
> 
> A few problems with this idea (which I'd be glad to be wrong about):
> 
> * recently we had to upgrade couchdb in lucid for replication to work,
>   and the upgrade broke replication with the old version (which was the
>   reason we needed to upgrade), as well as potentially breaking couch
>   apps that only worked with the older version. What we ended up doing
>   was putting the fix in backports as the less onerous of the
>   non-world-breaking options we had.
> 
> * if our projects switch to, say, python 4, then we'd be looking at
>   shipping python 4 to all supported ubuntus, including LTS'es.
> 
> * it's easy to imagine scenarios where we'd want to ship updated
>   versions of rhythmbox, banshee or nautilus (and/or any newer
>   application that integrated with our apis). Much more commonly we'd
>   want to update plugins to those apps.
> 
> the thing we need is to have as much feature parity as is possible
> across all the platforms we support, and that includes across all
> supported versions of ubuntu. So if this were already in place and we
> were ship a completely new feature in three months time, we'd want lucid
> users to be able to use it (without the unity bits, say).

That's what I meant by "The larger issue is updates to client libraries that 
have other users."  It's certainly an issue that needs to be addressed.  I 
think it needs upfront design consideration to minimize the risks of needing 
to do such changes.

If you need to ship such updated versions of multiple packages, -backports is 
the only in archive approach that I think might work.  Due to some work that 
landed in Natty, I'm going to propose that's enabled by default in Oneiric and 
later releases.

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Re: [Oneiric-Foundations-Topic] networked client app updates

[Scott Kitterman]

On Thursday, April 21, 2011 11:14:17 AM Allison Randal wrote:
> The Ubuntu One developers have an interesting technical conundrum that
> would benefit greatly from all of your thoughts. They've started
> collecting ideas, and would like to collect more, and hopefully settle
> down on a plan for the next cycle in a UDS session.
> 
> The basic problem is in keeping a networked client in sync with a
> networked service. In the wider world this is generally handled by
> releasing an update for the client whenever the service changes. Ubuntu
> One has been tying the development cycle for their service to Ubuntu's
> six month cycle, so client feature updates only happen in new distro
> releases. But, even that doesn't quite work, because once you change the
> service then clients on older distro releases (especially LTSs) still
> need the feature updates to connect to the updated service. Sometimes
> these feature updates depend on newer versions of libraries than exist
> on the older distro releases.
> 
> The category of lightweight client apps for a remote service is becoming
> more and more common, so ideally a solution for Ubuntu One will be one
> we can recommend to all app developers. Here's a grab bag of
> brainstorming so far:
> 
> - Only ship a very small shim for the client on the CD (advantage of
> small footprint), and do the rest of the install the first time someone
> uses Ubuntu One.
> 
> - Ship Ubuntu One client in extras, backports, commercial, or partner
> repository. (Better if it's on by default than requiring a manual step
> to enable the repository.)
> 
> - Ship Ubuntu One client (only) in a PPA.
> 
> - Implement "self updating" within the client, similar to
> Firefox/Thunderbird (on non-packaged installs). This is the most complex
> technically, so not the most appealing.
> 
> - Pull some update dependencies into /opt/.../UbuntuOne/lib, to keep
> them completely isolated from the rest of the system, but available to
> the Ubuntu One client.
> 
> Do you all have more ideas or suggestions?

Go through the tech board (as Landscape did) and show your QA/updating process 
is sufficiently robust to be able to ship needed feature updates in *-updates.  
While this doesn't scale well and doesn't work at all for clients without 
someone working on updating specifically for Ubuntu, for Ubuntu One it should 
be doable.  The larger issue is updates to client libraries that have other 
users.

Scott K

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Re: [Oneiric topic] IPv6

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, April 19, 2011 09:50:27 AM Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre wrote:
> For Oneiric, my plan is to change that default for new interfaces to
> Automatic IPv6 and not requiring IPv4 or IPv6 to bring up interfaces,
> which should make almost everyone happy.

What's the delay caused to get an IPv4 address when it tries IPv6 first and 
fails?

Scott K

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Re: Conditional patching in mod-wsgi

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, April 19, 2011 06:23:28 AM James Page wrote:
> Help/guidance/opinion much appreciated.

Debian has got the same problem since python3.2 is now the default there too. 
I would recommend contacting the debian mod-wsgi maintainers and asking their 
advice.

Scott K

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Re: amanda client/server update

[Scott Kitterman]

On Friday, April 15, 2011 12:28:33 AM Robert Simmons wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 12:21 AM, Scott Kitterman  
wrote:
> > On Thursday, April 14, 2011 10:26:30 PM Robert Simmons wrote:
> >> I'm sure the closer the Natty release date gets the more requests such
> >> as this you get, but is there any chance that the amanda client and
> >> server packages will be brought up to date by then?
> >> 
> >> Update to ver 3.2.2.
> >> 
> >> Thanks,
> >> Rob
> > 
> > We had version 3.2.0.  Based on your request, I checked Debian and they
> > have 3.2.1 packaged.  I've requested to have it sync'ed from Debian, so
> > you should get 3.2.1 at least.  Amanda is a reasonably complex package
> > and so I think this close to release we are better off to rely on the
> > expertise of the Debian maintainer and update to what he has
> > successfully packaged than to attempt to jump past that.
> > 
> > Scott K
> 
> Thanks for the prompt attention!  This is better than leaving it alone.
> 
> Rob

It's in Natty now:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/amanda/1:3.2.1-1

Scott K

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Re: amanda client/server update

[Scott Kitterman]

On Thursday, April 14, 2011 10:26:30 PM Robert Simmons wrote:
> I'm sure the closer the Natty release date gets the more requests such
> as this you get, but is there any chance that the amanda client and
> server packages will be brought up to date by then?
> 
> Update to ver 3.2.2.
> 
> Thanks,
> Rob

We had version 3.2.0.  Based on your request, I checked Debian and they have 
3.2.1 packaged.  I've requested to have it sync'ed from Debian, so you should 
get 3.2.1 at least.  Amanda is a reasonably complex package and so I think 
this close to release we are better off to rely on the expertise of the Debian 
maintainer and update to what he has successfully packaged than to attempt to 
jump past that.

Scott K

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Re: The Dell Latitude reality check

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, February 16, 2011 08:45:01 pm Patrick Goetz wrote:
> On 2/16/2011 4:07 PM, Paul Smith wrote:
> > The problem is with the licensing of the _proprietary driver_.  These
> > drivers typically allow no-charge download directly from the vendor
> > website, but the license includes terms that make REDISTRIBUTION illegal
> > (without permission).
> 
> If that's the case, then the solution is option A: provide the user with
> upfront information on the issue with this driver and how to obtain the
> driver and then provide some mechanism (think Windows XP here) to vector
> the driver into the install using a USB stick or some such device.
> 
> Not only will this provide a much better user experience, but it creates
> consumer awareness of these driver issues.  And who knows how many of
> these first time installers will get irritated enough to contact the
> hardware vendor and complain?  in essence, a free opportunity to apply
> pressure to vendors to provide open source or at least freely
> distributable linux drivers.

It's not the case.  We have broadcom drivers in restricted on at least some 
ISOs.  The issue is the lack of U/I to make driver install and wireless setup 
easy in the context of the installer.  Some of this work was planned for 
Maverick, but didn't get done due to lack of resources.

Scott K

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Re: The Dell Latitude reality check

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, February 16, 2011 04:49:40 pm Patrick Goetz wrote:
> At work we have an automated install system and use a highly customized
> version of 10.10.  For friends and family, I use the standard i386/amd64
> Ubuntu Desktop ISO to install Ubuntu on their machines.
> 
> Recently, I decided to re-install an old Dell Latitude D630 with
> Maverick so that my 16-month-old electronics fanatic would have
> something to bang around on and watch Sesame Street videos.  I took the
> opportunity to play the "what if I were a naive end user installing
> Ubuntu for the first time?" game.  It's a laptop, so obviously I'm going
> to be using a wireless network connection ... I decided to try doing the
> install over wireless -- what else?  (Mentally try and count the number
> of end users you know who don't even understand the concept of a wired
> connection.)  Then queue up the Rolling Stones, because you still can't
> get any satisfaction, as far as I can tell, trying to install Ubuntu
> 10.10 on a 6-year old laptop with a Broadcom wireless chip.
> 
> I understand the whole issue with proprietary drivers, but surely -- 19
> years into the linux game -- there must be a solution to this problem
> for providing end users a painless install experience on extremely
> generic hardware?
> 
> At the very least, the installer should scan the hardware and notify the
> user that they have install-critical hardware which requires proprietary
> drivers along with instructions on how to get the necessary drivers.
> 
> A better solution would be to include the most common proprietary
> drivers in some kind of encrypted sandbox on the install CD and let the
> user choose whether or not he/she would like to use the proprietary
> drivers at the time of the install.  I'll let the GPL legal experts
> figure out precisely how this could be done, but it seems to me it
> should be possible.

Although not trivial to discover, all the needed bits should be on the live 
CD.  I have a Dell mini 10v (which also has broadcom) and I've done multiple 
Kubuntu installs with wireless.  I did have to go into the live session, use 
jockey to install the drivers, set up wireless, and then fire up the 
installer, so it's not dead simple, but it does work.

The problem isn't getting the ones and zeros on the ISO, it's getting the U/I 
in the installer right for wifi setup and installer drivers in the live 
session.

Scott K

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Re: The Oracle debate. Possibly an over-reaction?

[Scott Kitterman]

"Chris Jones"  wrote:

>I know somewhere along the line Ubuntu is probably going to switch to
>LibreOffice by default. But does that mean that with the future
>inclusion of LO, it also means to future removal of OpenOffice from the
>repositories?
>If yes, can someone really explain why.
>
>
>I've been thinking about this for some weeks now.
>When Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, I was really worried about the
>future of some software and services, as were many other nerds alike.
>
>But the new release of Virtualbox 4.0 spawned me to write this post,
>as the latest 4.0 release of VB is an awesome release with due credit
>to
>Oracle as there beens lots of fixes and additions.
>
>And Oracle are close to releasing OpenOffice 3.3 (currently in RC8). In
>addition to the recent updated release of MySQL 5.5 and Solaris 11.
>I haven't personally tested out MySQL 5.5 but I do dabble a bit in
>Solaris 11 and once again, they've done a fine job with a fine release.
>So credit to Oracle where due.
>
>And for which all of the aforementioned are freely available and as
>open
>as they were before, when Sun Microsystems had them.
>
>
>So at current, I can't really see any reason to either start removing
>Oracle products from the repositories or to generate some sort of geek
>hatred toward Oracle.

The OOo packages are a nightmare to maintain. Without someone to maintain them, 
it's unlikely they will continue to be useful. Additionally, the OOo packages 
shipped be Ubuntu have long been heavily patched with patches that Sun, due to 
the way it ran the project did not include.

As I understand it, a large part of the first Libre Office release is 
integration of these changes.

I'm not aware of anyone volunteering to maintain OOo packages after Ubuntu 
switches to Libre Office. Without someone to do the work, keeping the packages 
has little benefit.

If you look at the history of the OOo project there are lots of reasons to 
prefer a viable alternative now that one exists that have nothing to do with 
Oracle or changes they've made.

Scott K


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Re: Sync Request process questions

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, December 14, 2010 02:34:10 pm Reuben Thomas wrote:
> The implications from this are unfortunate:
> 
> a. We will do nothing unless you prove in detail that the package can
> be synced to Debian. This implication could be removed by simply
> making the automatic response to a sync request a little more
> friendly: "Thank you for your sync request. We'll try to get around to
> it, but you can help us immensely by following the procedure on this
> page: ..."
> 
> b. When there are Ubuntu changes to a Debian package that need to
> remain in a new version, we won't bother syncing the new version. This
> is clearly false: there are many packages which are updated, even
> though Ubuntu-specific changes need to be forward-ported. This
> implication can be removed by adding instructions to the sync request
> wiki page on what to do in this circumstance.

c.  I doesn't need a sync, it needs a merge.  It looks like you got caught up 
a bit in Ubuntu specific terminology.  See 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopment/Merging

No doubt the documentation and such around this could stand a lot of 
improvement.

Scott K

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Re: SSH and the Ubuntu Server

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, November 17, 2010 04:38:53 pm Dustin Kirkland wrote:
> Q: Why not default the cursor on that question to "No", instead of "Yes"?
>  A: That totally bypasses the value of this proposal, and is only
> microscopically better than what we currently have ...

Dustin,

I think this seriously under values the many benifits of your proposal.  The 
concern I have with defaulting a new question to yes the first time it appears 
is that if someone has a standard preseed they are using this will change what 
they get installed and they will never see the question (If I understand how 
all this works correctly and that's not certain).

If we are going to change the no open ports by default policy (and I think 
your proposal would do that), I think we should not be in a great rush to do 
that.

I would propose that the question should at least exist in an LTS release with 
a conservative default (no in this case) before defaulting to the less 
conservative default.  My thought would be to do all as you propose, except 
leave it as default No for now and then consider swtiching to yes in 12.10.

I know that's a longer timeline than you'd prefer, but I think it pays to be 
conservative in how we approach this.

BTW, given the number of knocks I see on the door at port 22, this is very 
much not like the gorrilla thing.

Scott K

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Re: SSH and the Ubuntu Server

[Scott Kitterman]

On Thursday, November 18, 2010 04:21:42 am sam tygier wrote:
> On 17/11/10 21:38, Dustin Kirkland wrote:
> > This proposal requests that:
> >   1) a new prompt be added to the Ubuntu Server installer
> >   2) this prompt be dedicated to the boolean installation, or
> > 
> > non-installation, of the SSH service, as an essential facet of a
> > typical server
> > 
> >   3) the cursor highlights the affirmative (yes, please install SSH),
> > 
> > but awaits the user's conscious decision
> 
> you could make the ssh server recommend denyhosts or fail2ban (both prevent
> brute force attacks by blocking hosts that make to many failed login
> attempts)

No.  This is a bad idea.  There are too many different ways to solve this 
problem (and IMO these are not the most robust) to impose a default on the 
user.

Scott K

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Re: I am looking for packages with checks

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, November 10, 2010 03:22:20 pm C de-Avillez wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> We currently daily build some packages that embed extensive tests in the
> build process. I want to extend the tests for either build-time tests or
> a binary that runs it.
> 
> I am now looking for either:
> 
> * packages with extensive tests on build time
> * packages that build an extensive test binary
> 
> Emphasis is on Main packages, but all that have such tests are
> interesting for us.
> 
> I already know of the following (as of Maverick, updates to Natty welcome):
> 
>  * libvirt
>  * postgresql-8.4
>  * mysql-server-5.1
>  * openldap
>  * php5
>  * python2.6
>  * coreutils
> 
> Although I am basically looking for server packages, I am willing to
> consider other flavours. So, if you know of such packages, please tell me.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> ..C..


I believe that clamav would fit your criteria.

Scott K

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Re: Mainstream Developers Repository

[Scott Kitterman]

On Saturday, October 30, 2010 02:35:21 pm Usama Akkad wrote:
> Wa alaikum alsalam,
> Bilal this is different from backports. for example Filezilla and Deluge
> have no problem have more recent release on windows than Linux. You
> already trust the developers of such applications. Why not help them
> reach the users directly under your supervision as Ubuntu.
> 
> You might say any one can create such a repo. Yes but it would hardly be
> in the Ubuntu way.

We had some sessions on this at UDS and are working to make the path smoother 
for upstreams to get new versions of existing packages to users more quickly 
nad easily via adjustments to the Backports Project.  So this is exactly 
backports.

Scott K

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Re: maverick-proposed queue freeze

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, October 26, 2010 10:23:26 pm Andrew Starr-Bochicchio wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 11:40 AM, Jamie Bennett
> 
>  wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > According to the Linaro release process [1] the maverick-proposed queue
> > will be frozen tomorrow. After this date no uploads should be accepted
> > for -proposed until the queue unfreezes on 8th November 2010 without
> > consultation with the Linaro release team [2]. The total freeze time
> > will be 12 days.
> > 
> > The freeze process was agreed at the platform sprint in Prague and has
> > benefits for both Ubuntu and Linaro. This period should be used to flush
> > the -proposed queue, testing, verifying and promoting to
> > maverick-updates what is currently there. If you have an update that
> > really must be added to the queue in the next 12 days please email the
> > team[3] for feedback.
> 
> Is this for the entire archive; will it effect Universe/un-seed
> packages as well? (BTW: Is there a Linaro package set? Is there a
> canonical list of package sets anywhere?)

There isn't a Linaro package set, AFAIK.  From what I know of their interests, 
I expect this will directly affect some packages in Universe.  I'm not on the 
SRU team, so I didn't follow this closely, so I'm not the best person to 
describe the details of the plan.

> > The Linaro Release Candidate images will be created on the 1st November
> > and the images will be verified until Final Release on the 10th
> > November.
> 
> It might be nice if this information is included in the Ubuntu release
> schedule as well for Ubuntu developers like myself who aren't
> following Linaro development closely as this impacts our work.

At the time the Maverick schedule was approved, this requirement didn't exist, 
so it's not in the Maverick schedule (we should check the Natty schedule and 
get this added if it's not there).  This was discussed with the Ubuntu SRU 
team on ubuntu-rele...@l.u.c.  It's my understanding (I'm subscribed to the 
list due to being on the release team, so I was aware of this, but not focused 
on it), that there was an intent to communicate this earlier.  I'm not sure 
why this didn't happen, but I think the positive intent was there for exactly 
what you are asking for.

Scott K

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Re: Maverick Alpha3 +nvidia-96 +updates

[Scott Kitterman]

"NoOp"  wrote:

>On 09/03/2010 05:31 AM, John Vivirito wrote:
>...
>> Nvidia upload may fix this problem but if you look at 
>> https://launchpad.net/bugs/616023
>> that will fix the abi problem and that is the most widely bug.
>> it should be push through new by now if not than soon
>> 
>
>So here we are...
>https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/+bug/626974
>[ABI change in xorg 1.9 breaks legacy nvidia-96 and nvidia-173 drivers
>in Maverick]
>
>As I predicted, multiple legacy nvidia card users are just now
>discovering that their cards do not work with 10.10.
>
>AaronP (nvidia) and nvidia in general seems to have gone walkabout & no
>word from Ubuntu dev's regarding any relief. I wonder if it's time to
>slashdot.

What would the headline be, "Ubuntu Developers Fail To Fix Binary Drivers They 
Don't Have Source For"?

Scott K

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Re: XDG Config Folders

[Scott Kitterman]

"Martin Owens"  wrote:

>
>
>On Wed, 2010-09-01 at 00:19 +0200, Krzysztof Klimonda wrote:
>> For example you are saying that emails should go to the directory
>> specified in user-dirs.[defaults,dirs] but that makes no sense uless
>> we
>> are thinking about $DOCUMENTS/.email_app/. Emails, while being
>> documents, aren't really suited for direct access. The same can be
>> said
>> for many other applications that doesn't fit into any of directory
>> listed in the user-dirs.[defaults,dirs].
>
>Direct access is a misdirection from the real problem of classification.
>Sure emails shouldn't be just files and rarely would I expect a user to
>use nautilus to manage their inbox, but the same can be said for most
>data sets whether they be photo galleries (i.e. cheese) or emails.
>
>What having them in user-dirs does is lay down a guarentee that the data
>will be in a narrower set of standard formats and will make developers
>think very carefully before they run away inventing new formats, new
>indexing and new storage mechanisms.
>
>Instead what it should promote is the sharing of data between
>applications.
>
>Of course few programmers really want to tie themselves down to using
>standard formats in known locations with the possibility of having to
>track externally modified data. It's still not a good excuse to hide
>user data sets from both users and other developers.
>
>Emails, events, bookmarks and contacts are user data sets just like
>photos, documents and videos and it's a damn shame that we mis-classify
>them and save their contents in strange places. But this is a gnome
>problem and judging by that list of non-xdg projects to be converted it
>looks like only a legion of developers all working on this full time
>would be able to sort it out.
>
>Anyone got a few million quid?
>
>> XDG_DATA_HOKE is supposed to be basically a local, user-writable
>> equivalent of /usr/share. There are many things that fit neither this
>> requirement nor "user data" description. 
>
>Yes, and anything else in the XDG_DATA_DIRS list. But few things don't
>fit in my assessment of the problem. Perhaps we could do with a guide
>and maybe I can have a word with a few pipe devels about their
>experiences, requirements and thoughts on the whole thing of data
>classification and storage.

I think working to promote cross desktop adoption of technologies that make it 
easier to interact with data in a consistent, DE independent manner, (like 
Akonadi) will do more to solve this class of problems than specification work.

Scott K

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Re: Firestarter (Chris Jones)

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, August 30, 2010 05:49:48 pm George Farris wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-08-30 at 14:20 -0700, Robert Holtzman wrote:
> > On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 09:22:40PM -0400, Greg Bair wrote:
> > > On 08/28/2010 08:35 PM, Robert Holtzman wrote:
> > > > I was under the impression that Firestarter was no longer being
> > > > maintained/developed. Wrong?
> > > 
> > > Lastest stable, 1.0.3, was released in 2005, so I don't think so.
> > 
> > See the section on Firestarter at
> > https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Firewall
> 
> I just read this so maybe Firestarter won't be needed after all.
> 
> http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/08/ubuntu-firewall-gui-for-ufw.html

That's not particularly news.  Gufw is available in all supported releases 
except Hardy (and it can be gotten from hardy-backports there).

Scott K

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Re: Firestarter

[Scott Kitterman]

On Sunday, August 29, 2010 05:10:38 pm Jim Kielman wrote:
> There is a tool for setting firewall rules installed by default called
> ufw, for those that need a graphical tool to set firewall rules, it's
> just as easy to install gufw, as it is to install firestarter.
> 
> The biggest problem is one of education, most users assume that
> firestarter is the the firewall, when in fact it is iptables/netfilter.
> 
> 
> I'm still learning how to use mailing lists, I created a message last
> night that only got sent to the the person I replied to, so here goes
> again.
> 
> I'm one of the moderators on the forum, and we are constantly trying to
> educate the membership of the dangers of running applications as root.
> Firestarter needs to be run as root.
> 
> This wouldn't be a problem if users ran the program the way it is
> supposed to be run, start it, set the firewall rules, then shut it down.
> Many users start it up when they log in, and leave it run all day,as it
> monitors the firewall and shows blocked connection. Many also assume
> that if firestarter is shutdown they no longer are protected by a firewall.
> 
> With the included tool for setting the firewall all you have to do is
> enable the default rule set and it's done. The default rule set blocks
> almost everything,  and in Windows terms makes the users system seemed
> to be stealthed. All you need is one simple command:
> 
> sudo ufw enable
> 
> And your done. If the defult rules aren't good enough, you can use gufw
> for adding additional rules.

All good arguments for why firestarter isn't something to ship in the default 
install, but not a reason to remove it from the archive.

Scott K

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Re: Apache2 in default Ubuntu install

[Scott Kitterman]

"Harry Strongburg"  wrote:

>On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 09:34:24PM -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
>> It's not in the default install.  Look at the output of aptitude why 
>> apache2-mpm-prefork to see what pulled it in.
>
>So it just happened to have been auto-installed on all the boxes I upgraded 
>from 9.10 to 10.04? That's weird.
>
>How do I find out why it was installed?

Read the second sentence of my last message. 

Scott K

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Re: Apache2 in default Ubuntu install

[Scott Kitterman]

"Harry Strongburg"  wrote:

>Why is apache2 in the default Ubuntu install?
>
>I upgraded from 9.10 to 10.04 LTS today, and the upgrade procedure installed 
>Apache2 onto my box, even though I have had it autoremoved for a long time.
>It also did this on another server I upgraded, and that server runs lighttpd 
>too!
>
>>Selecting previously deselected package apache2.2-bin.
>>Unpacking apache2.2-bin (from .../apache2.2-bin_2.2.14-5ubuntu8_i386.deb) ...
>>Selecting previously deselected package apache2-utils.
>>Unpacking apache2-utils (from .../apache2-utils_2.2.14-5ubuntu8_i386.deb) ...
>>Selecting previously deselected package apache2.2-common.
>>Unpacking apache2.2-common (from 
>>.../apache2.2-common_2.2.14-5ubuntu8_i386.deb) ...
>>Selecting previously deselected package apache2-mpm-prefork.
>>Unpacking apache2-mpm-prefork (from 
>>.../apache2-mpm-prefork_2.2.14-5ubuntu8_i386.deb) ...
>
>Why do you do this, Ubuntu developers? Apache2 isn't required for an Ubuntu 
>install, and heck, it SHOULDN'T be in a default install. If a user wants to 
>run a httpd, they can install it themselves.
>
It's not in the default install.  Look at the output of aptitude why 
apache2-mpm-prefork to see what pulled it in.

Scott K

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Re: Request for feedback: Developer Mentoring Program

[Scott Kitterman]

On Thursday, July 15, 2010 07:12:05 pm Scott Howard wrote:

> Mentoring will occur in public channels (motu-mentors mailing list,
> IRC, etc.), 

Mentoring should happen as part of the communication flow where the development 
work is happening.  For MOTU, this would be in #ubuntu-motu or the ubuntu-motu 
mailing list.  Mentoring happening away from normal development work was one 
of my core objections to the program before and it remains.

Scott K

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Re: how can i uninstall Plymouth, or replace it with Usplash?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Saturday, July 10, 2010 11:01:51 Paulo Silva wrote:
> hi!
> 
> maybe because Plymouth (Ubuntu 10.04 upgrade installed it, but i have
> it disabled from StartupManager, i think), fsck is not providing that
> so useful progressbar of filesystems checking.
> 
> i have some questions about it:
> 
> can i have this fsck in text mode providing a filesystem check
> progress bar back from a configuration file?
> 
> and if not, is Plymouth conflicting somehow with fsck?
> 
> and if it is, how can we uninstall Plymouth? (Synaptic is saying every
> packages else, even Gnome, will be uninstalled as well, when i only
> want to uninstall Plymouth)

Plymouth is not an optional part of the system.

Scott K

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Re: Ubuntu Branch reviewers

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday, July 05, 2010 11:47:46 Bilal Akhtar wrote:
> Hi all,
> I think it would be a *lot* better to set the reviewer of all ubuntu
> branches to ubuntu-sponsors. This would prevent confusion among people
> who wish to fix bugs in Ubuntu or merge packages. Such people propose a
> merge and the value of reviewer is set to ubuntu-branches, while,
> according to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/HowToFix and others, the
> reviewer should be ubuntu-sponsors. A merge proposal that has this
> mistake is
> https://code.edge.launchpad.net/~joel-auterson/ubuntu/maverick/shotwell/men
> u_rename/+merge/28598 where I had to comment in order to get this change
> done.
> 
> What are your opinions?
> 
Does that mean members of ubuntu-sponsors would get emailed about merges?

Scott K

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Re: How to use the new Launchpad status?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, July 07, 2010 18:34:41 Micah Gersten wrote:
> On 07/07/2010 01:08 PM, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > On Wednesday, July 07, 2010 13:17:19 Bruno Girin wrote:
> >> On Wed, 2010-07-07 at 11:48 -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> >>> On Wednesday, July 07, 2010 11:29:36 Evan wrote:
> >>>> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 11:21 AM, Bruno Girin 
> > 
> > wrote:
> >>>>> On Wed, 2010-07-07 at 09:53 -0500, Benjamin Root wrote:
> >>>>>> Sounds like to me that it is a finer grained version of "Invalid".
> >>>>>> The idea being that rather than possibly insulting the OP with an
> >>>>>> "Invalid" statement, one could mark it as "Opinion" where it is
> >>>>>> effectively closed, but leaves open the possibility that it might
> >>>>>> have to be revisited later.
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> I guess this helps to distinguish between the bugs that are
> >>>>>> blatantly Invalid and the bugs that might be a little bit more
> >>>>>> ambiguous.
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> At least, that is my interpretation...
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Thanks, that sounds like a sensible interpretation. So in terms of
> >>>>> triaging, if the bug is one that we would normally set to invalid
> >>>>> because even though the software does not behave as the OP thinks it
> >>>>> should, the reasons for changing it are not clear cut, we would
> >>>>> assign it the Opinion status rather than the Invalid status.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> I suspect that in this case, bugs in that status should also have a
> >>>>> severity of Wishlist?
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> A new standard response to use when setting bugs to that status would
> >>>>> be good. What about the following?
> >>>>> 
> >>>>>Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping
> >>>>>to make Ubuntu better. While we appreciate that the software
> >>>>>does not behave as you expect, we consider that it is a
> >>>>>matter of opinion whether it should be changed to accommodate
> >>>>>your requirement. This bug is being set to "Opinion" to
> >>>>>indicate that, although we do not consider it invalid, we
> >>>>>will not start work on resolving it until we are satisfied
> >>>>>that there are enough details on how to change the software
> >>>>>without
> >>>>>compromising usability or existing features.
> >>>> 
> >>>> Great. I find the last sentence a bit of a mouthful though. How about:
> >>>>Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to
> >>>>make Ubuntu better. While we appreciate that the software does
> >>>>not behave as you expect, we consider it a matter of
> >>>>opinion whether or not the behavior should be changed as you
> >>>>suggest. This bug is being set to "Opinion" to indicate
> >>>>that. Although we do not consider it invalid, we will not start
> >>>>work on resolving it until we have a solution that solves your
> >>>>problem without compromising existing functionality and
> >>>>usability.
> >>>> 
> >>>> Just my two cents,
> >>>> Evan
> >>> 
> >>> I'd prefer we don't use it at all.  I get stacks of bug mail with not
> >>> very useful discussion already.  Just about the last thing we need to
> >>> do in the bug tracker is encourage more of it.
> >> 
> >> This is why the Launchpad devs are currently working on new subscription
> >> features which should allow to have more control over what lands in your
> >> mailbox. Once that's available, you should be able to significantly
> >> reduce the amount of email you're not interested in.
> > 
> > Future features that may some day reduce the amount of unwanted bug mail
> > I get aren't relevant to the current discussion.
> > 
> >>> If a bug is Invalid or Won't Fix, then the bug tracker isn't the right
> >>> place to discuss it.
> >> 
> >> Well, if they added tha

Re: How to use the new Launchpad status?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, July 07, 2010 13:17:19 Bruno Girin wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-07-07 at 11:48 -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > On Wednesday, July 07, 2010 11:29:36 Evan wrote:
> > > On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 11:21 AM, Bruno Girin  
wrote:
> > > > On Wed, 2010-07-07 at 09:53 -0500, Benjamin Root wrote:
> > > >> Sounds like to me that it is a finer grained version of "Invalid".
> > > >> The idea being that rather than possibly insulting the OP with an
> > > >> "Invalid" statement, one could mark it as "Opinion" where it is
> > > >> effectively closed, but leaves open the possibility that it might
> > > >> have to be revisited later.
> > > >> 
> > > >> I guess this helps to distinguish between the bugs that are
> > > >> blatantly Invalid and the bugs that might be a little bit more
> > > >> ambiguous.
> > > >> 
> > > >> At least, that is my interpretation...
> > > > 
> > > > Thanks, that sounds like a sensible interpretation. So in terms of
> > > > triaging, if the bug is one that we would normally set to invalid
> > > > because even though the software does not behave as the OP thinks it
> > > > should, the reasons for changing it are not clear cut, we would
> > > > assign it the Opinion status rather than the Invalid status.
> > > > 
> > > > I suspect that in this case, bugs in that status should also have a
> > > > severity of Wishlist?
> > > > 
> > > > A new standard response to use when setting bugs to that status would
> > > > be good. What about the following?
> > > > 
> > > >Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping
> > > >to make Ubuntu better. While we appreciate that the software
> > > >does not behave as you expect, we consider that it is a
> > > >matter of opinion whether it should be changed to accommodate
> > > >your requirement. This bug is being set to "Opinion" to
> > > >indicate that, although we do not consider it invalid, we
> > > >will not start work on resolving it until we are satisfied
> > > >that there are enough details on how to change the software
> > > >without
> > > >compromising usability or existing features.
> > > 
> > > Great. I find the last sentence a bit of a mouthful though. How about:
> > >Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to
> > >make Ubuntu better. While we appreciate that the software does
> > >not behave as you expect, we consider it a matter of
> > >opinion whether or not the behavior should be changed as you
> > >suggest. This bug is being set to "Opinion" to indicate
> > >that. Although we do not consider it invalid, we will not start
> > >work on resolving it until we have a solution that solves your
> > >problem without compromising existing functionality and
> > >usability.
> > > 
> > > Just my two cents,
> > > Evan
> > 
> > I'd prefer we don't use it at all.  I get stacks of bug mail with not
> > very useful discussion already.  Just about the last thing we need to do
> > in the bug tracker is encourage more of it.
> 
> This is why the Launchpad devs are currently working on new subscription
> features which should allow to have more control over what lands in your
> mailbox. Once that's available, you should be able to significantly
> reduce the amount of email you're not interested in.

Future features that may some day reduce the amount of unwanted bug mail I get 
aren't relevant to the current discussion.

> > If a bug is Invalid or Won't Fix, then the bug tracker isn't the right
> > place to discuss it.
> 
> Well, if they added that new status, it's because they identified that
> there's a need for it. You do have bugs that are reported that are
> really a matter of opinion as to whether they should be addressed or
> not. And now that it's there, we (as BugSquad) will have to deal with it
> one way or another.
> 
This wouldn't be the first time a feature with minimal or negative utility got 
added to Launchpad.

My recommendation is if you see it set, have a canned answer along the lines 
of "This is not a bug status that is used in Ubuntu (although other projects 
hosted on Launchpad may use it).  The bug status is being changed back to 
[whatitwasbefore]."

Scott K

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Re: How to use the new Launchpad status?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, July 07, 2010 11:29:36 Evan wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 11:21 AM, Bruno Girin  wrote:
> > On Wed, 2010-07-07 at 09:53 -0500, Benjamin Root wrote:
> >> Sounds like to me that it is a finer grained version of "Invalid".
> >> The idea being that rather than possibly insulting the OP with an
> >> "Invalid" statement, one could mark it as "Opinion" where it is
> >> effectively closed, but leaves open the possibility that it might have
> >> to be revisited later.
> >> 
> >> I guess this helps to distinguish between the bugs that are blatantly
> >> Invalid and the bugs that might be a little bit more ambiguous.
> >> 
> >> At least, that is my interpretation...
> > 
> > Thanks, that sounds like a sensible interpretation. So in terms of
> > triaging, if the bug is one that we would normally set to invalid
> > because even though the software does not behave as the OP thinks it
> > should, the reasons for changing it are not clear cut, we would assign
> > it the Opinion status rather than the Invalid status.
> > 
> > I suspect that in this case, bugs in that status should also have a
> > severity of Wishlist?
> > 
> > A new standard response to use when setting bugs to that status would be
> > good. What about the following?
> > 
> >Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to
> >make Ubuntu better. While we appreciate that the software does
> >not behave as you expect, we consider that it is a matter of
> >opinion whether it should be changed to accommodate your
> >requirement. This bug is being set to "Opinion" to indicate
> >that, although we do not consider it invalid, we will not start
> >work on resolving it until we are satisfied that there are
> >enough details on how to change the software without
> >compromising usability or existing features.
> 
> Great. I find the last sentence a bit of a mouthful though. How about:
> 
>Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to
>make Ubuntu better. While we appreciate that the software does
>not behave as you expect, we consider it a matter of
>opinion whether or not the behavior should be changed as you
>suggest. This bug is being set to "Opinion" to indicate
>that. Although we do not consider it invalid, we will not start
>work on resolving it until we have a solution that solves your
>problem without compromising existing functionality and usability.
> 
> Just my two cents,
> Evan

I'd prefer we don't use it at all.  I get stacks of bug mail with not very 
useful discussion already.  Just about the last thing we need to do in the bug 
tracker is encourage more of it.

If a bug is Invalid or Won't Fix, then the bug tracker isn't the right place 
to discuss it.

Scott K

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Re: Ubuntu falling behind?

[Scott Kitterman]

"Ryan Dwyer"  wrote:

>On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 10:38 AM, Scott Kitterman wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> "Chris Jones"  wrote:
>>
>> >I have to wonder whether Ubuntu updates are falling behind as time goes
>> on.
>> >It's now a good few days since Firefox 3.6.4 was released, yet Ubuntu's
>> >version still sits at 3.6.3 for some odd reason. Yet I can boot up my neat
>> >and trusty little Tiny Core Linux cd and to find that even that has 3.6.4
>> in
>> >it's local mirror. What takes Ubuntu so long to get updates? And in
>> >particular FF updates.
>> >
>> Actually testing stuff before it's released.
>>
>>
>I assume the Windows release was tested, so why can't the Ubuntu release
>tested at the same time? Why start testing Ubuntu's release after the
>Windows one has already hit the streets?
>
I didn't say that. There's been testing going on for some time. I'm not 
following the details, but I'm sure the Ubuntu security team is aware of any 
related security issues and able to balance urgency of getting fixes out versus 
the value of more testing. 

If you want to get your Firefox straight from Mozilla as you would on Windows 
you can do that, but you'll need to go to them for support after that.

Scott K

Scott K

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Re: Ubuntu falling behind?

[Scott Kitterman]

"Chris Jones"  wrote:

>I have to wonder whether Ubuntu updates are falling behind as time goes on.
>It's now a good few days since Firefox 3.6.4 was released, yet Ubuntu's
>version still sits at 3.6.3 for some odd reason. Yet I can boot up my neat
>and trusty little Tiny Core Linux cd and to find that even that has 3.6.4 in
>it's local mirror. What takes Ubuntu so long to get updates? And in
>particular FF updates.
>
Actually testing stuff before it's released.

Scott K

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