Twin blog

I've prepared a private autobuilder. As I've setup the incoming using scp, I don't need to gpg sign each package.  But dupload complained saying that the package is not gpg signed. Lurking in dupload code, I found It's possible overriding the default preupload for my default host:
 
     package config;
    
     $default_host = "eragon";
     $cfg{'eragon'} = {
             fqdn => "eragon",
             method => "scp",
             incoming => "/data/autobuilder/incoming/unstable",
             # files pass on to dinstall on ftp-master which sends emails itself
             dinstall_runs => 1,
       };

       $cfg{'eragon'}{preupload}{'changes'} = '/bin/true';
       1;

Last years, Francis Tyers has been working as Debian maintainer for Apertium packages and upstream (Apertium is an open-source machine translation platform), and I've been sponsoring it all this time.

Today, I've uploaded a new version for Apertium (3.0.7) that solves a few errors that has been blocking a new lang pair. This new pair is en-es. It's still in beta status, but the quality is quite good.

Now, we can see in Debian a lot of pairs:

English-Spanish

English-Catalan

French-Spanish

French-Catalan

Spanish-Romanian

Spanish-Portuguese

Spanish-Galician

Spanish-Catalan

Esperanto-Spanish

Esperanto-Catalan

There are too a graphical user interface for Apertium (apertium-tolk) that is a useful test program for apertium-dbus.

The present for apertium: support txt, html, rtf, odt, docx, wxml and xlsx documents.

The future... more lang pairs (spanish-basque, catalan-romanian, spanish-occitan and catalan-occitan)... integration with OpenOffice and Iceweasel

Tags: debian

A few days ago, I was sponsoring some packages. My laptop has something broken and it sometimes shows irreproducible errors, so I used another computer to make the package builds... I did an error. I didn't do it with pbuilder... so the result was a few ftbfs.

To avoid this to happen again, I've prepared my own autobuilder with a incoming system with a few scripts writen by Matt Brown.

I suppose it will do my sponsors have his/her packages uploaded faster and I don't forget again to built them in a jail!

Synfig is a powerful, industrial-strength vector-based 2D animation software package, designed from the ground-up for producing feature-film quality animation with fewer people and resources.

Yesterday, upstream released a new version that solves a lot of known problems. Paul Wise has worked  hard and has prepared the new package. (Thanks for your work!!!)

Now, we need your help testing this new version. You can install the new packages (version 0.61.06-1), test them and report bugs.

At this moment, we have two bugs (#370461 and #370459) blocking it and we are waiting your bug reports to know if we can close them.

You could find a lot of samples on  Synfig samples page, but maybe you want to test it with a Debian related animation!

AMD has announced that is going to deliver open graphics driver for ATI graphics card. Good news.

In my sources.list you can find:

deb http://ftp.debian.cat/debian/ sid main contrib

Good news to Catalan Debian users.

Yesterday, a friend say me it need help installing its Windows network. I couldn't help him so we stop talking.
This morning, he talked me again and said me he has solved the problem. He took a Debian I've gave him and it detect all and worked perfectly!.

Congratulations to d-i team for the good work!, It has achieved to do Debian installation easiest than Windows XP!!!

Orphaned packages, and maintainers resigning. The dunk tank, as a improved project has FAILED.

Few weeks ago, I began working with Paul Wise (pabs) with Synfig Studio packages, an excellent software to make animations.
I have tested it just one and a half hour with no previous experience and reading the tutorial I ended this animation. (UPDATE: you could get the .sif file too)

There is a complete gallery with a lot of examples.

At the moment we are only four developers working on it, and extra developers working on it should be welcome!

Build package with pdebuild can be a slow pain... but cowbuilder package could be your aspirin:

With a simple package:

with cowbuilder:

pdebuild --pbuilder cowbuilder ----------> 54 sec.

without cowbuilder:
pdebuild                       ----------> 3 min. 8 sec.

I've been DAMnified.

Last year SoftCatala organize a party to get OpenOffice.org translated to Catalan and it seems works nice.
Then why not to use the same idea to translate the Debian Installer Manual?. Now we have our first Catalan Translation Party.

I few months ago I decided to add support to Oracle database to dbconfig-common frontend. At that moment, I began learning how to install it and how to manage it.

My work:
1.- Download Software. My first surprise: Oracle -> 685M, Postgres -> 15,8M
2.- Read Manuals: A lot of them, with a high quality but... I can't find how to install in Debian. Google solves it: Desktop Survival Guide. Tricky but works!
3.- Manual database create/remove/test/dump...:
* create/dump: dbca is a graphical frontend than help to it; the --silent parameter let it works without graphical frontend.
* dump: exp works nice. The first test: to dump a complete void database (1 user, 1 table), takes 9 minutes and 12Mb!!!; Postgres -> 9 sec. and 200k for 100 tables/triggers.

I always hear than Oracle is the best database, but now I'm not to sure.

- The installation is too tricky.
- Create databases is slow (minutes)
- 9 minutes and 12mb to dump a complete void database? Slow!!!!!
- To work correctly you need to manually define 7 environment variables. No comments.
- It needs a big server. 500Mb Ram, 1Gb Swap, minimum.
- It's not possible to create a database remotely because it's necessary to create manually directories locally.

I was thinking about create debian packages for the new Oracle Database 10g Express Edition Beta Release , but It will be a lot of work. Maybe an alioth project?

About dbconfig-common... It will be probably finished this week, but it will need a lot of test/verify before release it.

Usually Debian seems to be a "slow" distribution, new software takes long time to be in Debian.
Two days ago, openoffice.org 2.0 was released from upstream. Today, OpenOffice 2.0 has entered Sid. No other distribution has openoffice released, only Debian.
Congratulations Debian OpenOffice Team!!!!

The last months I've been almost MIA because I use almost all my time to work with my NM process, my twins and my work as teacher.
Now, my NM process is finished, and I had begin again with all my works.
I've updated translations I had in a box, continue packaging moto4lin, than I promise to had finished a month ago and continue with dbconfig-common work. I've sent an ITT to three documents from debian installer manual, translated two documents more, I've updated dbconfig-common and beep translations.

To continue with dbconfig-common I'm learning oracle. The first and not easy step is install it in Debian. I must to learn to create, remove, update databases only using command line, learn how different forms exists to access to a oracle database and a lot of little things more.

The NM process is long, maybe too long, but necessary. It's a perfect filter to know if a maintainer is a good maintainer. My NM process is now in the last stage. I'm waiting to DAM approval.

It's important to remember.
Today I've entered to catalan translations coordination page and I've seen than somebody has translated a page I had ITT (Intend to Translate). Furious, I've read the logs to know who did it. Ups... I had translated it....