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Tag archive: Fedora

• OpenOffice and Latex equation syntax

• On Fedora: sudo yum -y install openoffice.org-ooolatex. Plain. Effectiveness.

• at night, Wednesday 15 July 2009
  Fedora, Mini-Post | OpenOffice and Latex equation syntax (Comment!)

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• Fedora Weekly Webcomic EOL’ed

• Oh dear. The awesome Fedora Webcomic is being EOL’ed. I’ll miss the Greek Ubuntu team complaining to me: “Aren’t there any other distros to make fun of?” =)

• at night, Saturday 23 May 2009
  Fedora, Mini-Post | Fedora Weekly Webcomic EOL’ed (Comment!)

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• Notes from Amsterdam

• 
  (cc) by liber

  • Feeling like the guy with the best host’s house in the world.
  • Went for a walk at the local Saturday market. We bought a few stuff to cook some nice dishes during the week.
  • On Saturday afternoon the city felt more like Edinburgh than Amsterdam. The World Cup took place and the city was full of Scottish people drinking and singing in the street. The city center was so alive from all the joy — a great Saturday night. The Dutch set them crying back across the English channel™.
  • Saturday night in Amsterdam, we couldn’t not go for a walk through the Red Light District. The atmosphere in that part of the city was amazing, felt like London’s Soho and other districts where primitive feelings flourish. Upon returning home I was thinking how interesting it is that there are places in big cities in the world where restrictions are lowered and freedom is given another perspective.
  • Very close to where we’re staying was the place where Anne Frank wrote her diaries. It’s a bit stupid, but it makes me feel a bit strange inside. Wakes up a desire of me to stop whining and improve.
  • I’ve said so many times “Thanks! I’ll buy you a beer next time we meet!” to Max Spevack. Now that I am in Amsterdam, I’ll need to get him wasted to repay those back. Instead, I’ve decided to do some cooking for him and Diego when I’m having a break from the Transifex stuff I’m doing here. The menu so far included strong Spaghetti aglio e olio, with a note of rocket and gin, Tagliatelle carbonara with chorizo sausage and paprica, and roast chicken with rosemary and melted cheese for today.

  
  (cc) by Vitorio Benedetti

• at night, Tuesday 31 March 2009
  Fedora, Personal | Notes from Amsterdam (Comment!)

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• Amsterdam, baby!

• I have been looking forward to this trip for quite a while. My travel has been reduced lately, as I’m preoccupied with all the great stuff happening at the Indiplex. Long hours of hacking and designing, planning and talking with clients — not much time to think and interrupt the spree.

  But coming to Amsterdam for a week-long hackfest/brainstorm-fest with Max was just an ingenious idea to pass. The flattering comments about Max’s hospitality, house and Amsterdam itself made me much excited about the idea.

  A consequence of working in a dynamic startup at which you’re having the time of your life, is that your sleep hours get reduced. At some points, they get reduced a lot. While [releasing with the sunrise][1] is indeed a great feeling, a man needs to get a proper sleep every a few days. I could use some rest at this moment, so being in Amsterdam makes it the best excuse to just say “I’ll try to get some rest in the weekend”.

  And this is exactly what I’ll do. No coding for this weekend. I swear.

  
  (cc) by kevindooley

• at night, Saturday 28 March 2009
  Fedora, Tech/web | Amsterdam, baby! (Comment!)

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• Fedora L10n Project Advancement Study

• “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

  Mark Twain, originally by Benjamin Disraeli

  Seeing some nifty statistics from the Fedora Ambassadors group, I decided to jot down some statistics for the Localization group too. Once in a while, it helps taking a step back, and be honest, judgemental and stern with ourselves, before finally concluding what an awesome job we did.

  The dear reader is encouraged, with Mark Twain’s words in mind, to go on and read the following ultra-deceptive lies about FLP. The Sirens disguised as charts ruthlessly suggest and persuasively imply that the FLP, just like the Ambassadors group, is indeed growing and improving. It has been reported that the text has even created impossible feelings like, for example, that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. Or that the circle has only one side.

  On to the data now.

  (In some of the following graphs you’ll notice the absence of some data between last February and today. Feel free to blame my today’s lazyness and stiffness from yesterday’s rock climbing.)

  Community

  In the past 2 years we’ve changed a lot of things on how the L10n project is structured, how the language teams are organized, and how the actual work is being done.

  On March 2007, the group ‘cvsl10n’ was created on the Fedora Account System. We used this group to identify translators and give them access to all projects hosted on the Fedora CVS server. Since then the Fedora Account System group has evolved and became the ID of a “Fedora Translator”. The following chart shows how the number of the Fedora Translators grew the past years.

  

  Approximately 20 new translators join the group each month on a steady rate.

  On communication, fedora-trans-list is the main channel of the FLP (together with #fedora-l10n of course). The following graph shows the volume of emails sent to the list for the past four years.

  

  This graph reflects the “bandwidth” increase in the FLP’s main communication channel. Compared to 2005, the list’s content for 2006 grew by 200%, and each consecutive year saw a further increase of 70%. More issues get discussed and resolved, more people participate.

  Uptake

  With the term “project coverage” and “language coverage” we refer to the number of the resources (software, documentation, websites) we are translating, and the number of languages we are translating these resources to. High project coverage means more translated interfaces, and high language coverage means more Fedora users happy.

  One of the best translatable resources Fedora builds are the release notes. I like looking at their coverage when I talk about the health of the FLP, since they are a tough resource to translate, both because of its size and its importance for every Fedora release. Here’s a graph showing in how many languages we shipped it since day 1.

  

  Fedora is upstream for a number of projects. The project coverage measures how many projects we can translate. Increasing this metric was one of the reasons we migrated from elvis to the open Fedora Infrastructure: to allow more projects to be translated. One and a half year later, our infrastructure has improved, the community has grown, and more and more projects request translations. The following chart shows the number of projects that were available for translation on elvis and today.

  

  Finally, the following chart shows the number of commits which happened through Transifex in the past months. In total, 5400 commits took place in the past 15 months, averaging 360 commits per month.

  

  The string freeze periods where translators push their contributions can be seen as the ups in the chart.

  L10n engineering

  The main FLP tools live in cvs.fedoraproject.org (for now [hg soon], muahaha), ‘L10N’ repo. Files needed by the FLP to work properly are maintained there, such as the translation interface and the owners.list file that syncs with Bugzilla to have components created.

  By February 2009, around 3000 commits have landed on cvs/L10n measuring around 125 commits per month, or 4 per day. It’s worth noting that this repository receives a lot of love by our community members (thumbs-up to Piotr and Diego). These guys have been tirelessly maintaining the tools and keeping them in shape to serve our translation community as best as possible. The following chart helps illustrate the involvement of the volunteer community (non Red Hat employees) in the Fedora Localization toolchain.

  

  Extremely happy to see so much community involvement in the admin side of FLP.

  $me happy, listening to “Side” by Travis.

• at night, Sunday 8 March 2009
  Fedora | Fedora L10n Project Advancement Study (Comment!)

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• Fedora Board decisions in the open

• I’m so glad folks on the Fedora Board are insisting on taking discussions that could be discussed in the open to our public advisory board list.

• at night, Thursday 22 January 2009
  Fedora, Mini-Post, Thoughts | Fedora Board decisions in the open (Comment!)

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• A seat on the Fedora Board

• Either due to ignorance or simply blunt encouragement for my evil plans for World Domination ™ (wicked music played in the background), I was appointed by Red Hat to take a seat on the Fedora Board.

  I’ll start off by saying a big ‘Thank you’ to all who supported my candidacy and this decision. Fedora has evolved into one of the most influential and vibrant Linux distributions today and it’s a great honour to serve on its Board and represent the community on the issues the Board is accountable for.

  I joined Fedora as a contributor much later than a lot of other folks. I still remember the enthusiasm when my Fedora account was approved. Since then I got a lot of similar enthusiasms: first patch accepted, first influencial changeset accepted, email from the Leader, first conference… they’re so many. Now I’m yet again thrilled for having an opportunity to experience new things and serve the community in a different way.

  The first thing on my agenda is take some time and grasp the new responsibilities and the areas I’d like to be accountable for. I’ve written quite a few big goals on my mission statement and I’d like to start talking with people right away about them.

  This is one of the reasons I just booked myself a ticket to FOSDEM. I’ll mostly hang around the Fedora booth and the Python devroom, in case you’d like to find me and have some more TODOs added on my agenda. Or just fire up your email client and get in contact with any issues you’d like to discuss as part of my new role.

  Off for some satanic thoughts now with my hot chocolate before going to bed.

• at night, Saturday 10 January 2009
  Fedora, Personal, Thoughts, Transifex | A seat on the Fedora Board (Comment!)

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• Results of Fedora Board Elections

• Came out 3rd on the recent Elections for the Fedora Board. I’m extremely happy with the result, as Bill and Matt are two fantastic guys who have tons to offer. I’m also humbled from the number of votes I received — I’ll take it as a sign to keep working hard. Now, go eat some turkey and let’s get our butts back to work and ship yet another great release.

• at night, Sunday 21 December 2008
  Fedora, Mini-Post | Results of Fedora Board Elections (Comment!)

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• Υποψηφιότητα Αθήνας για Ευρω-FUDCon 2009

• Μόλις ανέβασα μερικές πληροφορίες για την υποψηφιότητα της Αθήνας για το FUDCon EMEA 2009.

• at night, Thursday 18 December 2008
  Fedora, Mini-Post | Υποψηφιότητα Αθήνας για Ευρω-FUDCon 2009 (Comment!)

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• Fedora Board voting live

• A few days now we’ve got the Fedora Board Elections live. Check out the awesome group of candidates we have and cast your vote.

• at night, Wednesday 10 December 2008
  Fedora, Mini-Post | Fedora Board voting live (Comment!)

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• Fedora 10 (Flash)

• Fedora 10: 40s from boot manager to fully functional desktop. 4s shutdown. Loving it.

• at night, Sunday 30 November 2008
  Fedora, Mini-Post | Fedora 10 (Flash) (Comment!)

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• Fedora 10 release party στη Θεσσαλονίκη

• (In English)

  Ακολουθούμε την παράδοση των Fedora release parties. Με αφορμή το Fedora 10 που βγαίνει στον αέρα σε μερικές ημέρες, βρισκόμαστε μαζί λινουξάδες του χωριού και των περιχώρων για να γνωριστούμε, να λύσουμε απορίες, να δούμε τα νεότερα από το leading edge του Linux.

  Σε καμιά βδομάδα λοιπόν ο Χρήστος Μπαχαράκης (ο ήρωας πίσω από το σούπερ-επιτυχές Serres installfest) οργανώνει το Fedora 10 release party στη Θεσσαλονίκη. Θα έχουμε παρουσίαση των πλούσιων τεχνικών χαρακτηριστικών που μαγείρεψαν οι Fedora developers — τα οποία σε μερικούς μήνες θα κυλίσουν στις άλλες διανομές… . Μερικά από αυτά είναι blazingly fast startup (Plymouth), Glitch-free audio, Improved webcam support, Printing simplified, RPM 4.6, Ad-hoc network sharing, First Aid Kit Automated Recovery, VirtStorage, Sectool, GNOME 2.24, Netbeans, Openoffice 3.0, και αρκετά άλλα.

  Α ναι, θα έχουμε και αρκετά αυτοκόλλητα που μας περίσσεψαν από το Athens Digital Week. =)

  

• at night, Thursday 20 November 2008
  Fedora, Random | Fedora 10 release party στη Θεσσαλονίκη (Comment!)

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• Running for the Fedora Board

• During Max’s days in Athens, we had quite a few opportunities to engage in some really interesting discussions about Fedora and the open source ecosystem in general. Whether it was while walking on Acropolis, strolling through the market streets of Monastiraki, or eating a souvlaki, we talked about a bunch of topics like community architecture, Fedora’s image to external users and developers, FUDCons, contribution locality and universality, and sponsoring.

  A week later, Max nominated me for the Fedora Board. So it seems my ideas might not be completely absurd after all. There is also the possibility that Max had a drink or two from his big Ouzo bottle before considering it.

  Having participated in the decision-making cogs of the Localization and Documentation Projects, I experienced first-hand the change one can make in Fedora, should one want to improve something. Like, for example, moving software development from an internal server to Fedora systems, building a new translation platform, and forming a team to steer one of Fedora’s biggest sub-projects.

  With these in mind, I decided to do something with my ideas and energy to improve our project on a global scale, and run for Fedora’s top-level decision team. I put down on the wiki page a number of reasons one could support my candidacy.

  If you have any questions about me, my ideas (be it plans, thoughts on what we’re doing right or wrong, etc) or how you too could get your hands on some Ouzo, don’t hesitate to fire away an email, instant message, or find me on IRC.

  Sailing boats on Ydra island October 2009

• at night, Sunday 2 November 2008
  Fedora | Running for the Fedora Board (Comment!)

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• Ελληνικό Fedora hackfest — Recap

• English summary: 2-day Fedora hackfest in my hometown. 10-12 hackers, 2 whole days, 7+ Fedora-specific tasks. Some good hacking, discussions, food and beer. (Machine-translation of the article to English.)

  Πριν μερικές ημέρες ανακοινώσαμε ότι αυτό το ΣαβΚυρ θα οργανώναμε ένα Ελληνικό Fedora hackfest. Ας πάμε για μια μικρή περιγραφή του ΣΚ μας, με συνοδεία των φωτογραφιών που τραβήξαμε.

  Χμ. Όλα ξεκίνησαν όταν είχαμε σκεφτεί να ρίξουμε αρκετό testing του OLPC (XO laptop) με το Fedora 10.

  Fedora 10 & OLPC

  

  Το XO τρέχει μια προαρμοσμένη έκδοση του Fedora. Αρκετά προσαρμοσμένη. Υπάρχει λοιπόν η θέληση από όλους αυτά τα downstream patches να μεταφερθούν όσο πιο upstream γίνεται, για να μειωθεί και το κόστος συντήρησης τους. Για να γίνει αυτό, πρέπει να κάνουμε τη διανομή που τρέχει το XO να μοιάζει όσο γίνεται περισσότερο με το vanilla Fedora, έτσι κάποιοι συμβιβασμοί θα γίνουν κι από τις δύο πλευρές, με αποτέλεσμα να μπορέσει το XO να τρέξει Fedora.

  Η προσπάθεια αυτή θα έχει δύο πολύ όμορφα αποτελέσματα. Το πρώτο είναι ότι το OLPC θα μπορεί να θεωρείται κανονικό laptop, με GNOME κλπ κλπ. Θα μπορώ επιτέλους να πηγαίνω σε επαγγελματικές συναντήσεις με αυτό! Το δεύτερο είναι ότι το Sugar το ίδιο (η διεπαφή του OLPC) θα “παίζει” σε vanilla Fedora, και έτσι θα μπορεί να εκτελεστεί σε οποιοδήποτε σχολείο (και σπίτι) στον κόσμο με κανονικούς υπολογιστές!

  Στην προσπάθεια αυτή λοιπόν, το ΣΚ “έκλεισε” για testing του συνδυασμού F10 και OLPC. Και για να μεγαλώσει η παρέα όσο γίνεται, είπαμε να το πούμε και σε άλλο κόσμο, ο οποίος θα ήθελε να αφιερώσει το ΣΚ του σε Fedora hacking. Υπήρξε αρκετό ενδιαφέρον, έτσι βγάλαμε στον αέρα το (πρώτο) Ελληνικό Fedora hackfest.

  Το hackfest

  

  Το Hackfest είναι μια συλλογική προσπάθεια για να λύσουμε πραγματικά προβλήματα στο ελεύθερο λογισμικό. Πιο πρακτικά, είναι events αρκετών ωρών όπου μικρές ομάδες από geeks δουλεύουν μαζί σε συγκεκριμένα προβλήματα πληροφορικής. Και το δικό μας hackfest ήταν ακριβώς αυτό.

  Συναντηθήκαμε την Παρασκευή και καθαρίσαμε το χώρο μας στο Patras LUG, το οποίο φιλοξένησε το όλο event. Ρυθμίσαμε τα βασικά, δηλαδή τα εξής δύο: ρεύμα και δίκτυο. Η εγκατάσταση περιλάμβανε ADSL, δύο ασύρματα δίκτυα (encrypted και μη) και ένα Ethernet switch, και αρκετές καρέκλες και γραφεία για να δουλέψουν άνετα περίπου 10 άτομα.

  Το πρωί του Σαββάτου συναντηθήκαμε στα Starbucks στην Πλατεία Γεωργίου, ένα μέρος που μπορούσαν όλοι να το βρουν εύκολα, ώστε να γίνουν και οι γνωριμίες πριν ξεκινήσει η δουλειά. Μαζευτήκαμε σιγά-σιγά 8-10 άτομα, με τα laptops και το OLPC να τραβάνε τα βλέμματα των περαστικών. Ήπιαμε το καφεδάκι μας και μετά τραβήξαμε προς το στέκι μας με ένα 10λεπτο περπάτημα από το κέντρο της Πάτρας.

  

  Hackfest day 1

  Στο οίκημα μας, αποφασίσαμε να δουλέψουμε όλοι μαζί στο ίδιο δωμάτιο, αφού θέλαμε την πρώτη ημέρα του πρώτου event μας να δουλέψουμε μαζί σε κοινά προβλήματα. Ρυθμίσαμε τα τραπέζια ώστε όλοι να κοιτάνε στο κέντρο, βάλαμε μουσικούλα και ξεκινήσαμε!

  First things first, συνδεθήκαμε όλοι στο IRC για να δώσουμε την ευκαιρία σε μη-παρόντα άτομα να συμμετάσχουν. Ανοίξαμε το gobby, το συλλογικό text editor, και συνδεθήκαμε στον Gobby server του Fedora, όπου δημιουργήσαμε ένα κοινό έγγραφο στο οποίο θα καταγράφαμε τη δουλειά μας, τα links που χρειαζόμαστε (F10 blocker and target bug lists) κλπ. Pretty handy για ομαδική δουλειά!

  Τα sessions που αναλάβαμε για το ΣΚ ήταν τα εξής:

  • Δοκιμές F10 Snapshot 1 (glezos, pierros)
  • Αναζήτηση F10 bugs, προσπάθεια αναπαραγωγής και διόρθωσης κάποιου (themis, fotis)
  • Ανανέωση Fedoraproject.gr (platform, theme) (vasilis, glezos)
  • Ανασύνταξη ελληνικών σελίδων στο Fedora wiki (kostas)
  • Μεταφράσεις για το F10 (kostas_v, pierros)
  • Booting OLPC σε Fedora 10, testing (glezos)
  • Transifex extensions για το Fedora (diego, christos)

  

  Το μεσημεράκι παραγγείλαμε μαγειρευτό φαγητό, και το μεσημεριανό έλαβε χώρα στο ηλιόλουστο προαύλιο με συνοδεία ωραίων συζητήσεων και αστείων. Κάπου ‘κει κατέφθασαν και οι Πιέρρος και Κώστας, οι οποίοι ήρθαν από την Αθήνα ειδικά για το hackfest. Το απογευματινό hacking τελείωσε στις 9μμ, όπου μαζέψαμε τα λαπτόπια και τραβήξαμε για το δείπνο.

  Το ξεχωριστό μας event δε θα μπορούσε να μην έχει και κάτι ξεχωριστό σχεδιασμένο για το βράδυ. Με δύο αμάξια κατηφορήσαμε νότια για μισή ωρίτσα, προς το βουνό Ερύμανθος. Εκεί είναι κρυμμένη η Βαλμαντούρα, ένα μικρούλι χωριουδάκι γνωστό για μια ταβερνίτσα με φανταστικές μπριζόλες. Όλοι παραγγείλαμε το προφανές (ακόμη κι εγώ που σπανίως τρώω κρέας), ενώ το τραπέζι ανέλαβε να γεμίσει ο Μιχάλης Ιατρού με όλα τα καλά παρελκόμενα όπως τυρόπιτες, άγρια χόρτα, βεργάδι βραστό και φυσικά, μπυρόνια και κρασόγερα.

  Η επιστροφή από το χωριό, μία το βράδυ, θύμισε λίγο Formula 1. Ό,τι πρέπει για ένα όμορφο ύπνο μετά. :-)

  Day 2

  

  Η δεύτερη μέρα κύλισε ομαλά, όπου και έγινε η περισσότερη δουλειά αφού είχαν όλοι πιάσει το κολάι. Με φρέσκα ISO κατεβασμένα από το βράδυ, δοκιμάσαμε το Fedora 10 Rawhide Snapshot 1, νέες προσπάθειες στο OLPC booting. Μέχρι το βράδυ όλα τα tasks είχαν προχωρήσει πολύ.

  • Ο Θέμης κι ο Φώτης μέχρι το τέλος της ημέρας, με τη βοήθεια custom scripts και ψαξίματος στους Fedora build servers, cvs, RPM specs, upstream codebase κλπ είχαν λύσει το δικό τους bug για τα bookmarks στο gFTP και το έκαναν push και upstream.
  • Ο Βασίλης ολοκλήρωσε το νέο theme του fedoraproject.gr, δουλέψαμε αρκετά μαζί στην ανανέωση του Wordpress στη νέα έκδοση και τη μεταφορά του περιεχομένου στο νέο instance.
  • Ο Κώστας κι ο Πιέρρος ολοκλήρωσαν την μετάφραση των 5-6 πιο σημαντικών Fedora modules. Κάποιες έγιναν committed απευθείας από τον Πιέρρο, οι του Κώστα έφυγαν για την fedora-trans-el για reviews.
  • Ο άλλος Κώστας ανέλαβε πλήρως την ενημέρωση του wiki space μας, αφαιρώντας ό,τι περιεχόμενο δε χρειαζόταν, dead links, κλπ.
  • Ο Χρήστος κι ο Diego συζήτησαν αρκετά για την νέα αρχιτεκτονική του Transifex, και έλυσαν ένα από τα blocker issues για ανακοίνωση του νέου μας codebase.
  • Εγώ πάλι, κατάφερα να κλέψω λίγο χρόνο για διάβασμα και δουλειά στο OLPC. ISOs, OpenFirmwares και upgrades για αρκετές ώρες. Not much progress. :-/

  Το βραδάκι βγήκαμε για Paulaner και άλλα εκλεκτά αλκοόλια με Χρήστο, Diego και άλλη παρέα.

  Γενικά, ένα πραγματικά παραγωγικό και διασκεδαστικό ΣΚ.

  Until the next time!

  

  Περισσότερες φωτό:

  • /photos/events/f10-el-hackfest/
  • http://diegobz.net/2008/10/11/fedora-10-beta-hackfest-greece/
• at night, Monday 13 October 2008
  Fedora, Patras Lug | Ελληνικό Fedora hackfest — Recap (Comment!)

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• Ελληνικό Fedora 10 hackfest

• (English summary on fedora-ambassadors-list)

  Ανακεφαλαίωση στο /f10-el-hackfest-recap/.

  Το Σαββατοκύριακο 11 και 12 Οκτωβρίου η Ελληνική ομάδα Fedora διοργανώνει workshop στην Πάτρα για το Fedora 10. Το ΣΚ θα είναι αφιερωμένο σε coding, testing, documenting, translating, marketing κλπ για την επερχόμενη έκδοση του Fedora, η οποία θα κυκλοφορήσει το Νοέμβριο.

  Ο στόχος της συνάντησης είναι ένας: Get stuff done.

  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents/F10-el-hackfest

  Ανάλογα με τα άτομα που θα μαζευτούν θα έχουμε και διαφορετικούς στόχους, ωστόσο στα “σίγουρα” είναι εντατική δοκιμή του OLPC για να “παίζει” με όσο το δυνατόν πιο καθαρό Fedora 10, bug triaging για Greek-specific bugs, δουλειά στις μεταφράσεις της νέας έκδοσης, και διοργάνωση της παρουσίας του Fedora και γενικώς του open source στο Athens Digital Week.

  Πρόγραμμα ΣΚ

  Οι συμμετέχοντες που θα βρίσκονται στην Πάτρα θα ξεκινήσουν το hacking στις 9 πμ (mail/τηλ για λεπτομέρειες). Στις 11 πμ θα πάμε για καφέ/γλυκό στην Πλατεία Γεωργίου στο κέντρο, στην καφετέρια Starbucks για να υποδεχτούμε τους ταξιδιώτες και τους νέους στην παρέα. Θα είμαστε το μπουλούκι των κουλάτων μπρατσαράδων με τους γούνινους Tux στο τραπέζι. Στις 12 θα επιστρέψουμε σε κάποιο κοντινό μεγάλο σπίτι ή γραφείο, ανάλογα με τον αριθμό μας.

  Στις 2μμ προβλέπεται να φέρουμε μαγειρευτό φαγητό για μεσημεριανό.

  Το βράδυ προγραμματίζεται εξόρμηση στο χωριό Βαλμαντούρα στο δήμο Τριταίας, στους πρόποδες του βουνού Ερύμανθος, για σπέσιαλ τοπικές, λαχταριστές μπριζόλες. Η παρέα προβλέπεται να είναι μεγάλη, με μέλη του τοπικού LUG να ‘coming along’. Ανάλογα με την όρεξη και την τιμή της βενζίνης, μπορεί να καταφύγουμε και σε ένα τοπικό μαγειρείο.

  Η Κυριακή θα είναι μια φουλ ημέρα δουλειάς με κερασμένες πίτσες για μάσα παράλληλα με το coding. Η λήξη του hackfest θα είναι περίπου στις 7μμ.

  Ταξιδιωτικά

  Για όσους ταξιδεύουν από άλλες πόλες προσφέρεται φιλοξενία σε υπερ-πολυτελείς καναπέδες και ράντσα. :-)

  Από Αθήνα, το ΚΤΕΛ Πελλοπονήσου (Κηφισσός) έχει δρομολόγια κάθε μισή ώρα, ίσως και πιο συχνά. Τα express λεωφορεία παίρνουν 2:30 ώρες ενώ τα νορμάλ 3:00 και το κόστος είναι περίπου €12-15. Τα ΚΤΕΛ είναι και ο προτεινόμενη μετακίνηση από άλλες πόλεις.

  Τα τρένα ξεκινούν από Σταθμό Λαρίσης και τα δρομολόγια (αναχώρηση-άφιξη) είναι 0606-0928 (InterCity), 0744-1154, 1044-1428 (IC). Ο Προαστιακός φτάνει μέχρι το Κιάτο, όπου και γίνεται πολύ γρήγορη αλλαγή συρμού μέχρι την Πάτρα. Το συνολικό κόστος είναι περίπου €8-12. Για την επιστροφή της Κυριακής το καλύτερο τρένο είναι το 1936-2300 (IC). Περισσότερες πληροφορίες στο 1110.

  Οι σταθμοί τρένων και λεωφορείων είναι πολύ κοντά στο κέντρο της Πάτρας.

  Αν σκοπεύετε να έρθετε με αμάξι και θα θέλατε παρέα στο ταξίδι, σημειώστε το στη wiki σελίδα του event μαζί με το email σας.

  Λοιπά

  Το event θα γίνεται παράλληλα και online, στο #fedora-el στο Freenode, για συμμετοχή και από άτομα που δεν μπορούν να παρευρεθούν στο live event.

  Περισσότερες λεπτομέρειες, αλλά και ερωτήσεις για sponsoring των πρώτων υλών (?! dream on dude) στην fedora-el-list@redhat com) και τον Μητς (dimitris στο glezos τελεία com).

  Happy hacking.

  

• at night, Thursday 9 October 2008
  Fedora, Random | Ελληνικό Fedora 10 hackfest (Comment!)

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• Release engineering and translations

• Here’s the tricky part about translations and release engineering.

  Software is written. Software is packaged, released. And users use it. Some of these users do not have English as a native language. This group is around 90% of Earth’s population and around 70% of the Internet’s users. Obviously, they’d prefer the UI and Docs in their native language. In fact, more than 60% of Fedora’s users do not use an English desktop. They use a translated one. Spanish, German, Punjabi. Installer, GUIs, documentation, booting, error messages.

  We care about those Fedora users. Heck, they could be something like 4 millions of them. And that’s why L10n projects exist. That’s why there are more than 400 active Fedora translators contibuting in a lot of languages. Anaconda, the Fedora installer, is shipped to more than 60 languages (counting only those with a considerable completion percentage). The Fedora website speaks more than 20 languages. Considering that this is almost exclusively volunteer community work, I’d say our groups of translators are doing an amazing job.

  Being one myself, before starting hacking on our Localization Infrastructure, I can’t say it’s an easy job. Usually one has to track a big number of projects, and request access for all of them (last time I counted I had 15+ hosts to monitor). Then, a translator tries to use automated ways to find when, where and how many strings have been changed. Get the files, translate them, send them back. Repeat every few days.

  

  So, what are these guys asking from us? (Besides better tools), they ask for two basic things, basically:

  1. Please let me know of a date (let’s call it string freeze) when you will complete your work in modifying the strings of your application. Then I can make sure to get your app 100% localized, since it’s impossible for me to work if you change them all the time.
  2. Please let me know of a date (let’s call it translation deadline) until which I can send contributions to be included in the release. There isn’t much meaning for me to spend my nights after $dayjob if my work isn’t going to be included in the next release.

  Adding these two dates (’string freeze’), and ‘translation deadline’) on any project’s schedule is the minimal thing the translators ask. Adding them on the Fedora Schedule was one of the first big changes I sailed to do in the quest to improve Fedora’s (nonexistent until then) L10n workflow.

  A distribution is a highly complex project in terms of synchronization and homogeneity — more complex than a lot of big projects out there. We’re still working on making everything actually take place, and get all the people involved follow the guidelines and policies. Even so, I think we’ve come a long way since the old days.

  Continuing to improve our processes, the Fedora Localization Steering Committee recently led a communication effort to change Fedora 10’s schedule. We want to make sure translations done by the deadline will end up in the release, so we moved the translation deadline one week earlier. This way, developers will have a period of one week to check their repository for any newly landed translations since the last build, grab them and issue a new build. The new build should, of course, happen before the development freeze.

  But then again, mainly due to Fedora’s complexity as a project, it’s a challenge to make sure that those new builds actually happen. To help us in that task, we’ll need a script that works somewhat like this:

  1. Input: A list of packages, the translation deadline. Output: A list of packages which were not rebuilt to included translations submitted before the deadline. Next to each package we need the maintainer’s email and a randomly generated list of swear words.
  2. Query koji (the Fedora build system) for the set of packages. Get the latest build of each of them and check if its date is before the deadline.
  3. For each package that hasn’t issued a build, find out if translations have actually been submitted since the last build (if they haven’t, no need to build). To do so, query Transifex to find out the last date a PO file has changed.
  4. If a translation has been sent, use python-bugzilla (and maybe Fedora’s Package Database to automatically open a bug report against the product. Mark the bug report as a blocker (or target) for the next release of Fedora.

  If this sounds like a nice challenge for you, do drop me an email.

  Next TODOs for me and FLSCo:

  • -7 days from Translation Deadline: Check if any developer has broken the freeze without following the policy.
  • -4 days from Translation Deadline: Send a reminder to fedora-trans-announce to remind people to wrap up.
  • +1 day after Translation Deadline: Send an email to -devel-announce requesting all packages Fedora is upstream for to issue a new build. Maybe write a script to open bug reports for all.
  • 2 days before the Development Freeze: Check if packages have been rebuilt.

  And I think that’s it for today’s RelEng+Translations_Howto and personal reminders for the next weeks.

  Salvador Dalí — Dali Atomimicus
  (photo: Philippe Halsman)

• at night, Tuesday 23 September 2008
  Fedora | Release engineering and translations (Comment!)

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• Late FUDCon Brno photos & recap

• Upon returning from FUDCon, I had a lot of things needing attention, so here’s a wrap-up post on this uber-cool conference.

  

  First of all, I think I’ll agree with Max that this was probably our best FUDCon so far. Not wanting to decrease the importance of other FUDCons, the fact that the folks at Brno put up their best to have every little detail covered was pretty much obvious to the participants. Content, venue, wireless, food, hotel — everything was good. Thumbs-up to everyone who put a helping hand!

  
  Nicu

  As usual, I took the chance of the conference to invade people’s comfort zones by taking portrait photos of them. I like doing so in events, since I think it’s a good way one can describe the atmosphere of an event. I’ve just uploaded a bunch of pictures taken from my camera (either by me, cmpahar or anyone who got a hold of it):

  /photos/events/fudcon-brno-08/

  Barcamp

  The second day was the Barcamp. I attended a few quite interesting presentations. Jeroen held a Custom Spins one and answered a few technical questions of mine. Max dealt with some Fedora-related questions I also had, like what different levels of ‘officiality’ spins there are (3rd party, approved, and releng-supported ones). The idea of having a framework in place for localized spins got into my mind once again — would be great if we either torrent-shipped language-specific and/or location-specific spins. For example, I learned from Diego that the word ‘OpenOffice’ is trademarked in Brazil and they have to replace the package with BrOffice. Having an framework that allows local communities build, host, and support more or less these spins would be a pretty good thing IMO. Now, if only I could make days longer. :-)

  
  JonRob

  The OLPC folks discussed a feature they’re working on which personally I’m looking forward to it in great anticipation: Sugar on Fedora. The package is already there, but those hackers are working with Greg to make it seamlessly available as a normal Desktop, available through GDM and stuff. Amazing. This could turn normal PCs in schools into OLPC-like ecosystems, lowering the barrier of a school (and country) to experiment and use these modern educational tools. They’re also working in getting the spin they’re using as close to Fedora as possible — working with upstream more, and of course, as a benefit, reduce their maintenance costs. Looking forward to both features.

  

  My talk was right after lunch. I wrote a few things in the previous post, not much more to say about it. I’ll try to transcribe it in this week, however I’m not good at predicting these kind of stuff. Let’s just hope I’ll be able to grab a couple of hours from an evening or night of mine and get this done, as a couple of people has requested it. Will try, as I think I still haven’t got a proper rest from the event.

  A little later Francesco Ugolini described a few idea he has on the Ambassadors project. Listening to them made me very happy, as I realized that some discussions we had with him and other folks in the project are gradually becoming a reality. The Ambassadors project is all about having a global effort for spreading the word on Fedora — it has a budget, a very active central committee, and is extremely good in organizing these stuff. The Localization Project, on the other hand, is very good in forming local teams working on Fedora; both on technical stuff (translations) as well as on local LUG presentations, meetings, release parties. So it makes total sense to help both projects get more by working together. For example, a bunch of Fedora folks in Italy want to spend a weekend fixing bugs or having a translation marathon? The Ambassadors project (with the Community Architecture team) can help them get there, maybe by buying them the pizza and drinks. So, I really think we’ve got a good ecosystem in both projects that serves different purposes, and using them together can help us achieve more. :-)

  

  FUDPub included, as usual, good food and loads of beer. Some Fedorans were singing with guitars, while the rest of us chatting and taking lots of photos (some well-lit, some not).

  Day 3

  Next day it was hacking day again. Transifex packaging, work on adding translation statistics support, and talking with people. Later on we went to the Brno city center for sightseeing. Yet another pub in the evening, making a 5 out of 5 evenings with beer in Brno.

  Other notable FUDCon happenings:

  • Nicu‘s FUDCon web comic “Size matters” was fantastic. Everyone in the amphitheater burst into laughs when they read it.
  • The event’s T-shirt is fantastic. Judging by his smile, I think Max enjoyed giving them out as much as we enjoyed receiving them.
  • Chris Bacharakis once again gave us some good laughs. Returning to Patras a few people were actually asking “tell us a funny story that happened with Chris”. And of course there are many, including the one where Chris tried to ask the tram to stop at the tram stop by pressing the red button on top of the door. The tram of course stopped. Immediately. A guy in the 70s was ejected on the front glass, an old lady almost took off, and we were trying to realize what just happened.

  

  • Had a good laugh at the pub on the last day, where me, as a guy that avoids meat as much as possible, had to order something from the steakhouse’s menu (haven’t eaten all day). I ordered what seemed the most innocent choice on the menu… which ended up being the biggest dish of the 15-something others on the table. It was a leg knuckle, apparently, which was bigger than my plate.

  Next day I took the train for Vienna, and then the plane to Athens, wondering when and where the next European FUDCon will take place, and what I’ll present there.

  Until next time then!

  /photos/events/fudcon-brno-08/

  (More photos on Flickr FUDCon and FUDCon Brno pools, FUDCon tag, by fcrippa and nicu)

• at night, Sunday 14 September 2008
  Fedora, Personal | Late FUDCon Brno photos & recap (Comment!)

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• FUDCon Brno on its way

• Yes! A small window of time to blog about what’s up in Brno!

  T-1 FUDCon

  • Vienna. Delicious food, museums. Tourist guides neglect to mention that apparently Vienna causes burned-out feet. And a good-night’s sleep didn’t seem to help.
  • Travel to Brno by train was pretty cool. Diego found it a bit strange that taking a 1.5-hour train from Vienna can buy beer 700% cheaper. And mind you, some beers in Brno are darn good.
  • Next day we’re at the Brno Red Hat office with David. More or less hacked all day long, among discussions with office-locals Marek, Josef and Radek. Some major things accomplished were a good discussion with Diego and Christos from Greece on plans for reusable data validations in Tx and API completion along with the CLI. I went into deep meditation for a few minutes drawing on the blackboard deciding how to handle the merging of all the branches we have around (7 of them?).
  • Mexican lunch brought a discussion with the Anaconda team on their localization challenges, and tips on how to debug similar issues. Glad to meet in person a few developers like Nils Philippsen, Lubomir Kundrak who are using Transifex to localize their apps and with whom we had a few good online discussions.
  • End of day0, had an International dinner which proved not international enough — no Czech person to help us communicate with the waitresses! Next time I’ll try to be careful for both what I’m saying in CZ and the way I’m waving my hands, as I managed to order a 3-person Greek salad for each person on the table. Oops.
  • Learned a lot while walking to the venue of day one about the challenges inherit in the OLPC efforts. Change is difficult, and it’s even a bigger challenge

  Hackfest

  • Ah, the hackfest. Rough day for me — was on the mobile phone for most of the day with European Parliament members for some urgent issues. Had the chance to work on a few issues on our Damned Lies (@$#) instance, but not much time (and energy) left to do something more important. Looking forward for tomorrow.

  Jumping a day later: Tx presentation went pretty well. We were around 20 people from various groups: Developers, translators, project managers. Got some good questions and more energy to get a common instance up and going soon.

  Off for the social event now. More updates tomorrow.

• at night, Saturday 6 September 2008
  Fedora, Transifex | FUDCon Brno on its way (Comment!)

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• Tx hacking at FUDCon

• Here we are, at FUDCon Brno! A big thanks to the folks at the RH Brno office for taking care of everything we might need so far. Hotel, breakfast, venue, network — all is good, so off for a full day of hacking.

  Transifex is one of the 6 hacking sessions today. I’m sitting with Diego and a few other hackers, and we’ve put up for consideration a few goals for the weekend:

  • Package Transifex (both server and client) in Fedora (yum install rocks)
  • Add support for translation statistics in Transifex
  • Complete the API and add respective features in the CLI

  The task for today is statistics support. The plan is laid out on the wiki page, and we’ll probably hack our way through: work will be split in file operations (find the translation files in the code, prepopulate the DB table with them), stats calculation (get a file, calculate stiff) and presentation (UI, templates etc).

• at night, Friday 5 September 2008
  Fedora, Transifex | Tx hacking at FUDCon (Comment!)

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• Fedora at Athens Digital Week

• Yup, it’s official. We’ll be there. More info to come. Join fedora-el-list to participate!

• at night, Wednesday 27 August 2008
  Fedora, Mini-Post | Fedora at Athens Digital Week (Comment!)

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