tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7019690775170012012024-03-14T17:28:04.186+05:30Nirbheek’s RantingsNirbheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05472526900877533156noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701969077517001201.post-24054500687081393742008-09-18T20:43:00.005+05:302008-09-18T21:38:39.776+05:30An important announcement<b>We interrupt your regular lazy-webbing to make <strike>this</strike> two important announcements:</b><br/>
<p>
<b>A)</b> <a href="http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-soc/msg_97de7f564b1c29dfe2bd417ee4650ea9.xml">AutotuA 0.0.1 released</a>! Try it out and report bugs (if you can't follow the instructions in the link given, your services will be required when 0.0.2 is released :)
</p>
<p>
<b>B)</b> IMO, the two best distros in this world are:<br/>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="http://www.foresightlinux.org">Foresight Linux</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://blogs.gnome.org/kenvandine/2008/09/18/foresight-kids-edition">Ken Vandine</a> (one of many) is effing awesome</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.gentoo.org/">Gentoo</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/gnome/index.xml">The GNOME Team</a></li>
<li>Brent Baude (ranger): master-of-the-PPC-arch</li>
<li>Donnie Berkholz (dberkholz): X11, Council, and Desktop Team Emperor</li>
<li>Raúl Porcel (armin76): generic bitch; maintains half the arches <b>and</b> Firefox</li>
<li>Robin H. Johnson (robbat2): Infra demi-god</li>
<li>Zac Medico (zmedico): Portage demi-god</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
All these people are just too awesome (and too overworked) for words.
If I hadn't got myself deep into Gentoo (which led to SoC too), I would've gone to Foresight :)<br/>
</p>
<br/>
~Nirbheek,<br/>
Who has high hopes for AutotuA, and also hopes the best of Foresight and conary can be brought to Gentoo.<br/>
<br/>
PS: Donnie, congrats once again! ;)Nirbheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05472526900877533156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701969077517001201.post-29822835228166708522008-06-19T13:07:00.004+05:302008-06-19T13:14:53.710+05:30The much-delayed post*Very* late, this post is. I hope it's not too late yet :)<br /><br />I'm talking about something that was much-talked about, and people are probably following some of the suggestions made about this, but I think there should be some sort of standardisation.<br /><br />Here's the header I use for all my GSoC code:<br /><br /><code><br /># vim: set sw=4 sts=4 et :<br /># Copyright: 2008 Gentoo Foundation<br /># Author(s): Nirbheek Chauhan <nirbheek.chauhan@gmail.com><br /># License: GPL-2<br /># <br /># Immortal lh!<br />#<br /></code><br /><br />I encourage all of you to adopt the last two lines in your headers as well :DNirbheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05472526900877533156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701969077517001201.post-18011042335176498482008-06-17T21:31:00.003+05:302008-06-17T21:59:02.042+05:30AutotuA Weekly Status Report - I (and more ;)Yes, I am alive and kicking. Although at a much slower pace than I would've liked ;)<br /><br />So I sent my first weekly report over yesterday, you can either read the (excessively long and probably boring and or confusing) <a href="http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-soc/msg_7b8cf5c6033d78f8afb3d5919b81560b.xml">weekly report</a> or you can, well, do something else :P<br /><br />And guess what, next time onwards, all you have to do is checkout the <a href="http://soc.gentooexperimental.org/projects/autotua/news">AutotuA news page</a> or <a href="http://bheekly.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/gsoc">subscribe</a> to the "<a href="http://bheekly.blogspot.com/search/label/gsoc">gsoc</a>" label on this blog to stalk me.<br /><br />Oh, right, this will also probably be my first post on the FLOSS India Planet!<br /><br />Hello everyone!~ I'm Nirbheek Chauhan (also called as "slacker #1" by some). I was one of the co-ordinators of this tiny little event in <a href="http://www.iitk.ac.in">IIT Kanpur</a>'s tech-festival <a href="http://www.techkriti.org/">Techkriti</a>.<br /><br />You might have heard about it and maybe seen the awesome <a href="http://techkriti.org/fosskriti/talks/">speakers</a> (and <a href="http://techkriti.org/fosskriti/promote/">posters</a> ;) of the event. <br /><br />You've probably had the pleasure of conversing with the <a href="http://louiswu.livejournal.com/">mastermind</a> behind the whole event.<br /><br />And maybe, just maybe, you've heard about "<a href="http://www.techkriti.org/fosskriti/">FOSSKriti</a>" :D<br /><br />PS: We'll (hopefully) be back next year, so this is shameless advance publicity ;pNirbheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05472526900877533156noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701969077517001201.post-13022308376278814122008-04-24T16:24:00.007+05:302008-04-24T17:09:01.078+05:30Google Summer of Code, GentooRight after the GSoC results were announced, <a href="http://cia.vc/stats/author/anant">Anant Narayanan</a> sent <a href="http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-soc/msg_ce0c5c0e6e902f9191146c6152961644.xml">an email</a> to the <a href="http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-soc">gentoo-soc ML</a> welcoming the students with lots of good advice about how to proceed, what all they can expect, and what all they're expected to do. Thanks Anant!<br /><br />The only thing about that email that irked me was that third party source code management systems such as <a href="http://code.google.com">code.google.com</a>, <a href="http://sourceforge.net">sf.net</a>, and <a href="http://repo.or.cz/">repo.or.cz</a> were recommended for hosting the source code. Now, for a small project that does not have much in the name of Infra, this would be acceptable, but for a full-fledged organisation with a <a href="http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/infrastructure/">dedicated infra team</a>, this looks quite shoddy (this probably happened due to insufficient communication between gentoo-soc and gentoo-infra). And on top of that, projects getting distributed across several repositories makes it impossible to find the code during and after SoC is finished. For instance, I am completely unable to find the code for a lot of the SoC 2007 projects.<br /><br />Now, I understand that Gentoo Infra is very short-staffed and overworked at the moment, and hosting dedicated Trac setups for all the students is not an easy task. So I poked my mentor <a href="http://www.gentooexperimental.org/~patrick/weblog/">Patrick Lauer</a> and asked him if he could host <a href="http://redmine.org">Redmine</a> at <a href="http://www.gentooexperimental.org">gentooexperimental</a> which could then be used as a central place for tracking/hosting all the Gentoo SoC projects. He agreed, but his dislike of <a href="http://www.rubyonrails.org/">Rails</a> meant that I would have to do the setup and manage it.<br /><br />And so it was done, and an <a href="http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-soc/msg_fcfbfd93b6533679e2f95cfe8655679c.xml">email sent to the list</a>. <a href="http://soc.gentooexperimental.org">soc.gentooexperimental.org</a> now hosts Redmine for project management.<br /><br />After a small chat with <a href="http://dberkholz.wordpress.com/">Donnie Berkholz</a> on IRC, we agreed that hosting the source code under Gentoo Infra and using Redmine for the rest of the stuff would be best. OTOH, <a href="http://cia.vc/stats/author/antarus">Alec Warner</a> was <a href="http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-soc/msg_2e458d33e66e898e19caa1a1fda45454.xml">in favour of</a> giving the students full freedom with hosting their projects as long as the place of their choice was usable. I <a href="http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-soc/msg_d2474bea40eae647cb9c762a363ce049.xml">replied to his email</a> suggesting that in the interest of keeping the projects accessible from one place, people who want to do their development somewhere else be asked to create a dummy project at <a href="http://soc.gentooexperimental.org">soc.ge.o</a> which points to the place where the actual development is taking place.<br /><br />Let's see how things turn out.Nirbheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05472526900877533156noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701969077517001201.post-4989667262125213842008-04-22T04:20:00.004+05:302008-04-22T07:00:33.553+05:30WheeeeeeeeeeeSo today was <i><b>the</b></i> day. <br />An <a href="http://bheekling.kuro-katana.net/files/docs/%23gsoc-insanity.log">insane night</a>, on an <acronym title="#gsoc @ FreeNode">insane channel</acronym>. <br /><br />So we were promised <a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2321/1994439286_68aca096f5.jpg">Cake</a>. <br />Which got a <a href="http://bheekling.kuro-katana.net/files/docs/%23gsoc-accepted_proposals_announcement_delay.log">bit delayed</a>, <br />but the end we <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gentoo/about.html">got a plate</a><br />Which was truly worth <a href="http://code.google.com/opensource/gsoc/2008/faqs.html#0.1_timeline">the wait</a><br /><br /><b>Translation:</b> I've gotten <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gentoo/appinfo.html?csaid=4718E0E515B5040C">accepted</a> into <acronym title="Google Summer of Code">GSoC</acronym>, and the <a href="http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2008/04/announcing-accepted-student-proposals.html">community bonding period has begun</a>!<br /><br />A couple of people I know got accepted as well -- <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/fedora/appinfo.html?csaid=43B0BE196B874499">Satya</a>, <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/ptolemy/appinfo.html?csaid=77D78A9E50983828">Ramnik</a>, and <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/mozilla/appinfo.html?csaid=DBFDC8DA0A21792F">Siddarth</a>. This will be a fun summer *grin*.<br /><br />I was going through the abstracts of the accepted applications in orgs that interest me, and I found the following to be *very* interesting (in no specific order):<br /><br /><ul><br /><li><a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/vim/about.html">Vim</a>: <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/vim/appinfo.html?csaid=CC648339762A7BB9">On-the-fly Code Checker for Vim</a><br /><p><br />I don't need to say anything about this -- it's simply wonderful.<br /></p><br /></li><br /><li><a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/pidgin/about.html">Pidgin</a>: <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/pidgin/appinfo.html?csaid=8BA6E952BDD7787D">Master password support for pidgin</a><br /><p><br />Finally, I won't have to type in three passwords when I start Pidgin. gnome-keyring integration ftw!<br /></p><br /></li><br /><li><a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gnome/about.html">GNOME</a>: <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gnome/appinfo.html?csaid=E035EFCF6CB02DF5">Reducing memory fragmentation in GNOME</a><br /><p><br />Reduced memory is always more than welcome, and it's not an easy task at all :)<br /></p><br /></li><br /><li><a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gnome/about.html">GNOME</a>: <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gnome/appinfo.html?csaid=830F9D21208D6925">SuperRandom: a predictive listening plugin for Rhythmbox</a><br /><p><br />This should be interesting. I currently have to manually form lists of songs I like to listen to. Time will tell how well this project fruits.<br /></p><br /></li><br /><li><a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gnome/about.html">GNOME</a>: <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gnome/appinfo.html?csaid=587CF155A95399BE">Make Evolution use Seahorse widgets for encryption and key selection</a><br /><p><br />No more UI blocking, and no more f-ugly password prompts! Fun, fun, fun =)<br /></p><br /></li><br /><li><a href="">GNOME</a>: <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gnome/appinfo.html?csaid=15C2B5BC19A9276A">Integrated Media Management for GNOME</a><br /><p><br />This has always been a <b>major</b> missing feature in GNOME. This gets implemented, and I owe the student+mentor(s) a beer each *g*<br /></p><br /></li><br /><li><a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gstreamer/about.html">GStreamer</a>: <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gstreamer/appinfo.html?csaid=BC710D54087F7CE7">Media service to transcode video and audio in different formats</a><br /><p><br />If this integrates well with the above GNOME project, things will take a turn for the better w.r.t media in GNOME.<br /></p><br /></li><br /><li><a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/moin/about.html">Moinmoin</a>: <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/moin/appinfo.html?csaid=E23681282C1A268A"> Extending moin's groups to LDAP and other external sources.</a><br /><p><br />We use MoinMoin for our internal wiki, and authentication is done against LDAP. So needless to say, this project will make management of roles using LDAP groups quite straightforward.<br /></p><br /></li><br /><li><a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/bzflag/about.html">BZFlag</a>: <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/bzflag/appinfo.html?csaid=F58AC2FA8749D41B">BZFWeb, a web-based BZFS admin interface.</a><br /><p><br />Just today we were talking about implementing a basic web interface for BZFlag in Django over the summer, and this thing comes up :)<br />Although our idea was to let people select server options using the webinterface, and then connect to the server, this project would be a good thing to keep an eye on.<br /></p><br /></li><br /><li><a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/ffmpeg/about.html">FFmpeg:</a> <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/ffmpeg/appinfo.html?csaid=9FD2BF705A5D5DBB">Generic frame-level multithreading support</a><br /><p><br />This will rock for everyone with more than one core. This doesn't include me, but includes the <a href="http://students.iitk.ac.in/navya/">Navya</a> Server ;)<br /></p><br /></li><br /></ul>Nirbheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05472526900877533156noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701969077517001201.post-42248708533364201892008-03-30T03:21:00.004+05:302008-03-30T05:17:40.349+05:30portage-talk, gsoc, gentoo, ntgwn, and moreA lot has been happening in the past two weeks, but I'll (try to) keep the post relatively short.<br /><br /><ul><br /><li><b><a href="https://launchpad.net/~bheekling/+junk/portage-talk/">portage-talk</a></b> - A "library" of bash functions that can be used to talk to Portage (the tree + package db). It's basically for use in bash scripts to get data about installed packages, ebuilds, etc. It aims to be blazing fast and have minimal dependencies (nothing beyond bash + coreutils). This also means that the code isn't very pretty ;)<br /><br />I've been hacking on it on and off over the past week, and hope to have it good enough shape to shamelessly boast about it to more people :)<br /></li><br /><br /><li><b><a href="http://code.google.com/soc/">GSoC</a></b> - So, tomorrow is the deadline for submitting apps (which is likely to be extended following tradition ;). I submitted my <a href="http://bheekling.kuro-katana.net/files/gentoo/gsoc/gsoc_gentoo_project_abstract_-_automate_it_all">abstract</a> and <a href="http://bheekling.kuro-katana.net/files/gentoo/gsoc/gsoc_gentoo_project_proposal_-_automate_it_all">proposal</a> yesterday, and I'm currently keeping my fingers tightly crossed (along with the occasional running around in circles screaming and giggling at the same time).<br /><br /><a href="http://steev.wordpress.com/">Steev</a> and <a href="http://gentooexperimental.org/~patrick/weblog">Patrick</a> & <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=DrEeevil">Patrick</a> and <a href="http://cia.vc/stats/author/steev">Steev</a> have expressed interest in co-mentoring me (Gentoo projects have two mentors); let's see how everything turns out :)</li><br /><br /><li><b><a href="http://meworkstoo.blogspot.com/">Satya</a></b> also applied for GSoC this time. Her <a href="http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SummerCoding/2008/Ideas#head-5af151b01e2cad766aaf63d274a720a3e8558b36">proposed project</a> is the deceptively simple-looking idea to rewrite/extend <a href="http://www.bootchart.org/">Bootchart</a> using <a href="http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SystemTap">Systemtap</a>. Her mentor-if-she-gets-selected is <a href="http://www.kernel.sg/roller/eugene/">Eugene Teo</a>, who (going by what she's been telling me) has been an excellent (pre-project-acceptance) mentor; who is extremely patient, understanding, and an overall gem of a guy.</li><br /><br /><li><b>GNOME 2.22.0 is (mostly) in-tree</b> - The Gentoo <a href="http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/gnome/">GNOME Herd</a> has almost <a href="http://planet.gentoo.org/developers/remi/2008/03/28/the_road_to_gnome_2_22_part_2">completed moving GNOME 2.22</a> from the <a href="http://overlays.gentoo.org/proj/gnome/">overlay</a> to the tree. They have done a wonderful job by fixing <a href="http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=&long_desc_type=substring&long_desc=&bug_file_loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&emailassigned_to1=1&emailcc1=1&emailtype1=substring&email1=gnome%40gentoo.org&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailcc2=1&emailtype2=substring&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&votes=&chfieldfrom=2008-03-01&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0=">a ton of bugs in just this month</a>. As soon as all the bugs blocking the <a href="http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=214260">GNOME 2.22 tracker</a> are resolved, and a few more reds converted to green on the <a href="http://dev.gentoo.org/~leio/gnome/gnome2.22-new.html">gnome-2.22 status page</a>, GNOME 2.22 will be unmasked, and users will be able to revel in the joy that is 2.22 :)</li><br /><br /><li><b><a href="http://www.gentooexperimental.org/not-the-gwn/">Not The GWN</a></b> - <a href="http://www.gentooexperimental.org/not-the-gwn/not-the-gwn-2008-03-28.html">New issue</a> <a href="http://gentooexperimental.org/~patrick/weblog/archives/2008-03.html#e2008-03-29T22_03_53.txt">released by Patrick</a>!</li><br /><br /><li><a href="http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=213296">xulrunner-1.9</a> and mozilla-firefox-3 will be added to portage (p.masked) by <a href="http://cia.vc/stats/author/armin76">armin76</a> when the <a href="http://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases/Firefox_3.0b5">beta5 is released</a> :-)</li><br /><br /><li><a href="http://www.rohitj.net/">rohitj</a> <a href="http://www.rohitj.net/blog/2008/03/28/my-first-xchat-plugin/">wrote an XChat plugin for dpaste</a> (and has been bugging the rest of us to try it out for the past two days ;)</li><br /><br /><li>More stuff that I can't remember :-/</li><br /><br /><b>Update:</b> <a href="http://gentooexperimental.org/not-the-gwn/not-the-gwn-2008-03-30.html">Another NTGWN issue</a> <a href="http://gentooexperimental.org/~patrick/weblog/archives/2008-03.html#e2008-03-30T00_31_03.txt">released by Patrick</a> :D<br /><br /></ul>Nirbheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05472526900877533156noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701969077517001201.post-71380997570667981652008-03-04T18:12:00.006+05:302008-03-07T06:21:05.965+05:30wth?Gosh, it's been a month since I last blogged, and that too while this has been a very blogpost-philic month. <a href="http://www.techkriti.org/fosskriti">FOSSKriti</a> started and got over, <a href="http://freed.in">freed.in</a> was <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/louiswu/2291160487/">attended</a> and praised for <a href="http://freed.in/2008/schedule">high-quality talks</a> while the Indian FOSS community was boo-ed for low attendance at the same. <a href="http://www.fosdem.org/2008/">FOSDEM</a> came and went, and left several hundred <a href="http://www.gentooexperimental.org/not-the-gwn/not-the-gwn-2008-03-05.html">hangovers</a> in Europe.<br /><br />I became aware of <a href="http://www.linuxchix.org">LinuxChix</a>'s <a href="http://www.linuxchix.org.in">Indian Chapter</a>, was delighted to know about it, and decided to become a part of the community, and spread the word :) <br />I also became painfully aware of how much damage a vocal minority can do to a community that's starting up. I constantly winced during the flamewars on the Gentoo mailing lists during it's "Great Fall", as some have come to call it (though I disagree with them). Seeing the same munitions being deployed on the LC-IN ML gives me a depressing premonition of disaster.<br /><br /><a href="http://live.gnome.org/GDM/NewDesign">The GDM 2.22 rewrite</a> wasn't finished in time for inclusion in <a href="http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointTwentyone">GNOME 2.22</a> (<a href="http://live.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning/Freezes">Hard Code Freeze</a>), but <a href="http://live.gnome.org/GioToDo">gvfs</a> managed to <a href="http://live.gnome.org/GioPort">port more stuff</a> and also get a <a href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509620">"working"</a> <a href="http://blogs.gnome.org/otte/2008/03/03/more-ftp-goodness/">ftp backend</a>, removing another bug from the <a href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?query=meta-status:open,needinfo+gnome-target=2.22.x">2.22 blocker bugs</a> list.<br /><br />The Xorg people were <a href="http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=206509">shouted at</a> for not taking care of hald/dbus restarts, and <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg-commit/2008-January/014585.html">patches were committed</a> to fix the issue.<br /><br />Gentoo Trustees were elected, and the <a href="http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/elections/foundation-200802.xml">results</a> were expected and hilarious at the same time :-)<br />GSoC '08 was <a href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/">announced</a>, and applications were invited from the various Open Source projects.<br /><a href="http://blog.flameeyes.eu/">Diego 'Flameeyes' Pettenò</a> framed his (and coincidentally my) thoughts about devs participating in GSoC (better than I could have) in a <a href="http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/msg_b5321a13dbe7abf71e6177fa0b750450.xml">mail to the ML</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://beagle-project.com">Beagle</a> is still <a href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/dashboard-hackers/2008-March/msg00000.html">pondering</a> about GSoC -- let's see how that turns out :)<br /><br /><b>*bheekling</b> realises that the above paras are probably missing stuff, are somewhat anachronistic, terse, overflowing with links, and lacking continuity, but he believes that a jumbled-up link-eyebleed post is better than a forever procrastinated one :PNirbheekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05472526900877533156noreply@blogger.com2