ChichaPlanet

I need to thank to all the people who help me to start in this crazyness, all the people who checked, rechecked and point me my error (my lovely sponsors) and all my application supporters, we have something to celebrate now because… It’s official:

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Hello everybody,

the MOTU Council is very happy with the contributions of Nicolas and is
happy to make him a MOTU!

Nicolas Nalcárcel's application:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/motu-council/2008-August/001362.html

Søren Hansen's vote:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/motu-council/2008-August/001373.html
Daniel Holbach's vote:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/motu-council/2008-August/001376.html
Richard A. Johnson's vote:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/motu-council/2008-August/001380.html

Luca Falavigna's feedback:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/motu-council/2008-August/001366.html
Emanuele Gentili's feedback:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/motu-council/2008-August/001367.html

Cesare Tirabassi's feedback:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/motu-council/2008-August/001368.html
Chuck Short's feedback:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/motu-council/2008-August/001371.html

Have a nice day,
 Daniel
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I’ve been writing a lot about Augeas and all the process i go through to get it included in debian/ubuntu. It seems that a lot of people was following it, but some of them don’t actually understand the whole picture and what is augeas for, so i’ve been asked to write a post explaining what it is, so here we go:

From the upstream homepage:

Augeas is a configuration editing tool. It parses configuration files in their native formats and transforms them into a tree. Configuration changes are made by manipulating this tree and saving it back into native config files.

Actually, it is a library which does all that stuff and can be manipulated using its public API. But what does this actually means? I will explain it using augtool and /etc/hosts as an example. As you might know it has the information of the host names and their IP addresses, so let’s take this hosts as an example:

127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain host.domain

After parsing it on augeas we will end with:

/files/etc/hosts/
- - - - - - - - - - - 1/
- - - - - - - - - - - - ipaddr = 127.0.0.1
- - - - - - - - - - - - canonical = localhost
- - - - - - - - - - - - alias = localhost.localdomain
- - - - - - - - - - - - alias = host.domain

So, then we might want to change some values:

augtool> set /files/etc/hosts/1/alias[2] myhost.domain

Ending with:

/files/etc/hosts/
- - - - - - - - - - - 1/
- - - - - - - - - - - - ipaddr = 127.0.0.1
- - - - - - - - - - - - canonical = localhost
- - - - - - - - - - - - alias = localhost.localdomain
- - - - - - - - - - - - alias = myhost.domain

or add new values:

augtool> ins alias after /files/etc/hosts/1/alias[1]

what will turn into:

/files/etc/hosts/
- - - - - - - - - - - 1/
- - - - - - - - - - - - ipaddr = 127.0.0.1
- - - - - - - - - - - - canonical = localhost
- - - - - - - - - - - - alias = localhost.localdomain
- - - - - - - - - - - - alias
- - - - - - - - - - - - alias = myhost.domain

then we need to set a value since now it’s NULL:

augtool> set /files/etc/hosts/1/alias[2] myhost

ending like:

/files/etc/hosts/
- - - - - - - - - - - 1/
- - - - - - - - - - - - ipaddr = 127.0.0.1
- - - - - - - - - - - - canonical = localhost
- - - - - - - - - - - - alias = localhost.localdomain
- - - - - - - - - - - - alias = myhost
- - - - - - - - - - - - alias = myhost.domain

Then you can save it using:

augtool> save

Also you can add a new host, or whatever you want, just need to play with the tree.

Ok, but how this Black Magic work and how can i expand it to read new configuration files? Augeas uses lenses which are a Meta Data type using regular expressions that is being used for parsing, reading and writing configuration files. If you want to play around with lenses you can check this step-by-step tutorial written by Raphael Pinson (Thank you!)

This is one more of those post with some random information and updates:

One more week for holidays!!
I’m going to travel to Orlando, Florida with my girlfriend’s family for holidays, i’m going to be after 17 years in disney world again! I’m also looking forward to know the LoCo Team (if there is any) and/or random FreeSoftware enthusiast, so if you live there, drop me an e-mail so we can get in contact to find a place and time for having some beers

Augeas is finally in!
Augeas has already reach the ubuntu and debian archive! So it’s time to write lenses and work to have it in good shape!

Config:Model
Last week (i think) i’ve been mailed about the Config:Model project, it looks really promising to me, i’m only waiting for augeas support to package it and start playing. If it gets into that stage soon (which i hope it does) we can have UCSA (or whatever i call it at the end) for intrepid+1!!

UDS in California
I’m really exited about this, next UDS will be at google offices in Mountain View California from 8th to 12th December, that’s one week after my final exams, so i won’t need to ask for permission at the university! Also i already have my visa for the united states, so there are less problems to go there (just the financial one :P). So i hope i can see you all in there!!

New Maintainer process
I’ve started my journey into Debian development. I’ve been contributing since i started with ubuntu development (really less that for ubuntu, but still forwarding a lot of stuff), i’m the maintainer of 2 packages now and i will start co-maintaining one more package, so i thought it was time to start the NM process, i founded an advocate (thank you kees!!) and i jumped in, it’s a long and not quick process but an awesome one, i still have a lot of debian in my heard, since was the distro which introduced me into Linux and i want to pay that back!

New Mentoring Model
Last week we have been discussing a lot inside the mentoring reception team and with other MOTU’s on improving the mentoring program, we start writing a draft, making changes, discussing more, and finally we released it!

I think this was all the random stuff going on in my life this last days!

Finally! Augeas reached the archive! So now you can install it on intrepid, and break it on the way you want (and report the breakages on LP). Also you take a look at the list and write some lenses! This is your shoot to start contributing to ubuntu and specially the server team.
Have a nice hack!

As i said on my previuos post augeas got it’s 2 acks in ubuntu, so it’s on the new queue waiting for an archive administrator to review and include it on the archive. Today i got it also sponsored in debian (thank you kees, you rock!) so it’s waiting on it’s new queue also waiting for an ftp master to review and include it! So anytime from now on you will be able to play with it! It’s awesome.

I have also uploaded it to my ppa for those who cannot wait until it’s included to play with it (and start writing lenses). So if you are one of those you can’t wait and/or want to contribute on the lenses writing stage yo just need to add this to your sources.list in hardy:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nvalcarcel/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/nvalcarcel/ubuntu hardy main

Then you can install augeas-tools and play with it!

The first step for UCSA is already done! Augeas finally got it’s second ACK! So we just need to wait until the archive admins include it on the archive! I’ve been working on it’s packaging and resolving a really disturbing Bug, but given the help i have received from the really lovely, patient and helpful reviewers it’s already accepted (Thank you all guys! :D).
Now we need to focus on the next step of it, where i will appreciate really much if you want to help on it. It doesn’t need a lot of knowledge, so if you want to get involved on ubuntu and don’t know how, this is your shot!

How you ask? I will answer this question later, first a little description about augeas:
Augeas is a configuration editing tool. It parses configuration files in their native formats and transforms them into a tree. Configuration changes are made by manipulating this tree and saving it back into native config files.

But, how does it recognizes all the native formats of the configuration files? It’s not black magic, well it’s almost black magic, but it need some recipes for it, and those area called lenses.

Great, but, what are those lenses? Lenses are the building blocks of the file < -> tree transformation; they combine parsing a file and building the tree (the get transformation), with turning the tree back into an (updated) file (the put transformation).

Sounds awesome, but also really hard… You know what? It’s not hard, they are just a list of regular expressions and directives in a really easy format, don’t believe me? Give a look at the official documentation on how to write them. It’s not hard, you just need to know (or learn) the syntax of those config files and the POSIX regexp syntax (man re_syntax).

Awesome i want to help! Tell me how!! Ok, i have create a wiki page with the lenses we have now and the ones we want, so you only need to give a look at it and start working on the lense you want after assigning it to yourself. Once you have it, please file a Bug against augeas with the following format:

Summary: Please add lense for $PACKAGE
Description: Augeas doesn’t support $PACKAGE configuration files.
And attach your lense to it.

Also if you feel like you want to, send it to upstream using their list (augeas-devel AT redhat DOT com), or just let me send it.

So, let’s work on this little things to have UCSA as soon as possible and make ubuntu even better!

P.D: If you write a lense also add a comment on it with your name an e-mail to have track of who wrote them like this:
(* Written by Joe Hacker <joe.hacker@isp.net> *)

So, as i promise in my previous post i’m posting an update of the state of my project.

I have already packaged augeas, it’s a mixed package including a binary, a library, development files, and some extra files, i have already uploaded to my ppa to use it for testing, if you want to play with it feel free to include my ppa on your sources and mail me if you find some bugs

I’ve also uploaded it to revu so if you are a reviewer please check it, comment and Ack it when ready (if you are DD you can also check it on mentors.d.n and sponsor it for debian).

But what is augeas? Taken from the long description:

Augeas parses configuration files into a tree structure, which it exposes through its public API. Changes made through the API are written back to the initially read files.

The transformation works very hard to preserve comments and formatting details. It is controlled by “lens” definitions that describe the file format and the transformation into a tree.

So as a summary it is a cool, fun and easy way to manage config files!

It has been a really busy week, lot’s of news and things to share with you, so as always let’s start:

Software Freedom Day
Ubuntu Perú is placed to announce that is going to be in charge of the Software Freedom Day here, we are trying to run a different but amazing event, we have some ideas for that, we are trying to run a Lan Party using OpenArena, and have an inter university contest of FOSS related projects so we can promote and some how wake the students of the local universities up to be more active on the FOSS, and some other also, but everything on his time.

Global Bug Jam
We are also going to be part of the Ubuntu Global Bug Jam!! I’m very sad that we are just going to run it on Lime, but i’m trying to move some people from other towns to run a Bug Day there and just triage some Bug Reports and help, but we will see what happens.

Packaging Jams
Last Friday i run a packaging jam on my university it was really nice to see some students going, and more impressive to see a teacher in there! It was awesome, we only package ed from source because we run out of time, but i will patch some bugs this Friday, it seems that they want some workshops every Fridays so i will try to get them involved in ubuntu!
Also i have been invited to run a packaging Jam next week, i think, on other LUG’s place they need to confirm me the date, but it’s almost a fact i will be there!

CONASOL
This weekend i have been on Chimbote (6 hours by bus from Lima to the north) giving a talk on a congress they have there, i talk about the Ubuntu Behind the Scenes (thanks pedro for the presentation) and they were very happy, i hope to see people involved in the project soon, they were really happy and interested.

UCSA
As i focus my work on the server team of ubuntu i have been focusing on a new tools to manage services and configurations. I have seen some people interested in this idea asking what was about it: It’s not dead, i’m still working on that, i have been evaluating Augeas, and it seems that it’s really useful this days i will play more with it and package it for further development, so stay tunned or send me an e-mail if you want to help with this.

I’ve got my visa!
Now it’s a fact, i will be on Miami from 28 July to 6th August, i’m going to be in orlando (yes, i’m going on vacations to Disney) and one night in Tampa so if you live in there i’m looking to meet with some LoCo’s and have a good time, so send me and e-mail to talk about the details!

Ok, i think this is it for now, i will try to post more now that i’m not so busy as last week!

Terminator 0.9 Feature Freeze has come, i’m really excited to see the new features working, they are awesome, but what are this new exciting features?

• Tabs: Now terminator supports tabs, you have different tabs with splited terminals on each one.
• Drag & Drop: Now you can reorder your terminals, you just need to press Cntrl + right click and drag and drop your terminals wherever you want!
• Terminal zooming: This is one of the more exiting ones, have you expect problems when using splited terminals and one of them turns to little for some seconds? Now you just need to press ctrl+shift+z to have this terminal on the whole window and then use the same key combination to put it back on it’s place! It’s awesome!
• Terminatorrc: Don’t like gnome environments? Now you don’t depend on gnome-terminal to configure your terminator, you can use ~/.terminatorrc to tune your terminal as you want it to be
• Titles: kind of confused when using ssh connections inside terminator? Now we support titles, so you always have a title on each splited terminal to know where you are working on

It’s really awesome to see al this changes comming, they make terminator really usefull, want to try them? Help the terminator team to test it, just add my ppa to your sources.list:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nvalcarcel/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/nvalcarcel/ubuntu hardy main

Download it:

$sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install terminator

And report bugs if you find some: https://bugs.launchpad.net/terminator

Excited? Digg it!

It has been a while since i don’t post, since i’ve been traveling on europe and then kind of busy in the work and adapting to the correct timezone, so i have a lot of things to talk about.

Memberships
I’m really proud to anounce that i’m not the only ubuntu member any more, this week 3 new Peruvians have been approved by the regional board, i’m very happy of that since i work with them in the Peruvian LoCo Council managing the LoCo team and i know the hard work they have been doing. Also i’m really happy to see our server team documentation leader been approved as member also!
So i want to congratulate Andres, Dante, Michael and Adam! Keep rocking guys!!

Peruvian LoCo team
Yesterday the Peruvian LoCo team has been finally approved as an official LoCo!! We have work a lot on this so i was very happy when i start seeing the “+1″ from the LoCo Council members!! Rock on Peru!!

Global Bug Jam
I was very happy to read about the Global Bug Jam! It’s a wonderful idea, i’m already coordinating with the Peruvian LoCo team to run one here in Perú. Sounds like a good idea to you? Digg it and help spreading the word!

Software Freedom Day
On Prague there was a nice guy who talk about the Software Freedom Day, it looked as a good idea to me, so we are coordinating on the LoCo team to run one (or some) in Perú. If you don’t find any in near your place, start thinking on running one.

Server Team Blog
That’s a great idea, i’m proud to announce that mathiaz has started the Server Team Blog, where a lot of news about the server team will be posted, so stay tunned.

Ubuntu Centralized Managment Console
Since this week (today) was the deadline for presenting the blueprints for the server team i have been working on the specification of the proyect i talked about with some people on Prague i’m kind of stucked with some ideas and since i haven’t have time, since i need to recover the lost time at work on the last 2 week i kind of haven’t finished it but i will still work on that, the goal is ubuntu 10.04 so i have some time, if you have some ideas, please send them to me to nvalcarcel AT ubuntu DOT org

Conasol
Next week i will be on the National FreeSoftware Congres in chimbote, i will talk about the ubuntu backstage, how the full process behind the nice release are (thanks pedro for your presentation!!) and maybe run a Packaging Jam in there if have some time and a place where i can i hope to see people from there involved on the project, i promise to post some pictures of them if i can, so stay tunned.

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UDS Group Foto, originally uploaded by nxvl.

FossCamp and UDS has already ended, We have had a lot of interesting session and decided about a lot of things. The most interesting things about the whole event have been the Ubuntu/Debian colaboration session leaded by the awesome Lucas Nussbaum, i hope that most of the things we talked about become real things.

In the Server side has also been a lot of interesting things happened, we have had the great OpenLdap Project Leader with us in the sessions, so we have talked a lot about how to integrate services and ways to use OpenLdap in those.

Now i’m in a one week trip across Europe, so i have not much time to write a big post, but i promise to write it when i came back to Lima, we have hade a LOT of interesting things happened this week.

If you want to check some photos i have already uploaded a lot of them into my flickr account.

Since i start in development i have had a question in mind, why the f*ck program errors are called Bugs? It seems that it’s for a whimsical reason as it’s said on How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python:

For whimsical reasons, programming errors are called bugs…

But the question finally has been answered!!! The firsts computer errors, given the size of the firsts computers, where caused by real Bugs interfering on the circuits and make the computers do unexpected operations.

Today i see an amazing picture, and i need to thank the one who made it for including my name on it, and all the people listed! Thank you for Hardy Heron!!

I think everyone would like to have a T-shirt with this image on it, so please someone make and sell some of them!!!

I try to start to look at some merges since we are going to start merge process on a few weeks, but something went wrong:

< nxvl> does anyone know what happened with dad?
< nxvl> DaD*
< jdong> went off with MoM?
< icanhas> jdong: i had to refrain from that so badly.
< jdong> lol
< nxvl> heh
< nxvl> i’m blogging this

I simply LOVE ubuntu community!

We are having our Release Party on Perú also!! So if you are on Lima - Perú we expect to see you at the “Universidad Ricardo Palma” on May the 3th.

This have been busy week’s so i have been a little offline, but as usual when it happens i will do a little summary of what happened, so here we go:

Buster is here
Finally i have my brand new Thinkpad T61 on hands, i installed Hardy Heron Beta and it works really good, i have almost no problems with it working out of the box, the only thing i need to tune is the hibernation feature which doesn’t work properly, but i haven’t have time to report it or check what is happening.

I’ve got my visa
Everything is in order now, i have all my papers for attending to UDS, last week i got my visa, so it’s confirmed, i’m going to Praga, i’m really exited about it, i hope to finally meet face to face the people i work almost every day with it will be a really nice experience, so see you un Prague!!!

University started
Last week i started classes at the university once again, i have a really interesting course named “computer graphics” in which we use the MFC library, i was hopping to have a little fight with my teacher about the final course work, because i don’t even have a windows machine to do it, but i was really surprised when he had the idea and propose me to do the final course work using OpenGL and Free tools, that’s surprising because on the university i study almost everything is done with Microsoft tools and technologies and they doesn’t allow the students to use anything different, but it’s finally changing!!!

Hardy Release party
We have almost everything ready, we are running a Release Party on May the 3th, we have been working on the place, the talks, and making everything works, and we are almost ready! So if you are in Perú i hope to see you at the San Marcos University that day!

She came finally
The last 4 months have been really long and hard for me, my girlfriend have been working on Vail Colorado as part of an exchange program i missed her SO much, but she’s finally here again since Friday morning and we have spend a wonderful weekend together, i love you so much!!

Hardy is comming, let make the world know about that:

Just include this code inside your webpage:

<script src=”http://www.ubuntu.com/files/countdown/display.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>

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openbox, originally uploaded by nxvl.

It works!! Today i woke up, start my computer and there it was! Update Notifier saying i need to update my machine on pypanel!! Now i won’t miss Gnome!! wohooo!

After some time using Gnome i decided to return to openbox again to see is this time i can make it work better, and i did it \o/. I have my keyboard shortcuts, pypanel with my bin/oct/hex clock hack, conky and most important a 3×2 desktop grid without using any pager

Here are the steps i followed to make the desktop grid work:

1) Download setlayout source
$ wget http://icculus.org/openbox/tools/setlayout.c

2) Download dependencies
$ sudo apt-get install libx11-dev build-essential

3) Compile setlayout
$ gcc -lX11 setlayout.c
$ ln a.out setlayout

4) Add the setlayout “command” to autostart.sh script
echo “/route/to/setlayout/script/setlayout 0 3 2 0″ >> ~/route/to/autostart.sh

And it’s done! I only need to wait until there are some upgrades to test if update-manager’s notifications work on pypanel notification area and i won’t miss Gnome

El viernes pasado y dado que mi DNI estaba por vencer, fui a hacer mi tramite de la renovación de este y viendo los videos que pasaban mientras esperaba me enteré de la nueva opción que estaban “desarrollando”, el DNI electrónico. Primero me pareció una gran noticia y un buen proyecto, pero instantáneamente esa sensación fue seguida de varias preguntas, conociendo sobretodo como funciona el estado peruano, algunas de las cuales fueron:

• Que tipo de cifrado utilizarán para las firmas digitales
• Utilizarán algún algoritmo de cifrado desarrollado y probado o cometerán sacrilegio al usar el suyo propio
• El cifrado de documentos será mediante alguna aplicación propia de la reniec o una alternativa utilizada y libre
• Que tan fácil de romper será el cifrado
• Los “usuarios” generarán sus propias llaves privadas o simplemente les darán la llave ya generada en alguna computadora de dicha entidad con la opción que alguien pueda “sustraer” dicha llave privada
• En caso la llave privada sea robada, habrá alguna opción de cambiarla
• Si la anterior es Sí, que validez tendrán los archivos firmados anteriores
• Si la llave privada esta contenida dentro del chip del DNI, como se asegurarán que al ser robado el documento no sea utilizado por un ladrón para suplantarnos
• Si la llave privada esta contenida dentro del chip, como podré hacer uso de ella? Necesitaré una lectora de chips?
• Estarán las llaves públicas en algún lugar accesible o solo será posible verlas/obtenerlas por ciertas entidades

Como buen geek interesado en la seguridad empecé a investigar, buscar en internet, leer sobre el documento y mi respuesta fue la esperada: no hay información de NADA de esto en internet, o por lo menos no la encontré, será que lo que me temo es cierto y nadie sabe como funciona (como suele pasar en Perú), será que están confiando la seguridad en un cifrado “desconocido” por el atacante, será tan fácil de romper como hacer un simple ataque de ingeniería inversa?

En resumen: el estado quiere darnos una nueva tecnología y una nueva forma de “identificarnos”, virtualmente, pero no hay información sobre como funcionará esta, que es lo que realmente nos están dando, a que peligros nos podríamos exponer y al buscar una respuesta a estas interrogantes solo se encuentran más preguntas y dudas, pero total, a la población no le interesa, si un pequeño porcentaje tiene acceso a una computadora, y de ese pequeño porcentaje somos incluso mucho menor la proporción de ciudadanos que conocemos del tema, entonces no nos preocupemos por informarles! Pero no podemos dejar que jueguen con la seguridad de nuestra identidad, la reniec debe poner bien en claro todos los aspectos de este nuevo cambio, los legales, los de uso y los técnicos.