Oh well... /listens to LUGRadio
Showing posts with label Ubuntu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ubuntu. Show all posts
Thursday, 18 October 2007
Free Software Society Get-together
Not a real meeting as such, not quite a release party, basically we're just having a bit of a meet up in BarOne. I'm currently downloading an Ubuntu 7.10 CD image, but it says it will take at least another 4 hours, which basically makes me unable to offer any written CDs of them :( I hope someone takes along a CD or a laptop with an image, then I should have no problem copying it (as long as my CD drive doesn't go all silly). I'll take along some Fedora and Debian CDs and stuff, so at least I'll be able to offer something.
Wednesday, 8 August 2007
Tuesday, 15 May 2007
Service Pack Maker
I seem to be improving my programming skills quite quickly now. I started to make a Java version of the "service pack" creator idea I had a while ago (see my comment on this Ubuntu Wiki page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OfflineUpdateSpec) and it is coming on quite well. I have given it an Ubuntu spec page here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TransparentServicePackMaker if you are interested.
Currently there is a nice simple GUI (although the "Advanced" button should really be a tab, but it isn't implemented yet anyway), the text entered into the Name box is turned into lowercase and spaces are replaced with hyphens (so entering "Graphics Applications 1" will turn into "graphics-applications-1"), the value for the tick box about including the system's non-default packages is read, and the "include" field is parsed.
What I am quite proud of is teaching myself file input and output, so that the contents of /var/lib/apt/lists (the lists of packages available from your repositories) are read when the application starts up and dumped into a temporary file called /tmp/service-pack-temp-XXXX (where XXXX is a random number to make the file unique). Upon clicking "Create" the given "include" line is parsed as a space-separated list of packages. If any of the package names given are not found in the available repositories then a message comes up warning the user of this. If all of the packages are found then the list is given to the service pack for inclusion, where all of the duplicates are removed. This means that putting "gimp gimp gimp inkscape gimp inkscape Warbo" will give a message saying that Warbo cannot be found. removing Warbo from the line will include "gimp" and "inkscape" in the pack once, which I think is quite nice.
The tool doesn't yet output anything, which I am working on, but it looks like a working tool is near. When it is done I will probably ask in the forums for someone to redo it in Python and GTK.
Currently there is a nice simple GUI (although the "Advanced" button should really be a tab, but it isn't implemented yet anyway), the text entered into the Name box is turned into lowercase and spaces are replaced with hyphens (so entering "Graphics Applications 1" will turn into "graphics-applications-1"), the value for the tick box about including the system's non-default packages is read, and the "include" field is parsed.
What I am quite proud of is teaching myself file input and output, so that the contents of /var/lib/apt/lists (the lists of packages available from your repositories) are read when the application starts up and dumped into a temporary file called /tmp/service-pack-temp-XXXX (where XXXX is a random number to make the file unique). Upon clicking "Create" the given "include" line is parsed as a space-separated list of packages. If any of the package names given are not found in the available repositories then a message comes up warning the user of this. If all of the packages are found then the list is given to the service pack for inclusion, where all of the duplicates are removed. This means that putting "gimp gimp gimp inkscape gimp inkscape Warbo" will give a message saying that Warbo cannot be found. removing Warbo from the line will include "gimp" and "inkscape" in the pack once, which I think is quite nice.
The tool doesn't yet output anything, which I am working on, but it looks like a working tool is near. When it is done I will probably ask in the forums for someone to redo it in Python and GTK.
Saturday, 3 February 2007
I assume it is a good thing, but the actual extent of my Ubuntu involvement is more than I realised. After helping some people in IRC (something I used to do for vast timespans pre-University) whilst after support myself, which (as usual) I didn't get (this is not having a go at the Ubuntu help system, just that I am so Ubuntu-savvy that if I can't fix it then most of the people in #ubuntu can't either!) I left since I couln't keep track of the conversation as I was also web browsing on an adjacent workspace. So, I left and carried on my browsing, yes on the Ubuntu Wiki, and saw a nice little spec I might be interested in.
I read through it, agreeing that FluidSynth would probably be better (although I have never used it directly before), and also thought "Making a plugin for Firefox? That could probably be done with MozPlugger." Only when I read further down did I see that someone had already suggested using MozPlugger, and that person was me!
I am glad now that I junked the list of Wiki contributions I have made which used to be on my Ubuntu Wiki homepage, since there is far too much. It was only relatively recently that I even bothered to label my comments with my name!
Well, start back on Monday, Tuesday is Film Night or, as will probably be the case, Let's Be Angry At Chris For Ruining Our Film Night Night, Free Software Society to sort after that, Valentine's Day, Mum's birthday, etc. Busy Busy Busy!
PS: I only noticed recently that writing fake closing HTML tags in arrow brakets does not show up on this blog, so I may as well say here that I had "/Blatant Lie" tagged on the first post (about working hard, updating this blog, etc.) and I've forgotten the one I put on the second because I'm an idiot. I just wanted to clarify the first post which seems very out of character for me without the close tag applied!
PPS: I like Power Quest, they remind me of the good old days of listening to Protracker modules on the Amiga-1200-with-the hard-drive-outside-the-case-and-the-4MB-fast-RAM-upgrade-and-the-CDROM-drive-in-the-spare-room-at-my-Dad's-house whilst animating, 3D modelling, etc. Yay nostalgia!
I read through it, agreeing that FluidSynth would probably be better (although I have never used it directly before), and also thought "Making a plugin for Firefox? That could probably be done with MozPlugger." Only when I read further down did I see that someone had already suggested using MozPlugger, and that person was me!
I am glad now that I junked the list of Wiki contributions I have made which used to be on my Ubuntu Wiki homepage, since there is far too much. It was only relatively recently that I even bothered to label my comments with my name!
Well, start back on Monday, Tuesday is Film Night or, as will probably be the case, Let's Be Angry At Chris For Ruining Our Film Night Night, Free Software Society to sort after that, Valentine's Day, Mum's birthday, etc. Busy Busy Busy!
PS: I only noticed recently that writing fake closing HTML tags in arrow brakets does not show up on this blog, so I may as well say here that I had "/Blatant Lie" tagged on the first post (about working hard, updating this blog, etc.) and I've forgotten the one I put on the second because I'm an idiot. I just wanted to clarify the first post which seems very out of character for me without the close tag applied!
PPS: I like Power Quest, they remind me of the good old days of listening to Protracker modules on the Amiga-1200-with-the hard-drive-outside-the-case-and-the-4MB-fast-RAM-upgrade-and-the-CDROM-drive-in-the-spare-room-at-my-Dad's-house whilst animating, 3D modelling, etc. Yay nostalgia!
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