effiejayx’s blog

BEFORE MY POST:

WHAT: MOTU Q&A session

WHEN: TOMORROW (and EVERY FRIDAY)

WHAT TIME: 13:00 UTC

WHERE: #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net

Back to my post

Just because I have been quiet it doen’t mean I haven’t been working out my MOTU skills. I have another update in my road to MOTUness. I am doing quite a bit of progress. I set up my pbuilder to point to hardy and I even included extra repositories for it (please check extra lesson 1). and I have been working hard on looking at bugs.

I have been stuck finding bugs to fix, the bitesize are almost all gone. and the ones available don’t look very easy to fix. mainly stuff I am not familiar with. so I decided to give a shout to #ubuntu-motu. I was swiftly hit with this pair of bugs.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ghc6/+bug/120064
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ghc6/+bug/95985

Both report the lack of a manpage for runghc. I decided to give it a crack. upstream didn’t provide a manpage for it. so I decided to write it. and BOY was I in for a steep learning curve. happy ending though… I am test-building my first package I documented the whole process in my diary just in case anyone has to deal with manpages later . So I might just close 2 bugs.

I also found Jonathan Carter’s old MOTU journal… and I found it quite interesting. he is learning things I haven’t seen yet. and I guess it would be cool to have diaries like this… it definetely helps us all learn lots of stuff at the same time. of course, there is no secret formula to learning all MOTU things. but we could all benefit from reading eachother’s progress. please DO document you failures and successes on the path to MOTU.

It is a way to learn cooperatively in a process that to me seems to be VERY personal.

KUDOS: persia (for all the patience in the world), ScottK (for helping me with my merge skills ) and geser (for helping me fix component issues in pbuilder). norsetto that bug had more to it… and you knew… thank you all for believing I could.

I continue the MOTU journey…

The “V Foro Mundial del Conocimiento Libre”, held in the beautiful city of Puerto Ordaz , simply ROCKED. people from different parts of venezuela had a chance to meet the venezuelan F/LOSS community at large. this event gathered the community for 3 days, all very full of sharing and bonding.Ubuntu-ve was assigned a stand for participation and I was scheduled to give two talks… one on the ubuntu desktop. and another on community and how to contribute.  then by accident I ended giving a small python talk, very simple and filled with bits of code for young learners to pick it up quickly.

The ubuntu-ve stand/booth, we had demonstrations on how to install, and how to do basic things with ubuntu and we ansewered some questions. so people didn’t just take the CD home… Abdul and Nelo rocked the demonstrations. we also worked  hard on burning copies of whatever version ubuntu/kubuntu/xubuntu/edubuntu (server and addoncd), and many people took a CD home .

Ubuntu-ve also shared with other communities in Venezuela and much more importantly with the new people joining the Free and Open Source software Avalanche.

a big thank you to the organizers, who gave their all and made it a great opportunity for people to come see what we are all about…

More pictures here…

I have just returned from my trip. (so good being home again). I wanted to set thing up to resume my MOTU learning duties tomorrow. but I just couldn’t stop myself and I did a little exercise…

I looked at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/TODO/Bugs

I was finding it hard to spot some bugs that I could tackle. So to kill some time, I decided to check out some bugs that had already been patched. It is a fairly simple thing, and it doesn’t take much time. the main objective is to pick up some clues on how to address certain bugs.

Tomorrow I’ll start with simple triaging and I might attempt a package update again later next week … stay tuned

BEFORE I BEGIN MY POST…

WHAT: MOTU FAQ 

WHEN: Nov 23rd, 13:00 UTC.

WHERE: irc.freenode.net  #ubuntu-motu

back to my post

Well I am at the “V Foro Mundial del Conocimiento Libre”, I know I have one day without looking at my MOTU plan. I had been travelling and day 1 was rough on me. I was trying to set up the UBUNTU-VE stand (seting up balloons video beam and stuff) and on the other hand, I was scheduled to give two consecutive talks. First, The introduction of the UBUNTU-VE community. It was a very interesting chance to explain how the community works since some of them are unfamiliar with the support or the kind of services a community team offers. Another thing I pointed out is that they can too participate in the team and make it ROCK.

NO EXCUSES …. MORE MOTU WORK….

I must go the distance. I received wonderful feedback from MOTU’s and some of them pointed out that I had chosen a rather steep couple of tasks for the begining of the training and the truth is I was just following the bread crums from the documentation. I probably driffted away a little.

I will focus at least 4 days in bug fixing. I was told that this is the way to being playing with the tools and actually help out at the same time from the very begining. Thank you very much persia for your feedback. It is contributions like this that make little MOTUhoppers like me want to continue going for MOTUness. Should I have any doubts about what I am doing, I shall contact the ubuntu-motu-mentors mailing list to get everyone’s input on what little problem I may be having

A MESSAGE FROM TWO DEBIAN DEVELOPERS…

I just met ANIBAL MONSALVE, a Debian Developer from the COLOMBIA and currently living in AUSTRALIA. He had very encouraging words, the kind of thing I could relate to my Ubuntu MOTU journey. Also, I recently learned that JOSE PARRELA, a young Venezuelan (aged 20), is becoming a Debian Developer. I had a chance to talk to him as well and I can say he is one hell of a smart kid. I am EVEN more empowered to continue my MOTU tasks.

Any way this is all I have for now, let’s see what day two awaits… Expect progress in my plan tonight.

Thanks for your undying support…

Thank you all

Wow. thanks for the fantastic support. I will start posting more info on my progress in the planet and I encourage anyone following me or just a few lessons ahead of me to post your comments here in my blog or in the wiki. I would love to hear from your experiences. all eyes on the motu hopefulls and we will go the distance.

Highlights of the first 4 lessons 

•  I must say. I though it was going to be more difficult. You must definetely get comfortable with the tools. Take your time. make sure you have your gpg key info hand and the bash variables DEBFULLNAME and DEBEMAIL. this is important because it is how you sign packages after building them (and you should have used it already to sign the Code of Conduct to become UBUNTERO).  please check GnuPrivacyGuardHowto if you don’t have a GPG key.
• Updating a package was fun. the idea is bringing new versions of applications is exciting. learned a couple of tools like pbuilder (definition here), which I though I could leave for later because I found it a bit scary. but following the lesson 2 suggestion, I dared to try pbuilder. It turned out to be just pretty straight forward. this updates generally fix bugs from previous versions and I see a lot of reference to them in the changelog (you see the actual numbers of the bug reports in malone (in launchpad)).
• then there’s the Debain Maintainer Field, Read the what and why the how is pretty simple. in debian/control just make sure you modify
  the Manteiner field. It originally reads something like this:

Maintainer: John Doe Palmar   johndoe@mail.com

You just have to edit the Mantainer field to the MOTU team (check why in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuForDebianDevelopers) and add a new field, XSBC-Original-Mantainer with the original mantainer info.

Maintainer: Ubuntu MOTU Developers <ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com>
XSBC-Original-Mantainer: John Doe Palmar <johndoe@mail.org>

All of this little things I have been learning are part of the MOTU documentation and you can try it for yourself.  So far I haven’t interacted with anyone in any of this processes so it has been easy on the morale. as soon as I interact more with real cases I shall see my involvement with real MOTUS and that proves a test.

On the IRC LOGs of the Open Week.

It feels cool to go back after I have gained some confidence with tools and probably I will be able to understand questions better and probably see things that I didn’t see before. It’s be like reading a book for a 2nd time. Or like going back in time and doing it again… only with a little more knowledge

On the FREE practice.

I look forward to that. I shall swing by the IRC and see if there is anything that needs upgrading. probably moving around for bugs and see if one of my patches actually works (debdiffs work as patches). so it proves to be interesting.

I am currently doing my motu work at 5:30 am Venezuelan Time… that’s 09:30 UTC. … I definetely don’t have time … I have to make time…

Again… thanks for your fantastic support…

It’s MOTU… GET IN!

FUN MOTU: did you know that the first HE-MAN and the Masters of the Universe action figure I got … was  Skeletor … :S … my mother thought the uglier was the coolest… go figure…

A couple of months back I was approached by someone in my local lug regarding paricipating in the “Foro mundial del conocimiento libre“. I’ll be spending 4 days in the city of “Puerto Ordaz” in Bolivar State. The “Foro Mundial” offers a chance for all FOSS the community to gather and talk about common projects in Venezuela, The First “Foro Mundial Infantil del conocimiento libre” oriented to children. the focus this year is on free culture, free software, free hardware, free art, Legal aspects, Economic Aspects and sharing Migration experiences.

Since the venezuelan FOSS community is in constant growth. I chose to orient my talk towards talking about the ubuntu desktop. you can find the talk and the abstract (in spanish). This is a tribute tho the desktop-team for making ubuntu kick some serious sense into people’s minds in every release.

Ubuntu-ve will have a small stand with small talks and a Community talk. and a ASK QUESTIONS table. where people can get their Questions asked. and also promote the projects we are undertaking (Donating PC’s to schools (edubuntu), Languages Translation to Wuayuunaiki) and generating more participation in the LoCo team in general, we even offered help with Ubuntu installations in a InstallFest.

Check out the list of talks
This Summit will give the Venezuelan FOSS community to converge on different levels and for UBUNTU-VE this means a great deal. We thank the organizing committee of this wonderful event.

My Journey to MOTU…

I planned this so I will resume my MOTU learning the same Saturday when I get back. I don’t know how much the internet will work in the hotel where I’ll be staying. MOTU Learning is coming along great. you can check my daily progress here. Thanks for the fantastic support

effie_jayx

That’s it. I am headed to MOTU land. I find MOTU a very interesting contribution and there’s never been a better time to contribute. It is eveyone’s chance to give back to ubuntu. I open my road to MOTU to anyone that wants to come along, anyone that wishes to give me a few pointers on how to do things. I am a man on a mission, reach MOTUness…

I have laid out my study plan. Two or Three Hours a day should help me get in shape for more regular MOTU action. please have a look, feel free to make suggestions to my plan right there in the wiki, the idea is to balance it a bit. pick it up and make t your own. design your MOTU ROAD MAP TODAY…

Thanks for your support

effie_jayx

Recently, Jono pointed out some interesting issues regarding Burnout. I want to point out something that might help you find your cure, If you look at something you really really like, no matter how good it is, at some point if it represents no challenge, it’ll bore you.Take the example of reading for pleasure. No matter how good a book is. you just don’t feel like reading the same book every night. One suggestion, Take several books and read  them, one day you read from one, then you read a little from another and so on. different kinds of books help.

If you take this analogy to the ubuntu community. there’s lots one could do. Whatever suits you. In my case I started out with Translations, Documentation, obviously advocacy in the LoCo team in my country, and recently, I got my eyes on MOTU. This helps me keep my interest in ubuntu community. Threading my community work in different areas keeps my colaboration fresh (for as little as it may seem).

Contributing from different angles also helps out. If you are focused on one task or one team in particular, It would be like having pizza everyday. Help out a little here and there. and then get back to your main project.

Another thing that might help out get rid of some of the jaded stage of burnout, GET OUT AND PROMOTE UBUNTU .  The synergy you get from advocating ubuntu. It is something to be able to help people with real problems. I guess that is another pill for burnout. the people you meet when you get out and say Ubuntu in the real world. so go out and share the Ubuntu.

If you have your own cure… please comment it