I recently migrated my VPS from Slicehost to Linode and I’ve been very happy with them. One of the changes that I made during this move was to try out Debian 5.0 as my base OS instead of Ubuntu 8.04. So far I have been pleased with the change–although I’ll admit there isn’t much that is different on the server installation. One of the few differences that I have found is in regards to the repository configuration. One feature in Debian that is not available in Ubuntu is the ability to configure your sources.list to the stable release.. whatever version that happens to be. Let me explain. Repository Configuration Ubuntu, a variant of Debian, uses the /etc/apt/sources.list to configure which repositories to subscribe to for available packages and errata updates. Generally these repositories are subscribed to by way of development codename. For example: http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid main restricted universe multiverse Read more

I spent some time this afternoon on the bus ride home setting a new theme to the blog here. I’ve also cleaned up the categories. Ohh, and the most exciting part (even if it is transparent to the end-user), I upgraded to WordPress trunk. If you have not seen the new dashboard in WP 2.7 you should really check it out. Its really clean and slick–I really like it. In any event, I hope to continue my FreeBSD and miscellaneous posts here while the ‘buntu specific stuff will be on Ubuntu Tutorials.

Well I just spent the last hour trying to build the latest version of origami. Man, what a pain! I thought I’d quickly jot down the few things that I learned so that I will (hopefully) not repeat those mistakes again! origami.docs only needs a list of the docs, not the destination directory. lintian tells you how to fix the problem. Pay attention and read! spell “licenses” correctly if you’re going to refer to “common-licenses” At this point it looks like the only thing I have left to create is a man page and, according to lintian, origami will be error-free. Anyone know how’n the hell to do that? 🙂 Until I figure that out I’m going to take this debian/ directory and save it in a bzr branch so if I get lost again I have a good, valid, working copy. Big thanks to LaserJock for the help today! Read more

I spent quite some time yesterday trying to build a package “just for fun” and realize that it is way over my n00b-packager head, but I do feel like I learned quite a bit in the process. I feel like it has been a bit like jumping into the deep end of the pool and figuring it out as you go. Granted I won’t die if I don’t figure it out, but you learn a lot very quickly when you’re in over your head. What I was trying to do was build a .deb for VirtualBox 1.6 that was released just a few days ago. I downloaded it to tinker with, assuming I would have to just compile the source, but I noticed it had a debian/ directory. I figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a try, so I tried building it. I wanted to outline what I tried to do (so all of the real packagers out there can correct me), but I will say that I am still stuck on getting it built in pbuilder. Read more

I spent some time this morning thinking about what I would like to do in the MOTU land. What projects/packages are important to me? What areas would I like to focus on? I wanted to write these down because, of course, until you write down a goal its just a wish. New Packages: I would like origami to be 100% compliant and available in Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid” I would like the EeePC to be supported / configured by way of a simple package installation. I know it is not recommended to start with new packaging when just getting started, but these are listed as some of my longer term goals for Ubuntu 8.10. Before I get to this point I hope to be of some help during the merge process and help with patches as well. I will continue to try and update daily with progress, thoughts and study. Read more