This is all about my personal use case. I am probably overlooking areas that you care about, and concentrating on those that you don't. This might read as me bashing Ubuntu a bit, but it's really not supposed to. By being honest about these issues, we can hopefully work towards fixing them.

• Proxy support. At Uni/work I am behind a web proxy – the firewall has a default deny policy which means that users are required to go through the web proxy in order to use the web. The problem is that not all applications notice that I have changed the proxy, even when I use the "Apply systemwide" option. I noticed this just now when trying to file a bug report using Apport – the collecting process just hung until I got bored and cancelled it. Launching from a terminal with http_proxy exported worked just fine (actually, automatically exporting http_proxy in terminals if one is set in Gnome would be cool – OSX doesn't do this). I'm not sure where the bug lies here, in applications or somewhere in the Gnome stack, so I don't feel comfortable filing a bug report.
• The speaker output is not muted when I plug my headphones in. I have to go to alsamixer and adjust the headphone volume separately. There's a workaround for this on the Macbook pages of the Ubuntu help wiki but I'm yet to try it. Bug 437150.
• Brightness adjustment doesn't work out of the box. There's apparently a fixed driver on the wiki page that I've just installed. We'll see after the next boot whether it works or not.
• External monitor support is a bit suboptimal. To be fair, I've probably been spoiled by the fact that OSX handles this so well. I have to manually enable/disable the monitor when I remove or add it. OSX detects this automatically and adjusts the windows as required so I can just yank the connector out and go on my merry way. See this Ubuntu QA blog post from Bryce for more on this.
• Battery life leaves a lot to be desired. Sometimes the machine gets really quite hot.

I think that's it. Really these are minor niggles that I can overlook in order to use my OS of choice. I've concentrated on laptop/Macbook specific problems here. We can see that most of the problems I mentioned are hardware/driver specific, and really these are some of the most difficult problems to fix due to hardware manufacturers in the main being difficult to work with, so it's not hard to let issues like this go.

On the plus side, suspend finally works! I can just shut the lid to suspend and open it to resume, just like I can in OSX. This is really great. Also, using my phone as a 3G modem is faster, easier and more solid under Karmic. And of course all applications (barring the proxy issue), work just as they do on any other Ubuntu machine, meaning really well. There's also the benefit that I no longer feel like a hypocrite .

We've a little way to go to overtake the major proprietary players, but with incremental improvements like these, it's just going to be a matter of time.

Congratulations on mankind for reaching the splendid milestone that is 1234567890 seconds since 1970 began. Who'd have thought we'd make it this far?

But really, congratulations on the Debian team for releasing Lenny (I even have one package uploaded there)! The point of this post is mainly to point people upgrading their Xen DomUs of a bug that I encountered and how to fix it (thanks to Andy Smith).

When doing the upgrade I got this message:

laney@cripps:~$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
Setting up linux-image-2.6.26-1-xen-686 (2.6.26-13) ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26-1-xen-686
Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
warning: grub-probe can't find drive for /dev/sda1.
grub-probe: error: Cannot find a GRUB drive for /dev/sda1. Check your
device.map.

dpkg: error processing linux-image-2.6.26-1-xen-686 (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-image-2.6-xen-686:
linux-image-2.6-xen-686 depends on linux-image-2.6.26-1-xen-686; however:
Package linux-image-2.6.26-1-xen-686 is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing linux-image-2.6-xen-686 (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-image-xen-686:
linux-image-xen-686 depends on linux-image-2.6.26-1-xen-686; however:
Package linux-image-2.6.26-1-xen-686 is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing linux-image-xen-686 (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
linux-image-2.6.26-1-xen-686
linux-image-2.6-xen-686
linux-image-xen-686

This is apparently a bug in grub-probe when dealing with Xen virtual machines. A post by Andy here gives the magic incantation to fix it:

sudo sh -c "echo '(hd0) /dev/sda' > /boot/grub/device.map && cd /dev && mknod sda b 202 0"

(you might need to change sda to xvda depending on what your error says).

A quick dpkg --configure -a later and everything is hunky-dory. Now in a sexy Lenny system in which everything seems to just work, just like the marketing says. Some Apache and MySQL warnings to fix up, but nothing too major. Yet.

(on a side-note – I got MOTU recently. Breakage coming to an Ubuntu near you. Yay!)

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar

Well, hello Planet! Since I've been approved as an Ubuntu member, I figured this is as good a time as any to post some drivel. I'm Laney, and I am very pleased to have your attention. I am 22 years young and in a small number of weeks will be a PhD student at the School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham.

I might as well use this platform to ask for your help. No, not for myself, for the Intrepid Ibex. Look at the picture up there, he needs you to help him. You couldn't say no to that, could you?

James Westby has made a much more comprehensive post on this, but I'd just like to retierate the testing part. If you feel you're able to recover from any problems that might occur (should not be too severe now we're in feature freeze) and your system is not mission critical then please do consider helping out. It was with some hesitation that I made the switch a week or so ago, and I've certainly found my fair share of bugs and have to live with a slightly more unstable system (particularly audio-wise), but it'll be worth it in the end when we ship an excellent Ubuntu 8.10. If you do test, I urge you to get involved in bug reporting, otherwise you're just putting yourself through pain for no gain. When you come across a problem, search Launchpad and the affected program's upstream bug tracker for the issue and see if you can add any more information. If there is no bug, or if you just don't have the time to be searching bug trackers then please do still file the bug on Launchpad and a triager will deal with it for you (maybe asking you for more information). As the ever wise Tesco say, "Every little helps". I've definitely come across a few bugs (probably some I've forgotten here):

• Banshee crashes on Last.FM login
• terminator crashed with AttributeError in get_first_notebook_page()
• seahorse crashed with SIGSEGV in IA__g_object_set_valist()
• file-roller crashed with SIGSEGV in find_image_offset()
• tracker-applet crashed with SIGSEGV in signal_emit_unlocked_R()
• Can no longer configure keyboard shortcuts for switching tabs

A lot of the bugs have a similar format: "x crashed with y in z". This is apport at work, an excellent tool which takes a lot of the work out of reporting crash bugs. Even just reporting these bugs helps to stabilise the system.

So, I urge you, please do run update-manager -d (Ubuntu users) or adept_manager --version-upgrade (Kubuntu), and get involved!

This article describes the process for merging a package from Debian to the development version of Ubuntu, currently the Intrepid Ibex. If you want to see how I generally go about doing this, follow the jump.

There's a lot of background on what a merge is, and how to go about performing one at this document on the Ubuntu wiki. To some extent I will repeat the same information here, but presenting it as a walkthrough. Essentially a merge is required when a newer version of a Debian package than the one in Ubuntu is released, and the Ubuntu version has local changes that have been made. The process involves checking the Ubuntu changes, and incorporating them into the new Debian package if they are still relevant. I'm going to outline the way I work with a simpleish merge that I recently did, for the package battleball.

Find a package to merge

The first thing to do is to check either DaD or MoM for the lists of packages for which a merge is currently required. I prefer to use DaD as it has convenient links to the Debian PTS and Launchpad pages for all listed packages, as well as a comment field which can be used by people to indicate that they are working on a package, for example.

Once you've found a package to merge, you should ask the uploader of the last Ubuntu version if they mind you working on the merge this time around. They will be able to tell you if there's anything you need to know about the package or if they plan on working on the merge themselves:

<Laney> norsetto: May I merge battleball?

<norsetto> Laney: pls. do

Once the uploader has OKed you continuing on the merge, you may now start to do the actual work.

Paperwork

We (as a non-MOTU) need a Launchpad bug filed for your merge. This is the place where sponsors will look to check your work. Here is the bug I filed for the battleball merge. The title is the most important part – I usually paste the new Debian changelog entries into the bug description for convenience, but this isn't really required as the bug is mainly just for tracking. Set the status to "In Progress" and assign to yourself. You'll also get a bug number when you file the bug. This is needed later in the process.

Performing the merge itself

DaD and MoM both provide a script, grab-merge.sh, to automatically try to perform a merge by combining the changes in Ubuntu and Debian. I prefer not to use this method, however, as often Debian incorporates Ubuntu changes in a different way which can lead to duplications or omissions in the resulting merged package. This is only a personal preference, and I'm sure that many people get by with the scripts just fine.

Download the Debian package from the PTS page and the Ubuntu package from the LP page and unpack these into their own directories. As we're dealing with the same upstream version (only packaging changes in Debian), I'll use Meld, a really cool graphical diff viewer, to do the bulk of the changes.

Red files have changes, green are new and strikethrough are deleted. The next phase is to inspect each changed file to see if it is still required. Throughout this phase it is essential to refer back to the changelogs to see what changes were made in Ubuntu and Debian. We see that the Ubuntu .desktop file change hasn't been implemented in Debian, so carry this change forward. Inspect each file and see if it refers to this change. It turns out that the changes for this are in battleball.desktop and rules. Use Meld to copy the changes over.

In the screenshot above, we can see the changes between the debian/rules file in the Ubuntu version (left) and the Debian version (right). Changes in blue are in the Debian version but not Ubuntu, and don't require you to do anything. Changes in green are in the Ubuntu version but not Debian. These are the ones we need to pay attention to. Figure out why each of these changes is in the old version but not the new. If they are a result of a Ubuntu change that we still need in the new version, then copy them over by clicking the black arrow in the middle. In this case, both changes are to effect the installation of the desktop file, so are copied.

The debian/changelog file should always be merged. Keep the changelog entries from Ubuntu in the correct place order to preserve the history of the package.

Each change that is kept in the Ubuntu version should be forwarded to Debian using the submittodebian tool to send a patch, as long as it is relevant there too. In this case the .desktop file change has already been reported, so we don't need to do anything further. I like to add a bug watch to my merge bugs with the changes that I've reported as part of that merge. That way the person that comes to merge the package next can easily see if the changes have been adopted in Debian or not yet.

Final housekeeping

Once all changes have been accounted for, and copied over if necessary, it's time to perform the housekeeping tasks that keep our upload tidy and compliant with policy. First we need to update the maintainer to be the Ubuntu MOTU team. This is achieved by simply running the update-maintainer program from a shell within the package's directory. Second we need to add a new changelog entry which details what has gone on. In this case the only change that remains from Ubuntu is the adding of a .desktop file. We also need to mention somewhere in this changelog entry the number of the merge bug that we're closing, in the form (LP: #nnn). Using the command dch -i, we will be presented with an editor which has all of the important stuff (version number, timestamp, distro) inserted automatically. The entry that we come up with is:

* Merge from Debian unstable (LP: #239218), remaining changes:
- Add .desktop file
* Modify Maintainer value to match the DebianMaintainerField
specification. (added automatically by update-maintainer)

Testing

Now it is crucially important to test the package. Build a source package by executing the debuild -S command from within the package directory. This will spit out a .dsc and .diff.gz file in the parent directory, which you can use to build the package. I'll not go through the setting up of sbuild here, but you should follow these instructions to get it set up for building packages. This (or pbuilder) is the cleanest and most accurate way of test building. Issue the command sbuild -d intrepid-i386 battleball_2.0-17ubuntu1.dsc to do a test build, and watch the output for any errors. Providing the package builds OK on the current development distro (it does), we can move onto testing. Copy the resulting .deb package onto a VM running the development distro and install it, checking for any errors here. There are none, so we move onto testing the application, in particular looking for the Ubuntu fixes that remain in our merge to ensure that they are still present. In this case the .desktop file is working properly and the program appears to function well after using it for a little while, so we are ready to ask for sponsorship.

Generating files for sponsorship

As a final step before uploading, we need to generate two sets of diffs for uploading: between the debian version we based our changes on and the new version, and between the previous Ubuntu version we took the changes from and our new version. The two commands we need are:

debdiff battleball_2.0-17.dsc battleball_2.0-17ubuntu1.dsc > debian-ubuntu.debdiff
debdiff cur/battleball_2.0-16.1ubuntu1.dsc battleball_2.0-17ubuntu1.dsc > ubuntu-ubuntu.debdiff

Check the changes in both of these debdiffs with diffstat to see that they are all intentional, and verify the diffs manually in a text editor to see that all of the changes you need are present, and all are documented in the changelog.

As they are, we can proceed to uploading and asking for sponsorship.

Uploading and requesting sponsorship

This is the last and possiblly simplest part of the process. Visit the bug's page on Launchpad and upload the two debdiffs you just added, checking the patch box for both of them. I like to paste my new changelog entry to give sponsors a clue as to what's going on in the diffs. Then set the status to confirmed and unassign yourself. From the "Subscribe someone else" page, subscribe ubuntu-universe-sponsors (ubuntu-main-sponsors if this were a package in main), and that's it. Someone will review the patch in good time and upload, thanks to Luca Falavigna for doing this for me here .

Links

• List of commands executed during this merge.
• Bug report for this merge.

I managed to sort myself out a job for the Summer which will allow me to stay in Nottingham, which I really want to do. It's weird how for half of my University life I considered home to be back in Alconbury, but then something changed and now I feel more at home here than back there. Perhaps it's because most of my friends have moved on, or maybe I've simply become more used to life here. I'm definitely not going to complain. Notts may have its problems, but it feels like it's on the up to me, and is definitely somewhere I'm happy to stay. That's not to say that the choice between York and Nottingham for my PhD wasn't one of the hardest I've had to make. It really tore me up for a number of weeks, but for a few reasons which I won't go into here I plumped for Nottingham in the end. I'll probably keep wondering how different it would have been had I chosen York though.

Anyway, enough about life. What about nerdy stuff?

The Hardy Heron was released not long ago, and I'm very proud to be able to say that I played a tiny role in its development. My goal is to up my participation levels for the Intrepid Ibex. After my exams are over in a few weeks, I'll find myself with a lot more free time which I'll be able to spend working on the distro. My beady eye is already on a few merges to get the ball rolling, and then who knows? I'd say my goal for this cycle is to get to "Contributing Developer" status, once I've learned enough.

Overall Hardy seems like an incremental improvement over Gutsy. I upgraded (using update-manger) to the beta during development, so the major changes aren't that visible to me sadly. Perhaps a fresh install is in order to see the major changes stand out. It's good to have newer versions of most software too, even if there are some regressions that I've found thus far. Such is life. My linux-fu has definitely increased since I started using it 100% of the time. Prior to using Ubuntu, I'd been using Linux on-and-off every few months but always returning to Windows after some annoying problem forced me to give up. Not so this time; my new PC was (almost) fully compatible from the get-go, and I'd decided to have the resolve to see any problems through. It's been a blast so far.

<crimsun> Laney: thanks, uploaded.

ROCK ON!

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "BlankTime" "0"
Option "StandbyTime" "0"
Option "SuspendTime" "0"
Option "OffTime" "0"
EndSection

Save and restart your computer (or log out and restart X by hitting ctrl-alt-backspace), and everything should be fixed. Play a video and leave it and marvel at how you don't have to move the mouse once every 10 minutes to keep it displaying! Also, I noted that on Xubuntu gnome-screensaver wasn't started by default, meaning that no power management settings would work any more. This is easily solved by going to Settings -> Autostarted Applications and adding an item to start /usr/bin/gnome-screensaver when you login.

Here's the launchpad bug for anyone interested in tracking the issue.

Uninstalling Kubuntu and all of the stuff that it brought in wasn't so straightforward, however. Simply removing the metapackage kubuntu-desktop with Synaptic or aptitude left all of the extra stuff that I didn't want hanging around. This thread gave a massive apt-get line to remove all of the packages, which seemed more than a little suspect to me (enumerating all packages is bound to be a bad idea; some will get missed and some that I could have potentially installed myself previously could be removed), but upon scrolling down I came upon a nice program called debfoster which purged everything nicely. Note: This has been deprecated in favour of using aptitude. I only had to use deborphan because I didn't install kubuntu-desktop with aptitude in the first place. Use aptitude to save yourself a load of hassle. If, like me, you didn't know to use aptitude and just used apt-get or synaptic, deborphan will save your bacon and even keep any KDE packages you've explicitly installed (Kile and KBib for me). Paraphrasing from the thread, these are the commands you need to run:

sudo aptitude install debfoster
sudo debfoster -q
sudo sed -ni '1h;2,$H;${g;s/kubuntu-desktop\n//g;p}' /var/lib/debfoster/keepers
sudo debfoster

(Note that there are four lines here – the "sudo sed" line ends with "keepers".)

Review the output to see if it looks like it's removing all of the unnecessary kubuntu packages, then press P to purge them all and Y to confirm.

First of all, I couldn't get it to boot after installation. The installation itself appeared to go smoothly, but then upon rebooting I got the dreaded GRUB Error 17, which means "Invalid device requested". After hours days of messing around with BIOS settings, grub-install witchcraft and the like, I had pretty much decided that I just wasn't going to get it to work on my IDE drive, and decided to try it on a SATA. This almost went smoothly; on the first boot, I got sent straight to Vista, but Super GRUB Disk, with its charming broken English fixed me right up. Almost. I had to edit one of the lines in the GRUB config file that it had created to point to the right HDD, but I had finally gotten into Linux!

On first impressions, everything was great: sound worked out of the box, MSN support was there and very nice, and Synaptic made installing new software a breeze. Since then, things have been mostly good; for someone like myself who doesn't mind the occasional trip down CLI-lane, it's definitely usable for day-to-day work. I'll quickly list my remaining niggles, just to get them out there.

• Compiz Fusion is a bit buggy, and seems to take up a lot of CPU time. Sometimes when I maximise windows, they jiggle around constantly until I unmaximise them.
• The media players aren't quite there yet. Rhythmbox is a bit flaky and most of the time won't let me navigate the playlist with my arrow keys after being alt-tabbed to. Banshee seems a bit thin feature-wise. Amarok loves to peg the CPU and crash, and has weird keyboard-navigation too (although it is the one I'm currently using for its wealth of features, decent iPod support and nice global hotkeys).
• It took me a little while to realise this, but only the front speaker of my 5.1 was enabled by default. I had to drop into alsamixer to unmute and enable all the others, after which they worked just fine. Also, somewhat confusingly, the volume control button on the taskbar comes set up to only control this one speaker. Changing it to control "PCM" seems to act more like the master volume switch that I expect it to.
• Even though I have turned off all options which I could find, my display still insists on suspending after 10 minutes of the computer being idle. This I have only just "solved" (in reality a hack) by commenting out Option "DPMS" in my xorg.conf file. Edit: Ok, this didn't actually solve anything. I'm stumped and Really Pissed Off.
• Related to the above, VLC (my media player of choice), doesn't seem to stop the display from suspending while playing media. Very annoying when trying to watch (say) a film.
• I still cannot get BBC radio streaming to work in Firefox. I'll probably have to install the official Realplayer, which I really don't want to do.
• The Java situation is very odd. I understand this is due to license issues. And no amd64 firefox plugin from Sun makes me sad, as the free Icedtea one doesn't want to work.

So there we have it. I'm enjoying it overall, but there are some annoying niggles. (I really don't like being told off on IRC for daring to express frustration) Given a few more releases, Ubuntu should have gotten rid of most of these things, making for a genuinely useful OS.