That being said… I love it.

No, I don’t mind running network manager on my systems, I even have it on my netbook (Atom processor). I used wicd for a long time because network manager really got nothing done back in the days (half a year ago or what :)). Nowadays, since version 0.9, it works fine for me. No fiddling around with config files, perfect integration in the desktop, and LAN and WLAN Just Work [tm].

No, I don’t like if some weird dependencies dictate what tools to use. I usually used pidgin for messaging, for instance. Now I’m using empathy, simply because it’s best integrated in GNOME. And no, I won’t switch from mutt to evolution. :-P

And there are more such cases. Also, these weird accessibility tools that are stuck in the gnome-shell “top panel”, I don’t need them. Still there. (There’s an extension to remove it, by the way.) Also, I must say, GNOME 3.2 is a lot better than 3.0 already. And I think 3.4 might do the final trick for me.

Fact is, with GNOME 3 I have a much cleaner desktop, there is more room for windows (which is nice on a netbook display), there are web apps which I already use a lot, and it has a professional, not too playful look (i.e. a few effects, clear and consistent theming, no bubbling windows). And the new notification stuff is just awesome, especially with the empathy integration.

Oh, and too many mouse click to access an application? 1) Put your most used apps in the favorites bar (or whatever it is called); it’s just one click then. 2) Press your meta-key (that way our name for the windows key, or was that the ESC key? Whatever, press your windows key), type in the first two or three letters of your application, and hit enter; you don’t need a mouse at all.

There. It had to be said. :)

I started playing around with the config and, as it turns out, Axel already has something ready. Unfortunately, it didn’t fulfill all my needs yet. That is because I have multiple known_hosts files. Martin already filed a bug to have ssh read ~/.ssh/known_hosts.d/* but that isn’t resolved yet either, even though upstream is aware of it. I thus had to point tab completion and ssh to multiple files by hand. But that’s not too bad for now. Let’s have a look:

Host *
        HashKnownHosts no

Host *.debian.org
        UserKnownHostsFile ~/.ssh/known_hosts.debian


What am I doing? Well, we need to deactivate the hashing of known hosts. Otherwise your known_hosts files aren’t readable as needed. Then you define your known_hosts files for the domains you care about. Pretty straight forward.

Now, how about tab completion in zsh? Well, easy part actually:

[ -f ~/.ssh/config ] && : ${(A)ssh_config_hosts:=${${${${(@M)${(f)"$(<~/.ssh/config)"}:#Host *}#Host }:#*\**}:#*\?*}}
[ -f ~/.ssh/known_hosts ] && : ${(A)ssh_known_hosts:=${${${(f)"$(<$HOME/.ssh/known_hosts)"}%%\ *}%%,*}}
[ -f ~/.ssh/known_hosts.work ] && : ${(A)ssh_known_hosts_work:=${${${(f)"$(<$HOME/.ssh/known_hosts.work)"}%%\ *}%%,*}}
[ -f ~/.ssh/known_hosts.debian ] && : ${(A)ssh_known_hosts_debian:=${${${(f)"$(<$HOME/.ssh/known_hosts.debian)"}%%\ *}%%,*}}

zstyle ':completion:*:hosts' hosts $ssh_config_hosts $ssh_known_hosts $ssh_known_hosts_work $ssh_known_hosts_debian

What's here? We read and parse your ~/.ssh/config for configured hosts, then we parse all your known_hosts files which are for me: ~/.ssh/known_hosts, ~/.ssh/known_hosts.work, and ~/.ssh/known_hosts.debian. And lastly, all is added to zsh completion for hosts. That actually works. :)

Axel, that makes a diff for you looking like this:

diff --git a/zsh.d/70-completion b/zsh.d/70-completion
index e92e068..5abf5cc 100644
--- a/zsh.d/70-completion
+++ b/zsh.d/70-completion
@@ -8,6 +8,8 @@

-zstyle ':completion:*:*:*' hosts $ssh_config_hosts $ssh_known_hosts
+zstyle ':completion:*:hosts' hosts $ssh_config_hosts $ssh_known_hosts $ssh_known_hosts_work $ssh_known_hosts_debian

Care to merge?

Oh, and before I forget... Of course you don't need to check each and every host by yourself. Debian provides ssh keys for all hosts on master. Just do a

scp master.debian.org:/etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts ~/.ssh/known_hosts.debian

and I'm sure, your security aware employer has such a file for you as well. Doesn't he? ;)

Now, LinuxTag 2011 is going to happen, with or without you, on May 11th to 14th. Needless to say that you’ll be missing quite a lot if you don’t attend. I mean, even Zack will be there. And so will I (most probably at least). And even more… Who’s willing to miss that, really? So, pack your stuff, get a train ticket or your car or your friend’s car or the car of a friend of your friend who knows a friend who doesn’t know you but still wants to give you his car which you don’t even need since you already have the car of that friend of your friend and now you have two cars and can even bring another bunch of fellas who probably own cars themselves and now you’re thinking about the environment because of all the cars that will come to Berlin and because of that you suddenly buy a train ticket and leave all three cars at home… and in the end only one thing counts: you’ll be there. Oh, and before you drive off to your local train station, please put your name into our neat little list so we can count on you as booth staff — that’s because we need man power in case you missed that section or somehow forgot it while thinking about that guy who is the friend of your friend that owns a car but rather comes by train as it saves the environment.

I’m using Gnome for quite some time now and I’m always satisfied with the interfaces I have to whatever I need. There is one thing, though, that I miss: a calendar. I don’t like evolution, I don’t need another mail client. What I want is a simple, yet sophisticated application that I can put appointments in and which reminds me of them (recurring issues should be possible, too). It may but doesn’t have to be somehow attached to the Gnome clock or whatever. Though I expect it to look “Gnome-like” and be accessible from the panel. Do you know such? And is there even a Debian package for it?

Thanks.

Liebe Zeitgenossin, mir ist zuweilen vorgetragen worden, dass, und solches stelle man sich ersteinmal vor, obgleich doch es wenig überraschend ist, bedenkt man, um wen es sich handelt, du ganz im Gegensatz zu ihr im stolzen Besitze dessen bist, das mir zueigen gemacht sich gar lohnen würde, wenn auch der Ausgang des angestrebten Unterfangens noch umnachtet, will sagen: in greifbarer und dennoch unklarer Ferne zu liegen scheint. Aus diesem Grunde nun würde ich meine Verbundenheit zu deiner Person außerdordentlich zum Ausdruck bringen wollen, wenn nun du, so deine bezaubernde Güte es zulässt, mir unter die Arme greiftest, um mir zu geben, was sie mir nicht geben konnte angesichts ihrer erstaunlichen Besitzlosigkeit. Was dieses etwas, dessen ich mich ermächtigen will, nun ist, wird deinen Geiste wohl beschäftigen, und es liegt mir fern, mich der Werkzeuge verbaler Folter zu bedienen, um zu spannen, was zu spannen sich nun nicht mehr gehört. Es liegt mir nämlich zweierlei am Herzen: zum einen, deine unermässliche Güte und Zuneigung nicht zu strapazieren, zum anderen, mein Anliegen einer Endgültigkeit näher zu bringen. Daher möchte ich darum bitten, holde Maid, dass du mir an ihrer Stelle die Ehre erweisest und mir mitteiltest, wie die Nummer derjenigen, die deiner Kopfbedeckung ständig so zuträglich ist, lautet, sodass ich mit ihr eine Unterredung und mögliche Behandlung meines dir bekanntes Dilemmas vereinbaren kann. Ich hoffe, selbiges liegt so weit auch in deinem Interesse, dass du mir diesen Gefallen nicht abschlägst und mich so zu einem glücklichen Freund an deiner Seite machst, der, wie angedeutet, tief in deiner Schuld stünde.

# Copy mode
unbind [
bind Escape copy-mode


# Use Vi mode
setw -g mode-keys vi


# Make mouse useful in copy mode
setw -g mode-mouse on


# More straight forward key bindings for splitting
unbind %
bind | split-window -h
bind h split-window -h
unbind '"'
bind - split-window -v
bind v split-window -v


# History
set -g history-limit 4000


# Terminal emulator window title
set -g set-titles on
set -g set-titles-string '#S:#I.#P #W'


# Status Bar
set -g status-bg black
set -g status-fg white
set -g status-interval 1
set -g status-left '#[fg=green]#H#[default]'
# no line break here, it's just to long for my blog layout!
set -g status-right '#[fg=yellow]#(cut -d " " -f 1-4 /proc/loadavg)#[default] #[fg=cyan,bold]%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S#[default]'


# Notifying if other windows has activities
setw -g monitor-activity on
set -g visual-activity on


# Highlighting the active window in status bar
setw -g window-status-current-bg red


# Clock
setw -g clock-mode-colour green
setw -g clock-mode-style 24


# Create a default session
new -n htop -d htop
setw -t htop monitor-activity off
neww -n aptitude -d aptitude
neww -d

Then I added a new alias to my user’s zsh config:

alias root='su -c "tmux attach"'

Why ‘tmux attach’? Because tmux would start a new session which I don’t want it to. The config already starts a session which we can immediately attach to. Also, when such session was started I can attach to it as a user with the very same command over and over again. That makes it pretty handy as I always have htop, aptitude and a free shell available in a nice tmux session. Great. How did I live until now? ;-)

after quite some time of organization, we got the MiniDebConf running in Berlin. Yesterday at 9.30, Zack had the pleasure of opening the event which seems to be reflected in the press already. After that, we had nice talks, one every hour from 10 to 6 with mine being the last one of the day at 5 p.m. Yes, I did it :) Slides, links, and all that stuff will follow in a later post, or more official announcements. Right now I’m preparing myself to get back to the fairground. The second day starts with another bunch of talks at 10 and I’m excited to meet different people again and hear more interesting talks.

The BSP went… well. :) Actually, we didn’t really fix many bugs, I guess. A few maintainers stayed after the event as well as a couple of users completely new to packaging. Thus, it was more like a small social event bit it was really fun. And of course the HackLab is still open today, so we have every chance to fix more bugs…

This just as a small input from where we stand. More is to come some time later, probably after the weekend, we’ll see…

Well, we’ve had out problems in the beginning to start the whole thing but we managed. There are a few minor issues left, I admit. If you happen to have a bit time on 10th or 11th to hold the camera for an hour or so, contact us! Or if there is *anything* you would wanna do to help us out a bit, don’t be shy. You don’t need to be a known Debian contributor, you don’t need to know us. Arguably, you should know Debian but then, if you’re able to spell the name correctly, you’re probably in. :-)

Apart from that, we really think it’s gonna be awesome. Not only will there be a few Debian Developers from outside Germany, like our project leader zack who we have the honor of listening to for he has the first talk on Thursday. There will also be quite a few German faces that some of us haven’t met yet — have you met Sebastian, the chief of our beloved debianforum.de, yet? We are going to have a great time and you’re a fool not to join.

Thus, a last time for all of you who still don’t know what I’m talking about: Next week there’ll be the famous LinuxTag in Berlin from Wednesday to Saturday. Right in the middle, on Thursday and Friday, we, the Debian community, will have a Mini DebConf right there. There will be talks about different Debian related things. And many active developers will be there happy to talk to you about whatever you always wanted to know or say about Debian. And then, not to forget, we’ll have a hacklab where you can easily plug in your notebook and start hacking with us. Have an idea to improve Debian? Always wanted to know how to fix a bug? You want to make Debian Squeeze the best Debian release ever? Join us — it seems we’re fighting on the same side.

See you there, guys!

PS: The latest and hottest news about it.

Starting to work on Debian was something that just evolved out of it. Doing so gave me the opportunity to give back. I never achieved that actually, though. At least I don’t consider my contributions even remotely sufficient to make up for the great deal of software that I use — sometimes without noticing it. Still there’s lots of stuff that I don’t have a clue of and I rely on other developers to do their (volunteer) job. Otherwise my knowledge wouldn’t help much. I could never continue kernel development if those kernel hackers all stepped back for instance. I guess, it’s getting more and more difficult the closer the piece of code is to hardware.

Another thought I had was about Free Software in general. It’s more than just the code (although it might be the most important part), it’s also a concept that needs to be communicated. Firefox on Windows shows how Free Software can have a big market share in an otherwise closed source environment. Yet I’m not sure all users know about it being open source and what that means (hear them talk about Freeware instead). And who is dealing with this conceptual stuff?

I decided to do something about all that. Now I don’t really have money but a bit I thought I could share. And I could set yet another sign by publicly talking about it, or casually mentioning that I consider Free Software and Linux a good thing. So you will see a mail signature now below all my mails. I always wondered what one might gain with such and now I found a reason to include one. It reads:

Debian Developer                                 www.debian.org
Member of the Linux Foundation                    www.linux.com
Fellow of the Free Software Foundation Europe      www.fsfe.org

I hope you all have already seen at least parts of our preparation for a Mini DebConf in Berlin this year. There are various posts on planet,  some mails on -project and -events-eu and — as I saw just today — even identi.ca is not spared. If you haven’t heard of it, this is your chance.

Every year the LinuxTag (Linux day) is a four-day event in Berlin, Germany, likely comparable to other OpenSource events. It provides talks, discussion and a lot of booths of various Free Software projects. This year’s LinuxTag will be on June 9th till 12th. Since it’s held on a

huge fairground, we were able to get quite some piece of it for our own use. We will have two areas, one for talks, the other as a hack lab and use right the middle of the LinuxTag for the Mini DebConf: June 10th and 11th — with the hack lab open all through the night of course.

Finding sponsors was the hardest deal in the beginning and we’re not done with it yet. We got enough money, though, to make the decision and we still hope to get everything covered. Luckily we also have hardware sponsors and help on various issues we would not be able to deal with on our own. What’s still missing, is you! :)

The schedule for the talks is almost full, yet the hack lab could need more man power. Our idea is — since we will be in freeze by then, right? — to do a BSP incl. help for newbies. That means we will not only try to help users, we also would like to teach how to squash bugs and thus attract possible maintainers and other contributors. All that of course only works if we are enough people there.

Now I understand this might seem to be only attractive to german developers as most of the talks will be held in german. But I strongly believe we can deal with it if you don’t speak german. :) And at least on the first day of the event, you can meet our new DPL zack who will have the pleasure to provide the opening talk. Yay!

Having said all this, you are more than invited to attend and help. Find more info (and a way to offer help) in the debconf wiki and enjoy more press announcements within the next few weeks.

http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/Miniconf-LT-Berlin/2010

On OFTC:

/join #debian-miniconf-berlin

I’m using VoIP stuff of different kinds already and I actually enjoy it. Thing is, a friend of mine always complained about the quality of sound when speaking with me. He said I should switch the software but I never believed it would make a difference. Well, now I tried and it did. I used ekiga before and now switched to twinkle (which looks uuugly in Gnome at least). What can I say? It really is better. But why?

I tried to get more output from twinkle but didn’t quite manage. So what is so different? And don’t you dare answer “codecs” or something! I actually don’t need details. I just want ekiga to be as good as twinkle sound quality-wise. If you know a solution, tell me! :)

• the schedule appears to be full soon; almost all talk and discussion slots are filled with interesting topics, like Debian Edu/Skolelinux, kFreeBSD, Getting Involved, QA and piuparts, and other technical stuff.
• we discussed how to work with the debianforum.de people and I am very pleased to say that there will be no special treatment for them; they are committed to Make Things Happen just like we are, and we appreciate any help we can get (with the say-hello-and-come-in-booth in particular)
• there will be a panel discussion about why Free Software isn’t in all schools yet; hopefully we get some politician to answer as well.

Of course, all this is written in the wiki and you can put yourself in it at any time to offer your help! And if you have questions or want to join more real time ;), point your IRC client to OFTC and

/join #debian-miniconf-berlin

Help is still needed with video and audio stuff. If you think you know how to move a camera, or you can even work a sound mixer, get in touch with us. We need a few volunteers to cover the whole two days. Also, more generally help is needed in order to have people to talk to at all times both for speakers and visitors. No special knowledge is necessary although it might prove handy to know what Debian actually is. :)

Interested? As a visitor or helper? Anyways, get in touch with us and it’s going to be awesome!

</commercial>

the usual channels already provided it: we are planning a Mini Debconf in Germany — Berlin to be more precise. Yay!

So, how is it gonna be? Well, there is the LinuxTag in Berlin which is held every year; this year’s calendars show it on June 9th to 12th. As the location is the fairground and room is available, we found setting up a Mini Debconf right in the middle of it to be a good idea. The Mini Debconf will thus take place on June 10th and 11th. The night in between will of course be used, too. The hacklab we’re planning will be open from the start until the bitter end — without breaks. That of course is only fun if we’re there to do something. :-)

I sincerely hope that we’re in freeze by then and the Bug Squashing Party in the hacklab will do all the best to Make Things Happen[TM].

I’m also very pleased to see the german debianforum.de trying to participate. We should sort things out soon. This is a great opportunity for both of us to connect and learn from each other.

Well, that’s it for now from my side. For more details, in particular on how to help, see our wiki on debconf.org. You’ll hear more soon!

23:50 <jhr> hi!
23:50 <dpkg> hi
23:50 <jhr> how are you?
23:50 <dpkg> pretty good. how about you?
23:50 <jhr> I suppose it’s going well
23:51 <dpkg> i haven’t a clue
23:51 <jhr> how would you? it’s my life!
23:51 <dpkg> I give up, what is it?
23:51 <jhr> oh, busy? I’m sorry, didn’t wanna annoy you
23:51 <dpkg> I don’t know, could you explain it?
23:52 <jhr> uhh… annoyance… well, that’s like when you have a girl friend that always just talks about makeup, you know?
23:52 <dpkg> You are person #2 to send an unparseable request
23:52 <jhr> oh, you already know my girl friend?
23:52 <dpkg> I resemble that remark!
23:52 <jhr> fuck yeah
23:52 <dpkg> wish i knew
23:52 <jhr> oh well, let’s cut to the chase
23:53 <dpkg> no idea
23:53 <jhr> but I do
23:53 <dpkg> no idea
23:53 <jhr> why aptitude?
23:53 <dpkg> aptitude has more advanced conflict/dependency resolution and will often find a solution where apt-get gives up.  It can be used from the command line like apt-get plus an interactive resolver makes it much easier to recover from broken dependencies.  It has advanced search capabilities (see <aptitude search>).
23:53 <jhr> I see
23:53 <dpkg> “I see,” said the blind man.
23:53 <jhr> haha
23:53  * dpkg laughs!! that’s funny jhr!
23:53 <jhr> you’re weird
23:53 <dpkg> wish i knew
23:54 <jhr> thanks a lot!
23:54 <dpkg> my pleasure

PS: Things like that shouldn’t be a problem… :-)

Yet that’s actually not what I wanted to write about. After a three week break due to illness (and, I admit, bad weather — although it still is pretty snowy and icy outside) I’m back on the track. And it wasn’t even that bad. Of course I’m not back on the level I had before but at least it’s about 5.5 km in 35 minutes. For a beginner who just had a forced break from training, I’m quite satisfied with myself. So, I’m running again.

Yay!

Anyways, time goes by and a lot happens, none of which I’d like to publish in a blog, except: I got a part time job. :) If you’ve ever asked me about my experience with Linux vServers or web hosting in general, and if you even asked me where to get such with fair prices and good support, I might have mentioned a small firm in Germany which I’m a customer of for a long time now. And about two months ago it just so happened that they called me. I admit, I know the owner of the company (haven’t seen him in a too long time, though) and I already considered us friends. But I was still surprised when he asked me to work for him. It’s not a big deal, he said, just administer the servers we’re running and take care of them. It’s a few hours a month, don’t worry, you can do it! All that with a scary smile… Now it turns out he had more in mind and I’m working on different projects at the same time, but still have the system (all Debian of course) at first priority. I have no clue if he’s satisfied with my work or if he’s just afraid to tell me (you know, us being friends and all), yet the systems are up and running and I’m learning every day. I even got the chance to write a small project in ruby which I wanted to do for a long time. Love it!

So, this is the first time that I recommend him not only because I trusted him with my system but also because I know your system would be safe. ;-) Need an IT partner in Germany or the Netherlands? o-byte.com

Uhhh, I have to ask for a raise after this hymn :)

Something else I forgot? Well, I became a DD but that’s also some time ago, so hmm… no, that’s it… for now.