Introduction

This is probably the most active bit of the site, i post random thoughts, events and articles to this blog. It is ridden with personal issues and technical items alike, while being constantly out of date. Read at your own risk. If you are interested in my person (odd enough as that may sound), probably read something about me. If you are only interested in technical articles, see tech. Poetry has a completely separate blog of its own right. Older articles (as well as postings on the previous blogs i had) are to be found in archive. That’s probably it.

Recent Entries

16.10.2008: adept 3.0 beta 4

Adept 3.0 Beta 4

I have released fourth beta of Adept today. For the unaware, Adept is an APT front-end for KDE: it lets you install, remove, upgrade software and such your Debian and Kubuntu boxes (and maybe on some other Debian derivatives, too).

Changes since Beta 2

Since I have done beta 3 somewhat in a hurry, I have regressed the installer component badly — to point of complete unusability. However un-sound software engineering practice, the deep freeze for Kubuntu Intrepid hits today, so I have released beta 4 in rapid succession. Other than the regression fix, I have mostly reworked the paging implementation in the installer — however, the report of complete installer rewrite (hi Jonathan) is somewhat exaggerated. Sadly, the KPageWidget we have been using before turns out to be completely unsuitable for the job, so a quick rewrite probably fixed more issues than it caused (and this seems to be confirmed by early testing feedback).

Moreover, this beta got a bunch of improvements to the search, including package name hits, a set of cosmetic improvements (button icons, nicer sidebar, etc.) and a button to run software-properties-kde from the Sources tab (works on Intrepid, but sadly breaks on Debian for now… will fix later. Need time, need sleep.)

Where to get

I have prepared binary packages. These should be now part of Debian Sid (unstable) and also of Kubuntu Intrepid. You should be able to get the new version from your distribution:

apt-get install adept

Again, as with beta 2, there is no Hardy backport, since my time is tight. If anyone is willing to do a backport please drop me a note: I will gladly publish installation instructions.

Heroes of Beta 4

Jobs for Beta 5, RC and Final

Mostly just testing and reporting bugs. I currently plan a beta 5 with a few fixes that have started accumulating since beta 4 already (mostly one-liner fixes with minimal risk of regressions). After that, an RC is in order and a final release (finally…).

Notifier is not included. Kubuntu has an independent sort of notifier now, I believe. Maybe I’ll find time to reconcile it in 3.1 or so.

Moreover, I assume that a beta 4 or a very minorly patched beta 4 will become part of Kubuntu Intrepid — there should be no major roadblocks left, so I hope everything will bode well for Intrepid. I assume that whatever becomes 3.0 final will be eventually included in Intrepid updates. And then, plans should be set forth for 3.1…

Known issues

The about dialog still says beta 2. Bummer. Please try to note in your reports that this is actually a beta 4 that you are using. I’ll make sure beta 5 fixes that — but it might be another week till then, or so. The Intrepid version should have that fixed, thanks to Jonathan Thomas (again).

posted 16.10.2008 8:21 tags:

09.09.2008: adept 3.0 beta 2

Adept 3.0 Beta 2

I have released second beta of Adept a few hours ago. For the unaware, Adept is an APT front-end for KDE: it lets you install, remove, upgrade software and such your Debian and Kubuntu boxes (and maybe on some other Debian derivatives, too).

Changes since Alpha 6

Now, alpha 6 has been the last alpha release, therefore there are no more new features in beta 2. Most of the issues should have been resolved. I have also added a menubar, resolving a potential usability problem (and making the about box accessible, too!). There will be another beta that should fix the few remaining known issues. Please report any issues you have encountered to me (either mail, irc or bugs.kde.org).

Where to get

I have prepared binary packages. These should be now part of Debian Sid (unstable) and also of Kubuntu Intrepid. You should be able to get the new version from your distribution:

apt-get install adept

There is no Hardy backport, since my time is tight. If anyone is willing to do a backport (you can use the stuff that is in my PPA; however, some things need updating), please drop me a note: I will gladly publish installation instructions.

Heroes of Beta 2

There has been a (silent) beta 1 a while back, which introduced a couple of regressions against alpha 6 (but fixed bugs, too!).

Jobs for Beta 2

Sorting through Launchpad for bugs that have been fixed is still needed, as far as I know. JontheEchidna has been working on this (and maybe some others have? Drop me a note if you worked on this and claim your fair share of fame… Sorry that I don’t keep track of that, but you know the story… too much stuff to do in too little time, all the time.)

Notifier is not included. Kubuntu has an independent sort of notifier now, I believe. Maybe I’ll find time to reconcile it in 3.1 or so.

posted 09.09.2008 1:26 tags:

09.09.2008: ignorance is bliss

Ignorance is Bliss

Neighbour’s Lawn

It’s been a recurring theme in the last few days, maybe weeks. Why things that are farther from us seem nicer? It’s the same story with neighbour’s lawn, as it is with someone else’s new toy, and with girls that aren’t ours. Why? Envy, jealousy. Why don’t we seem content with what we have… These feelings are however very widespread — so much widespread, that it’s a feeling that is often mutual: and that is such a nice play of irony…

I can assure you, dear reader: swapping place with that colleague of yours who seems to be just a little smarter, his car is a newer model — or maybe it’s his girlfriend that seems to be prettier? Swapping place with them wouldn’t make you happy. And you certainly know that — nevertheless, we seem to have an innate desire to be “better”, to have nicer things than our neighbours, friends, colleagues. Or at least to think ours are superior.

(Note that I write in plural: I certainly don’t assert everyone feels like this: it might even seem, that I am trying to find my own faults in others, maybe to feel better about them. However, from looking around, it seems to me that it’s not only myself who tends to suffer from these silly emotions. Would you agree? Of course, if you don’t — I stand corrected.)

Perfectionism

Now, this is right — they are emotions. They seem to predominantly plague the numerous group of perfectionists among us (not meaning that the rest of the crowd, maybe more complacent with themselves, would be immune, either). People, what’s wrong with us? I am feeling like a complete idiot, stuck with emotions I don’t want or care for — I am spiteful! Yes, that’s right: I wish that things screw up for other people. But why? Tell me, why? It drives me insane. Really.

I suspect it might have gotten better recently — or worse, for that matter — given how it seems to be a hard job to recollect things in an undistorted perspective. But I am not happy about that. I am not happy about myself: but I guess that’s not so unnatural of a perfectionist being that I seem to be. (Don’t be fooled — it sucks to be a perfectionist. You might get some things more right than others, but: it’d likely be much better to not give a fuck. Ignorance is bliss.)

Ignorance is Bliss

One of the side-effects of constantly giving too much of a fuck (hi Matthieu!) is the ashamedness about one’s own past. Enrico would probably say that it’s good, since it means you make progress. I tend to agree. Actually, Catch 22. I can’t disagree, since it is such a silly negative emotion about oneself. So first step seems to be to actually start believing that this silly thing is actually good and useful.

But it would still be better to live in complete ignorance. Or not? Your call.

posted 09.09.2008 12:13

01.09.2008: hacking darcs

Hacking Darcs

I am a Darcs user for something over a year maybe, not really sure anymore. I have tailorized most of my semi-private projects from SVN (or SVK) which I have used previously. I now keep my dotfiles in Darcs, on some machines parts of /etc. I am fairly happy with Darcs philosophy overall, although there are obviously some issues I have. Conflict handling (and markup) is certainly suboptimal, and there are a few annoying issues overall. And performance for big projects is not extremely good, either.

You have probably noticed the recent fuss about Darcs and its future (apparently triggered by the not-so-optimistic — to put it rather mildly — Darcs 2 announcement, and the recent GHC move away from Darcs).

Now I have to say, for the small projects, it’s nearly optimal. I don’t do much of divergent branching myself, and the few conflicts that arise aren’t that much of a problem, either. However, it’s easy to get spoilt by the niceties of Darcs — when it works well, it works very much so. Yes, when it screws up, that’s, as Simon PJ likes to put it — unsettling. I quite understand why GHC wants to move away from it (at least for now).

On the other hand, I don’t have much experience with GIT (yet?). It seems many projects are either converting to GIT or considering to — and interestingly, KDE has been considering GIT over SVN lately, it seems.

The two ways

Now you can make two conclusions based on this: either I should move over to GIT, like the rest of the crowd — that would be the “easy” option, sort of. However, I am apparently not the person to take the easy options. Or, the other option: put my hands (and brains) where my mouth is — talking about flaws won’t make them go away.

Moreover, it would make great sense to get back to getting Darcs interoperate nicely with GIT (there has been an effort to add GIT interoperability to Darcs before, but that sort of died out). Yes, I do realize there’s a fairly high ridge between the GIT and Darcs worlds, but I believe there are interesting ways to cross that ridge safely. So that is one of my primary interests in hacking Darcs — making it as seamless as possible to use Darcs to hack on primarily GIT based projects. That seems to be a good way to bring Darcs “back into game” for those many projects that now use GIT as their primary VCS — or more exactly, to those contributors of these projects that are Darcs-inclined (like myself). I think that good GIT compatibility would put Darcs into a very interesting position.

Now, there are others, possibly more far-fetching plans I have for Darcs, but given my, alas limited, hacking time, I won’t commit to anything like that just yet. It seems to be fun hacking Darcs — for one, it’s Haskell. Yeah, I like Haskell. Also, the theory behind Darcs is intriguing — and how (I think) Ian Lynagh put it, patch theory (or, the basic aspects of it) are sound and “natural” (in the sense prime numbers are a natural concept).

A newcomer’s perspective

Admittedly, Darcs community has a whole lot of issues at hand that it needs to solve — Eric Kow could probably write a novel on those by now. But, hopefully, everything is on the right track and the pressing issues will be resolved real soon now. I agree that the hurry (on my part) is a little artificial — I am impatient to get the bigger stuff rolling. But, that indicates some excitement, which is good, right? So what I need now is settling the dust and clearing up some of the collateral damage that happened in my, a little inept (although well-meant) — as it tends to be, entry into the Darcs hackers’ world.

Conclusion

Overall, I am optimistic. So let’s see how things go rolling and let’s hope that the number you get from

darcs changes --count --match 'author me@mornfall.net' --repo http://darcs.net/

increases quickly. Time limitations notwithstanding. I’m already curious what will things look like in a year from now.

Oh, and I should add the obligatory: Darcs needs you. Come, join us. (And I boldly say “us” — and I will hope the rest of the Darcs people won’t disagree about that. What’d you say, Kowey?)

Post-scriptum

I hope readers will pardon this a little confused and a little incoherent post — but you might be used to that from me. And it’s also running late and I am under influence of water pipe and rather strong tea, which doesn’t exactly help my expressive abilities. Now, let me move back home, sober a little, and — hack Darcs!

posted 01.09.2008 11:21 tags:

06.08.2008: adept 3.0 alpha 6

Adept 3.0 Alpha 6

Hi, it’s that time again: new alpha version of Adept hits the block. For the unaware, Adept is an APT front-end for KDE. You can do all the cool stuff with it that the other kids can’t. Join the fun!

New features since Alpha 5

(the list is a little less staggering than the last time, sorry about that, but it’s only been a week)

Where to get

I have again prepared binary packages, this time even more of them (a Hardy backport is included). Traditionally, in Debian, you can install alpha 6 from experimental:

apt-get install -t experimental adept

The sources.list goes:

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian experimental main

If you are on Kubuntu Intrepid, the line is:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/mornfall/ubuntu intrepid main

and finally, on Kubuntu Hardy, the lines are (BUT: read below!)

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu hardy main
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/mornfall/ubuntu hardy main

Big fat warning: Due to somewhat unexpected difficulties, Adept requires newer APT than available in Hardy. This means, adding the above sources.list lines will upgrade your apt to a version from Intrepid, that’s also completely untested on anything resembling a Hardy installation. Be wary. Moreover, installing Adept means means KDE 4.1 for Hardy users. (This does not apply to Intrepid users, they are already on the cutting edge and no extra dangers lie this way.)

(For all Kubuntu users, there are more instructions to be found on https://launchpad.net/~mornfall/+archive.)

Heroes of Alpha 6

I hereby nominate the “Heroes of Alpha 6”, for their deeds that helped Adept move forward:

(And a totally flirtless wink towards Blauzahl, who somehow inspired me to actually do some bugzilla sorting…)

And now, it’s easy to join the ranks of these heroes — just test the new alpha version and find bugs. Immortality won’t escape your grasp. Also, please don’t forget to read the next section.

Jobs for Alpha 6

Sorting through Launchpad for bugs that have been fixed in alpha 6 (compared to 2.1) would be really awesome. It is a big list and many of them are likely to need testing. (I can take care of that for the KDE bugzilla, but launchpad is a task just too daunting for me and my time possibilities, so help would be very much appreciated).

Notifier is still not included. The components to test are (if you have sudo, kdesu for the rest):

sudo adept
sudo adept installer
sudo adept updater

Please give a go to all of them, report rough edges, crashes and all that, either through IRC (mornfall at freenode, oftc) or mail me-at-mornfall-dot-net or use KDE Bugzilla.

Known Issues

posted 06.08.2008 1:57 tags:

01.08.2008: adept 3.0 alpha 5

Adept 3.0 alpha 5

Short introduction: Adept is an APT frontend for KDE. You can use it to search for packages, install, uninstall, upgrade, all the usual things. It’s gone through a number of changes since 2.1, which has been the default package manager on Kubuntu for some time now.

What’s new since 2.1

Where to get

Since compilation is still not that trivial (well, it’s 3 packages to compile and install, really, and you have to get them with darcs), I have prepared binary packages for the two main “target distributions”. In Debian, you can install alpha 5 from experimental:

apt-get install -t experimental adept

The sources.list line is:

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian experimental main

If you are on Kubuntu Intrepid, the line is

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/mornfall/ubuntu intrepid main

(more instructions on https://launchpad.net/~mornfall/+archive)

What (and how) to test

All of the previous components (save for notifier, which is not included at all yet) have been merged into a single binary, that is adept. I have missed desktop files in this alpha (it might be a little on purpose too, as I’d like people to run the program from terminal to be able to check the debug output and possibly send it along with problem reports).

If you have sudo (Kubuntu-ers do, the rest can use kdesu or similar):

sudo adept
sudo adept installer
sudo adept updater

are the magic commands. Please give a go to all of them, report rough edges, crashes and all that, either through irc (mornfall at freenode, oftc) or mail me-at-mornfall-dot-net or use KDE Bugzilla to report bugs.

Missing features

I have one outstanding issue on “must have for 3.0”, that being filtering packages according to their state. There is also no actual way to browse through the 19k+ packages, but might have to give for 3.0. A “browsing” mode is likely for 3.1, although still could make it for 3.0 if I get my act together on that one. We’ll see how alpha testing goes, maybe I’ll have hands full of bugs to fix and won’t get anywhere on features…

Known Issues

Reward

For the brave, fearless testers, I unfortunately cannot promise anything else than fuzzy feeling for doing a good thing… I won’t be at aKademy nor Debconf this year, so I can’t even promise beers. Maybe next time. ; - )

posted 01.08.2008 7:48 tags:

13.07.2008: fast forward

Fast Forward

Lucy left for England yesterday (OK, now it’s two days ago — last Friday). That means that I have unusual amount of free time at my hands, and yet even more things that could be done with it.

But I suppose it’s time to update this little blog. It’s probably pointless to enumerate what happened, or what changed. Everything is fine and smooth over here — the wrinkles get worked out over time (with Lucy, without Lucy). Hobbies still take time and I still haven’t given up. My latest determination is to get myself a bassoon for next Christmas. (Now, that will be a year since we got Lucy a Marigaux 901, used, in great condition for a great price, lo and behold, on Austrian ebay. World is so weird sometimes…)

And in the land of [LVM], I have finally started the process to merge code to improve LVM’s behaviour in presence of failed storage hardware (physical volumes gone missing). In the land of Adept, well… first things first.

FOSSCamp

I have visited Prague for the latest Ubuntu- (well, Canonical-) organised event, the FOSSCamp. I have met Johnatan (KUbuntu), Seli (KWin), Lidya (Amarok), Robert (Konsole), Jos (Strigi) and Inge (KOffice). See also Johnatan’s Blog (including a real blurry picture).

So back to Adept — I had some hacking time over there in Prague, and I have almost brought Installer and Updater back to life for Adept 3. I unfortunately didn’t have as much time for it since then — but my current free time situation does open up some possibilities. First and foremost, I should really make a text interface to the underlying libraries for myself, maybe with fancy colourful UI, hopefully one that is comfortably close enough to apt-get and still offers advantages. Hmmmm…

Intermezzo 1

Now zoom out and zoom in somewhere else, enough of coding matters. Our research group at the University had a (tool) paper accepted for ATVA 2008, meaning that I am not unlikely to visit Seoul, South Korea in October. Another piece of distant world to visit.

FOSDEM

Now, that reminds me… Since the last time, I have also been in Belgium — to visit FOSDEM — meeting Alasdair (of LVM) and Bart and Pino of Krita and Okular, respectively… although unfortunately, I didn’t spend nearly enough time with Pino… At least we have spend a day walking around Ghent with Bart (and Lucy, who visited Belgium with me, also having friends of her own there). Moreover, I have spent a lot of mostly productive time with Alasdair, discussing LVM2. And Belgium is nice and pretty, although I didn’t really get around to taste any beer. Maybe next time. And Antwerps were nice, too. Photos? Someday.

LinuxTag

And after that, I have visited Berlin again, for LinuxTag as usual — plus the accompanying LVM discussions, with Milan, Kabi and Mikuláš (Blek) of the Czech part of the team, and Heinz, John and of course Alasdair for the rest of the world… Also as usual, we walked around, had dinners, discussed non-work stuff, etc… a good event all in all. At LinuxTag, I have briefly seen Lidya again, as well as Ossi (whom I nearly didn’t recognise…) and Aaron who (for a change) didn’t recognise me (but to be fair, I didn’t quite stop by to chat and he’s been busy…) and Sebas, cordial as ever (and always a pleasure to meet)… reminds me of Paris two years ago, too.

Intermezzo 2

Less than a month ago, I have finished my first semester of master’s study — two or three more to go (I have completed bachelor’s the semester before). Yes, I am a bachelor of computer science, or something like that, anyway, now. Or so I hope. I did not attend the whatever ceremony and I don’t really have the diploma (or maybe I do, but gods know where it is…).

A short note on Debian with best intentions

I am now sponsoring Trent Buck’s ?darcs packages, contributing a little on the go (making me wish that alpha buildd would make a little more progress…). With Enrico, we have uploaded new versions of wibble and libept, both of which I think make both of us fairly happy. (Although we again managed to hit a way strange compiler issue (only manifested on arm… what have I done that the gods punish me so?), as documented in Debian bug 487406…)

I have packaged dzen2 and taken over haskell-mode (I am losing track of my own packages again — I really need to set up reliable watch files so I don’t miss out too many releases… apparently neither has new upstream versions, so I can sleep peacefully for a little longer).

Intermezzo 3

I am not going to DebConf nor Akademy this year. That makes me a little sad, but it’s all my own fault (and laziness). Next time folks, next time. I haven’t seen Kévin in aeons and he probably removed me from his memory by now… No matter, I’ll try a little harder next year, promise (oh, how many have I made to date?).

Finale

Nothing grandiose, just best wishes to everyone, I have to land in bed now it seems, as I am ever so sleepy. (Just So Stories, anyone?) There I go.

posted 13.07.2008 12:54

22.12.2007: on blogging

On Blogging

The last time I have blogged, few people told me that it sounds somewhat patronizing or such (especially that it may sound so to people that do not know me). Well, I have to admit that it is hard to write in a decent tone — the intention and motivation behind the text is oftentimes hard to express. Certainly, better writing skills would probably help — or choosing easier topics. But that is how I am — and afterall, you never learn much when you only do things you already know how to do.

So please, dear reader, take no offense in my blog… If you know me, you can probably see through my writing and understand what I mean. If you do not and still enjoy it, the better. And if you do not, please accept my apology — but in that case, it probably was not meant for you.

Yes, I know the blog is aggregated in a few places, and I will probably have to do something about this — aggregate only subsets of the blog, appropriate for each of the aggregators. But pretty please, bear with me, I am lazy and it always took me ages to fix even trivial problems.

posted 22.12.2007 5:29 tags:

22.12.2007: on sharing happiness

On Sharing Happiness

I just wanted to say, that it is great when someone writes you just because they have good news and want to share them with you. Last night that happened to me again — an old friend of mine, Jemima, IM’d me. So thank you Jemima for that, what I said, I really meant. And let me wish you (and your little one) all good again — it cannot hurt.

(And this all made me think that I have again somewhat lost contact with some of the people that are very dear to me — yes, I mean you Bart, Alex, Kevin and also you, Maks, even if you probably do not think of me that way (or you do?) … whom have I forgotten this time? Maybe Enrico — you are far away as well, these days. I just hope all of you are doing well.)

(Ah, and I also miss one further person, who I have known as Helielf and met her or IRCNet very long time ago — if you read this, thanks to some bizarre coincidence, please mail me, or something… I have lost all contacts to you and I miss you. Wondering if you even remember me — who knows what nick I have used at that time? I have noticed you used the name Haruka for a while, but have no idea if that is still true. But if we never meet again, it has been a beautiful mandala, thank you.)

posted 22.12.2007 5:29 tags:

16.11.2007: on self-reflection

On Self-Reflection

I have a need to write some things down recently, I don’t really know why or so. I have acquired a few new (and great) friends recently, mostly here in Brno. Also, I have more motivation than ever to try hard to live a good life. It has always been a hard way to follow for me, to be all those things that I find great in other people. How they can handle situations smoothly, what they know and what they can do. And it is great to see such people, and yet it is hard to not envy them. But envy not, since it is a great evil. One never knows what the other people have to go through, and it is just plain unfair to envy them. But I am drifting away from the subject at hand. What I have noticed as well, that I have changed in subtle ways, patterns of thinking. Self-reflection is somewhat cautiously sneaking into my mind. Two independent events have reminded me of that today.

Recently, I have been participating in online discussion more than I have used to, especially with people I do not know, and with which I often tend to disagree, and this is putting me in a new kind of situation. And to be honest, I am not really handling it all that well. What has made me think about this was Boudewijn Rempt’s comment on the dot. He handled the task at hand so much better than myself, even if it was his ego that was in the line, that has made me actually stop and think about it. And as I have written in that thread, I admire Boudewijn greatly for that calm reaction, of which I would be almost surely not capable. So here I am, trying to learn from that. My memory is indeed very short, but I also take this writing as a way to train that.

The second event was that a friend of mine (I do not know him long, but I call him a friend nevertheless, although I know not whether I actually deserve that) has told us something to the effect that one should learn. Meaning that one should learn from own mistakes, and no, I no more see the empty phrase behind those words. There is something in that, and it is a very interesting experience. Going through situations you have encountered and realize where you have made mistakes and what you could have done better. Actually admit, that even though the outcome was fairly good, that you have made some silly things. It is indeed a very interesting experience, to admit a failure when you are not pressed to by any external means. Liberating, maybe.

Same goes for things long forgotten. Where you have made mistakes, even though you have been always righteous and positively convinced about always doing the right things. You may be wondering whether I have been on crack all the time, but, well, that is not the case. I cannot tell how this came about, and yes, I have realized those mistakes and again forgotten them and so on and so forth. But hey, I think it may be better this time. If only a little…

posted 16.11.2007 6:11 tags: