I just started working on a replacement for APT written in Vala and called APT2 (I know, the name could be better). The main idea behind the project is to create a library for working with Debian repositories and packages, and on top of this library a few applications. This is different from APT because the project focuses on the library part, whereas APT is primarily focused on the application part. ... Read more 》

I forgot to write about this but I uploaded notify-osd to Debian some time ago which brings the passive notification bubbles known from Ubuntu. There are still some applications that do not behave correctly when using notify-osd. One example is giver which utilizes buttons on the notifications to accept or reject file transfers - As notify-osd is passive, it just displays a notification without the buttons. Using the notify plugin for Pidgin is also no good idea, as it now creates dialogs instead of displaying notifications, due to some (unneeded) buttons on the notification. ... Read more 》

The release of Python APT 0.7.92 is the first (pre-)release to introduce the new C++ bindings to create Python objects for almost every C++ object in the apt-pkg and apt-inst libraries. It is also the first version of python-apt which correctly deallocates its objects. It also introduces classes in apt_inst which are modelled after the ’tarfile’ module in Python. The new progress classes behave more like the ones in apt, which allows you to write even more perfect apt-get clones (if you want to). There are also several new classes and functions. ... Read more 》

Let’s kill CDBS and help debhelper 7 gain world domination!

Overall, having time-based freezes is a good idea. But the chosen cycle is problematic, especially if one considers Ubuntu’s LTS release cycles. The problem is that if Debian releases a new version at approximately the same time as Ubuntu, there will not be much synchronization and Ubuntu will have newer program versions. Consider the releases of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (April 2008) and Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 (February 2009). Whereas Ubuntu 8.04 provides GNOME 2.22 including a new Nautilus, Debian provides GNOME 2.22 with nautilus 2.20. Ubuntu’s release made at about the same time (Ubuntu 9.04) already included GNOME 2.26. ... Read more 》

As I promised, I released python-apt 0.7.91 today. This version provides a new API, with real classes in apt_pkg, new names which conform to PEP 8 conventions, and it supports new language features such as the ‘with’ statement. Old code should still continue to work, if it does not and it is using only public interfaces, report a bug against python-apt or send an email. I can not guarantee that all the names will be kept like they are at the moment (it’s a pre-release), but there should not be many more changes needed. The series will hit Ubuntu Karmic later this month, and the final 0.8.0 release is going to be shipped in the final Karmic release. ... Read more 》

Today, I was testing Canonical’s new Ubuntu One service. Ubuntu One is a service for syncing and sharing files online, with 2GB storage for free. I installed the Ubuntu One client on Ubuntu 9.04 and it’s cool. Ubuntu One creates a directory named Ubuntu One in your home directory. Within this directory, there are two subdirectories. The first one is “My Files” and the second one is named “Shared With Me”. When you place files in the “My Files” directory, the Ubuntu One client gets notified (using inotify) about the change and begins uploading the file to the Ubuntu one server. ... Read more 》

Well, I’m currently writing a PHP and SQL application at school, so here are some of my thoughts on the problems I encounter. PHP is crap Many PHP applications are low quality applications. The problem is that PHP makes it hard for developers to write good applications. PHP developers tend to use many global variables, global code, and not many classes or functions. And when writing applications for the web, PHP makes it easy to mix PHP and HTML, in my opinion even too easy. ... Read more 》

Python 3.1 is still in experimental, but python-apt already has a fully working Python 3 version. With the patch being available in the ‘jak’ branch, python-apt Bug#523645 can be closed soon. And this is not the only change. Memory usage has been decreased by 10MB by creating the Package() objects on the fly instead of pre-creating all 25000 ones. All classes which previously supported the has_key() method now support contains, which allows you to write ‘key in mapping’. ... Read more 》

So, I have started to port python-apt to Python 3. Most things work already, but there is one single problem. I can not access the attributes of the objects, only their methods. In Python 2.5, everything works perfectly. In Python 3.1, the same code produces an error. An example is apt_pkg.GetCache().Packages. I defined the slots tp_getattro and tp_methods. In Python 3.1, tp_getattro seems to be ignored. If you want to help, http://bzr.debian.org/loggerhead/users/jak/python-apt/py3k/changes for browsing the branch and http://bzr.debian.org/users/jak/python-apt/py3k/ for branching it. ... Read more 》