I’m glad to announce that finally, after being powered by ftpsync for more than six months, the JAK LINUX website now uses ikiwiki. I currently have some small issues with the website: After using –rebuild, tarballs have a different modification time and are therefore reuploaded everytime, though the content is actually the same. I would also need a plugin to create directory indexes with sha1sums, but I haven’t found one yet. ... Read more 》

In the last days, I used git very often. It was almost the first time I really used it, but I quickly understand the basic commands. As some of you may know, the readahead-list package is now maintained in a git repo in the collab-maint project. I decided to use git instead of bzr (which I used for everything before), because of its speed and because I wanted to learn more about git, how it works. ... Read more 》

Two days ago, zobel uploaded some of my package updates for me. One of them was ndisgtk 0.8.1, which adds more translations and fixes some problems. I intent to create a 0.9 release soon, with support for PolicyKit. I will upload the release candidate of this version to Debian experimental and Ubuntu Hardy. The other upload was readahead-list 1:1.20060421.1016-1, which I found on the Gentoo mirrors, but not where previous releases were located. ... Read more 》

Since yesterday, I am a Debian maintainer. This will help me and my sponsors, which have to do less now. I can now upload new versions of my packages if the version in unstable contains the “Dm-Upload-Allowed” field in the dsc (and only if the package is not NEW). For more information about the Concept of Debian Maintainers, see http://wiki.debian.org/Maintainers I’m very happy about this, as it makes my life easier. ... Read more 》

pre-compiled aufs modules for Ubuntu Hardy will be available soon. Today, the linux-ubuntu-modules git has seen the commit which adds the aufs module for generic and server kernels on the i386 and amd64 architectures. But this is not the only thing. 5 patches from the aufs source have been commited to Ubuntu Hardy’s kernel repo. 1. [Export __lookup_hash](https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kernel-team/2008-January/002036.html): and is needed for NFS 2. [Export put_filp](https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kernel-team/2008-January/002037.html): This patch exports put_filp and is needed for NFS. ... Read more 》

I just performed some benchmark on Bazaar, Git and Mercurial. This is a very small benchmark, I may publish a more detailed one in a few weeks. vcs-performance.pdf Some notes: 1. The unit in the first chart is seconds 2. I haven't run git-gc before taking the directory sizes. Running git-gc saves about 1083 kilobytes 3. This PDF file is licensed under the MIT License, see [http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php](http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php)

Neil, you have problems with your HP laptop. But this is not HP’s fault. The laptop you bought has been designed for use with windows only, like all (?) other HP laptops for home users. Most (all?) HPs Business products are fully Linux compatible and come with pre-installed FreeDOS. A few months ago, I bought an HP Compaq 6720s (GR 644ET), installed Ubuntu 7.10 64-bit on it, and everything worked out of the box (except eth0, due to problems in Ubuntu’s kernel). ... Read more 》

April 2007, I joined the Fellowship of the Free Software Foundation Europe. I also became involved in the development of Debian GNU/Linux with my first package, aufs, sponsored by Daniel Baumann. This was the starting point for my Debian stuff. Now I maintain 6 packages in Debian. One of the most interesting packages is gnome-app-install, which will be part of the gnome-desktop task (already added to tasksel’s list). Users will be able to install applications easily. ... Read more 》

Two days ago, I sent my Debian Maintainer application to the debian-newmaint mailing list. Previously, I asked several sponsors if they would advocate me. malex said yes. Another sponsor, who is also an Ubuntu MOTU, also wrote a bit. A Debian Maintainer can upload new versions of his packages, if they are not NEW and if the Packages contains a DM-Upload-Allowed field. This would allow me to upload new versions of gnome-app-install or app-install-data, dir2ogg, etc. ... Read more 》

Dear readers, I used to blog on fsfe.org, the website of the Fellowship of the Free Software Foundation Europe. There was one problem that made me switch to wordpress.com: only Fellows can post comments. I will write here about my activity in free software projects, like Debian and Ubuntu, and my own software. I am still working on the categories and will maybe change the style.