I’m going to start with the one that impressed him the most: qa-regression-testing branch

The QA and security team maintain a test suite to check for regressions in packages they are updating. These tests are written with python unittest. Most of this test suite can be a little harmful for a production system, so it’s recommended to run it using a chroot environment or a virtual machine and to help with that there is a make-test-tarball script. From the script:

export HOSTS=”sec-intrepid-amd64 sec-hardy-amd64 sec-dapper-amd64″
export TEST=test-glibc-security
./make-test-tarball $TEST.py
for i in $HOSTS; do
scp /tmp/qrt-$TEST.tar.gz $i.local:
done
for i in $HOSTS; do
ssh -t $i.local “hostname; rm -rf qrt-$TEST; tar zxf qrt-$TEST.tar.gz; cd qrt-$TEST && ./$TEST.py -v”
done

As you can imagine HOSTS are the hostnames of the virtual machines where the tests are going to run.

Writing those test isn’t rocket science, you just need a little knowledge of the package and the functionality you want to test and python unittesting, there is even a skeleton script that can help you start writing your test.

Hope this information is useful for you! And as usual, patches are welcome!

I can describe this whole year experience in just one word: AMAZING! I’m having so much fun, even if i’m getting out of time for other things i wanted to do, everything has it’s price and working for canonical isn’t an easy task, a lot is expected from you all the time, but the company policy is to be friends more than co-workers, even if we don’t see each other to much.

In this year i’ve had the pleasure of visiting some friends all over the world while traveling for work or escaping a little before or after a work trip, i’ve also had the chance to meet some people i wouldn’t otherwise, like a guy i met in Germany that develops this horrible scripts that learn from my shopping customs and offer me stuff i want to buy (i said that guy that i hate him between jokes , c’mon you hate him as well) and learned things i wouldn’t in a normal local based company, i learned almost the hard way that when you say “Asian people” you are talking about Indians as well (isn’t it Polly?) and also notice how different cultures can be, some things that are completely natural and normal for me can be really disturbing and offensive for others and vice versa.

I’ve also have the joy of seeing some friends join the company and grow our friendship, as well as i’ve seen some good friends leave the company, but the sadness was compensated with the happiness that they are going for something better and that the friendship will continue.

It’s also always fun how when we meet in person is like we have worked in the same office for ever, people is always keen to have some beers, chat and test Pisco (no, i will never get bored of seeing your faces when you try it!). In summary, canonical is like a big family, you know, how people say that there is competition even inside a same company, well, this is not the case, people is always happy to help you and give you a hand when you need it, and even i thought it wasn’t possible to have a weekly meeting with your boss to talk about your personal lives before you start talking about work, it’s always nice to know that they care about you, not only about numbers and results!

That said i wanted to thank everyone in canonical, and the ones that already left for making this company such an amazing place to work! And special thanks for the two guys that helped me had this incredible opportunity (you know who you are!)

Launchpad is now open source, the announcement has been done almost a month ago, and there has been already some community contributions, big congratulations to all the people involved in this! I hope now that it’s not a closed technology more people will feel comfortable using it and contributing!

Guadalinex Edu is a new GNU / Linux distribution developed by the Advanced Center for ICT Schools Management (CGA), initially created for use by the educational community of Andalucia, Spain which will be available for teachers and students within the domestic sphere. Guadalinex Edu distribution is equivalent to the future Guadalinex V6 citizen but oriented to the educational sector.

Looking for the highest possible level of stability in the distribution, the CGA will be releasing a beta version of the distribution, installable by anyone who wants it. The aim is to involve the educational community in the stabilization and development of Guadalinex Edu, before its deployment in local schools.

Guadalinex Edu Beta 1 is fully functional, but should not forget that this is a beta version which may contain errors from both: the applications included by the CGA in the distribution, and errors coming from the base distribution where it must be installed (Jaunty Jackalope Ubuntu 9.04), so it is not recommended for use in production computers and, in any case, it is recommend making a backup of important data before installation.

Within an ICT Center, Guadalinex Edu will take advantage of the network infrastructure and servers from the center to offer:

• a system that allows any member of the center to become remote user of its data in any computer regardless of the dependence location in the center.

• a system for transmitting multimedia content among computers in a classroom

• a system of interaction between students and teachers via the computer

For domestic users, Guadalinex Edu is offered as a meta package to be installed on Ubuntu Jaunty and offers tons of applications like:

• Celestia (space simulator)

• Kstars (Planetarium)

• Kgeography (Maps)

• Parley (Vocabulary)

• Squeak

• DRAE Spanish Search tool (Lemurae)

• GNU Octave

• Kbruch (fractions)

• Kig

• KmPlot

• KSeg (Geometry)

• Mathwar (Game of calculus)

• QtOctave (numerical calculus)

• Freemind

• Blender

• Audacity

• Festival GUI

• KTouch (Typing)

• Kompozer

• Umbrello

• K3b

• Kino

Plus all the benefits of Guadalinex:

• Spanish translation of many applications

• Support for electronic ID Card

And Ubuntu:

• A wide range of media devices support (kernel 2.6.28)

• Firefox 3

• OpenOffice 3

• XOrg 1.6 , etc

Installation instructions for home users are available here(In spanish)

If you have a Launchpad account, you can add comments and report bugs at the following addresses (if you do not have an account, you can register with Launchpad for one)

Comments:
https://launchpad.net/guadalinexedu/+addquestion

Bug reports:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/guadalinexedu

Original link in spanish here

1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.

Did you already guessed what’s the patron? If not, i always take those names from here. Thank you Wikipedia for having the complete list of the Looney Tunes Characters.

From the upstream homepage:

Augeas is a configuration editing tool. It parses configuration files in their native formats and transforms them into a tree. Configuration changes are made by manipulating this tree and saving it back into native config files.

Actually, it is a library which does all that stuff and can be manipulated using its public API. But what does this actually means? I will explain it using augtool and /etc/hosts as an example. As you might know it has the information of the host names and their IP addresses, so let’s take this hosts as an example:

127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain host.domain

After parsing it on augeas we will end with:

/files/etc/hosts/
- – - – - – - – - – - 1/
- – - – - – - – - – - – ipaddr = 127.0.0.1
- – - – - – - – - – - – canonical = localhost
- – - – - – - – - – - – alias = localhost.localdomain
- – - – - – - – - – - – alias = host.domain

So, then we might want to change some values:

augtool> set /files/etc/hosts/1/alias[2] myhost.domain

Ending with:

/files/etc/hosts/
- – - – - – - – - – - 1/
- – - – - – - – - – - – ipaddr = 127.0.0.1
- – - – - – - – - – - – canonical = localhost
- – - – - – - – - – - – alias = localhost.localdomain
- – - – - – - – - – - – alias = myhost.domain

or add new values:

augtool> ins alias after /files/etc/hosts/1/alias[1]

what will turn into:

/files/etc/hosts/
- – - – - – - – - – - 1/
- – - – - – - – - – - – ipaddr = 127.0.0.1
- – - – - – - – - – - – canonical = localhost
- – - – - – - – - – - – alias = localhost.localdomain
- – - – - – - – - – - – alias
- – - – - – - – - – - – alias = myhost.domain

then we need to set a value since now it’s NULL:

augtool> set /files/etc/hosts/1/alias[2] myhost

ending like:

/files/etc/hosts/
- – - – - – - – - – - 1/
- – - – - – - – - – - – ipaddr = 127.0.0.1
- – - – - – - – - – - – canonical = localhost
- – - – - – - – - – - – alias = localhost.localdomain
- – - – - – - – - – - – alias = myhost
- – - – - – - – - – - – alias = myhost.domain

Then you can save it using:

augtool> save

Also you can add a new host, or whatever you want, just need to play with the tree.

Ok, but how this Black Magic work and how can i expand it to read new configuration files? Augeas uses lenses which are a Meta Data type using regular expressions that is being used for parsing, reading and writing configuration files. If you want to play around with lenses you can check this step-by-step tutorial written by Raphael Pinson (Thank you!)