Tag Archives: Ubuntu

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Nokia’s N800 “Canola” media player

General, ,

Here are some of my thoughts after trying the latest beta version of Canola. The smooth über-simple UI very nearly turns the N800 into a home internet media player, but falls slightly short. If it was open source then it would get there sooner. If Canola doesn’t then someone else will first, which would be a waste of the developers’ hard work.

Installation

This is great. Just open a link from the browser and the thing is installed after a few straightforward button clicks. It seems that Maemo supports .INSTALL files, offering to add a line to the apt-get sources.list file, and then using it to install the specified package. Well done, someone.

Separate configuration

Canola can use UPnP and Dmap (part of DAAP, I think) servers to get shared audio and video from your PC or media server device. I think this concept has encouraged the developers to take the client/server idea a bit too far. So there is a separate Canola Configuration menu item, which starts a web page which connects to a local web server. There’s no reason for this to be a web UI, and no reason for it to be a separate application, interrupting the user experience. It’s an implementation detail that has been exposed to the user unnecessarily. For instance, there’s no good reason that I should have to use a web page to change Canola’s UI theme. If the developers want to get and set application configuration via a local http service then that’s fine, but it doesn’t need to be exposed to the user via a web UI. This is architecture astronautism at the expense of user experience.

The same goes for radio stations and podcasts. Please let me choose them from a list or wizard via the regular UI. At the moment they are even hidden under a “plugins” section in the web UI. Give me instant gratification now, please.

Too many clicks

I can’t click on things as soon as I see them. The simple menu is nice, but quickly annoying for one reason: To select something I have to scroll with the arrows until the item is in the selection rectangle and then click it. I should be able to click it as soon as it comes on screen, as I keep trying to do. Then the selected-item rectangle would be meaningless and could be removed.

It would also be nice if I could scroll with a sweep gesture, as I can in the browser. Trying to do this causes me to accidentally select one of the horizontal icons when my stylus touches it.

When I select an “iRadio” station, it should start playing. Don’t make me click the play button too.

Bugs

Something is causing the list of radio stations under each category to be different each time I open the category. I think it’s doubling the list each time.

Media Server

I haven’t tested the Shared Audio and Shared Video features. What upnp server should I use on Ubuntu? The Canola web-page recommends Twonky, which seems to be proprietary.

Scratchbox on Ubuntu Feisty

General, , ,

I’m using a dodgy fork of Scratchbox 0.9.8 so I can use apt-get through https instead of http, but the following tips should be relevant for the regular Scratchbox 1.0.x that I’d rather be using.

  • Make sh point to bash instead of dash (probably not necessary for Scratchbox 1.0.newenough):
    sudo rm /bin/sh
    sudo ln -s bash /bin/sh
  • Install linux-image-2.6.20-6-generic and boot from it. You’ll probably need to press Esc when booting to see the boot menu. This vdso bug might be fixed in Ubuntu’s linux-image-2-6.20-10 soon.
    If you don’t do this then you’ll see this error after logging in:
    Inconsistency detected by ld.so: rtld.c: 1192: dl_main: Assertion `(void *) ph->p_vaddr == _rtld_local._dl_sysinfo_dso’ failed!
  • If you see this error while installing some packages, such as docbook-utils,
    ERROR: ld.so: object ‘/usr/lib/libfakeroot/libfakeroot-tcp.so.0’ from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded: ignored.
    then fix your fakeroot like so, while logged in:
    sbox-config –copy-libfakeroot
  • Update: You’ll need to correct the hosts line in your /scratchbox/etc/nsswitch.conf file, so that apt-get can resolve domain names (wget will work without this, which is confusing).
  • Update2: That nsswitch.conf corrections seems to still be necessary with Ubuntu Gutsy and the latest Scratchbox version (as of July 29th 2007).

Ross Burton helped me with most of this. Thanks, Ross

Linux-compatible wireless USB adaptor: Results

General,

After my 3 previous posts, I decided to get serious. I tried four different USB wireless adaptors – the most widely available ones that were most likely to work based on my previous entries. I knew one of them would work, but I wanted facts.

My interpretation of “widely available” is “available from Amazon”, partly because they have a wide range, including products from extra sellers. And because I’d like to fund my research through the Amazon associates links, by creating an über-simple page of just-works Ubuntu hardware. If that works then I can use the income to keep the results up-to-date by buying new devices for testing. It’s unlikely that I’d make a profit on that.

Maybe it’s a silly idea, but nobody else is offering a list of just-works hardware for just one distro, for the people who want a simple answer. All the lists I’ve seen so far are vague and out-of-date and/or have a bizarre understanding of “works out-of-the-box”. It’s time to simplify the question that we are trying to answer.

IMG_2166

Summary

Update: Get a ZyXEL ZyAir G-220 v2. Otherwise try to get the MSI US54SE (more difficult as time passes). The ZyXEL ZyAir G-220 v2 now works perfectly in Ubuntu Gutsy, and it’s still available. There is no improvement in the support of the other cards in Ubuntu Gutsy.

Old text: Get an MSI US54SE if you possibly can. That seems difficult in the USA, but it’s on Amazon Germany. It works out-of-the-box on Ubuntu Edgy, and Feisty, but not Dapper. There don’t seem to be any alternative non-working versions with the same model number. This is how it should be. If someone finds a source for MSI US54SE sticks in the USA, please let me know. Richard Hughes’ experience with a 3CRUSB10075 suggests that it might be just as good, probably with the same chipset, using the same zd1211rw driver, but the model name is vague and I suspect there are various different versions.

And Linux Emporium generously sent me a sample of their Edimax 7318USg wireless USB stick. They know this doesn’t work out-of-the-box, due to driver problems with the new RT2571 chipset, but they’ve done lots of research and testing on various Linux distributions, and provide drivers on a CD, with a very simple command-line script that installs everything, and then works on Dapper, Edgy, and Feisty. This model is not available on any Amazon sites, so they seem to have found something special. They’ve spent considerable time on a product that probably has a very small profit margin, because they want to give back to the community, out of the goodness of their hearts. So buy stuff from them.

Note: This test was only on an open wireless network. Frankly I was glad to get something that worked at all, and more detailed tests can happen later.

Details

ASUS WL-167G

  • Ubuntu 6.06 “Dapper”: Not recognized in any UI, and not even by iwconfig on the command-line.
  • Ubuntu 6.10 “Edgy”: wlan0 and wmaster0 show up in the Networking control panel, but can not make connections. Shows up as “Unknown USB Vendor Specific Interface” in the Network Manager applet, without a list of access points.
  • Ubuntu Feisty: Recognized by Network Manager applet, but could not connect to any of the listed access points, which are also listed as having zero strength. Listed as wlan0 and wmaster in the Networking control panel, but trying to configure either crashes the control panel.
  • Ubuntu Gutsy (as of 7th September 2007): Hangs the entire system when it’s inserted, or when logging in with it inserted.

Notes:
It’s no longer available from Amazon.com right now anyway. You can still get it from amazon.de.
The script/driver from Linux Emporium for the Edimax 7318USg also made this ASUS WL-167G work, though with the same lack of integration with the Network Applet or Networking control panel.

Edimax 7318USg

  • Ubuntu 6.06 “Dapper”: Not recognized in any UI, and not even by iwconfig on the command-line.
  • Ubuntu 6.10 “Edgy”: wlan0 and wmaster0 show up in the Networking control panel but can not make connections. Shows up as “Unknown USB Vendor Specific Interface” in the Network Manager applet, without a list of access points.
  • Ubuntu Feisty: Recognized by Network Manager applet, but could not connect to any of the listed access points, which are also listed as having zero strength. Listed as wlan0 and wmaster in the Networking control panel, but trying to configure either crashes the control panel.
  • Ubuntu Gutsy (as of 7th September 2007): Not recognized by Network Manager applet.

Note that this worked on all vesions of Ubuntu with the supplied driver, though you’ll need to use the command-line to connect, and you’ll need to rebuild the driver every few months when your Linux kernel is automatically updated.

MSI US54SE

  • Ubuntu 6.06 “Dapper”: Not recognized in any UI, and not even by iwconfig on the command-line.
  • Ubuntu 6.10 “Edgy”: Works out-of-the-box. It is recognized by the Network Manager applet, which lets you choose an access point from a list. You may also configure it via the Networking control panel.Slight imperfections: The Network Manager applet lists all access points with the same 80% signal strength, though I know some are very weak. The Networking control panel does not show a list of access points, so you must type in the access point name manually.
  • Ubuntu Feisty: Works, as in Edgy.
  • Ubuntu Gutsy: Works, as in Feisty.

Note: I also tried to get the MSI US54G, because it’s available in the USA, and I suppose there’s a remote chance that it’s similar to the MSI US54SE, but after two weeks Amazon.de has not yet been able to deliver it. Frankly, it’s not very likely that it works. I’ll update this information if I get my hands on one.

ZyXEL ZyAir G-220 v2

  • Ubuntu 6.06 “Dapper”: Not recognized in any UI, and not even by iwconfig on the command-line.
  • Ubuntu 6.10 “Edgy”: Not recognized in any UI, and not even by iwconfig on the command-line.
  • Ubuntu Feisty: Recognized by Network Manager applet, but could not connect to any of the listed access points, which are also listed as having zero strength. Listed as wlan0 and wmaster in the Networking control panel, but trying to configure either crashes the control panel.
  • Ubuntu Gutsy: Works out of the box.

This was a wild-card choice, because I’d read somewhere that some of their other models, now unavailable, worked out of the box. I think this one has a zd1211b chipset. In Ubuntu Gutsy it seems to use the “zd1211rw” driver. I’d love to hear reports about the more recent ZyXEL models.

Dealing With Zealots in Open Source Communities

General, ,

Some people who I respect have recently been surprised and frustrated by the extreme responses they’ve encountered in the wild outer badlands of various free software forums. They thought it would be a good idea to provide an introduction for others, so this doesn’t come as a shock. This is my first draft. It’s still too wordy, it should be phrased more diplomatically, and it should emphasize the positive. You may also find the GNOME Code of Conduct interesting, which I also created.

By its nature it will be flamed in the comments section. Maybe that can serve as an appendix.

Update: The improved version is here.

Dealing with Zealots in Open Source Communities

The world of Open Source and Free Software is like the Internet. It is big and full of variety. It has what you need, but sometimes it has so much that things become confusing. People on the Internet sometimes organize themselves into opposing tribes.

This should not detract from the great opportunities and advantages of open source software and its development methods.

You will certainly encounter people with strong opinions. Sometimes their opinions will seem unusual, and sometimes they will speak with such conviction that you’d be forgiven for thinking they are the law. But most people represent only themselves. As with any information on the Internet, you must assess the accuracy and authority of the information that you find.

Specifically, you are likely to encounter the following points of view in public forums, among the more positive responses:

  • All commercial software is wrong, meaning that it is immoral to earn money by writing software or even providing services.
  • All proprietary software is wrong, meaning that it is immoral to provide executables without all of their source code.
  • All open source software or free software is wrong, often based on simplistic economic reasoning.
  • All use of proprietary software is wrong. Thus, you may be attacked as immoral for using third-party hardware requiring closed-source drivers while otherwise open sourcing your entire development platform. It is immoral to use your company’s proprietary email system, even if you have no control over it.
  • All use of proprietary formats is wrong, meaning it is immoral to even support interoperability with proprietary or patented systems such as FAT32, NTFS, Samba, MP3, WMV, etc.
  • All compliance with software patent law is wrong, meaning that it is immoral to allow people to use software that would be illegal in their country if not paid for under a proprietary license. Likewise, it is correct and moral to allow people to unknowingly break the laws of their governments, regardless of the legal or financial consequences for individuals and the companies that make this possible.
  • Use of certain words is wrong. For instance, Linux-based systems must be called GNU/Linux systems, or vice-versa. Open Source must be called Free Software, or vice-versa.
  • Acceptance of alternative opinions is wrong. Thus, it is immoral to mention projects or opinions which do not fully agree with certain aims, because condemnation must be total.
  • Various user interfaces are wrong. For instance, it is immoral to choose a simple default environment for a user, or it is immoral to deemphasize the details of how a system works, even if those details are not interesting to your target users and are in fact available to those who are interested.
  • All demands must be met simultaneously, regardless of your priorities or resources.
  • Change is wrong.
  • Change must happen.

These are opinions, though the people expressing them may be convinced that their logic makes them absolute facts. It’s best to let them have the last word, unless you wish to continue until you accept their indisputable logic.

You can safely ignore most of these conversations unless an actual copyright holder is telling you what they would like you to do. You are free to have your own opinions and free to take part in these conversations only if they interest you personally. You do not need to tolerate offensive or aggressive behavior. If you do not choose to take part, these people will happily argue amongst themselves. Because the majority have learned to ignore these conversations, you should not assume that these conversations represent the majority.

You are not at the command of every random person who expresses an opinion regardless of whether you find that opinion personally convincing. You are free to decide what is best for you, your business, and your customers.

You’ll find that most actual project maintainers and developers speak more clearly and recognize that people with slightly differing priorities can work together. They may try to convince you of their opinions, but they will do so with understanding. Where a copyright holder has a very strong opinion about exactly what you should do with his/her software, he/she will choose a license that makes that clear. Of course, you need to have good relations with your fellow developers, so do try to comply with the spirit of licenses rather than just the exact legal interpretation. In general, open source licenses provide mutual advantages.

This article is also an opinion. You are free to ignore it.

Linux-compatible wireless USB adaptor that I can actually buy? (part 3)

General

Information keeps arriving via the comments to my previous posts (1, 2), but there’s still no one good candidate for a currently-available USB (or even PCI) wireless card that “just works” with Ubuntu – or any Linux distro, I suspect. Linux Emporium have been updating their wireless adaptor page recently, and the current text backs up my suspicions. I hope they won’t mind me reproducing it here:

“
It seems that all good things come to an end, and we’re sorry to say that it looks like Ralink have stopped production of the RT2500 chipset – just as it has become well-supported by most important distributions, Debian, Ubuntu and openSUSE at least.

We’ve managed to keep things going so far, by searching out cards from various sources, but this has become too unreliable. Frustratingly, we know that Belkin have some of the older cards in stock, but they are unable to distinguish them from the new models, which have the same part number but a different chipset.

We’ve sourced alternatives, and as promised they’re now available. They have a new chipset, again Ralink, and the drivers have been been released by Ralink. Good for them! However, we’re in the situation we were with the RT2500 18 months ago, where the new chipset is not adequately supported in any GNU/Linux distribution. So we’ve done a lot of work and will be supplying a setup CD with each card. This will allow you to get wireless up and running until such time as the distributions support this chipset fully.
“

I’d love to hear about peoples’ experiences with that Linux Emporium script. It doesn’t sound like an easy thing to do.

Linux-compatible wireless USB adaptor that I can actually buy? (part 2)

General

This is a follow up to my previous post: Linux-compatible wireless USB adaptor that I can actually buy?

I was really sure that the ralink-based ASUS WL-167G would be the one. But no, the ASUS WL-167G does not work in Ubuntu Edgy or Ubuntu Feisty (herd 2). In fact, the (open source) Ralink drivers seem to be a problem on most recent Linux distros. I’ll try compiling the drivers myself soon, but I want an out-of-the-box working wireless USB adaptor.

Based on the comments to my previous post, I now think that the zd1211-based MSI US54SE is the one that is likely to really work out-of-the-box. It’s available in Germany.

As far as I can tell, there is not one single Wireless USB adaptor that’s (widely) available in the USA that will work out-of-the-box with Ubuntu Edgy. All the models that have worked before now have seem to have new unsupported chipsets, without changes of model name.

Linux-compatible wireless USB adaptor that I can actually buy?

General

Has anyone bought a USB WiFi adaptor (54 speed rather than 11, ideally), in the last few months that actually works with Linux (preferably Ubuntu) without using the Windows driver via ndiswrapper?

There are several reports of adaptors that worked out-of-the-box but all those adaptors now seem to be sold with the same model names, but with different chipsets that don’t have Linux drivers.

Or even a PCI card? They keep changing those chipsets too.

New printer: Lexmark E120n

General,

I got tired of my HP Deskjet 3650 just sitting there flashing its light, though it has a new ink cartridge [1]. Even when it worked, the page often slipped while (slowly) printing, and the page took a while to dry.

So I bought a Lexmark E120n. It’s a small cheap laser printer rather than an inkjet printer. Refreshingly, it’s mono only – black and white. I rarely print color and I don’t want to worry about whether I have enough color as well as black ink. The HP 3650 went through a phase of printing everything in green, which I won’t miss.

More significantly, it’s networked by default (wired, not wireless), though you can use the USB connection instead. After powering on, it connects to your network and prints out a page to show you what IP Address it is using. It has a web-browser configuration UI at that address.

Lexmark E120n printer

The CD includes Linux drivers, and the html documentation on the CD states that they officially support Debian, Linspire, Red Hat, and SUSE Linux. All the Linux stuff is in the “unix” directory on the CD, though the readme.txt file there explicitly states that the directory name and other mentions of “unix” should not imply support for crufty old UNIX – it’s just Linux that’s supported.

Even when connecting over the network, you need to choose the printer driver. The GNOME/Ubuntu printer manager didn’t list this model of Lexmark printer. Also the CD doesn’t have a bare .PPD file, so the “Install Driver” feature can’t work. There is a .deb file (.rpm too) but it contains lots of other stuff that I’d rather not risk installing if I don’t need to.

Googling told me that I could instead just choose the “PCL 6/PCL XL Printer” model from the “Generic” manufacturer, after choosing to add a Network printer of type “CUPS Printer (IPP)”, specifying the IP address, and that works fine. I’m using Ubuntu Edgy. Update: Instead of using the generic PCL driver, use the PPD file that Sven mentioned in the comments – the generic one has problems printing graphics. Also, note that you can get the IP Address printout at any time by pressing the green arrow “continue” key.

When it prints, it has that pleasantly familiar airplane takeoff sound rather than the wheeze of an Inkjet. It’s quiet when on standby, though I’ll keep it turned off because it probably draws lots of power.

[1] If the 3650 was sending any status errors over the USB cable, they weren’t showing up anywhere in the GNOME printer UI. I did try installing the HP Deskjet 3650 driver and tools on a Windows laptop but, after self-extracting the 3600_enu_win2k_xp.exe file, it just showed me an otherwise empty and untitled error dialog with the text “1158:”. There was a button on the dialog, but it was empty too. Which was, frankly, Windowstastic.

Irrelevant Update: However, I absolutely can not get the thing to work with my girlfriend’s old Windows ME laptop. Lexmark say that the printer is supported on Windows ME, but the installer refuses to run, saying “This intallation method is not supported on this operating system”. Installing the driver manually via the wizard, typing in the IP address, because browsing doesn’t work, leads to Windows telling me that the printer is currently offline. I’m waiting for the Windows installation to become so broken that it must be replaced with Linux.

Wish Lists

Uncategorized,

As Festivus approaches, now is as good a time as any to symbolically thank a hard-working open source developer. Amazon wish lists are a pretty good way to do this. But few of you seem to have wish lists, so I can’t give you stuff.

Come on, give your users a wish list for once, instead of vice-versa.

Ubuntu Developer Summit, Mountain View

General,

I’ve covered the food and the flight, so now for some actual details about the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Mountain View.

Canonical (or Ubuntu, or even Google, not sure) sponsored travel and accommodation for “upstream” participants, including several people from GNOME and associated projects. Now that’s really working with upstream. We were new to the Ubuntu Summit way of doing things but figured it out quickly. I think we all felt we should be doing more to justify our presence, but hopefully we provided at least some valuable input and advice, and some of us even started implementating specifications. But most of the specifications being considered were lower down in the system, dealing with things such as drivers, devices, X, etc.

The Ubuntu Summits work by discussing specifications and gradually fleshing them out and turning them into definite actions over the week, with Launchpad (trying to) generate a meeting schedule for each day that gets all the relevant people in the right place at the right time to get this done. This Linux.com report about the UDS has a good overview. Matt Zimmerman does a great good-natured job of keeping things on track without being unpleasantly authoritarian. He should have a blog.

These specifications were relevant to us GNOME people:

  • Easy Codec Installation: Tim Mueller and Wim Taymans are adding additional details to GStreamer’s error reporting, and Ryan Lortie is implementing an asynchronous (returns immediately, calls a supplied callback later) C API (libgimme-codec) that can take this information and request that an appropriate GStreamer plugin be installed if one exists to support that codec/muxer. I think Canonical’s Ian Jackson is working on the command-line tool that Ryan’s library will use. The idea is that each distro can provide their own implementation of this command-line tool, so that no distro-specific stuff is needed in the applications. We agreed on this really quickly, and most of it was done by the time UDS was finished.
  • Composite By Default: Discussion about installing Compiz (or the Beryl fork of Compiz) by default as an option, though it obviously isn’t ready to be used by default. Beryl was favoured in general, I guess because the maintainers were there, and because it was the only one that was currently packaged for Ubuntu. But the maintainers, though nice people, don’t understand the pain that’s involved in being a window manager maintainer, and I think they are more concerned with gimmicks and their settings than with subtle usability or with juggling the often-conflicting needs of various fanatical WM users. People seemed to believe that composite support in Metacity has been abandoned by the Metacity developers, but I haven’t found any evidence of any such decision, and I still hope that can be done, to avoid years of regressions and hate email from bearded types. Packaging it as an option should deal with the feature parity issue for now.
  • Face Browser: Mirco Mueller might implement a snazzy 3D face browser for GDM’s login screen, for small business and home users (who don’t have too many users to choose from).
    This started out as general discussion about how to make sensible use of 3D effects during login. I don’t think anything more is still specified, but we realized that we could do quite a bit just by handing control of the background to a separate process, much as you can tell xscreensaver to render on the desktop background (X’s root window), with some extra information about the location of the foreground widgets. Of course, this could be abused for irrelevant gimmickery, but I think something subtle and slow could have a nice effect both on the login screen and the desktop background. How can we get Olafur Eliason (not my photos) to design a background theme?
  • They had some questions about a couple of items in the Common Customizations spec, about:
    • a numlock-on-startup setting. I discovered that the numlock setting is meant to be saved automatically, so no setting should be needed, but that probably only works when session saving is enabled, and it usually isn’t.
    • dial-up configuration with the Networking control panel, though I’m not sure whether they have problems with the current “Modem Connection” feature or they were missing support for DSL. The spec has been approved, though it’s still vague about these things.
  • Various X specifications: Keith Packard had lots of good news about X.org 7.3, though that won’t be ready for Ubuntu’s next release. All kinds of things should just work, even without a configuration file, and without restarting X, and be configurable generically (without driver-specific APIs) where necessary, such as projectors and multiple screens. He also has high hopes for the new open source (mostly reverse-engineered) Nouveau driver for nVidia cards. I like how Keith can shift from technical-level to user-visible-level easily where appropriate. He’s not your average geek.
  • Tab Consistency: Over the last couple of years, several GNOME applications (gedit, gnome-terminal, epiphany, gaim, firefox) have implemented their own closable/reorderable tabs. mostly for document-based applications, but they are inconsistent in how they place the tab close button, how they do drag-and-drop reordering, scrolling of excess tabs, which tab is selected when one is closed, where new tabs are added, etc. Gaim actually has options for most of this, really. Luckily, Firefox 2.0 solves the major problem – it previously had one tab close button while every other application had one on each tab, and GTK+ 2.10 has API that applications could now use to do consistent reordering. GTK+ still needs API for the tab close button. However, the spec was being pushed in the direction of changing all applications (and/or GTK+) to be consistent with the old Firefox way (one close button on the right), which would be a silly amount of work just to be inconsistent with every other distro.

The meetings about the Ubuntu release process were interesting, after my experience on the GNOME release team. It’s mostly similar, though they have a much wider set of things to worry about. I do think they suffer from the tendency that prevailed sometimes in the GNOME release team of looking on the bright side and persuading ourselves that everything would be OK. In particular, I think a mere one week gap between a release candidate (when far more people actually start testing) and a final release is wildly optimistic and probably unnecessarily painful. Anecdotally, Ubuntu Edgy shows the result for me, with at least 5 very user-visible bugs, while Ubuntu Dapper (with a longer stabilisation phase) was remarkably polished.

But I’m just a first-time spectator to that process, and it’s genuinely difficult to schedule enough time for boring bug-fixing and testing while still keeping developers enthused enough to actually do that work. Occasional long-time-support releases are probably a good way to balance that, though I wish there was a way to get more upstream bugfixes into the LTS releases without forcing use of backports of completely new major (with new features) versions.

Otherwise, I spent the time on the GNOME couch (Mirco’s photo) goofing around with the GNOME people more than I have a chance to at GUADEC, such as Ryan Lortie, Christian Kellner, Raphael “unpronounceable” Slinckx, Lennart “Milkybar Kid / Doctor Zee” Poettering, Danilo Segan, and loveable Ubuntu/Canonical people such as Daniel Holbach, Michael Vogt, and Sebastian Bacher (the Frenchest accent since Daniel Veillard). I agree with Ryan – these are people I’d just hang out with for the fun of it if we lived in the same place. It’s also intellectually simulating to meet the other people who deal with such different parts of the system.

I also found time to do some mindless hacking that I don’t have time for normally, such as continuing the port of libgdamm, pygda, and Glom to libgda 3.0, and writing some documentation.

I’m still feeling the Jet lag. Yesterday I woke up after a full night’s sleep, drank 2 cups of coffee, and fell asleep for 5 more hours.