Planet Debian

The XKCD comic Code Quality [1] inspired me to test out emoji in source. I really should have done this years ago when that XKCD was first published. The following code compiles in gcc and runs in the way that anyone who wants to write such code would want it to run. The hover text in the XKCD comic is correct. You could have a style guide for such programming, store error messages in the doctor and nurse emoji for example. #include int main() { int = 1, = 2; printf("=%d, =%d\n", , ); return 0;…

When using Bubblewrap (the bwrap command) to create a container in Ubuntu 24.04 you can expect to get one of the following error messages: bwrap: loopback: Failed RTM_NEWADDR: Operation not permitted bwrap: setting up uid map: Permission denied This is due to Ubuntu developers deciding to use Apparmor to restrict the creation of user namespaces. Here is a Ubuntu blog post about it [1] . To resolve that you could upgrade to SE Linux, but the other option is to create a file named /etc/apparmor.d…

Review: The Stars, Like Dust , by Isaac Asimov Series: Galactic Empire #2 Publisher: Fawcett Crest Copyright: 1950, 1951 Printing: June 1972 Format: Mass market Pages: 192 The Stars, Like Dust is usually listed as the first book in Asimov's lesser-known Galactic Empire Trilogy since it takes place before Pebble in the Sky . Pebble in the Sky was published first, though, so I count it as the second book. It is very early science fiction with a few mystery overtones. Buying books produces about 5…

The diffoscope maintainers are pleased to announce the release of diffoscope version 265 . This version includes the following changes: [ Chris Lamb ] * Ensure that tests with ">=" version constraints actually print the corresponding tool name. (Closes: reproducible-builds/diffoscope#370) * Prevent odt2txt tests from always being skipped due to an impossibly new version requirement. (Closes: reproducible-builds/diffoscope#369) * Avoid nested parens-in-parens when printing "skipping…" messages i…

Posted on March 17, 2024 Tags: debian , free software , nix Joachim Breitner wrote about a Convenient sandboxed development environment and thus reminded me to blog about MicroVM . I’ve toyed around with it a little but not yet seriously used it as I’m currently not coding. MicroVM is a nix based project to configure and run minimal VMs. It can mount and thus reuse the hosts nix store inside the VM and thus has a very small disk footprint. I use MicroVM on a debian system using the nix package …

Posted on January 20, 2024 Tags: debian , free software , life , search , decentralization Finally there is a thing people can agree on: 2023-08-28, OSNews: The end of the Googleverse 2023-07-28, Cory Doctorow: Microincentives and Enshittification 2023-10-03, Cory Doctorow: Google’s enshittification memos 2024-01-15, Tim Bray: Mourning Google Apparently, Google Search is not good anymore. And I’m not the only one thinking about decentralization to fix it: Honey I federated the search engine - f…

Posted on January 16, 2024 Tags: debian , free software , nix , life The nix package manager is available in Debian since May 2020 . Why would one use it in Debian? learn about nix install software that might not be available in Debian install software without root access declare software necessary for a user’s environment inside $HOME/.config Especially the last point nagged me every time I set up a new Debian installation. My emacs configuration and my Desktop setup expects certain software t…

Posted on January 9, 2024 Tags: debian , free software , life I wanted to report this issue in chromiums issue tracker , but it gave me: “Something went wrong, please try again later.” Ok, then at least let me reply to this askubuntu question . But my attempt to signup with my launchpad account gave me: “Launchpad Login Failed. Please try logging in again.” I refrain from commenting on this to not violate some code of conduct. So this is what I wanted to write: GTK file chooser image preview si…

Posted on January 2, 2024 Tags: debian , free software , life Just a little while ago (10 years) I proposed the addition of a state folder to the XDG basedir specification and expanded the article XDGBaseDirectorySpecification in the Debian wiki. Recently I learned , that version 0.8 (from May 2021) of the spec finally includes a state folder. Granted, I wasn’t the first to have this idea (2009), nor the one who actually made it happen . Now, please go ahead and use it! Thank you.

Review: Unseen Academicals , by Terry Pratchett Series: Discworld #37 Publisher: Harper Copyright: October 2009 Printing: November 2014 ISBN: 0-06-233500-6 Format: Mass market Pages: 517 Unseen Academicals is the 37th Discworld novel and includes many of the long-standing Ankh-Morpork cast, but mostly as supporting characters. The main characters are a new (and delightful) bunch with their own concerns. You arguably could start reading here if you really wanted to, although you would risk spoil…