Today, Fre(i)e Software GmbH has been contracted for packaging Kurento Media Server for Debian. This packaging project will be funded by GUUG e.V. (the German Unix User Group e.V.). A big thanks to the people from GUUG e.V. for making this packaging project possible.
About Kurento Media Server
Kurento is an open source software project providing a platform suitable for creating modular applications with advanced real-time communication capabilities. For knowing more about Kurento, please visit the Kurento project website: https://www.kurento.org.
Kurento is part of FIWARE. For further information on the relationship of FIWARE and Kurento check the Kurento FIWARE Catalog Entry. Kurento is also part of the NUBOMEDIA research initiative.
Kurento Media Server is a WebRTC-compatible server that processes audio and video streams, doing composable pipeline-based processing of media.
About BigBlueButton
As some of you may know, Kurento Media Server is one of the core components of the BigBlueButton software, an ,,Open Source Virtual Classroom Software''.
The context of the KMS funding is - after several other steps - getting the complete software component stack of BigBlueButton (aka BBB) into Debian some day, so that we can provide BBB as native Debian packages. On Debian.
Recently, I bought an Acer Spin 3 Convertible Notebook for the company and provided it to Robert Tari for his daily work on Ayatana Indicators (which currently is funded by the UBports Foundation via my company Fre(i)e Software GmbH).
Some days ago Robert reported back about a sleepless night he spent with that machine... He got stuck with a tricky issue regarding the installation of Manjaro GNU/Linux on that machine, that could be -- at the end -- resolved by a not so well documented trick.
Before anyone else spends another sleepless night on this, we thought we'd better share Robert's solution.
So, the below applies to the Acer Spin 3 series (and probably to other Spin models, perhaps even some other Acer laptops):
Acer Spin 3 Pre-Inst Cheat Codes
Before you even plug in the USB install media:
- Go to UEFI settings (i.e. BIOS for us elderly people) [F2]
- Security -> Set Supervisor Password [Enabled]
- Enter the password you'll use
- Boot -> Secure Boot -> [Disabled] (you can't disable it without a set supervisor password)
- Exit -> Exit Saving Changes
- Restart and go to UEFI settings again [F2]
- Main -> [Now press CTRL + S] -> VMD Controller -> [Disabled]
- Exit -> Exit Saving Changes
- Now plug in the install USB and restart
Esp. the disabling of the VMD Controller is essential.
Before and during FOSDEM 2020, I agreed with the people (developers, supporters, managers) of the UBports Foundation to package the Unity8 Operating Environment for Debian.
This is a very short notice that I am not available via Freenode anymore. You can now reach me and the projects I am involved in (#x2go, #arctica, #ayatana-indicators) via the libera.chat IRC network.
Of course, I am also available and hanging out on OFTC IRC for all Debian related topics.
For details on the reasoning, I noticed that I am fully aligned with Antoine Beaupré's statements in his recent blog post on the same matter [1]. A recommended read.
light+love
Mike
[1] https://anarc.at/blog/2021-05-24-leaving-freenode/
Recently, Raphael Hertzog published ideas [1] about how to make Debian more attractive for big enterprises. One missing key stone here is the possibility to sign up for an enterprise support subscription scheme. Another question tackles how to provide such a support scheme within Debian, without disturbing the current flow of how Debian is developed these days.
And, there are likely more questions to asks, riddles to solve, and hurdles to overcome.
We want to discuss this topic, brainstorm on it, collect new ideas and also hear your concerns on a public channel. Over the past weeks there already have been mail exchanges off-list.
We want to reboot this privately started discussion now in public (as that's where it belongs) starting +/- at the end of the coming week via the currently quite inactive Debian mailing list 'debian-enterprise' [2]. Please join the discussion (and the mailing list) [3] if interested in this topic.
light & love
Mike (aka sunweaver)
[1] https://raphaelhertzog.com/2021/03/30/challenging-times-for-freexian-1/
(also read parts 2-4)
[2] debian-enterprise@lists.debian.org
[3] https://lists.debian.org/debian-enterprise
Before and during FOSDEM 2020, I agreed with the people (developers, supporters, managers) of the UBports Foundation to package the Unity8 Operating Environment for Debian. Since 27th Feb 2020, Unity8 has now become Lomiri.
Things got delayed a little recently as my main developer contact on the upstream side was on sick leave for a while. Fortunately, he has now fully recovered and work is getting back on track.
Last week I received the official notice: There is now a German company named "Fre(i)e Software GmbH" registered with the German Trade Register.
Founding a New Company
Over the past months I have put my energy into founding a new company. As a freelancing IT consultant I started facing the limitation of other companies having strict policies that forbid the cooperation with one person businesses (Personengesellschaften).
Thus, the requirement for setting up a GmbH business came onto my agenda. I will move some of my business activities into this new company, starting next year.
Policy Ideas
The "Fre(i)e Software GmbH" will be a platform to facilitate the growth and spreading of Free Software on this planet.
Here are some first ideas for company policies:
The idea is to bring together teams of developers and consultants that provide the highest expertise in FLOSS. Everything this company will do, will finally (or already during the development cycles) be published under some sorf of a free software / content license (for software, ideally a copyleft license). Staff members will work and live across Europe, freelancers may possibly live in any country where German businesses may do business with. Ideally, staff members and freelancers work on projects that they can identify themselves with, projects that they love. Software development and software design is an art. In the company we will honour this.
Before and during FOSDEM 2020, I agreed with the people (developers, supporters, managers) of the UBports Foundation to package the Unity8 Operating Environment for Debian. Since 27th Feb 2020, Unity8 has now become Lomiri.
Recent Uploads to Debian related to Lomiri
Over the past 4 months I worked on the following bits and pieces regarding Lomiri in Debian:
- Work on lomiri-app-launch (Debian packaging, upstream work, upload to Debian)
- Fork lomiri-url-dispatcher from url-dispatcher (upstream work)
- Upload lomiri-url-dispatcher to Debian
- Fork out suru-icon-theme and make it its own upstream project
- Package and upload suru-icon-theme to Debian
- First glance at lomiri-ui-toolkit (currently FTBFS, needs to be revisited)
- Update of Mir (1.7.0 -> 1.8.0) in Debian
- Fix net-cpp FTBFS in Debian
- Fix FTBFS in gsettings-qt.
- Fix FTBFS in mir (support of binary-only and arch-indep-only builds)
- Coordinate with Marius Gripsgard and Robert Tari on shift over from Ubuntu Indicator to Ayatana Indicators
- Upload ayatana-indicator-* (and libraries) to Debian (new upstream releases)
- Package and upload to Debian: qmenumodel (still in Debian's NEW queue)
- Package and upload to Debian: ayatana-indicator-sound
- Symbol-Updates (various packages) for non-standard architectures
- Fix FTBFS of qtpim-opensource-src in Debian since Qt5.14 had landed in unstable
- Fix FTBFS on non-standard architectures of qtsystems, qtpim and qtfeedback
- Fix wlcs in Debian (for non-standard architectures), more Symbol-Updates (esp.
In August 2020, I have worked on the Debian LTS project for 16 hours (of 8 hours planned, plus another 8 hours that I carried over from July).
For ELTS, I have worked for another 8 hours (of 8 hours planned).
LTS Work
- LTS frontdesk: triage wireshark, yubico-piv-tool, trousers, software-properties, qt4-x11, qtbase-opensource-src, openexr, netty and netty-3.9
- upload to stretch-security: libvncserver 0.9.11+dfsg-1.3~deb9u5 (fixing 9 CVEs, DLA-2347-1 [1])
- upload to stretch-security: php-horde-core 2.27.6+debian1-2+deb9u1 (1 CVE, DLA-2348 [2])
- upload to stretch-security: php-horde 5.2.13+debian0-1+deb9u3 (fixing 1 CVE, DLA-2349-1 [3])
- upload to stretch-security: php-horde-kronolith 4.2.19-1+deb9u1 (fixing 1 CVE, DLA-2350-1 [4])
- upload to stretch-security: php-horde-kronolith 4.2.19-1+deb9u2 (fixing 1 more CVE, DLA-2351-1 [5])
- upload to stretch-security: php-horde-gollem 3.0.10-1+deb9u2 (fixing 1 CVE, DLA-2352-1 [6])
- upload to stretch-security: freerdp 1.1.0~git20140921.1.440916e+dfsg1-13+deb9u4 (fixing 14 CVEs, DLA-2356-1 [7])
- prepare salsa MRs for gnome-shell (for gnome-shell in stretch [8] and buster [9])
ELTS Work
- Look into open CVEs for Samba in Debian jessie ELTS.
In July 2020, I was originally assigned 8h of work on Debian LTS as a paid contributor, but holiday season overwhelmed me and I did not do any LTS work, at all.
The assigned hours from July I have taken with me into August 2020.
light+love,
Mike
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