I've recently added two packages (and their dependencies) to Debian and thought I'd cover a bit more about why.

Prompted by Tollef, moving to Hugo, I investigated a replacement blog engine. The former site used Wordpress which is just overhead - my blog doesn't need to be generated on every view, it doesn't need the security implications of yet another website login and admin interface either.

The blog is static …

LXQt is a Qt lightweight desktop - the Qt port of LXDE. Packages exist in Debian - albeit without a top level metapackage or task package to make installing it easier. So I wrote up a simple-ish vmdebootstrap call:

$ sudo vmdebootstrap --image lxqt.img --size=5G --package=lxqt-panel \
--package=libqt5xcbqpa5 --package=qterminal …

Just in case someone else finds these useful, some bash functions I've got into the habit of having in ~/.bashrc:

mcd(){ mkdir "$1"; cd "$1"; }

gum(){ git checkout "$1" && git rebase master && git checkout master; }

gsb() { LIST=`git branch|egrep -v '(release|staging|trusty|playground|stale …

At the miniDebConfUK in Cambridge, November 2015, there was a vmdebootstrap sprint vmdebootstrap is written in python and the sprint built on the changes I made during DebConf15. The primary aim was to split out the code from a single python script and create modules which would be useful to …

In my previous post, I covered how to extend an initramfs to serve as a basis for tests and other purposes. In that example, the initramfs was simply copied off a device after installation. It occurred to me that python-guestfs would be a useful tool to make this step easier …

There's a lot of discussion / moaning /arguing at this time, so I thought I'd post something about how LAVA got into Debian Jessie, the work involved and the lessons I've learnt. Hopefully, it will help someone avoid the disappointment of having their package missing the migration into a future stable …

lava-server has arrived in Debian unstable. No need for third party repositories (unless you want to), a simple apt install lava-server. What happens from that point isn't so simple. I've made the single instance installation as straightforward as I could but there is a lot more to do to get …