Louis-Philippe Véronneau - montrealhttps://veronneau.org/2024-02-07T00:00:00-05:00Montreal's Debian & Stuff - February 20242024-02-07T00:00:00-05:002024-02-07T00:00:00-05:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2024-02-07:/montreals-debian-stuff-february-2024.html<p>New Year, Same Great People! Our Debian User Group met for the first of our
2024 bi-monthly meetings on February 4th and it was loads of fun. Around
twelve different people made it this time to <a href="https://koumbit.org">Koumbit</a>, where the meeting
happened.</p>
<p>As a reminder, our meetings are called "Debian & Stuff …</p><p>New Year, Same Great People! Our Debian User Group met for the first of our
2024 bi-monthly meetings on February 4th and it was loads of fun. Around
twelve different people made it this time to <a href="https://koumbit.org">Koumbit</a>, where the meeting
happened.</p>
<p>As a reminder, our meetings are called "Debian & Stuff" because we want to be
as open as possible and welcome people that want to work on "other stuff" than
Debian.</p>
<p>Here is what we did:</p>
<p><strong>pollo</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>tested a laptop that had a defective battery with a known good one (the
problem was indeed with the battery :D)</li>
<li>renewed his expiring OpenPGP key</li>
<li>worked on removing <code>trapperkeeper-scheduler-clojure</code> from the DebCI
<a href="https://ci.debian.net/status/reject_list/">reject_list</a></li>
<li>helped anarcat with packaging <code>sigal</code></li>
<li>managed to feed most of the people present :)</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>LeLutin</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>worked with lavamind to upload new upstream release of <code>smokeping</code></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>mjeanson</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>migrated from <code>lxd</code> to <code>incus</code> on his servers</li>
<li>helped anarcat with flashing his AirGradient</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>lavamind</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>submitted <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1063047">a bug report</a> on <code>r-cran-rserve</code> (promptly
fixed/uploaded by maintainer!)</li>
<li>reviewed and uploaded <code>smokeping</code></li>
<li>bug triaged the <code>facter</code> package</li>
<li>worked on <code>puppet-agent</code> new upstream version 8.4.0</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>viashimo</strong>:</p>
<h1></h1>
<ul>
<li>updated <code>puppet-strings</code> from 2.9.0 to 4.2.1</li>
<li>reported <a href="https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppet-strings/issues/386">upstream test failures</a> on <code>puppet-strings</code> with recent
versions of <code>mdl</code></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>tvaz & tassia</strong>:</p>
<h1></h1>
<ul>
<li>drafted a call & request for funding for the Vanier College FLOSS Club
hardware marathon at Eastern Bloc</li>
<li>worked on an application to conduct research at Vanier College on Debian
usability</li>
<li>babysitted :-)</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>joeDoe</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>worked on his AirGradient</li>
<li>debugged the WiFi and VPN setup on his new laptop</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>anarcat</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>worked on packaging <code>sigal</code></li>
<li>worked on flashing his AirGradient boards</li>
<li>rewrote a <a href="https://gitlab.com/anarcat/airgradient-exporter">Prometheus exporter for Airgradient devices</a></li>
<li>brought over a car full of old computer gear to donate</li>
</ul>
<h2>Pictures</h2>
<p>I was pretty busy this time around and ended up not taking a lot of pictures.
Here's a bad one of the ceiling at Koumbit I took, and a picture by anarcat of
the content of his boxes of loot:</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2024-02-07/ceiling.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="A picture of the ceiling at Koumbit" alt="A picture of the ceiling at Koumbit">
<img src="/media/blog/2024-02-07/anarcat_loot.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="The content of anarcat's boxes of loot" alt="The content of anarcat's boxes of loot"></p>Montreal's Debian & Stuff - November 20232023-12-06T00:00:00-05:002023-12-06T00:00:00-05:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2023-12-06:/montreals-debian-stuff-november-2023.html<p>Hello from a snowy Montréal! My life has been pretty busy lately<sup id="fnref:strike"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:strike">1</a></sup> so
please forgive this late report.</p>
<p>On November 19th, our local Debian User Group met at Montreal's most
prominent hackerspace, <a href="https://foulab.org/">Foulab</a>. We've been there a few times already, but
since our last visit, Foulab has had some …</p><p>Hello from a snowy Montréal! My life has been pretty busy lately<sup id="fnref:strike"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:strike">1</a></sup> so
please forgive this late report.</p>
<p>On November 19th, our local Debian User Group met at Montreal's most
prominent hackerspace, <a href="https://foulab.org/">Foulab</a>. We've been there a few times already, but
since our last visit, Foulab has had some membership/financial troubles. Happy
to say things are going well again and a new team has taken over the space.</p>
<p>This meetup wasn't the most productive day for me (something about being
exhausted apparently makes it hard to concentrate), but other people did a
bunch of interesting stuff :)</p>
<ul>
<li>Kienan & Gabriel worked on the <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libinfluxdb-http-perl">libinfluxdb-http-perl</a> package (now in
Sid!), which is needed for <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/smokeping">smokeping</a>.</li>
<li>Jérôme worked on updating JRuby to the latest upstream version.</li>
<li>I failed to update <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/monitoring-plugins-systemd">monitoring-plugins-systemd</a> to the latest upstream
version. It seems the entire test suite has been re-written and I couldn't
make it work in <code>sbuild</code>...</li>
<li>Tiago and Tassia worked on the Debian Contributors website. More
specifically, they added a DSA domains data source and created a scheduler on
<code>dcf.debian.net</code> to make daily updates on the data sources in the
<a href="https://salsa.debian.org/debian/dc-sources">dc-sources</a> repository.</li>
<li>Michael worked on the 2024 <a href="https://github.com/nsec/nsec-badge">NorthSec badge</a>.</li>
<li>Gerard worked on debugging his broken <a href="https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/instructions/diy">AirGradient</a> board.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Pictures</h2>
<p>Here are a bunch of pictures I took! Foulab is always a great place to snap
quirky things :)</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2023-12-06/foulab.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="A sign on a whiteboard that says 'Bienvenue aux laboratoires qui rends fou'" alt="A sign on a whiteboard that says 'Bienvenue aux laboratoires qui rends fou'">
<img src="/media/blog/2023-12-06/biohouse.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="The entrance of the bio-hacking house, with a list of rules" alt="The entrance of the bio-hacking house, with a list of rules">
<img src="/media/blog/2023-12-06/broken_keyboard.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="An exploded keyboard with a 'Press F1 to continue' sign" alt="An exploded keyboard with a 'Press F1 to continue' sign">
<img src="/media/blog/2023-12-06/tux.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="An inflatable Tux with a Foulab T-Shirt" alt="An inflatable Tux with a Foulab T-Shirt">
<img src="/media/blog/2023-12-06/workshop.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="A picture of the woodworking workshop" alt="A picture of the woodworking workshop"></p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr>
<ol>
<li id="fn:strike">
<p>More busy than the typical end of semester rush... At work, we are
currently renegotiating our collective bargaining agreement and things
aren't going so well. We went on strike for a few days already and we're
planning on another 7 days starting on Friday 8th. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:strike" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Montreal's Debian & Stuff - "September" 20232023-10-07T00:00:00-04:002023-10-07T00:00:00-04:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2023-10-07:/montreals-debian-stuff-september-2023.html<p>Last Sunday, our local Debian user group gathered to chat, to work on Debian and
to do other, non-Debian related hacking. A "Debian & Stuff"!</p>
<p>It had been a while since we held a proper meetup. Our last event was the
<a href="https://veronneau.org/goodbye-bullseye-report-from-the-montreal-2023-bsp.html">Montreal BSP</a> we organised back in March 2023... We somewhat …</p><p>Last Sunday, our local Debian user group gathered to chat, to work on Debian and
to do other, non-Debian related hacking. A "Debian & Stuff"!</p>
<p>It had been a while since we held a proper meetup. Our last event was the
<a href="https://veronneau.org/goodbye-bullseye-report-from-the-montreal-2023-bsp.html">Montreal BSP</a> we organised back in March 2023... We somewhat missed the
window for a June meetup and summer events never seem to gather a good crowd,
so I didn't try to organise one.</p>
<p>All this to say it was nice to see folks from the Montreal Debian community :)</p>
<p>This event was also the first time we were hosted by <a href="https://solon-collectif.org/action/espace-des-possibles-petite-patrie/">L'Espace des possibles -
Petite Patrie</a>, a social venue that aims to provide a space for
not-for-profit activities, like repair cafés, sowing classes, board game
nights, etc. It was really nice and we will surely meet there again in the
future.</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2023-10-07/group_picture.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="A group picture during the event" alt="A group picture during the event"></p>
<p>Many people came to the event, including some new ones. Although people always
tend to come and go during the day, a total of 12 people attended the event.</p>
<p>As always, people worked on very different projects! One of the focus of this
D&S was assembling <a href="https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/instructions/diy/a">AirGradient DIY basic kits</a>. Our local
community has been talking a lot about air quality metrics in the past few
months<sup id="fnref:fires"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:fires">1</a></sup>. Tiago thus decided to have a company print the PCBs for this
kit and graciously gave away a few spares. Michael then took upon himself to
order parts on AliExpress and a few of us ended up soldering the kits together
while chatting.</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2023-10-07/kit.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="An AirGradient DIY basic kit, semi-assembled" alt="An AirGradient DIY basic kit, semi-assembled"></p>
<p>Otherwise, some Debian work was also done:</p>
<ul>
<li>I triaged and closed a bunch of bug reports and started packaging <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/pollo/labwc">labwc</a>,
a Wayland compositor heavily inspired by Openbox.</li>
<li>Jérôme did some work on Clojure libraries that broke when Java 21 became
supported in Sid.</li>
<li>Gabriel worked on the <code>libinfluxdb-http-perl</code> library.</li>
<li>Tiago and Tassia continued their work on the new <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/tassia/dc-sources">DC Sources</a>
project and Tiago <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/debian.net-team/requests/-/issues/19">applied for a debian.net VM</a> for this service.</li>
</ul>
<p>The whole event was super fun, the tacos we had for lunch were delicious (and
very authentic!), and we ended up at a local microbrewery to share a pint later
in the evening.</p>
<p>Looking forward to the next event!</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr>
<ol>
<li id="fn:fires">
<p>Mostly as a result of the large forest fires in Canada this summer. I
myself <a href="https://veronneau.org/weather-station-data-visualisations-using-r-and-python.html">blogged</a> <a href="https://veronneau.org/pymonitair-air-quality-monitoring-display-with-micropython.html">twice</a> about air quality-related projects
recently. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:fires" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Goodbye Bullseye — report from the Montreal 2023 BSP2023-03-04T00:00:00-05:002023-03-04T00:00:00-05:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2023-03-04:/goodbye-bullseye-report-from-the-montreal-2023-bsp.html<p>Hello World! I haven't really had time to blog here since the start of the
semester, as I've been pretty busy at work<sup id="fnref:busy"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:busy">1</a></sup>.</p>
<p>All this to say, this report for the <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2023/02/ca/Montreal">Bug Squashing Party</a> we held in
Montreal last weekend is a little late, sorry :)</p>
<p>First of all, I'm …</p><p>Hello World! I haven't really had time to blog here since the start of the
semester, as I've been pretty busy at work<sup id="fnref:busy"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:busy">1</a></sup>.</p>
<p>All this to say, this report for the <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2023/02/ca/Montreal">Bug Squashing Party</a> we held in
Montreal last weekend is a little late, sorry :)</p>
<p>First of all, I'm pleased to announce our local community seems to be doing
great and has recovered from the pandemic-induced lull. May COVID stay away
from our bodies forever.</p>
<p>This time around, a total of 9 people made it to what has become somewhat of a
biennial tradition<sup id="fnref:biennial"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:biennial">2</a></sup>. We worked on <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=debian-release@lists.debian.org;tag=bsp-2023-02-ca-montreal">a grand total of 14 bugs</a>
and even managed to close some!</p>
<p>It looks like I was too concentrated on bugs to take a picture of the event...
To redeem myself, I hereby offer you a picture of a cute-but-hairless cat I met
on Sunday morning:</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2023-03-04/sphinx_cat.jpg" title="Picture of a curious sphinx cat on a table" alt="Picture of a curious sphinx cat on a table" height="80%" width="80%" style="margin-left: 10%;"></p>
<p>You should try to <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BSP#Upcoming_BSPs">join an upcoming BSP</a> or to <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/HostingBSP">organise
one</a> if you can. It's loads of fun and you'll be helping the project
make the next release happen sooner!</p>
<p>As always, thanks to Debian for granting us a budget for the food and to rent
the venue.</p>
<p>Goodbye Bullseye!</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr>
<ol>
<li id="fn:busy">
<p>Which I guess is a good thing, since it means I actually have work
this semester :O <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:busy" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:biennial">
<p>See our previous BSPs in <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2017/04/ca/Montreal">2017</a>, <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2019/01/ca/Montreal">2019</a> and <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2021/03/ca/Montreal">2021</a>. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:biennial" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Montreal's Debian & Stuff - October 20222022-11-01T00:00:00-04:002022-11-01T00:00:00-04:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2022-11-01:/montreals-debian-stuff-october-2022.html<p>Our local Debian user group gathered on Sunday October 30th to chat, work on
Debian and do other, non-Debian related hacking :) This time around, we met at
<a href="https://www.efficios.com/">EfficiOS's</a><sup id="fnref:efficios"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:efficios">1</a></sup> offices. As you can see from the following
picture, it's a great place and the view they have is pretty awesome …</p><p>Our local Debian user group gathered on Sunday October 30th to chat, work on
Debian and do other, non-Debian related hacking :) This time around, we met at
<a href="https://www.efficios.com/">EfficiOS's</a><sup id="fnref:efficios"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:efficios">1</a></sup> offices. As you can see from the following
picture, it's a great place and the view they have is pretty awesome. Many
thanks for hosting us!</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2022-11-01/mont-royal.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="The view from EfficiOS' offices, overlooking the Mont-Royal" alt="The view from EfficiOS' offices, overlooking the Mont-Royal"></p>
<p>This was our 4th meeting this year and once again, attendance was great: 10
people showed up to work on various things.</p>
<p>Following our bi-monthly schedule, our next meeting should be in December, but
I'm not sure it'll happen. December can be a busy month here and I will have to
poke our mailing list to see if people have the spoons for an event.</p>
<p>This time around, I was able to get a rough log of the Debian work people did:</p>
<p><strong>pollo</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>followed up with the DPL for <a href="https://deb.li/2S8U">upcoming Debian Python Team Sprint</a></li>
<li>opened a wishlist bug (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1023140">#1023140</a>) on the <code>devscripts</code> package for <code>uscan</code>
to verify git tags signed with SSH keys</li>
<li>updated <code>python-mediafile</code> and <code>mutagen</code> to the latest upstream version</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>mjeanson</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>fixed RC bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1022419">#1022419</a> on <code>babeltrace</code></li>
<li>kindly hosted us, with the help of Mathieu Desnoyers</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>viashimo</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>started updating <code>puppet-strings</code> to 3.0.1</li>
<li>was blocked in the process by tests requiring <code>ruby-mdl</code>, which is not
packaged yet</li>
<li>was blocked in packaging <code>ruby-mdl</code> by <code>rubocop</code> not being >= ~1.2x</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>lavamind</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>updated <code>jnffi</code> to 1.3.9, as part of the work on <code>jruby</code> he's been doing</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>anarcat</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>updated <code>g10k</code> to latest upstream</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>babelouest</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>updated <code>node-jose</code> to 4.10.4</li>
<li>worked on bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1021779">#1021779</a> in <code>libical3</code></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>tvaz</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>worked on updating <code>apticron</code></li>
</ul>
<p>As always, thanks to the Debian project for granting us a budget to buy some
food!</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr>
<ol>
<li id="fn:efficios">
<p>Makers of the awesome <a href="https://lttng.org/">LTTng</a> project, amongst other things. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:efficios" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Montreal's Debian & Stuff - August 20222022-09-07T00:00:00-04:002022-09-07T00:00:00-04:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2022-09-07:/montreals-debian-stuff-august-2022.html<p>Our local Debian user group gathered on Sunday August 28th<sup id="fnref:late"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:late">1</a></sup> at the very
hackish <a href="https://foulab.org/exposition/">Foulab</a> for the August 2022 edition of our "Debian & Stuff"
meetings.</p>
<p>As always, the event was a success and we had lots of fun. Nine people showed
up, including some new faces and people I …</p><p>Our local Debian user group gathered on Sunday August 28th<sup id="fnref:late"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:late">1</a></sup> at the very
hackish <a href="https://foulab.org/exposition/">Foulab</a> for the August 2022 edition of our "Debian & Stuff"
meetings.</p>
<p>As always, the event was a success and we had lots of fun. Nine people showed
up, including some new faces and people I hadn't seen in a while:</p>
<video width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" autoplay loop>
<source src="https://veronneau.org/media/blog/2022-09-07/group_photo.webm" type="video/webm" />
Animated picture of the people present at the event.
</video>
<p>On my side, although I was badly sleep-deprived <sup id="fnref:wry"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:wry">2</a></sup>, I still managed to be
somewhat productive!</p>
<p>One of the WiFi Access Points we use in our 4-apartment LAN had been
boot-looping for a few weeks, after a failed sysupgrade to the latest version
of OpenWRT. lavamind and I suspect the flash got corrupted in a way or another
during the upgrade process...</p>
<p>Lucky for us, <a href="https://openwrt.org/toh/engenius/eap1300">this model</a> has a serial port and runs U-Boot. After a
bit of tinkering, some electrical tape and two different serial
adapters<sup id="fnref:serial"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:serial">3</a></sup>, we managed to identify the pin layout and got a shell on the
machine. The device has a reset button, but since the kernel panic was
happening too soon in the boot process, we weren't able to get into OpenWRT's
failsafe mode this way.</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2022-09-07/eap1300.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="The WiFi AP being flashed via a serial-to-USB adapter" alt="The WiFi AP being flashed via a serial-to-USB adapter"></p>
<p>Once we had serial access, wiping the flash and re-installing OpenWRT fixed our
problem. A quick <code>ansible-playbook</code> run later, the device was back to being
usable and configured :)</p>
<p>I was too tired to keep track of what others did, but I took some nice pictures
of the pizza we got, and of this nice blow-up Tux wearing a Foulab t-shirt. Enjoy!</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2022-09-07/tux.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="A blow-up Tux wearing a Foulab t-shirt" alt="A blow-up Tux wearing a Foulab t-shirt"></p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2022-09-07/pizza.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="One of the pizzas we ordered" alt="One of the pizzas we ordered"></p>
<p>As always, thanks to the Debian project for granting us a budget to rent the
venue and to buy some food.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr>
<ol>
<li id="fn:late">
<p>Please excuse the late blog post, it's Harvest Season here and I've been
quite busy. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:late" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:wry">
<p>A bad case of wry neck kept me from sleeping properly for a while in
August. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:wry" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:serial">
<p>As it turns out, serial connections work better when you use the
right pins for TX and RX! <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:serial" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Montreal's Debian & Stuff - June 20222022-06-22T00:00:00-04:002022-06-22T00:00:00-04:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2022-06-22:/montreals-debian-stuff-june-2022.html<p>As planned, we held our second local Debian meeting of the year last Sunday. We
met at the lovely <a href="https://easternbloc.ca/">Eastern Bloc</a> (an artists' hacklab) to work on Debian
(and other stuff!), chat and socialise.</p>
<p>Although there were fewer people than at our last meeting<sup id="fnref:less"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:less">1</a></sup>, we still did
a lot …</p><p>As planned, we held our second local Debian meeting of the year last Sunday. We
met at the lovely <a href="https://easternbloc.ca/">Eastern Bloc</a> (an artists' hacklab) to work on Debian
(and other stuff!), chat and socialise.</p>
<p>Although there were fewer people than at our last meeting<sup id="fnref:less"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:less">1</a></sup>, we still did
a lot of work!</p>
<p>I worked on fixing a bunch of bugs in Clojure packages<sup id="fnref:bugs"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:bugs">2</a></sup>, LeLutin worked
on <code>podman</code> and packaged <code>libinfluxdb-http-perl</code> and anarcat worked on
<code>internetarchive</code>, <code>trocla</code> and <code>moneta</code>. Olivier also came by and worked on
debugging his Kali install.</p>
<p>We are planning to have our next meeting at the end of August. If you are
interested, the best way to stay in touch is either to <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-dug-quebec/">subscribe to our
mailing list</a> or to join our IRC channel (#debian-quebec on OFTC). Events
are also posted on Quebec's <a href="https://agendadulibre.qc.ca/tags/debian-qu%C3%A9bec">Agenda du libre</a>.</p>
<p>Many thanks to Debian for providing us a budget to rent the venue for the day
and for the pizza! Here is a nice picture anarcat took of (one of) the glasses
of porter we had afterwards, at the next door brewery:</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2022-06-22/porter.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="A glass of English Porter from Silo Brewery" alt="A glass of English Porter from Silo Brewery"></p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr>
<ol>
<li id="fn:less">
<p>Summer meetings are always less populous and it also happened to be
Father's Day... <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:less" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:bugs">
<p><a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1012824">#1012824</a>, <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1011856">#1011856</a>, <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1011837">#1011837</a>, <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1011844">#1011844</a>, <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1011864">#1011864</a>
and <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1011967">#1011967</a>. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:bugs" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Montreal's Debian & Stuff - April 20222022-04-28T00:00:00-04:002022-04-28T00:00:00-04:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2022-04-28:/montreals-debian-stuff-april-2022.html<p>After two long years of COVID hiatus, local Debian events in Montreal are back!
Last Sunday, nine of us met at <a href="https://www.koumbit.org/en">Koumbit</a> to work on Debian (and other stuff!),
chat and socialise.</p>
<p>Even though these events aren't always the most productive, it was super fun
and definitely helps keeping me …</p><p>After two long years of COVID hiatus, local Debian events in Montreal are back!
Last Sunday, nine of us met at <a href="https://www.koumbit.org/en">Koumbit</a> to work on Debian (and other stuff!),
chat and socialise.</p>
<p>Even though these events aren't always the most productive, it was super fun
and definitely helps keeping me motivated to work on Debian in my spare time.</p>
<p>Many thanks to Debian for providing us a budget to rent the venue for the day
and for the pizzas! Here are a few pictures I took during the event:</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2022-04-28/pizza.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="Pizza boxes on a wooden bench" alt="Pizza boxes on a wooden bench"></p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2022-04-28/board.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="Whiteboard listing TODO items for some of the participants" alt="Whiteboard listing TODO items for some of the participants"></p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2022-04-28/laptops.jpg" width="70%" style="margin-left:15%" title="A table with a bunch of laptops, and LeLutin :)" alt="A table with a bunch of laptops, and LeLutin :)"></p>
<p>If everything goes according to plan, our next meeting should be sometime in
June. If you are interested, the best way to stay in touch is either to
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-dug-quebec/">subscribe to our mailing list</a> or to join our IRC channel
(#debian-quebec on OFTC). Events are also posted on Quebec's <a href="https://agendadulibre.qc.ca/tags/debian-qu%C3%A9bec">Agenda du
libre</a>.</p>Montreal 2021 BSP2021-03-29T00:00:00-04:002021-03-29T00:00:00-04:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2021-03-29:/montreal-2021-bsp.html<p>Last weekend Debian Quebec <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2021/03/ca/Montreal">held a Bug Squashing Party</a> to try to fix some
bugs in the upcoming Debian Bullseye.</p>
<p>I wasn't convinced at first, but Tassia's contagious energy and willingness to
help organise the event eventually won me over. And — shockers! — it was
really fun.</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2021-03-29/group_photo.jpg" title="Group picture of the BSP attendees on Jitsi Meet" alt="Group picture of the BSP attendees on Jitsi Meet" height="80%" width="80%" style="margin-left: 10%;"></p>
<p>We fixed a couple …</p><p>Last weekend Debian Quebec <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2021/03/ca/Montreal">held a Bug Squashing Party</a> to try to fix some
bugs in the upcoming Debian Bullseye.</p>
<p>I wasn't convinced at first, but Tassia's contagious energy and willingness to
help organise the event eventually won me over. And — shockers! — it was
really fun.</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2021-03-29/group_photo.jpg" title="Group picture of the BSP attendees on Jitsi Meet" alt="Group picture of the BSP attendees on Jitsi Meet" height="80%" width="80%" style="margin-left: 10%;"></p>
<p>We fixed a couple of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=debian-release@lists.debian.org;tag=bsp-2021-03-ca-montreal">RC bugs</a>, held <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2021/03/ca/Montreal#Lightning_talks">lightning talks</a> and had a
virtual pizza party!</p>
<p>My lightning talk on autopkgtests was well received and a few people decided to
migrate to <code>sbuild</code> and <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/sbuild#Using_autopkgtest">enable autopkgtests</a> by default.</p>
<p>Sergio's talk on <a href="https://blog.sergiodj.net/2021/03/05/a-debuginfod-service-for-debian.html">debuginfod</a> was incredibly interesting. I'm not a C
programmer and the live demo made me understand how this service can help
making debugging C easier.</p>
<p>Jerome's talk on using Yubikeys to unlock LUKS encrypted drives was also very
good! It also served as a reminder that Yubico's product are much more
featureful and convenient to use than other Open Hardware/ Free Software
hardware tokens. Hopefully that will change as enterprises like Nitrokey and
Solokey mature.</p>
<p>This was my third BSP, crazy how time flies... With the Bullseye release closing
in, you should try to <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BSP#Upcoming_BSPs">join</a> or <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/HostingBSP">organise one</a>!</p>Montreal's Debian & Stuff - April 20192019-03-30T00:00:00-04:002019-03-30T00:00:00-04:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2019-03-30:/montreals-debian-stuff-april-2019.html<p>We had another Debian & Stuff in Montreal last weekend. Some people from the
local FOSS community wanted to gather and watch the <a href="https://libreplanet.org/2019/program/">LibrePlanet 2019</a>
livestream and we thought merging it with a D&S would be a good idea.</p>
<p>People came and went, but all in all around 10 people …</p><p>We had another Debian & Stuff in Montreal last weekend. Some people from the
local FOSS community wanted to gather and watch the <a href="https://libreplanet.org/2019/program/">LibrePlanet 2019</a>
livestream and we thought merging it with a D&S would be a good idea.</p>
<p>People came and went, but all in all around 10 people showed up and we had tons
of fun. I ended up hacking some more on my <a href="https://gitlab.com/shared-puppet-modules-group/tor/merge_requests/21">Tor Puppet module</a> and played
around with <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/debian/firmware-tomu">packaging the Tomu's bootloader in Debian</a>.</p>
<p>Some of the talks were really great. The videos aren't online yet, but if you
eventually want to watch some of them, Tarek Loubani's opening keynote on FOSS
and medical devices in Gaza was amazing (and hard to watch<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1">1</a></sup>). I also really
enjoyed Shauna Gordon-McKeon's talk on governing the software commons.</p>
<p>Thanks to the folks at <a href="https://www.koumbit.org/en">Koumbit</a> for hosting us!</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>Amongst other things, he played videos of Israeli soldiers cheerfully
sniping civilians, showed multiple pictures of kids loosing limbs and
told us how a fellow doctor he was working with got pinned down and killed
by sniper rounds fired by the IDF while trying to rescue injured civilians. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>A Cold BSP2019-01-23T00:00:00-05:002019-01-23T00:00:00-05:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2019-01-23:/a-cold-bsp.html<p>Some people really dislike winter, but it's a season I've always enjoyed. I like
cold weather and I would take snow over rain any day. That said, I have my
limits too; the weather in Montréal last weekend was downright extreme. Weather
forecast said it was the first time in …</p><p>Some people really dislike winter, but it's a season I've always enjoyed. I like
cold weather and I would take snow over rain any day. That said, I have my
limits too; the weather in Montréal last weekend was downright extreme. Weather
forecast said it was the first time in a hundred years we had a violent snow
storm <em>and</em> temperatures under -20°C at the same time. With the wind, the
apparent temperature was around -35°C. Brrrr...</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2019-01-23-2/window.jpg" title="Sunday morning weather" alt="Sunday morning weather" height="80%" width="80%" style="margin-left: 10%;"></p>
<p>Sadly for us, the <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2019/01/ca/Montreal">Montreal Bug Squashing Party</a> was also taking place that
weekend. I have to say I was worried people wouldn't show up, but we ended up
being fourteen on Saturday and eight on Sunday!</p>
<p>On Saturday morning, I arrived pretty early, bootstrapped networking and
installed an <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AptCacherNg">apt proxy</a>. Turns out it's surprisingly easy to setup.
<a href="https://anarc.at">Anarcat</a> then gave a quick "BSP 101" workshop and we started to work
on fixing bugs.</p>
<p>On Sunday Anarcat gave another workshop, <a href="https://deb.li/quickdev">"Packaging 101"</a> this time.
Even though I've been there the last 3 times he gave that workshop, it was the
first time I had time to attend it. Debian packaging is now much clearer for me!</p>
<p>All and all, we did some pretty good work and closed a <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=debian-release@lists.debian.org;tag=bsp-2019-01-ca-montreal">bunch of bugs</a>.
I even updated a package to a new version (my very first upload in Debian)!</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2019-01-23-2/table.jpg" title="Some of the attendees of the Mtl BSP" alt="Some of the attendees of the Mtl BSP" height="80%" width="80%" style="margin-left: 10%;"></p>
<p>So yeah, BSPs are fun! With the Buster release closing in, you should try to
<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BSP#Upcoming_BSPs">join</a> or <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/HostingBSP">organise one</a>!</p>
<p>Many thanks to the fabulous people at <a href="https://easternbloc.ca/en">Eastern Bloc</a> and to the Debian
project for feeding us!</p>Montreal Bug Squashing Party - Jan 19th & 20th 20192018-12-12T00:00:00-05:002018-12-12T00:00:00-05:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2018-12-12:/montreal-bug-squashing-party-jan-19th-20th-2019.html<p>We are <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2019/01/ca/Montreal">organising a BSP in Montréal</a> in January! Unlike the one we
organised for the Stretch release, this one will be over a whole weekend so
hopefully folks from other provinces in Canada and from the USA can come.</p>
<p>So yeah, come and squash bugs with us! Montreal in …</p><p>We are <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2019/01/ca/Montreal">organising a BSP in Montréal</a> in January! Unlike the one we
organised for the Stretch release, this one will be over a whole weekend so
hopefully folks from other provinces in Canada and from the USA can come.</p>
<p>So yeah, come and squash bugs with us! Montreal in January can be cold, but it's
usually snowy and beautiful too.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/34920308@N07/7019407121"><img src="/media/blog/2018-12-12/winter.jpg" title="A picture of Montréal during the winter" alt="A picture of Montréal during the winter" height="80%" width="80%" style="margin-left: 10%;"></a></p>
<p>As always, the Debian Project is <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2018/06/msg00006.html">willing to reimburse 100 USD</a> (or
equivalent) of expenses to attend Bug Squashing Parties. If you can find a cheap
flight or want to car pool with other people that are interested, going to
Montréal for a weekend doesn't sound that bad, eh?</p>
<p><strong>When</strong>: January 19th and 20th 2019</p>
<p><strong>Where</strong>: Montréal, <a href="https://easternbloc.ca/en">Eastern Bloc</a></p>
<p><strong>Why</strong>: to squash bugs!</p>Montreal's Debian & Stuff - November 20182018-11-02T00:00:00-04:002018-11-02T00:00:00-04:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2018-11-02:/montreals-debian-stuff-november-2018.html<p><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/misteraitch/2813709023/in/album-72157604111703975/"><img src="/media/blog/2018-11-02/wet_kitten.jpg" title="Wet Kitten" alt="Wet Kitten" height="30%" width="30%" style="float:right"></a></p>
<pre>
November's wet,
My socks are too,
Away from keyboard; still on the net,
Let's fix /usr/bin/$foo.
</pre>
<p>November can be a hard month in the Northen Hemisphere. It tends to be dark,
rainy and cold. Montreal sure has been dark, rainy and cold lately.</p>
<p>That's why you should join …</p><p><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/misteraitch/2813709023/in/album-72157604111703975/"><img src="/media/blog/2018-11-02/wet_kitten.jpg" title="Wet Kitten" alt="Wet Kitten" height="30%" width="30%" style="float:right"></a></p>
<pre>
November's wet,
My socks are too,
Away from keyboard; still on the net,
Let's fix /usr/bin/$foo.
</pre>
<p>November can be a hard month in the Northen Hemisphere. It tends to be dark,
rainy and cold. Montreal sure has been dark, rainy and cold lately.</p>
<p>That's why you should join us at our next Debian & Stuff later this month. Come
by and work on Debian-related stuff - or not! Hanging out and chatting with
folks is also perfectly fine. As always, everyone's welcome.</p>
<p>The date hasn't been decided yet, so be sure to fill out <a href="http://deb.li/3Gg8M">this poll</a>
before November 10th. This time we'll be hanging out at <a href="https://www.koumbit.org/en/content/contact">Koumbit</a>.</p>
<p>What else can I say; if not for the good company, the bad poutine from the
potato shack next door or the nice craft beer from the very hipster beer shop a
little bit further down the street, you should drop by to keep November from
creeping in too far.</p>Montreal's Debian & Stuff - August 20182018-08-18T00:00:00-04:002018-08-18T00:00:00-04:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2018-08-18:/montreals-debian-stuff-august-2018.html<p>Summer is slowly coming to an end in Montreal and as much as I would like it to
last another month, I'm also glad to <em>fall</em> back into my regular routine.</p>
<p>Part of that routine means the return of Montreal's Debian & Stuff - our
informal gathering of the local Debian community …</p><p>Summer is slowly coming to an end in Montreal and as much as I would like it to
last another month, I'm also glad to <em>fall</em> back into my regular routine.</p>
<p>Part of that routine means the return of Montreal's Debian & Stuff - our
informal gathering of the local Debian community!</p>
<p>If you are in Montreal on August 26th, come and say hi: everyone's welcome!</p>
<p>Some of us plan to work on specific stuff (I want to show people how nice the
<a href="/i-am-tomu.html">Tomu boards</a> I got are) - but hanging out and having a drink is also a
perfectly reasonable option.</p>
<p>Here's a link to the <a href="https://agendadulibre.qc.ca/events/1876">event's page</a>.</p>Montreal's Debian & Stuff June Edition2018-06-27T00:00:00-04:002018-06-27T00:00:00-04:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2018-06-27:/montreals-debian-stuff-june-edition.html<p>Hello world!</p>
<p>This is me inviting you to the next Montreal Debian & Stuff. This one will take
place at <a href="https://koumbit.org">Koumbit</a>'s offices in Montreal on June 30th from 10:00 to 17:00 EST.</p>
<p>The idea behind 'Debian & Stuff' is to have an informal gatherings of the
local Debian community …</p><p>Hello world!</p>
<p>This is me inviting you to the next Montreal Debian & Stuff. This one will take
place at <a href="https://koumbit.org">Koumbit</a>'s offices in Montreal on June 30th from 10:00 to 17:00 EST.</p>
<p>The idea behind 'Debian & Stuff' is to have an informal gatherings of the
local Debian community to work on Debian-related stuff - or not. Everyone is
welcome to drop by and chat with us, hack on a nice project or just hang out!</p>
<p>We've been trying to have monthly meetings of the Debian community in Montreal
<a href="https://veronneau.org/debian-stuff-montreal-debian-meeting.html">since April</a>, so this will be the third event in a row.</p>
<p>Chances are we'll take a break in July because of <a href="https://debconf18.debconf.org">DebConf</a>, but I hope
this will become a regular thing!</p>Debian & Stuff -- Montreal Debian Meeting2018-04-07T00:00:00-04:002018-04-07T00:00:00-04:00Louis-Philippe Véronneautag:veronneau.org,2018-04-07:/debian-stuff-montreal-debian-meeting.html<p>Today we had a meeting of the local Montreal Debian group. The last meetings we
had were centered on working on finishing the DebConf17 final report and some
people told us they didn't feel welcome because they weren't part of the
organisation of the conference.</p>
<p>I thus decided to call …</p><p>Today we had a meeting of the local Montreal Debian group. The last meetings we
had were centered on working on finishing the DebConf17 final report and some
people told us they didn't feel welcome because they weren't part of the
organisation of the conference.</p>
<p>I thus decided to call today's event "Debian & Stuff" and invite people to come
hack with us on diverse Debian related projects. Most of the people who came
were part of the DC17 local team, but a few other people came anyway and we all
had a great time. Someone even came from Ottawa to learn how to compile the
Linux kernel!</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2018-04-07/pizza.jpg" title="The yummy pizzas we ate for lunch" alt="The yummy pizzas we ate for lunch" height="30%" width="30%" style="float:right"></p>
<p>We held the meeting at the <a href="https://foulab.org/">Foulab hackerspace</a>, one of the first
hackerspaces in Canada. It's in the western part of Montreal, so I had never
been there before, but I had heard great things about it.</p>
<p>The space is so cool we had a lot of trouble staying concentrated on the
projects we were working on: they brew beer locally, they have a bunch of
incredible hardware projects, they run a computer museum, their door is opened
remotely using SSH keys ... I could go on and on. If I had more time, I would
definitely become a member.</p>
<video src="https://veronneau.org/media/blog/2018-04-07/foulab.mp4" title="Enter the Foulab" alt="Enter the Foulab" preload autoplay loop></video>
<p>We managed to do a lot of work on the final report and if everything goes well,
we should be able to finish the report during our next meeting.</p>
<p><img src="/media/blog/2018-04-07/group_picture.jpg" title="Group picture" alt="Group picture" height="30%" width="30%"></p>