Last friday, a group of Debian users, developers and enthusiasts met at
[Koumbit.org](
https://koumbit.org) offices for a [bug squashing
party](
https://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2017/04/ca/Montreal). We were about a dozen
people of various levels: developers, hackers and users.
I gave a quick overview of Debian packaging using my [quick development
guide](
https://anarc.at/software/debian-development/), which proved to be
pretty useful. I made a [deb.li](
https://deb.li/) link
(<
https://deb.li/quickdev>) for people to be able to easily find the guide on
their computers.
Then I started going through a list of different programs used to do Debian
packaging, to try and see the level of the people attending:
* `apt-get install` \- everyone knew about it
* `apt-get source` \- everyone paying attention
* `dget` \- only 1 knew about it
* `dch` \- 1
* `quilt` \- about 2
* `apt-get build-dep` \- 1
* `dpkg-buildpackage` \- only 3 people
* `git-buildpackage` / `gitpkg` \- 1
* `sbuild` / `pbuilder`
* `dput` \- 1
* `rmadison` \- 0 (the other DD wasn't paying attention anymore)
So mostly skilled Debian users (they know `apt-get source`) but not used to
packaging (they don't know about `dpkg-buildpackage`). So I went through the
list again and explained how they all fit together and could be used to work
on Debian packages in the context of a Debian release bug squashing party.
This was the fastest crash course in Debian packaging I have ever given (and
probably the first too) - going through those tools in about 30 minutes. I was
happy to have the guide that people could refer to later in the back.
The first question after the presentation was "how do we find bugs"? which led
me to add links to the [UDD bugs page](
https://udd.debian.org/bugs/) and
[release-critical bugs page](
https://bugs.debian.org/release-critical). I also
explained the key links on top of the UDD page to find specific sets of bugs,
and explained the useful "patch" filter that allows to select bugs with our
without patch.
I guess that maybe half of the people were able to learn new, or improve their
skills to make significant contributions. Other learned how to hunt and triage
bugs in the [BTS](
https://bugs.debian.org).
I myself learned how to use `sbuild` thanks to the excellent [sbuild wiki
page](
https://wiki.debian.org/sbuild) which I improved upon. A friend was able
to pick up sbuild very quickly and use it to build a package for stretch,
which I find encouraging: my first experience with `pbuilder` was definitely
not as good. I have therefore starting the process of switching my build
chroots to `sbuild`, which didn't go so well on Jessie because I use a
backported kernel, and had to use the backported `sbuild` as well. That
required a lot of poking around, so I ended up just using `pbuilder` for now,
but I will definitely switch on my home machine, and I updated the sbuild wiki
page to give out more explanations on how to setup pbuilder.
We worked on a bunch of bugs, and learned how to tag them as part of the BSP,
which was documented in the [BSP wiki
page](
https://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2017/04/ca/Montreal). It seems we have
worked on about [11 different bugs](
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-
bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=debian-release@???;tag=bsp-2017-04-ca-
montreal) which is a better average than the last BSP that I organized, so I'm
pretty happy with that.
More importantly, we got Debian people together to meet and talk, over
delicious pizza, thanks to a sponsorship granted by the
[DPL](
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianProjectLeader). Some people got involved
in the [next DebConf](
https://debconf17.debconf.org/) which is also great.
On top of fixing bugs and getting people involved in Debian, my third goal was
to have fun, and fun we certainly had. I didn't work on as many bugs as I
expected myself, achieving only one upload in the end, but since I was
answering so many questions left and right, I felt useful and that is
certainly gratifying. Organization was simple enough: just get a place, send
invites and get food, and the rest is just sharing knowledge and answering
questions.
Thanks everyone for coming, and let's do this again soon!
URL:
http://anarc.at/blog/2017-04-09-montreal-bsp-report/
--
intrigeri
