Tag Archive

Kubuntu, KDE, Debian: I am still here, in loving memory of my brother.

Posted on June 5, 2024 by sgmoore

I am still here, busy as ever, I just haven’t found the inspiration to blog. So soon after the loss of my son, I have lost my only brother a couple weeks ago. It has been a tough year for our family. Thank you everyone for you love and support during this difficult time. I will do my best in re-capping my work, there has been quite a bit as I am “keeping busy with work” so I don’t dwell to much on the sadness.

KDE Snaps:

Trying to debug the unable to save files breakage in the latest Krita builds without luck.

KisOpenGLCanvas
Renderer::reportFailedShaderCompilation\[0m: Shad
er Compilation Failure:  "Failed to add vertex sh
ader source from file: matrix_transform.vert - Ca
use: "

I have implemented everything from https://snapcraft.io/docs/gpu-support , it has worked for years and now suddenly it just stopped. I have had to put it on hold for now, it is unpaid work and I simply don’t have time.

With the help of my GSOC student we are improving the Qt6 snap MR: https://invent.kde.org/neon/snap-packaging/kde-qt6-core-sdk/-/merge_requests/3 and many improvements on top of that. This exposed many issues with the kf6 snap and the linking to static libs. Those are being worked on now.

Updated qt to 6.7.1

Qt6 apps in the works: okular, ark, gwenview, kwrited, elisa

Kubuntu:

So many SRu’s for the Noble release, I will probably miss a few.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ark/+bug/2068491 Ark cannot open 7-zip files. Sadly the patches were for qt6, waiting for a qt5 port upstream.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/noble/+source/merkuro/+bug/2065063 Crash due to missing qml. Fix is in git, no upload rights. Requested sponsor.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tellico/+bug/2065915 Several applications no longer work on architectures that are not amd64 due to hard coded paths. All fixed in git. Several uploaded to oracular, several sponsorship has been requested. Noble updates rejected despite SRU, going to retry.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sddm/+bug/2066275 The dreaded black screen on second boot bug is fixed in git and oracular. Noble was rejected despite the SRU. Will retry.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kubuntu-meta/+bug/2066028 Broken systray submenus. Fixed in git and oracular. Noble rejected despite SRU. Will retry.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/plasma-workspace/+bug/2067747 Long standing bug with plasma not loading with lightdm. Fixed in git and oracular. Noble rejected… will retry.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/plasma-workspace/+bug/2067742 CVE-2024-36041Fixed in git and oracular, noble rejected, will retry.

And many more…

I am applying for MOTU in hopes it will reduce all of my uploading issues. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/scarlettmoore/MOTUApplication

Debian:

kf6-knotifications and kapidox. Will jump into Plasma 6 next week !

Misc:

Went to LinuxFest Northwest with Valorie! We had a great time and it was a huge success, we had many people stop by our booth.

As usual, if you like my work and want to see Plasma 6 in Kubuntu it all depends on you!

Kubuntu will be out of funds soon and needs donations! Thank you for your consideration.

https://kubuntu.org/donate/

Personal:

Support for my grandson: https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-loving-memory-of-william-billy-dean-scalf

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Kubuntu, KDE Report. In Loving Memory of my Son.

Posted on March 28, 2024 by sgmoore

Billy and Mason

Personal:

As many of you know, I lost my beloved son March 9th. This has hit me really hard, but I am staying strong and holding on to all the wonderful memories I have. He grew up to be an amazing man, devoted christian and wonderful father. He was loved by everyone who knew him and will be truly missed by us all. I have had folks ask me how they can help. He left behind his 7 year old son Mason. Mason was Billy’s world and I would like to make sure Mason is taken care of. I have set up a gofundme for Mason and all proceeds will go to the future care of him.

https://gofund.me/25dbff0c

Work report

Kubuntu:

Bug bashing! I am triaging allthebugs for Plasma which can be seen here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/plasma-5.27/+bug/2053125

I am happy to report many of the remaining bugs have been fixed in the latest bug fix release 5.27.11.

I prepared https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/5/5.27.11/ and Rik uploaded to archive, thank you. Unfortunately, this and several other key fixes are stuck in transition do to the time_t64 transition, which you can read about here: https://wiki.debian.org/ReleaseGoals/64bit-time . It is the biggest transition in Debian/Ubuntu history and it couldn’t come at a worst time. We are aware our ISO installer is currently broken, calamares is one of those things stuck in this transition. There is a workaround in the comments of the bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/calamares/+bug/2054795

Fixed an issue with plasma-welcome.

Found the fix for emojis and Aaron has kindly moved this forward with the fontconfig maintainer. Thanks!

I have received an https://kfocus.org/spec/spec-ir14.html laptop and it is truly a great machine and is now my daily driver. A big thank you to the Kfocus team! I can’t wait to show it off at https://linuxfestnorthwest.org/.

KDE Snaps:

You will see the activity in this ramp back up as the KDEneon Core project is finally a go! I will participate in the project with part time status and get everyone in the Enokia team up to speed with my snap knowledge, help prepare the qt6/kf6 transition, package plasma, and most importantly I will focus on documentation for future contributors.

I have created the ( now split ) qt6 with KDE patchset support and KDE frameworks 6 SDK and runtime snaps. I have made the kde-neon-6 extension and the PR is in: https://github.com/canonical/snapcraft/pull/4698 . Future work on the extension will include multiple versions track support and core24 support.

I have successfully created our first qt6/kf6 snap ark. They will show showing up in the store once all the required bits have been merged and published.

Thank you for stopping by.

~Scarlett

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Kubuntu: Week 4, Feature Freeze and what comes next.

Posted on March 1, 2024 by sgmoore

First I would like to give a big congratulations to KDE for a superb KDE 6 mega release 🙂 While we couldn’t go with 6 on our upcoming LTS release, I do recommend KDE neon if you want to give it a try! I want to say it again, I firmly stand by the Kubuntu Council in the decision to stay with the rock solid Plasma 5 for the 24.04 LTS release. The timing was just to close to feature freeze and the last time we went with the shiny new stuff on an LTS release, it was a nightmare ( KDE 4 anyone? ). So without further ado, my weekly wrap-up.

Kubuntu:

Continuing efforts from last week Kubuntu: Week 3 wrap up, Contest! KDE snaps, Debian uploads. , it has been another wild and crazy week getting everything in before feature freeze yesterday. We will still be uploading the upcoming Plasma 5.27.11 as it is a bug fix release 🙂 and right now it is all about the finding and fixing bugs! Aside from many uploads my accomplishments this week are:

  • Kept a close eye on Excuses and fixed tests as needed. Seems riscv64 tests were turned off by default which broke several of our builds.
  • I did a complete revamp of our seed / kubuntu-desktop meta package! I have ensured we are following KDE packaging recommendations. Unfortunately, we cannot ship maliit-keyboard as we get hit by LP 2039721 which makes for an unpleasant experience.
  • I did some more work on our custom plasma-welcome which now just needs some branding, which leads to a friendly reminder the contest is still open! https://kubuntu.org/news/kubuntu-graphic-design-contest/
  • Bug triage! Oh so many bugs! From back when I worked on Kubuntu 10 years ago and plasma5 was new.. I am triaging and reducing this list to more recent bugs ( which is a much smaller list ). This reaffirms our decision to go with a rock solid stable Plasma5 for this LTS release.
  • I spent some time debugging kio-gdrive which no longer works ( It works in Jammy ) so I am tracking down what is broken. I thought it was 2FA but my non 2FA doesn’t work either, it just repeatedly throws up the google auth dialog. So this is still a WIP. It was suggested to me to disable online accounts all together, but I would prefer to give users the full experience.
  • Fixed our ISO builds. We are still not quite ready for testers as we have some Calamares fixes in the pipeline. Be on the lookout for a call for testers soon 🙂
  • Wrote a script to update our ( Kubuntu ) packageset to cover all the new packages accumulated over the years and remove packages that are defunct / removed.

What comes next? Testing, testing, testing! Bug fixes and of course our re-branding. My focus is on bug triage right now. I am also working on new projects in launchpad to easily track our bugs as right now they are all over the place and hard to track down.

Snaps:

I have started the MRs to fix our latest 23.08.5 snaps, I hope to get these finished in the next week or so. I have also been speaking to a prospective student with some GSOC ideas that I really like and will mentor, hopefully we are not too late.

Happy with my work? My continued employment depends on you! Please consider a donation http://kubuntu.org/donate

Thank you!

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KDE: Snaps, KDEneon, Debian and my future.

Posted on December 15, 2023 by sgmoore

First I want to thank KDE for this wonderful write up on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kde_akademy-2023-over-a-million-reasons-why-activity-7139965489153208320-PNem?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop It made my heart explode with happiness as I prepped for my interview on Monday. I didn’t get the job ( Just the usual “we were very impressed with your experience, but we went with another candidate” ). I think the cosmos is determined for me to hold out for the ‘project’ even though it is only part time work, it is work and if I have learned nothing else this year, I have learned how to live on a very tight budget! It turns out many of the things we think we need, we don’t. So with hard work of Kevin Ottens ( Thank you!!!! ), this should be finalized after the first of the year. This plan also allows me time for KDEneon and Debian work. I am happy with it and look forward to the coming year and the exciting things to come.

My holiday plans are to help the Debian KDE team with the KF6 packaging, On-going KDEneon efforts, and continue to make sure the snaps Qt6 transition is a painless as possible. I will also be working on the qt6 kde-neon extension.

In closing, despite my terrible luck with job-hunting, I am in an amazing community and I am truly grateful to each and every one of you. It has been a great year and I have added many new things to my skillset and I look forward to many more next year.

As usual, it is that time of month where I have not raised enough to pay my internet bill ( phone company taking an extra 200.00 didn’t help ) If you can spare any change ( any amount helps! ) please consider a donation https://gofund.me/b74e4c6f Thank you!

I hope everyone has a wonderful <insert your holiday here> !!!!!

~ Scarlett

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KDE: KDE Snaps 23.08.4, PIM! KDE neon, Debian

Posted on December 10, 2023 by sgmoore

KDE PIM Kaddressbook snap
KDE PIM Kaddressbook snap

KDE Snaps:

This weeks big accomplishment is KDE PIM snaps! I have successfully added akonadi as a service via an akonadi content snap and running it as a service. Kaddressbook is our first PIM snap with this setup and it works flawlessly! It is available in the snap store. I have a pile of MRs awaiting approvals, so keep your eye out for the rest of PIM in the next day.

KDE Applications 23.08.4 has been released and available in the snap store.

Krita 5.2.2 has been released.

I have created a new kde-qt6 snap as the qt-framework snap has not been updated and the maintainer is unreachable. It is in edge and I will be rebuilding our kf6 snap with this one.

I am debugging an issue with the latest Labplot release.

KDE neon:

This week I helped with frameworks release 5.113 and KDE applications 23.08.4.

I also worked on the ongoing Unstable turning red into green builds as the porting to qt6 continues.

Debian:

With my on going learning packaging for all the programming languages, Rust packaging: I started on Rustic https://github.com/rustic-rs/rustic unfortunately, it was a bit of wasted time as it depends on a feature of tracing-subcriber that depends on matchers which has a grave bug, so it remains disabled.

Personal:

I do have an interview tomorrow! And it looks like the ‘project’ may go through after the new year. So things are looking up, unfortunately I must still ask, if you have any spare change please consider a donation. The phone company decided to take an extra $200.00 I didn’t have to spare and while I resolved it, they refused a refund, but gave me a credit to next months bill, which doesn’t help me now. Thank you for your consideration.

https://gofund.me/b74e4c6f

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KDE neon and snaps, Debian Weekly report.

Posted on December 1, 2023 by sgmoore

While the winter sets in, I have been mostly busy following up on job leads and applying to anything and everything. Something has to stick… I am trying! Even out of industry.

Debian:

This weeks main focus was getting involved and familiar with Debian rust-packaging. It is really quite different from other teams! I was successful and the MR is https://salsa.debian.org/rust-team/debcargo-conf/-/merge_requests/566 if anyone on the rust team can take a gander, I will upload when merged. I will get a few more under my belt next week now that I understand the process.

KDE neon:

Unfortunately, I did not have much time for neon, but I did get some red builds fixed and started uploading the new signing key for mauikit* applications.

KDE snaps:

A big thank you to Josh and Albert for merging all my MR’s and I have finished 23.08.3 releases to stable.

I released a new Krita 5.2.1 with some runtime fixes, please update.

Still no source of income so I must ask, if you have any spare change, please consider a donation.

Thank you, Scarlett

https://gofund.me/b74e4c6f

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A Season to be Thankful, Thank You!

Posted on November 22, 2023 by sgmoore

Thank you

Here in the US, we celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow. I am thankful to be a part of such an amazing community. I have raised enough to manage another month and I can continue my job search in less dire circumstances. I am truly grateful to each and every one of you. While my focus will remain on my job hunt, I will be back next week at reduced hours to maintain my work. I have to alter my priorities to keep my hours reduced enough to focus on my job search so I will be contributing as follows:

  • I will ramp up my Debian work to increase my skillset here, as it is an important skill and one that I am seeking employment in. I will be increasing the areas of expertise in packaging different languages, security updates and help the KDE team with the Qt6 transition.
  • I will continue to help where I can with KDE neon, because well, I love KDE neon and our team. If time allows, I would like to help with moving forward with Harald’s initial work to transition us to use Gitlab infrastructure. It will be a big move from Jenkins.
  • Snaps: I will only support our Qt5 snaps at this point. That entails possibly one more release and I will maintain / fix bugs on these. Snaps have been a huge chunk of my time ( 191 snaps! plus content packs, extensions, updates, fixes, solving confinement issues ). I simply cannot do it all over again with Qt6. Unless of course someone wants to fund my work. Then I will reconsider.
  • I am also going to expand my knowledge in the containerized world with Flatpaks and refresher on Appimages to flesh out my resume.

Again, thank you all ever so much for your support. Though, this didn’t end up being my year, I am confident I will find my place in this career path in the near future.

I could still use some funds to make land and car payment or at least partial. We purchased from friends so they won’t take away my wheels or home, I just feel bad I haven’t been able to make payments in awhile. Thanks for your consideration.

https://gofund.me/f9f0fb53

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Farewell for now, again.

Posted on November 15, 2023 by sgmoore

I write this with a heavy heart. Exactly one year ago I lost my beloved job. That was all me, I had a terrible run of bad luck with COVID and I never caught up. In the last year, I have taken on several new projects to re-create a new image for myself and to make up for the previous year, and I believe I worked very hard in doing so. Unfortunately, my seemingly good interviews have not ended in a job. One potential job I did not put as much effort into as I should have because I put all my cards into a project that didn’t quite turn out as expected. I do hope it still goes through for the KDE community as a whole, because well it is really cool, but it isn’t the job I thought. I have been relying purely on donations for survival and it simply isn’t enough. I am faced once again with no internet to even do my open source work ( Snaps, KDE neon, Debian and everything that links to those ). I simply can’t put the burden of my stubbornness on my family any longer. Bills are long over due, we have learned to live without many things, but the stress of essential bills, living expenses going unpaid is simply too much. I do thank each and every one of you that has contributed to my fundraisers. It means the world to me that people do care. It just isn’t enough. So with the sunset of Witch Wells, I am sun setting my software career for now and will be looking for something, anything local just to pay some bills, calm our nerves and hopefully find some happiness again. I am tired, broke, stressed out and burned out. I will be back when I can breathe again with my finances.

If you can spare some changes to help with gas, propane, internet I would be so ever grateful.

So long for now.

~ Scarlett

https://gofund.me/1346869d

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KDE: Krita 5.2.1 Snap! KDE Gear 23.08.3 Snaps and KDE neon release

Posted on November 10, 2023 by sgmoore

Krita 5.2.1
Krita 5.2.1

Today https://kde.org/announcements/gear/23.08.3/ !

I have finished all the snaps and have released to stable channel, if the snap you are looking for hasn’t arrived yet, there is an MR open and it will be soon!

I have finished all the applications in KDE neon and they are available in Unstable and I am snapshotting User edition and they will be available shortly.

Krita 5.2.1 Snap is complete and released to stable channel!

Enjoy!

I fixed some issues with a few of our –classic snaps, namely in Wayland sessions by bundling some missing wayland Qt libs. They should no longer go BOOM upon launch.

KF6 SDK snap is complete. Next freetime I will work on runtime and launcher.

Down to the last part on the akonadi snap build so PIM snaps are coming soon.

Personal:

As many of you know, I have been out of proper employment for a year now. I had a hopeful project in the works, but it is out of my hands now and the new project holder was only allowed to give me part time and it is still not in stone with further delays. I understand that these things take time and refinement to go through. I have put myself and my family in dire straights with my stubbornness and need to re-evaluate my priorities. I enjoy doing this work very much, but I also need to pay some very over due bills and well life costs money. With that said, I hope to have an interview next week with a local hospital that needs a Linux Administrator. Who knew someone in nowhere Arizona would have a Linux shop! Anyway, I will be going back to my grass roots, network administration is where I started way back in 1996. I will still be around! Just not at the level I am now obviously. I will still be in the project if they allow, I need 2 jobs to clean up this mess I have made for myself. In my spare time I will of course keep up with Debian and KDE neon and Snaps!

If you can spare any change to help with my gas for interview and 45 minute commute till I get a paycheck I would be super grateful. Hopefully I won’t have to ask for much longer. Thank you so much to everyone that has helped over the last year, it means the world to me.

https://gofund.me/b8b69e54

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KDE: Big fixes for Snaps! Debian and KDE neon updates.

Posted on November 3, 2023 by sgmoore

KDE Snap Marble

A big thank you goes to my parents this week for contributing to my survival fund. With that I was able to make a big push on fixing some outstanding issues on some of our snaps.

  • Marble! Now shows all maps and finds its plugins properly.
  • Neochat: A significant fix regarding libsecret in which left users with endless loading screen because it could not authenticate. Bug https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=473003 This actually affected any app in KDE that uses libsecret… KDE desktops do not ship with gnome-keyring, so this is why sometimes installing it would fix the issue ( if the portals were installed and working correctly AND XDG variables were set correctly). In most cases it works out of the box. In some cases, you must install gnome-keychain via apt and reinstall neochat to setup a new account and it will then prompt to save to keyring. If you are a KDE desktop user and wish to use Kwallet you can sudo snap connect neochat:password-manager-service :password-manager-service , my next order of business is to set up kwallet as a service inside the snaps. Should funding allow.

KDE neon:

No major blowups this week. Worked out issues with kmail-account-wizard thanks to David R! This is now in the hands of upstream ( porting not complete )

Worked on more orange -> green packaging fixes.

Debian:

Fixed bug https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1054713 in squashfuse

Thanks for stopping by. Please help fund my efforts!

Donate

https://gofund.me/b8b69e54

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