#!/bin/bash
CVT=$(cvt $1 $2)
if [ -n "$3" ]
then
DISPLAYNR=$3
else
DISPLAYNR=”VGA1″
fi
xrandr –newmode ${CVT:78}
xrandr –addmode $DISPLAYNR ${CVT:78:17}
xrandr –output $DISPLAYNR –mode ${CVT:78:17}

Just put this code in a file, and make it executable (chmod +x [[file]]). Then run it like this (if the filename is ‘screenreso’):

# ./screenreso 1920 1200 VGA1

where ‘VGA1′ is optionally, the script defaults to VGA1

And as always, Fedora people will visit fosdem with great quantities. So I’m putting a lot of effort in making this the best Fosdem for Fedora people ever. I hear you thinking, how can this event become even better? Well, I try to provide activities for Fedora people every evening.

An overview:

• friday: Fad, dinner, beer event
• Saturday evening: Tour through Brussels
• Sunday evening: Super Bowl game @ fatboys (sadly, only 10 people can join)

If you are planning to come, be sure to check the Fedora wiki , and the Fosdem website.

I arrived in Milan on Friday. In Zurich someone came to me with the question if I was going to FUDcon too. It’s always nice to get to know new people and to talk to people with the samen interests. I was a bit confused because I thought there would already be something happening that day. Conference wise I mean. So we tried to figure out how to get in the hotel. After asking a couple of time the directions, and take a detour of some kilometers -*G*, Italians – we finally found the hoteel where we found some people already worried. After getting refreshed we went to a coctailbar with quite a special – but succesful – business model. All drinks cost 10euro, even a cola, but the food was free. Of course most people bought more than one coctail, which made it an expensive meal. I guess you could say their business model is working . I went back to the hotel with John and his daughter, and hit the hay around 11pm. I didn’t know it yet, but it would become a night without a lot of sleep.

On Saturday I went to the breakfast room around 8am, where I met up with some other early birds. After havind a nice meal -but nothing special- we went by group to the venue. I was really surprised about what buildings I saw. I almost got the impression that Italy is a former communistic country. Some italians told me that it was the fault of our good friend Berlusconi. They claimed progress stopped some 20years ago. not long after Berlusconi became the president. Still, I don’t think I have ever seen such buildings – not even old buildings – in other western countries I already visited. Anyway, I was in Milan to attend FUDcon, not for sight seing. When we arrived at the venue we were welcomed by a whole team of young people providing us with a nicely made flyer, a badge and a T shirt. My only remark is that we started an hour late. And there was no ‘state of the union’ talk either. Despite those 2 little things, I really had a good day filled with well prepared talks. And I resolved a problem with my Fedora install -which was already latent for some months- together with some of the Brno Red Hat guys.
In the evening FUDcon happened. The pizza place we went to was like Pizza Hut, but then with pizza. And with beer glasses of 1 liter. I thought the pizza was pretty good – although I already had better. The real Italians thought it was really bad. I guess it’s all about perception. What i did see was some weird toppings. I mean, french fries on a pizza? What were they thinking?

Sunday, the last day of FUDcon, and the last day I was in italy there was a day of hacking. I had the impression a lot of people didn’t show up this last day. I guess sight seeing is somewhat more interesting. I know Kanarip did some good things with BKchem, and we had a good discussion with the Ambassador people where we disussed some of the troubles were having, with the possible solutions. Just like the day before we got a free lunch which was pretty nice.
Around 3.30pm I went to the subway, on my way to the central station. From there I had to take make a train ride from about 40minutes to the airport. Luckily I already checked in via the internet, else I would have missed the plane I think. Now I’m flying over the Alps, enjoying the view and writing this blog post.

cheers!

[edit]
After I landed in Brussels, I was totally happy. I helped some people out. I wanted to be home. but then, oh, then.. I came in Brussels South station, and almost all trains were delayed.also, the people behind me are making noise. to much noise. arch..

There are 2 ways to unmount a device when it’s busy.

1. the clean way:

# fuser -m /media/attached
/media/attached/:        1249c

ps auxw | grep 1249
bert      1249  0.2  0.3 1052124 30760 ?       Sl   Sep18   2:19 python /usr/bin/revelation

revelation is what is keeping you away from unmounting the drive. just kill it

2. the not so clean way

there is another easier way, which basicly just ditches the drive and then takes care of the problems afterwards.

umount -l /dev/sdc1

cheers

The Fedora Project creates a world where

• free culture is welcoming and widespread,
• collaboration is commonplace, and
• people control their content and devices.

I personally believe that this is  a good vision statement and no -or at least, not many- contributors disagree with it.

We also have 4 core values. Those are older than the vision statement, and every contributor should know them by heart. The 4 core values are also our foundations.

• Freedom “Sometimes this goal prevents us from taking the easy way out by including propitiatory or patent encumbered software in Fedora, or using those kinds of products in our other project work.”
• Friends “Like any friends, we occasionally disagree on details, but we believe in finding an acceptable consensus to serve the interests of advancing free software.”
• Features “The Fedora community creates many of the technical features that have made Linux powerful.”
• First “The Fedora Project’s goal of advancing free software dictates that the Fedora Project itself pursue a strategy that preserves the forward momentum of our technical, collateral, and community-building progress.”

As for the userbase, most people say “contributors are way more important than users” although I think that you don’t have any contributors without having users first. But who are those users? the now famous girl scouts, or hackers, technical users, developers and system engineers?

My Linux story began when I was 13. My nephew installed Red Hat 9 on my fathers old desktop. I was far from a power user, I had just discovered dial in internet, e-mail and much more. I didn’t know the exact difference between open source / free software and propitiatory software. And still, I was using Red Hat linux, supported by one person, my nephew, not the community. Nobody told me there was such a thing.   So I was far from being a power user, or a contributor. Though I kept on using Red Hat and Fedora later on. Made some tours around Ubuntu and Suse, but I kept on coming back. Why? Because I liked Fedora. Not the community though, I didn’t know that existed.

I’m pretty sure that at time the target audience for any Linux distro was a more technical experienced user. Things were much harder then than now. I still remember how much I suffered to install my first software. And still, me, as a non technical newbie (I studies chemistry, not IT) could learn how to work with it and use it.I’m also sure that many people started to use Fedora / Linux just the way like I did it.

From the moment I discovered this wonderful community my technical knowledge about Linux started to grow. I joined the community, and I still feel this was one of my best decisions ever. According to me the Fedora community is about ‘getting things done‘ and about fun.

A lot of people have the perception that because our target group is (or was) technical people. I totally agree with this. we shouldn’t become a second ubuntu. Remember the ‘Features First’? I believe that we should strive towards technical expertise, always be the first, and deliver a stable workable product. SystemD, Gnome3 , 2 good examples that we still lead. But not all costs. Systemd was postponed to Fedora 15 because there were still to many bugs. I believe that was a good decision!

When people ask me for reasons why they should join the Fedora community, one of the things I always tell them: Fedora people are full of awesomeness. And one person can make a difference. So can you. As long as you care about it.

So, dear people, IF you care enough about Fedora, help fix it. I strongly believe in the ‘power user’ camp, but not I don’t believe in the way some people try to enforce it. But in the end, make sure we create some unity ( ) again in the community. We want to be the best at what we do? That will only work if we work together. And indeed, that will never work if we want to make EVERYBODY happy.

WE CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN!

do you?

Evening
Another tradition is getting food at the ‘Drugs Opera’. [4] I think everyone agrees that the food was again good. After the Fedora activities for that day officially stopped, we all went to the FOSDEM beer event [5] in the famous ‘Delirium Cafe’ [6], where a lot of people that ‘one beer to many’. It was -as each year- very crowded, but fun never the less.

Day 1
FOSDEM
We met up at the venue [7] at 9am to start build up the booth. We had again a pretty big booth where we gave away cd’s, stickers and buttons. We also had a laptop that was running Fedora 14, and an OLPC who got a lot of attention. There were also a lot of Fedora Contributors at FOSDEM who gave a talk. Lennart Poettering (systemd: Beyond init),  Gratien D’haese (Linux Disaster Recovery as a Service (with rear)), Jared K. Smith (Swimming Upstream && Distribution collaboration manifesto), Hans de Goede (Downstream Packaging collaboration && A presentation of SPICE an opensource remote virtual desktop protocol && USB redirection over the network), Marcus Moeller (Deploying sssd). I hope I haven’t forgot someone. And I also want to thank everybody who did booth attendence, and the people who gave one or more talks. Fosdem stopped at 7pm.

Evening
Every one went his own way to grab some food. Jan Wildeboer [8] invited everyone to a small party [9] where (almost) everyone was planning to go to. But many left again to go their own path because it was very crowded in the bar.

Day 2
FOSDEM

Sunday was a bit the same as Saturday. Talks, Booth attendance, meeting awesome people, having fun, explaining what we stand for, trying to gather some new contributors, etc etc.. one big difference was: Jan joined our booth to open a registration office. The ‘Transnational Republic’ gained more than 30 people that day. Sunday is also the day that a lot of people leave brussels to go home.

and a group picture at the end of FOSDEM

Evening
8 people wanted to see the super bowl. Max had reserved a table at the ‘Fat Boys’ [10]. and that was the end of Fosdem. 3 days of serious work, but also 3 days of fun. Hope to see you all again next year!

Links
[1]  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAD_FOSDEM_2011
[2]  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon_bid_process
[3]  http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-fad/2011-02-04/fad_fosdem_2011.2011-02-04-12.00.html
[4]  http://www.drugopera.be/
[5]  http://fosdem.org/2011/beerevent
[6]  http://www.deliriumcafe.be/
[7]  http://www.ulb.ac.be/
[8]  http://jan.wildeboer.net
[9]  http://jan.wildeboer.net/2011/01/prr-privacy-respecting-router-a-freedentity-idea/
[10] http://www.fatboys-be.com

** all pictures are provided by Nicu Buculei – http://nicubunu.blogspot.com/

Fosdem is around the corner, and I wanted to keep you up to date with some things.

For the Fedora people, FOSDEM starts on Friday. On Friday, From 1pm till 6pm everyone is welcome in ‘A La Mort Subite’ for our yearly FAD. I think there are enough in EMEA that we can talk about. After the FAD we’ll all to go the FOSDEM Beer Event. [1]

On Saturday FOSDEM starts. As always we have a big booth available (thanks to the fosdem team). But we need some people behind the booth. Please fill in the wiki asap. [2]. As always, Fosdem features a series of interesting talks, and people. So feel free to have fun, and start stuff with other people.

In the evening I’m planning to attend ‘l33tm33t’ [3] , feel free to join us, but don’t feel obligated.

Sunday, morning we’ll go to FOSDEM again. for more talks and people In the evening we’ll go watch the Super Bowl

I hope to see you guys all there!

[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAD_FOSDEM_2011
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FOSDEM_2011_Booth_Attendance
[3] http://l33tm33t.eventbrite.com/

Tomorrow is the day of days   We will have another release event in Don Bosco Werken en Leren in Wilrijk, Antwerp.

I can now announce the full schedule for tomorrow

* Contribute or die (Bert Desmet)
* RHEL 6 Feature Highlights (Frederic Hornain)
* Fedora 14 Feature Highlights  (Bert Desmet)
* Extending RHEL6 with RPMforge and ELRepo (Dag Wieers)
* Unlock the value of cloud computing (Frederic Hornain)

Denis offered a ride from and to Brussels. and I can take people back to Ghent if needed. Don’t be afraid to ask if you come by train, everyone will get home

all information can be found on the wiki page.

The other 2 elected mentors are Caius and, my good friend, Gerard. They both live in the APAC region at the moment.

To celebrate this, we’ll have a release event again in Belgium. Our schedule is ready (but I don’t promise it’s *fixed*, if you have something cool to talk about, please let me know so we can fit it in..)

As this event is not only for Fedora enthusiasts, but also for RHEL and CentOS users / contributors, I hope to see a big crowd of interesting people.. I think we’ve done our best to please everyone with the schedule!

You can find all information (and updates) here.

See you al there!