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Fedora People

Browser wars

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

Browser wars


brown fox on snow field

Photo source: Ray Hennessy (@rayhennessy) | Unsplash


Last week in Rijeka we held Science festival 2015. This is the (hopefully not unlucky) 13th instance of the festival that started in 2003. Popular science events were organized in 18 cities in Croatia.

I was invited to give a popular lecture at the University departments open day, which is a part of the festival. This is the second time in a row that I got invited to give popular lecture at the open day. In 2014 I talked about The Perfect Storm in information technology caused by the fall of economy during 2008-2012 Great Recession and the simultaneous rise of low-cost, high-value open-source solutions. Open source completely changed the landscape of information technology in just a few years.

The follow-up

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

The follow-up


people watching concert

Photo source: Andre Benz (@trapnation) | Unsplash


When Linkin Park released their second album Meteora, they had a quote on their site that went along the lines of

Musicians have their entire lives to come up with a debut album, and only a very short time afterward to release a follow-up.

Open-source magic all around the world

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

Open-source magic all around the world


woman blowing sprinkle in her hand

Photo source: Almos Bechtold (@almosbech) | Unsplash


Last week brought us two interesting events related to open-source movement: 2015 Red Hat Summit (June 23-26, Boston, MA) and Skeptics in the pub (June 26, Rijeka, Croatia).

Joys and pains of interdisciplinary research

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

Joys and pains of interdisciplinary research


white and black coffee maker

Photo source: Trnava University (@trnavskauni) | Unsplash


In 2012 University of Rijeka became NVIDIA GPU Education Center (back then it was called CUDA Teaching Center). For non-techies: NVIDIA is a company producing graphical processors (GPUs), the computer chips that draw 3D graphics in games and the effects in modern movies. In the last couple of years, NVIDIA and other manufacturers allowed the usage of GPUs for general computations, so one can use them to do really fast multiplication of large matrices, finding paths in graphs, and other mathematical operations.

What is the price of open-source fear, uncertainty, and doubt?

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

What is the price of open-source fear, uncertainty, and doubt?


turned on red open LED signage

Photo source: j (@janicetea) | Unsplash


The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (JPCL), published by American Chemical Society, recently put out two Viewpoints discussing open-source software:

  1. Open Source and Open Data Should Be Standard Practices by J. Daniel Gezelter, and
  2. What Is the Price of Open-Source Software? by Anna I. Krylov, John M. Herbert, Filipp Furche, Martin Head-Gordon, Peter J. Knowles, Roland Lindh, Frederick R. Manby, Peter Pulay, Chris-Kriton Skylaris, and Hans-Joachim Werner.

Viewpoints are not detailed reviews of the topic, but instead, present the author's view on the state-of-the-art of a particular field.

The first of two articles stands for open source and open data. The article describes Quantum Chemical Program Exchange (QCPE), which was used in the 1980s and 1990s for the exchange of quantum chemistry codes between researchers and is roughly equivalent to the modern-day GitHub. The second of two articles questions the open-source software development practice, advocating the usage and development of proprietary software. I will dissect and counter some of the key points from the second article below.

On having leverage and using it for pushing open-source software adoption

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

On having leverage and using it for pushing open-source software adoption


Open 24 Hours neon signage

Photo source: Alina Grubnyak (@alinnnaaaa) | Unsplash


Back in late August and early September, I attended 4th CP2K Tutorial organized by CECAM in Zürich. I had the pleasure of meeting Joost VandeVondele's Nanoscale Simulations group at ETHZ and working with them on improving CP2K. It was both fun and productive; we overhauled the wiki homepage and introduced acronyms page, among other things. During a coffee break, there was a discussion on the JPCL viewpoint that speaks against open-source quantum chemistry software, which I countered in the previous blog post.

But there is a story from the workshop which somehow remained untold, and I wanted to tell it at some point. One of the attendants, Valérie Vaissier, told me how she used proprietary quantum chemistry software during her Ph.D.; if I recall correctly, it was Gaussian. Eventually, she decided to learn CP2K and made the switch. She liked CP2K better than the proprietary software package because it is available free of charge, the reported bugs get fixed quicker, and the group of developers behind it is very enthusiastic about their work and open to outsiders who want to join the development.

AMD and the open-source community are writing history

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

AMD and the open-source community are writing history


a close up of a cpu chip on top of a motherboard

Photo source: Andrew Dawes (@andrewdawes) | Unsplash


Over the last few years, AMD has slowly been walking the path towards having fully open source drivers on Linux. AMD did not walk alone, they got help from Red Hat, SUSE, and probably others. Phoronix also mentions PathScale, but I have been told on Freenode channel #radeon this is not the case and found no trace of their involvement.

AMD finally publically unveiled the GPUOpen initiative on the 15th of December 2015. The story was covered on AnandTech, Maximum PC, Ars Technica, Softpedia, and others. For the open-source community that follows the development of Linux graphics and computing stack, this announcement comes as hardly surprising: Alex Deucher and Jammy Zhou presented plans regarding amdgpu on XDC2015 in September 2015. Regardless, public announcement in mainstream media proves that AMD is serious about GPUOpen.

I believe GPUOpen is the best chance we will get in this decade to open up the driver and software stacks in the graphics and computing industry. I will outline the reasons for my optimism below. As for the history behind open-source drivers for ATi/AMD GPUs, I suggest the well-written reminiscence on Phoronix.

I am still not buying the new-open-source-friendly-Microsoft narrative

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

I am still not buying the new-open-source-friendly-Microsoft narrative


black framed window

Photo source: Patrick Bellot (@pbellot) | Unsplash


This week Microsoft released Computational Network Toolkit (CNTK) on GitHub, after open sourcing Edge's JavaScript engine last month and a whole bunch of projects before that.

Even though the open sourcing of a bunch of their software is a very nice move from Microsoft, I am still not convinced that they have changed to the core. I am sure there are parts of the company who believe that free and open source is the way to go, but it still looks like a change just on the periphery.

All the projects they have open-sourced so far are not the core of their business. Their latest version of Windows is no more friendly to alternative operating systems than any version of Windows before it, and one could argue it is even less friendly due to more Secure Boot restrictions. Using Office still basically requires you to use Microsoft's formats and, in turn, accept their vendor lock-in.

Put simply, I think all the projects Microsoft has opened up so far are a nice start, but they still have a long way to go to gain respect from the open-source community. What follows are three steps Microsoft could take in that direction.

Free to know: Open access and open source

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

Free to know: Open access and open source


yellow and black come in we're open sign

Photo source: Álvaro Serrano (@alvaroserrano) | Unsplash


!!! info Reposted from Free to Know: Open access & open source, originally posted by STEMI education on Medium.

Q&A with Vedran Miletić

In June 2014, Elon Musk opened up all Tesla patents. In a blog post announcing this, he wrote that patents "serve merely to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors." In other words, he joined those who believe that free knowledge is the prerequisite for a great society -- that it is the vibrancy of the educated masses that can make us capable of handling the strange problems our world is made of.

The movements that promote and cultivate this vibrancy are probably most frequently associated with terms "Open access" and "open source". In order to learn more about them, we Q&A-ed Vedran Miletić, the Rocker of Science -- researcher, developer and teacher, currently working in computational chemistry, and a free and open source software contributor and activist. You can read more of his thoughts on free software and related themes on his great blog, Nudged Elastic Band. We hope you will join him, us, and Elon Musk in promoting free knowledge, cooperation and education.

The academic and the free software community ideals

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

The academic and the free software community ideals


book lot on black wooden shelf

Photo source: Giammarco Boscaro (@giamboscaro) | Unsplash


Today I vaguely remembered there was one occasion in 2006 or 2007 when some guy from the academia doing something with Java and Unicode posted on some mailing list related to the free and open-source software about a tool he was developing. What made it interesting was that the tool was open source, and he filed a patent on the algorithm.

Celebrating Graphics and Compute Freedom Day

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

Celebrating Graphics and Compute Freedom Day


stack of white and brown ceramic plates

Photo source: Elena Mozhvilo (@miracleday) | Unsplash


Hobbyists, activists, geeks, designers, engineers, etc have always tinkered with technologies for their purposes (in early personal computing, for example). And social activists have long advocated the power of giving tools to people. An open hardware movement driven by these restless innovators is creating ingenious versions of all sorts of technologies, and freely sharing the know-how through the Internet and more recently through social media. Open-source software and more recently hardware is also encroaching upon centers of manufacturing and can empower serious business opportunities and projects.

The free software movement is cited as both an inspiration and a model for open hardware. Free software practices have transformed our culture by making it easier for people to become involved in producing things from magazines to music, movies to games, communities to services. With advances in digital fabrication making it easier to manipulate materials, some now anticipate an analogous opening up of manufacturing to mass participation.

Enabling HTTP/2, HTTPS, and going HTTPS-only on inf2

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

Enabling HTTP/2, HTTPS, and going HTTPS-only on inf2


an old padlock on a wooden door

Photo source: Arkadiusz Gąsiorowski (@ambuscade) | Unsplash


Inf2 is a web server at University of Rijeka Department of Informatics, hosting Sphinx-produced static HTML course materials (mirrored elsewhere), some big files, a WordPress instance (archived elsewhere), and an internal instance of Moodle.

HTTPS was enabled on inf2 for a long time, albeit using a self-signed certificate. However, with Let's Encrpyt coming into public beta, we decided to join the movement to HTTPS.

Why we use reStructuredText and Sphinx static site generator for maintaining teaching materials

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

Why we use reStructuredText and Sphinx static site generator for maintaining teaching materials


open book lot

Photo source: Patrick Tomasso (@impatrickt) | Unsplash


Yesterday I was asked by Edvin Močibob, a friend and a former student teaching assistant of mine, the following question:

You seem to be using Sphinx for your teaching materials, right? As far as I can see, it doesn't have an online WYSIWYG editor. I would be interested in comparison of your solution with e.g. MediaWiki.

While the advantages and the disadvantages of static site generators, when compared to content management systems, have been written about and discussed already, I will outline our reasons for the choice of Sphinx below. Many of the points have probably already been presented elsewhere.

Fly away, little bird

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

Fly away, little bird


macro-photography blue, brown, and white sparrow on branch

Photo source: Vincent van Zalinge (@vincentvanzalinge) | Unsplash


The last day of July happened to be the day that Domagoj Margan, a former student teaching assistant and a great friend of mine, set up his own DigitalOcean droplet running a web server and serving his professional website on his own domain domargan.net. For a few years, I was helping him by providing space on the server I owned and maintained, and I was always glad to do so. Let me explain why.

Mirroring free and open-source software matters

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

Mirroring free and open-source software matters


gold and silver steel wall decor

Photo source: Tuva Mathilde Løland (@tuvaloland) | Unsplash


Post theme song: Mirror mirror by Blind Guardian

A mirror is a local copy of a website that's used to speed up access for the users residing in the area geographically close to it and reduce the load on the original website. Content distribution networks (CDNs), which are a newer concept and perhaps more familiar to younger readers, serve the same purpose, but do it in a way that's transparent to the user; when using a mirror, the user will see explicitly which mirror is being used because the domain will be different from the original website, while, in case of CDNs, the domain will remain the same, and the DNS resolution (which is invisible to the user) will select a different server.

Free and open-source software was distributed via (FTP) mirrors, usually residing in the universities, basically since its inception. The story of Linux mentions a directory on ftp.funet.fi (FUNET is the Finnish University and Research Network) where Linus Torvalds uploaded the sources, which was soon after mirrored by Ted Ts'o on MIT's FTP server. The GNU Project's history contains an analogous process of making local copies of the software for faster downloading, which was especially important in the times of pre-broadband Internet, and it continues today.

Markdown vs reStructuredText for teaching materials

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

Markdown vs reStructuredText for teaching materials


blue wooden door surrounded by book covered wall

Photo source: Eugenio Mazzone (@eugi1492) | Unsplash


Back in summer 2017. I wrote an article explaining why we used Sphinx and reStructuredText to produce teaching materials and not a wiki. In addition to recommending Sphinx as the solution to use, it was general praise for generating static HTML files from Markdown or reStructuredText.

This summer I made the conversion of teaching materials from reStructuredText to Markdown. Unfortunately, the automated conversion using Pandoc didn't quite produce the result I wanted so I ended up cooking my own Python script that converted the specific dialect of reStructuredText that was used for writing the contents of the group website and fixing a myriad of inconsistencies in the writing style that accumulated over the years.

Don't use RAR

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

Don't use RAR


a large white tank

Photo source: Tim Mossholder (@ctimmossholder) | Unsplash


I sometimes joke with my TA Milan Petrović that his usage of RAR does not imply that he will be driving a rari. After all, he is not Devito rapping^Wsinging Uh 😤. Jokes aside, if you search for "should I use RAR" or a similar phrase on your favorite search engine, you'll see articles like 2007 Don't Use ZIP, Use RAR and 2011 Why RAR Is Better Than ZIP & The Best RAR Software Available.

Should I do a Ph.D.?

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

Should I do a Ph.D.?


a bike is parked in front of a building

Photo source: Santeri Liukkonen (@iamsanteri) | Unsplash


Tough question, and the one that has been asked and answered over and over. The simplest answer is, of course, it depends on many factors.

As I started blogging at the end of my journey as a doctoral student, the topic of how I selected the field and ultimately decided to enroll in the postgraduate studies never really came up. In the following paragraphs, I will give a personal perspective on my Ph.D. endeavor. Just like other perspectives from doctors of not that kind, it is specific to the person in the situation, but parts of it might apply more broadly.

Alumni Meeting 2023 at HITS and the reminiscence of the postdoc years

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

Alumni Meeting 2023 at HITS and the reminiscence of the postdoc years


a fountain in the middle of a town square

Photo source: Jahanzeb Ahsan (@jahan_photobox) | Unsplash


This month we had Alumni Meeting 2023 at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, or HITS for short. I was very glad to attend this whole-day event and reconnect with my former colleagues as well as researchers currently working in the area of computational biochemistry at HITS. After all, this is the place and the institution where I worked for more than half of my time as a postdoc, where I started regularly contributing code to GROMACS molecular dynamics simulator, and published some of my best papers.

My perspective after two years as a research and teaching assistant at FIDIT

Posted by Vedran Miletić on 2025-07-15 20:59:38 UTC

My perspective after two years as a research and teaching assistant at FIDIT


human statues near white building

Photo source: Darran Shen (@darranshen) | Unsplash


My employment as a research and teaching assistant at Faculty of Informatics and Digital Technologies (FIDIT for short), University of Rijeka (UniRi) ended last month with the expiration of the time-limited contract I had. This moment has marked almost two full years I spent in this institution and I think this is a good time to take a look back at everything that happened during that time. Inspired by the recent posts by the PI of my group, I decided to write my perspective on the time that I hope is just the beginning of my academic career.

POWER Is Not Just for Databases

Posted by Peter Czanik on 2025-07-15 11:59:05 UTC

The IBM POWER architecture is not just for database servers. While most people know it only for DB2 and SAP HANA, it is an ideal platform also for HPC or other high performance server applications, like syslog-ng.

While all the buzz is around POWER 11 now, we have yet to see real-world testing results, as GA is still a few weeks away. You can learn more about POWER 11 at https://newsroom.ibm.com/2025-07-08-ibm-power11-raises-the-bar-for-enterprise-it. I am an environmental engineer by degree, so, my favorite part is: “Power11 offers twice the performance per watt versus comparable x86 servers”.

People look surprised when I mention that I am an IBM Champion for POWER, saying “You are not a database guy. What do you have to do with POWER?”. Well, I have 30+ years of history with POWER, but I never had to do anything with databases. My focus was always open source software, even on AIX: https://opensource.com/article/20/10/power-architecture

Of course, we should not forget that POWER is the best platform to run SAP HANA workloads. Not just locally, but also in the cloud: https://www.ibm.com/new/announcements/ibm-and-sap-launch-new-hyperscaler-option-for-sap-cloud-erp. However, there are many other use cases for POWER.

I must admit that I’m not really into chip design. Still, it fascinates me how IBM POWER is more powerful (pun intended!), when it comes to a crucial part: Physical Design Verification using Synopsys IC Validator (ICV). While most people complain that POWER hardware is expensive, it is also faster. Compared to x86, it still can provide a 66% better TCO on workloads like PDV. For details, check: https://www.ibm.com/account/reg/us-en/signup?formid=urx-53646

Do you still think that buying hardware is too expensive? You can try PowerVS, where POWER 11 will also be available soon: https://community.ibm.com/community/user/blogs/anthony-ciccone/2025/07/07/ibm-power11-launches-in-ibm-power-virtual-server-u

Obviously, my favorite part is a simple system utility: syslog-ng. It is an enhanced logging daemon with a focus on portability and high-performance central log collection. When POWER 9 was released, I did a few performance tests. On the fastest x86 servers I had access to, syslog-ng barely could reach collecting 1 million messages a second. The P9 server I had access to could collect slightly more than 3 million, which is a significant difference. Of course, testing results not only depend on the CPU, but also on OS version, OS tuning, side-channel attack mitigation, etc.

I am not sure when I’ll have access to a POWER 11 box. However, you can easily do syslog-ng performance tests yourself using a shell script: https://github.com/czanik/sngbench/ Let me know if you have tested it out on P11! :-)

syslog-ng logo

FreeBSD audit source is coming to syslog-ng

Posted by Peter Czanik on 2025-07-15 11:20:42 UTC

Last year, I wrote a small configuration snippet for syslog-ng: FreeBSD audit source. I published it in a previous blog, and based on feedback, it is already used in production. And soon, it will be available also as part of a syslog-ng release.

As an active FreeBSD user and co-maintainer of the sysutils/syslog-ng port for FreeBSD, I am always happy to share FreeBSD-related news. Last year, we improved directory monitoring and file reading on FreeBSD and MacOS. Now, the FreeBSD audit source is already available in syslog-ng development snapshots.

Read more at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/freebsd-audit-source-is-coming-to-syslog-ng

syslog-ng logo

sysinfo & sync

Posted by Alejandro Sáez Morollón on 2025-07-14 19:23:57 UTC

A significant amount of my work revolves around issues that happen under specific constraints like CPU architecture, amount of RAM, versions of some dependencies, and the list goes on. I was debugging an issue, and I realized I never wrote about this.

At work I have a service named Beaker (based on this project), and as I usually only request one machine at a time, I edit my SSH config file and I put the host name there. So I only need to do ssh beaker to start working.

A while ago I wrote a dirty bash script that I never touched again because it works wonders. I have it in my path; I call it beaker-sync, and I use it almost daily.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Runs rsync on change, syncing the current folder including the path to the destination.
# It uses the current path relative to HOME unless it's outside HOME, like /usr/lib, for example.
# By default, the name of the HOST is beaker (defined it on ~/.ssh/config) but can be change:
# HOST=<another_host> <this_script>
#
# Dependencies: inotify-tools -> sudo dnf install inotify-tools

DST=`realpath --relative-to="$HOME" .`
HOST=${HOST:-beaker}

# First run always syncs
rsync -avz --delete --rsync-path="mkdir -p $DST; rsync" . $HOST:$DST;
while inotifywait -r -e modify,create,delete,move ./; do
    clear # Clears the output so I only see the last run
    rsync -avz --delete --rsync-path="mkdir -p $DST; rsync" . $HOST:$DST;
    echo -e "\033[0;31mReady\033[0m"
done

I even documented it! I was inspired that day.

Recently I wrote an Ansible script to retrieve a lot of information from a system (to be sure that later I can say, “Oh this issue happened in this scenario but not in this other one”). It’s far from perfect, but I guess now beaker-sync has a sibiling, beaker-sysinfo.

#!/usr/bin/ansible-playbook -i beaker,
# vi: ft=yaml tabstop=2 shiftwidth=2 softtabstop=2 expandtab:
---
- name: Gather system information from beaker
  hosts: beaker
  gather_facts: yes 

  tasks:
    - name: Ensure essential packages are installed on remote host
      ansible.builtin.package:
        name:
          - lshw
          - dmidecode
          - rsync
          - git
          - tmux
          - golang
          - gcc
          - gdb
        state: present
      become: yes

    - name: Ensure output directory exists locally (~/Documents/Beaker Reports)
      delegate_to: localhost
      ansible.builtin.file:
        path: "~/Documents/Beaker Reports"
        state: directory
        mode: '0755'

    - name: Get hostname of 'beaker'
      ansible.builtin.command: hostname
      register: sysinfo_remote_hostname

    - name: Get CPU information
      ansible.builtin.command: lscpu
      register: sysinfo_cpu

    - name: Get memory information (human-readable)
      ansible.builtin.command: free -h
      register: sysinfo_memory_free

    - name: Get detailed memory information (from /proc/meminfo)
      ansible.builtin.command: cat /proc/meminfo
      register: sysinfo_memory_proc

    - name: Get physical RAM module details
      ansible.builtin.command: dmidecode -t memory
      register: sysinfo_memory_dmidecode
      become: yes 

    - name: Get disk space usage
      ansible.builtin.command: df -hT
      register: sysinfo_disk_df

    - name: Get block device information
      ansible.builtin.command: lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,TYPE,MOUNTPOINT,FSTYPE,MODEL
      register: sysinfo_disk_lsblk

    - name: Get OS release information
      ansible.builtin.command: cat /etc/os-release
      register: sysinfo_os_release

    - name: Get kernel and system architecture
      ansible.builtin.command: uname -a
      register: sysinfo_uname

    - name: Get network interface information
      ansible.builtin.command: ip a
      register: sysinfo_network_ip

    - name: Get uptime and load average
      ansible.builtin.command: uptime
      register: sysinfo_uptime

    - name: Get detailed hardware list
      ansible.builtin.command: lshw -short
      register: sysinfo_lshw_short
      become: yes

    - name: Get list of all installed packages
      ansible.builtin.package_facts:
        manager: auto
      become: yes

    - name: Compile and save system information to a file
      delegate_to: localhost
      ansible.builtin.copy:
        content: |
          ### System Information Report for {{ sysinfo_remote_hostname.stdout | default('N/A') }} ###

          Date: {{ ansible_date_time.iso8601_basic }}

          --- Linux Distribution Version ---
          OS Family: {{ ansible_facts['os_family'] | default('N/A') }}
          Distribution: {{ ansible_facts['distribution'] | default('N/A') }}
          Version: {{ ansible_facts['distribution_version'] | default('N/A') }}
          Major Version: {{ ansible_facts['distribution_major_version'] | default('N/A') }}
          {% if ansible_facts['redhat_release'] is defined %}
          RedHat Release: {{ ansible_facts['redhat_release'] }}
          {% endif %}

          --- CPU Info (lscpu) ---
          {{ sysinfo_cpu.stdout | default('N/A') }}

          --- Memory Info (free -h) ---
          {{ sysinfo_memory_free.stdout | default('N/A') }}

          --- Memory Info (/proc/meminfo) ---
          {{ sysinfo_memory_proc.stdout | default('N/A') }}

          --- Physical RAM Modules (dmidecode -t memory) ---
          {{ sysinfo_memory_dmidecode.stdout | default('N/A') }}

          --- Disk Space Usage (df -hT) ---
          {{ sysinfo_disk_df.stdout | default('N/A') }}

          --- Block Devices (lsblk) ---
          {{ sysinfo_disk_lsblk.stdout | default('N/A') }}

          --- OS Release Information (/etc/os-release) ---
          {{ sysinfo_os_release.stdout | default('N/A') }}

          --- Kernel and System Architecture (uname -a) ---
          {{ sysinfo_uname.stdout | default('N/A') }}

          --- Network Interface Information (ip a) ---
          {{ sysinfo_network_ip.stdout | default('N/A') }}

          --- Uptime and Load Average ---
          {{ sysinfo_uptime.stdout | default('N/A') }}

          --- Short Hardware List (lshw -short) ---
          {{ sysinfo_lshw_short.stdout | default('N/A') }}

          --- Installed Packages (DNF/Yum) ---
          {% if ansible_facts.packages is defined and ansible_facts.packages | length > 0 %}
          {% for pkg_name, versions in ansible_facts.packages.items() %}
          - {{ pkg_name }}: {{ versions[0].version }}-{{ versions[0].release }}.{{ versions[0].arch }}
          {% endfor %}
          {% else %}
          (No package facts gathered or no packages installed)
          {% endif %}

        dest: "~/Documents/Beaker Reports/{{ sysinfo_remote_hostname.stdout }}_{{ ansible_date_time.iso8601_basic }}_sysinfo.txt"
      run_once: true

    - name: Print report path
      delegate_to: localhost
      ansible.builtin.debug:
        msg: "System information for {{ sysinfo_remote_hostname.stdout }} saved to ~/Documents/Beaker Reports/{{ sysinfo_remote_hostname.stdout }}_{{ ansible_date_time.iso8601_basic }}_sysinfo.txt"
        

Feel free to use them, the beaker word is everywhere, but it has nothing special; it will work with any machine.


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Simplifying Fedora Package Submission Progress (27 June – 14 July) – GSoC ’25

Posted by Fedora Community Blog on 2025-07-14 12:07:43 UTC

Hi everyone, I am Mayank Singh, currently working on a new service for simplifying the Fedora Package Submission Process, if you’d like to know more check my previous post here.

Diving Deep into Packit Service

(27 June – 8 July):

I began working on the packit-service codebase as the foundation for our project. The first goal was to prototype the user flow by creating new APIs and handlers for functionalities like detecting new packages and linting.

Pretty early on, I hit a roadblock during a test run. When the service was deployed to listen for GitHub events, it wouldn’t reject any incoming events sent through the tunnel to the local deployment. After a lot of digging, I traced the issue to the Apache configuration in the mod_wsgi-express server. This server, responsible for serving the Flask-RESTx endpoints, was misbehaving and causing all the trouble.

Another hiccup was that the service was too heavy for my system to run locally in an OpenShift environment with GitHub. My mentor stepped in and suggested a helpful workaround, disable the unnecessary services for our use case and use GitLab instead in plain docker containers, as it’s much easier to spin up and test locally. Reported a few other problems in the deployment process for development regarding Bitwarden for secrets.

With those issues resolved, I went ahead and trimming the parts of the packit-service codebase that weren’t needed for onboarding new packages. This helped me better understand its event model and the use of Celery in task execution.

This week was mostly about reusing the existing packit-service codebase and resolving issues.

What’s Next?

With the hard parts of setup and architecture done, the next steps would be to:

  • Add new API endpoints and corresponding event types for task handling
  • Integrate the current setup with COPR for builds.
  • Begin work on testing and validation workflows

Stay tuned for more updates in the next blog post!

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