Sorry, I forgot to mention I have a x86 laptop and x86_64 desktop both running Arch, giving me the opportunity to test packages on both architectures. Thanks, Brad On Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 5:47 PM, Brad Fanella wrote:

Hello everybody, In response to this (https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=103250) thread, I (and a few others) have decided that it would be a good idea to have a stream of new TUs to maintain packages that they actually use themselves, which in theory would lessen the gap between upstream and package releases.

I guess I should tell you a little about myself and what I do/have done. My name is Brad Fanella and I am from Chicago, Illinois within the United States of America. I am a software developer, web designer, and [no]monkey[/no]. My forum username is itsbrad212 (I doubt anyone cares) and I have a little over 1,200 posts currently. I have been an Arch user since around December 2009 and a Linux user since late 2008. Before I had found Arch, distro hopping was a normal happening and I tended to do a lot of it. From Ubuntu to Slackware to Debian to Gentoo, none of them every pleased me...until I found Arch. The combination of a simplistic, fast, rolling-release distribution with a great community and team of developers is what keeps me here, and I will definitely be staying for many years to come (if I ever leave at all).

My talents? Well, when I first discovered that computers were for more than what happens when you click the Internet icon, the first thing that peaked my interest was web design, so I learned HTML, CSS, and (shortly later) PHP. A couple of months after that, I found another programmer and together we created a content management system (Surf-CMS) that we are currently managing to this day.

Of course, how could you be called an "advanced" Linux user without knowing C and shell scripting? Well, I first learned about shell scripting when there were some tasks I needed to be done and I wanted to automate that process. C, on the other hand, was learned for two (maybe three) reasons: 1) Linux and C go together 2) I like speed 3) I wanted to be 1337

Kdding about the last one. Anyway, within the past few weeks, I have been developing a AUR+Pacman (and maybe ABS in the future?) wrapper in C. I thought C would be a good candidate because it's *fast*, and even with more than 500 lines of code, it still fetches, untars, and resolves dependencies in a split second. It is currently incomplete, but I plan to release it under the "Community Contributions" section in the near future.

I also know Python and Assembly, but nobody really cares about Assembly anymore, so it's not really worth mentioning. I learned it because I have beens steadily developing a bootloader and kernel in pure 32-bit assembly (along with a few other developers) called LitaOS. Unfortunately, I don't work on it that often (maybe a couple hours a week, if that).

What can I bring to the table? Well, as I said before, I use C for pretty much everything, so I do use a good amount of C libraries, so I guess you could say that. I also compile a couple of Python modules here and there. The main reason I wanted to become a TU is because I wanted to help improve the quality of both packages that I use personally and packages that others ask for, as well as help users on the AUR to bring their PKGBUILDs to a near perfected state. Arch deserves to be the very best, and I want to help get it there.

Now, about my AUR package count. Allan even said it himself, and I quote: "@itsbrad212: You only have a few packages in the AUR but they look good. I'd say apply if you want..."

I was actually a little hesitant about applying to become a trusted user, only because my AUR package count was so low. That being said, I actually have a fairly proficient knowledge of writing PKGBUILDs, building packages, using namcap, etc. For a short time, I was actually hosting a small repository of compiled packages from the AUR (that were either common or I used them myself) for a little linux discussion group on an IRC chat room. I actually am not still hosting those packages or maintaining them anymore as I wasn't getting enough of a response to make it worthwhile. I just recently got a list from a forum user of suggest packages that I should adopt in the AUR and keep up-to-date, so I plan on doing that.

Chris Brannon has been kind enough to sponsor me, on behalf of Allan, through this process. I know I said it before, but I'll say it again. My goals are not to maintain 100,000 packages or something silly like that, but to improve other packages, submit clean and working packages myself, and help others on the AUR to improve their packages.

Kind regards, Brad

On Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 05:47:42PM +0000, Brad Fanella wrote:

Hello everybody,

<snip>

Chris Brannon has been kind enough to sponsor me, on behalf of Allan, through this process. I know I said it before, but I'll say it again. My goals are not to maintain 100,000 packages or something silly like that, but to improve other packages, submit clean and working packages myself, and help others on the AUR to improve their packages.

Kind regards, Brad

Hi Brad, that is a long and detailed application you wrote here, nice! Running namcap on your current AUR packages gives this: PKGBUILD (festival-hts-voices) E: Use $pkgdir instead of $startdir/pkg PKGBUILD (plasma-stock-quote) E: Use $srcdir instead of $startdir/src Otherwise no other questions from my side. Good luck! Jaroslav