[aur-general] Trusted User Application

[Brad Fanella]

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 <bradfanella at archlinux.us>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
>