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Arraybolt3
Updated 177 Days AgoPublic
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I, Aaron Rainbolt, apply to be a Lubuntu Developer.

NameAaron Rainbolt
Launchpad Pagehttps://launchpad.net/~arraybolt3
Phabricator Profilehttps://phab.lubuntu.me/p/arraybolt3/
Gitea Profilehttps://git.lubuntu.me/arraybolt3

I am applying because:

  • I'd like to reduce the burden on my sponsors.
  • I'd like to be able to continue to work on projects even while my sponsors are otherwise engaged.
  • I'd like to be able to vote for prospective members of teams like the Ubuntu Technical Board.

Who I am

Personally, I'm kind of boring. I live in a rural area doing rural things, along with stuff like Rubik's cube solving, coding, playing and listening to music, Redditing, and of course Ubuntu development. I'm thankful for the life I have and hope to be able to help the lives of others, and developing one of the best free and open-source operating systems in the world is part of how I hope to do that.

My Lubuntu story

I first poked my head into #lubuntu-devel on April 25, 2022, with the nick Guest3, intending to help with Lubuntu's documentation. Thanks to Simon Quigley, I quickly ended up doing development and debugging work, then found out I could help with tech support and testing too.

It's hard to pick a favorite job, since all of Lubuntu and Ubuntu in general is fun to work with. I particularly like tech support, bug fixing, and Lubuntu development work. My single favorite moment in Lubuntu development was probably when I got to help with debugging the reason why BTRFS installations were broken on Lubuntu 22.04.

I could use some more packaging experience, especially when it comes to working with the Debian LXQt team. I also still am not quite as comfortable with Git as I would like, though it's gotten significantly easier lately.

My involvement

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

(Note that I do not believe I have any uploads directly into the LXQt stack packages yet, though some work done in Debian that I did has been synced into the archive.)

Areas of work

I've done lots of work with Simon Quigley and Dan Simmons, debugging and developing various parts of Lubuntu and helping to improve the OS as a whole. Some projects have included Lubuntu Backports, lubuntu-installer-prompt, and updates to the Calamares installer.

I've written some tutorials and guides for Lubuntu, such as a guide on RAM compression, a guide for running Windows applications on Lubuntu, and a bug workaround guide for BTRFS installations of Lubuntu 22.04 when using the original 22.04 ISO. Chris Guiver helped get them into the Documentation section for me.

I've also assisted with a lot of Lubuntu testing, working with Chris Guiver and Leó Kolbeinsson to debug issues and test the functionality of the Lubuntu Kinetic daily images.

I've also worked with Calamares and LXQt upstream, helping to fix bugs such as:

And then we have the Debian LXQt 1.1.0 incident. Between a communication issue, my inexperience at that time, and a lack of motivation when it came to working with the Debian LXQt Team, I played a significant role in causing a problem that the Lubuntu and Debian LXQt teams are currently sorting out. Most of my work then was with Andrew Lee, mainly attempting to update libfm-qt: https://salsa.debian.org/lxqt-team/libfm-qt/-/merge_requests/5

Things I could do better

I plan on handling future work with LXQt in Debian with much more care, and hope to establish a better relationship with the Debian LXQt Team so that I can work with them comfortably and get work done in a timely fashion.

Additionally, I need to get better at timely bug reporting and triage - I can sometimes end up forgetting to report or triage a bug I know about for days or even weeks, which can lead to some panic moments during pre-release testing.

I also recognize that I can go too fast sometimes, especially if I'm trying to rush and finish a project. I intend to try to recognize when this is happening so I can stop myself from accidentally causing damage or ending up needing to fix things multiple times.

Plans for the future

General

I'd like to eventually spend more of my time doing bugfixes, as I believe that having all the features of an OS work correctly is more important than having more features. At the same time, I would like to help make Lubuntu more polished, efficient, and feature-rich, making it comfortable for users to migrate to Lubuntu from an OS like Windows or macOS.

What I like least in Lubuntu

The one feature I miss the most in all of Lubuntu is GNOME/KDE-like window snapping. The ability to maximize, restore, and snap windows to various areas of my desktop makes my workflow easier. As I understand it, this is a missing feature in Openbox, and upstream Openbox is considered bug-free and feature complete, so this may just be how things are. However, if the Lubuntu Council deems it worthwhile, I would like to find a solution to this (hopefully one that doesn't involve the use of keyboard shortcuts, as those don't seem to work in the virtualization software I use).

Comments

None so far.

Endorsements

None so far.

Template left here for the sake of making it easier for commenters and endorsers to add any relevant info.

== TEMPLATE ==
== <SPONSORS NAME> ==
=== General feedback ===
## Please fill us in on your shared experience. (How many packages did you sponsor? How would you judge the quality? How would you describe the improvements? Do you trust the applicant?)

=== Specific Experiences of working together ===
''Please add good examples of your work together, but also cases that could have handled better.''
## Full list of sponsored packages can be generated here:
##  https://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/ubuntu-sponsorships.cgi
=== Areas of Improvement ===
Last Author
arraybolt3
Last Edited
Dec 3 2022, 7:10 PM