Debian Day South Africa 2024
Beer, cake and ISO testing amidst rugby and jazz band chaos
On Saturday, the Debian South Africa team got together in Cape Town to celebrate Debian’s 31st birthday and to perform ISO testing for the Debian 11.11 and 12.7 point releases.
We ran out of time to organise a fancy printed cake like we had last year, but our improvisation worked out just fine!
We thought that we had allotted plenty of time for all of our activities for the day, and that there would be plenty of time for everything including training, but the day zipped by really fast. We hired a venue at a brewery, which is usually really nice because they have an isolated area with lots of space and a big TV – nice for presentations, demos, etc. But on this day, there was a big rugby match between South Africa and New Zealand, and as it got closer to the game, the place just got louder and louder (especially as a band started practicing and doing sound tests for their performance for that evening) and it turned out our space was also double-booked later in the afternoon, so we had to relocate.
Even amidst all the chaos, we ended up having a very productive day and we even managed to have some fun!
Four people from our local team performed ISO testing for the very first time, and in total we covered 44 test cases locally. Most of the other testers were the usual crowd in the UK, we also did a brief video call with them, but it was dinner time for them so we had to keep it short. Next time we’ll probably have some party line open that any tester can also join.
Logo
We went through some more iterations of our local team logo that Tammy has been working on. They’re turning out very nice and have been in progress for more than a year, I guess like most things Debian, it will be ready when it’s ready!
Debian 11.11 and Debian 12.7 released, and looking ahead towards Debian 13
Both point releases tested just fine and was released later in the evening. I’m very glad that we managed to be useful and reduce total testing time and that we managed to cover all the test cases in the end.
A bunch of things we really wanted to fix by the time Debian 12 launched are now finally fixed in 12.7. There’s still a few minor annoyances, but over all, Debian 13 (trixie) is looking even better than Debian 12 was around this time in the release cycle.
Freeze dates for trixie has not yet been announced, I hope that the release team announces those sooner rather than later, also KDE Plasma 6 hasn’t yet made its way into unstable, I’ve seen quite a number of people ask about this online, so hopefully that works out.
And by the way, the desktop artwork submissions for trixie ends in two weeks! More information about that is available on the Debian wiki if you’re interested in making a contribution. There are already 4 great proposals.
Debian Local Groups
Organising local events for Debian is probably easier than you think, and Debian does make funding available for events. So, if you want to grow Debian in your area, feel free to join us at #debian-localgroups on the OFTC IRC network, also plumbed on Matrix at #debian-localgroups:matrix.debian.social – where we’ll try to answer any questions you might have and guide you through the process!
Oh and btw… South Africa won the Rugby!
