My first .deb

\o/ Today I built my first debian package or .deb

I wrote the source code of the package myself. You can find the main script here. It is a simple script to archive phlog (gopher blog) posts on a yearly basis. I called it pharc which stands for phlog archiver. It is based on the mkphlog script, written by octotep, that I use to build my own phlog

It takes a little bit of work, then

    $ debuild -us -uc

And voilà! you can find the package here:

pharc 1.0-1 all.deb

Important: This package was built for learning purposes only. It has some limitations I am perfectly aware of. Just to name a few:

• The script assumes that you have a link in your $HOME/gopher to your gopher server. And that all your posts are in directories named $(date +%m-%d-%y)
  
• The makefile is ridiculous. It only has seven lines! I wrote it in 25 seconds just to experience quick success. Now if you're really curious I can paste it here or somewhere else.
  
• The complete list of files is not available online. They are stored on my server but if you want them you can ask for them. Here is the list:
  
  pharc_1.0.orig.tar.gz
  pharc_1.0-1_i386.changes
  pharc_1.0-1_i386.build
  pharc_1.0-1_all.deb
  pharc_1.0-1.dsc
  pharc_1.0-1.diff.gz
  
• Who uses gopher or keeps a phlog anyway?

'pharc' a phlog archiver.

I write my phlog using a script called mkphlog. It creates each phlog post in the form of a directory using the following variable: entrydate=date +%m-%d-%y
I started my phlog in October so there were not many posts. However, reaching the end of the year made me realize that I had to devise a way to archive all the posts on a yearly basis. Doing it by hand took me approximately 10 minutes. It basically means copying a bunch of directories into a single directory and editing the gophermaps so that the servers know where to look for files once the links are clicked.
But as you can imagine I am a busy person and I just can't add any more thing to my todo. So I decided to write a script to do the work for me automatically every year. Isn't that fantastic? Well it didn't take long to write a first functional version of the script. However, like all scripts, it was open for improvement.
This afternoon I have improved it a bit and I have committed what I imagine is the final version as of now. You can see it here
By the way, the title of this post is self explanatory enough. I called it pharc which stands for "phlog archiver". It would be very nice that someone tested it and found it useful.

Christmas 2011

Branchable.

One of the reasons why branchable is so amazing is that this:

 Turns into this:

In the wink of an eye.

If you liked that, just wait and see how this can be achieved even without a web browser at hands reach, only with your favourite text editor (Call it what you want: vim, nano, mousepad...) I leave that for the next screenshot round.

Double trouble.

I really didn't know which picture to choose, so I uploaded both. I hope you like them.

Pruning style

It seems I'm an artist to a certain extent as well. Here you can see my walnut tree after spending some time with it.

This is for you to admire my pruning style

Gitorious

Today I opened an account at gitorious.org For the time being it is just a mirror of one of my two git repositories at branchable. No big plans for the one at Gitorious yet, but only time will tell.


So far it is a very nice and handy thing to have.