tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23417979354741669582011-12-28T15:13:58.998-06:00Linux, testing, and other things I happen to find interesting with my impressively short attention spanPaul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.comBlogger271100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-59002406766918121282011-12-06T08:27:00.001-06:002011-12-06T08:47:50.515-06:00

Up to this point, we've supported LAVA releases in a number of ways: Tarballs - not really recommended, but source in it's raw form BZR branches - if you are doing development, or just *have* to be on the bleeding edge pypi - convenient, easy to install, updated with monthly release cycles .deb packages in the PPA - convenient, easy to install for Ubuntu, updated with monthly release cycles

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-31379703824536132712011-09-26T10:35:00.000-05:002011-09-29T08:25:19.569-05:00

If you watch our scheduler at http://validation.linaro.org/lava-server/scheduler/ you may have noticed that even though we are increasing the number of continuous integration tests for Android and Linux kernel, the jobs are clearing out much more quickly in the past few days.  We've added infrastructure and boards and now have 24 PandaBoards in the Linaro Validation Farm!  We've also updated our

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-53793779496892709382011-09-26T09:23:00.000-05:002011-09-26T09:23:31.549-05:00

One of the other new features of LAVA that's worth pointing out is a subtle, but significant step toward making it a little friendlier for those trying to find the results they are looking for.  Internally, LAVA uses things like SHA1 on the bundles, and UUIDs on the test runs to have a unique identifier that can be transferred between systems.  Previously, we displayed this as the name of the

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-42251474457664954242011-09-20T10:27:00.002-05:002011-09-20T10:28:20.142-05:00

An important new change will be landing in the release of LAVA Dispatcher this week, and it should be good news to anyone currently deploying the dispatcher. Configuration for your board types and test devices will no longer be in python modules, but in configuration files that you can keep across upgrades. First off, if you don't have a config, a default will be provided for you. You'll

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-12869917378759553512011-08-12T12:33:00.003-05:002011-08-12T12:40:26.786-05:00

Here's a quick snapshot of a stack of 4 pandaboards that will be going into the new rack at the Linaro validation farm when it arrives. The current plan is to add 30 new pandaboards. We are not using a custom case at the moment, but just stacking them on a shelf so they are easy to access. To get better density, we will put 4 of these stacks on a single shelf, which will occupy about 4U of

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-51908526174646065312011-07-27T13:16:00.009-05:002011-07-27T15:50:14.716-05:00

I'd like to take a moment to highlight some of the new features that have been added to LAVA.First off, the LAVA scheduler now has a basic UI. You can now see the status of boards, the current status of running jobs, and even click a link to see all jobs. You can't see this from the UI, but we also added support for submitting jobs for a device_type. So test jobs can now specify a target

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-10374339970173182522011-07-21T21:40:00.003-05:002011-07-27T15:49:41.280-05:00

The Linaro Validation team is pleased to announce the latest release of LAVA, for the 2011.07 milestone.LAVA is the Linaro Automated Validation Architecture that Linaro is deploying to automate the testing of Linaro images and components on supported development boards.One of the biggest changes you'll see this month, is the UI for the dashboard got an overhaul. You can now view entire bundles

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-56654860557270086202011-07-01T04:14:00.003-05:002011-07-01T04:20:23.529-05:00

The Linaro Validation team is pleased to announce the first full release of LAVA, for the 2011.06 milestone.LAVA is the Linaro Automated Validation Architecture that Linaro is deploying to automate the testing of Linaro images and components on supported development boards.The release pages with release notes, highlights, changelogs, and downloads can be found at: lava-dashboard - https://

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-43219078631135757732011-06-01T16:40:00.002-05:002011-06-01T16:47:50.618-05:00

If you take a look at http://launchpad.net/lava you'll see some structural changes are afoot:LAVA is now a project grouplava-server - the core server componentslava-dashboard - the results dashboard (was launch-control)lava-scheduler - the lava schedulerlava-dispatcher - the dispatcherlava-tool - the core pieces of the command line interfacelava-test - (coming soon) the test execution

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-67621627658170898512011-04-25T15:59:00.006-05:002011-05-09T17:05:47.476-05:00

I attended the Embedded Linux Conference in San Francisco for the first time this year, and have to say it's one of the better conferences I've been to. There were good sessions, interesting demos, and best of all, lots of people working in embedded Linux to talk to.For my part, I gave an overview of the Linaro Automated Validation Architecture that we are working on. If you're interested, you

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-69457196610262961302011-03-14T13:35:00.003-05:002011-03-14T13:48:40.317-05:00

One thing my team has been working on recently is a test automation framework for ARM systems running Linaro images. Since Linaro is also now looking at providing Android based images, the scope increased slightly, and we need a way to cover those as well. My original though for doing this was to have what we call a "master image", basically the first 2 partitions on the SD card which would

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-42978368526713797802010-10-30T00:35:00.002-05:002010-10-30T01:04:53.903-05:00

Today was the last day of UDS for the Natty Narwhal cycle. It's hard to believe this is my 4th UDS already. So what's new in the world of Ubuntu? As always, too much to name! By now, everyone's heard the major announcements I'm sure. We saw a slick demo of Ubuntu Light - coming soon to a Dell computer near you, Unity on the desktop, etc. For the proceedings, take a look HERE.Also, I highly

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-86698703605670965712010-08-27T08:46:00.002-05:002010-08-27T08:58:06.768-05:00

So I've had pretty much a full week now of dogfooding on Unity, and no major problems. Overall, I think it's a step in the right direction for a netbook interface, which it was intended for. It makes good use of the limited space on these screens, has enough eye-candy to keep up with the alternatives out there, and has buttons on the side that are potentially large enough to be finger friendly.

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-58340426558642335292010-08-23T13:22:00.002-05:002010-08-23T13:33:42.271-05:00

Unity isn't fully cooked yet, but as we're approaching Ubuntu 10.10 beta, it seems like a good time to jump in and start taking a hard look at it. Also, I've been hearing a lot of good things about it so I can't resist the urge to go check it out for myself.First impressions: shiny. Yes, it neat and modern looking. Unfortunately, I've seen enough things like that only to later realize how

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-28766302147005099902010-08-17T15:52:00.002-05:002010-08-17T16:00:05.479-05:00

It's been a little over a full week now, and I'm still on Xubuntu for my primary desktop. I like to try out all the latest stuff, so I likely won't stay on it forever. But for now, it's looking like a good default. A few observations to wrap this up:The default media player seems to be parole rather than totem. It seems to be nice an lightweight, but had problems opening some sound files that

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-67255899058695051372010-08-12T15:40:00.002-05:002010-08-12T15:44:32.461-05:00

Two more days with Xubuntu, and still very pleased. I did run into one odd thing yesterday. I clicked on a link in an email (Apparently I had a rich uncle in Nigeria, who died and left me all his money, who knew?) and the browser opened the link properly. However, instead of moving me to the virtual terminal where I normally keep my browser, it moved the browser to me. A quick skim through

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-82054365078291080502010-08-10T09:39:00.005-05:002010-08-10T09:59:48.716-05:00

Time to give Xubuntu a try.apt-get install xubuntu-desktopAs long as I've been using Ubuntu, it never fails to impress me how simple it is to make such a significant change. A few minutes later, and several new packages installed, I logged out and logged back into Xubuntu for the first time in a while.The first two words that come to mind are "beautiful" and "simple". I really enjoy Xubuntu and

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-82780240319499593282010-07-26T11:00:00.002-05:002010-07-26T11:16:08.204-05:00

I've failed to keep this updated over the past week as intended because I was busy with a sprint. The short story is that I made it through about 3.5 days before finally having to give it up. The breaking point for me was when I was trying to switch back and forth between 2 different wireless access points. I found setting up a new WAP in KDE to be a bit cumbersome, but switching to a new one

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-21865039805907453062010-07-15T14:16:00.002-05:002010-07-15T14:26:46.832-05:00

I've got the theme, fonts, background, etc. at least a little more tolerable for now. I have a few major complaints though from spending the last 24+ hours with it.Screen artifacts - lots of them. I even have a fresh login now and about 60% of my bottom panel is black. The buttons draw over the foreground ok, but half of it is dark, the other half is grey. Could be video driver related I

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-7051001968004483902010-07-14T09:04:00.002-05:002010-07-14T09:13:58.134-05:00

It's been a long time since I've given KDE a chance. I used to really appreciate things like extensive configurability that existed in KDE, especially in contrast to Gnome where the user is pretty much told "this is how it's going to work, take it or leave it." I've launched into Kubuntu a few times, and kept it installed on my machine, but never really forced myself to use it for more than a

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-64750231456231189222010-06-23T12:02:00.002-05:002010-06-23T12:33:15.705-05:00

A good friend of mine asked me today, how many test harnesses, or automated testing frameworks I've either written, or participated in the creation of now. Honestly, I had never really stopped to think about it, but it's been more than a few. I've had a lot of people suggest over the years that it shouldn't be necessary to start over and create a new one, when there are lots of good ones

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-90838977919779547512009-07-16T21:42:00.005-05:002009-09-25T11:13:30.976-05:00

Netbooks are great. I love the portability, and the fact that it's possible to make devices that small now-a-days, but they still have sufficient power for typical daily work. One of the trade-offs for that smaller size though, is a smaller screen size. Typical resolution for many of these newer netbooks is 1024x576.Unfortunately, most developers aren't running at anything near that small

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-90714109707113516852009-07-16T21:18:00.003-05:002009-07-16T21:42:41.933-05:00

So I'm on to new stomping grounds at Canonical now, working on the Mobile team. One of the things we work on is Ubuntu Netbook Remix. If you have a netbook, check it out. You can even run it straight off a USB stick to try it out first.The other major thing we're working on right now is the ARM port of Ubuntu. Lots of cool stuff going on here too. Jaunty went out with support for iMX51

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-4263860592950444062009-01-28T16:48:00.002-06:002010-06-23T12:33:25.537-05:00

I participated in an IBM Redbook assignment recently with a small team (3 of us). The paper is called: SystemTap: Instrumenting the Linux Kernel for Analyzing Performance and Functional Problems. If you are interested, check it out at: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/redp4469.html. I was really impressed with the Redbook process and this was a very enjoyable experience for me to work

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-13077214742186117282008-10-16T10:31:00.002-05:002008-10-16T11:27:47.836-05:00

I recently migrated one of my systems from FC9 to Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy) and ran into some minor annoyances with Mozilla Thunderbird and the Lightning extension. I eventually found the answer after some digging, but thought I might post it in case anyone else runs into this. Or more likely, so that I can remind myself next time I hit this problem! :)It seemed simple enough, I did an apt-get

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-23018635752656254102008-07-23T09:20:00.005-05:002009-07-24T09:51:38.079-05:00

Here are a couple of fun things I found recently that I thought were interesting:Gist - Most people have probably heard of github, but Gist seems to be a new service they are offering that will let you post code snipits, kind of like pastebin. But with Gist, you can share, make changes, fork, add files, etc. via git! To actually modify what you put there via git, you'll have to have a free

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2341797935474166958.post-64104561388260977742008-07-18T17:26:00.004-05:002009-07-24T09:52:04.910-05:00

A while back, I started learning and using Systemtap to help in understanding code flow, and in debugging. It's a really neat tool, but looking at it from the perspective of a tester, I immediately realized that it was going to be useful for fault injection. After some searching, the only thing I could find was a reference to the SCSI fault injection test harness. This was a good start, but

Paul Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13561544855682549823noreply@blogger.com0