fidzu : debian

FOSDEM 2026 was great! I hope to blog a proper postmortem in due course. But for now, The video of my talk is up, as are my slides with speaker notes and links.

03 Feb 2026 4:21pm GMT

Hi there, I'm more than halfway through (8 weeks) my Outreachy internship with Debian, working on the openQA project to test Live Images.

My journey into tech began as a software engineering trainee, during which I built a foundation in Bash scripting, C programming, and Python. Later, I worked for a startup as a Product Manager. As is common in startups, I wore many hats, but I found myself drawn most to the Quality Assurance team. Testing user flows and edge-case scenarios sparked my curiosity, and that curiosity is exactly what led me to the Debian Live Image testing project.

From Manual to Automated

In my previous roles, I was accustomed to manual testing, simulating user actions one by one. While effective, I quickly realized it could be a bottleneck in fast-paced environments. This internship has been a masterclass in removing that bottleneck. I've learned that automating repetitive actions makes life (and engineering) much easier. Life's too short for manual testing .

One of my proudest technical wins so far has been creating "Synergy" across desktop environments. I proposed a solution to group common applications so we could use a single Perl script to handle tests for multiple desktop environments. With my mentor's guidance, we implemented this using symbolic links, which significantly reduced code redundancy.

Expanding My Technical Toolkit

Over the last 8 weeks, my technical toolkit has expanded significantly:

• Perl & openQA: I've learnt writing with Perl for automation within the openQA framework and I've successfully automated apps_startstop tests for Cinnamon and LXQt
• Technical Documentation: I authored a contributor guide. This required paying close attention to detail, ensuring that new contributors can have faster reviews and merged contributions
• Ansible: I am learning that testing doesn't happen in a vacuum. To ensure new tests are truly automated, they must be integrated into the system's configuration.

Working on this project has shaped my perspective on where I fit in the tech ecosystem. In Open Source, my "resume" isn't just a PDF, it's a public trail of merged code, technical proposals, and collaborative discussions.

As my mentor recently pointed out, this is my "proof-of-work." It's a transparent record of what I am capable of and where my interests lie.

Finally, I've grown as a team player. Working with a global team across different time zones has taught me the importance of asynchronous communication and respecting everyone's time. Whether I am proposing a new logic or documenting a process, I am learning that open communication is just as vital as clean code.

02 Feb 2026 9:49pm GMT

Hello world ! I am an intern at Outreachy working with the Debian OpenQA team on images testing. We get to know what career opportunities awaits us when we work on open source projects. In open source, we are constantly learning. The community has different sets of skills and a large network of people.

So, how did I start off in this internship

I entered the community with the these skills:

• MERN (Mongo DB, Express JS , React JS and Node JS) - for web development
• Linux and Shell Scripting - for some administrative purposes
• Containerization using Google Cloud
• Operating Systems
• A learning passion for Open Source - I contributed to some open source work in the past but it was in terms of documentation and bug hunting

I was a newbie at OpenQA but, I had a month to learn and contribute. Time is a critical resource but so is understanding what you are doing. I followed the installations instructions given but whenever I got errors, I had to research why I got the errors. I took time to understand errors I was solving then continued on with the tasks I wanted to do. I communicated my logic and understanding while working on the task and awaited reviews and feedback. Within a span of two months I had learned a lot by practicing and testing.

The skills I gained

As of today, I gained these technical skills from my work with Debian OpenQA team.

• Perl - the tests that we run are written in this language
• Ansible configuration - ansible configurations and settings for the machines the team runs
• Git - this is needed for code versioning and diving tasks into different branches
• Linux - shell scripting and working with the Debian Operating system
• Virtual Machines and Operating Systems - I constantly view how different operating systems are booted and run on virtual machines during testing
• Testing - I keep watch of needles and ensure the tests work as required
• Debian - I use a Debian system to run my Virtual Machines
• OpenQA - the tool that is used to automate testing of Images

With open source comes the need of constant communication. The community is diverse and the team is usually on different time zones. These are some of the soft / social skills I gained when working with the team

• Communication - this is essential especially in taking tasks with confidence, talking about issues encountered and stating the progress of the tasks
• Interpersonal skills - this is for general communication within the community
• Flexibility - we have to adapt to changes because we are a community of different people with different skills

With these skills and the willingness to learn , open source is a great area to focus on . Aside from your career you will extend your network. My interests are set on open source and Linux in general. Working with a wider network has really skilled me up and I will continue learning. Working with the Debian OpenQA team has been very great. The team is great at communication and I learn every day. The knowledge I gain from the team is helping me build a great career in open source.

02 Feb 2026 3:30pm GMT