02 Mar 2026
Planet Debian
Isoken Ibizugbe: Wrapping Up My Outreachy Internship at Debian
Twelve weeks ago, I stepped into the Debian ecosystem as an Outreachy intern with a curiosity for Quality Assurance. It feels like just yesterday, and time has flown by so fast! Now, I am wrapping up that journey, not just with a completed project, but with improved technical reasoning.
I have learned how to use documentation to understand a complex project, how to be a good collaborator, and that learning is a continuous process. These experiences have helped me grow much more confident in my skills as an engineer.
My Achievements
As I close this chapter, I am leaving a permanent "Proof-of-Work" in the Debian repositories:
- Full Test Coverage: I automated apps_startstop tests for Cinnamon, LXQt, and XFCE, covering both Live images and Netinst installations.
- Synergy: I used symbolic links and a single Perl script to handle common application tests across different desktops, which reduces code redundancy.
- The Contributor Style Guide: I created a guide for future contributors to make documentation clearer and reviews faster, helping to reduce the burden on reviewers.
Final Month: Wrap Up
In this final month, things became easier as my understanding of the project grew. I focused on stability and finishing my remaining tasks:
- I spent time exploring different QEMU video options like VGA, qxl, and virtio on KDE desktop environment . This was important to ensure screen rendering remained stable so that our "needles" (visual test markers) wouldn't fail because of minor glitches.
- I successfully moved from familiarizing to test automation for the XFCE desktop. This included writing "prepare" steps and creating the visual needles needed to make the tests reliable.
- One of my final challenges was the app launcher function. Originally, my code used else if blocks for each desktop. I proposed a unified solution, but hit a blocker: XFCE has two ways to launch apps (App Finder and the Application Menu). Because using different methods sometimes caused failures, I chose to use the application menu button across the board.
What's Next?
I don't want my journey with Debian to end here. I plan to stay involved in the community and extend these same tests to the LXDE desktop to complete the coverage for all major Debian desktop environments. I am excited to keep exploring and learning more about the Debian ecosystem.
Thank You
This journey wouldn't have been possible without the steady guidance of my mentors: Tassia Camoes Araujo, Roland Clobus, and Philip Hands. Thank you for teaching me that in the world of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), your voice and your code are equally important.
To my fellow intern Hellen and the entire Outreachy community, thank you for the shared learning and support. It has been an incredible 12 weeks.
02 Mar 2026 8:51pm GMT
Hellen Chemtai: The Last Week of My Journey as an Outreachy Intern at Debian OpenQA
Hello world
. I'm Hellen Chemtai, an intern at Outreachy working with the Debian OpenQA team on Images Testing. This is the final week of the internship. This is just a start for me as I will continue contributing to the community .I am grateful for the opportunity to work with the Debian OpenQA team as an Outreachy intern. I have had the best welcoming team to Open Source.
My tasks and contributions
I have been working on network install and live images tasks :
- Install live Installers ( Ventoy , Rufus and Balenaetcher) and test the live USBs made by these live installers. - These tasks were completed and is running on the server.
- Use different file systems (btrfs , jfs , xfs) for installation and then test. - This task was completed and running on the server. It still needs some changes to ensure automation for each file system
- Use speech synthesis to capture all audio. - This task is almost complete. We are testing to ensure no errors will occur in the server.
- Publish temporary assets. - This task is not a priority and will be worked on once we've wrapped up the other tasks.
I have enjoyed working on testing both live images and net install images. This was one of the goals that I had highlighted in my application. I have also been working with fellow contributors in this project.
My team
As I had stated , I have had the best welcoming team to Open Source . They have been working with me and ensuring I have the proper resources for contributions. I am grateful to my three mentors and the work they have done.
- Roland Clobus is a project maintainer. He is in charge of code review , pointing out what we need to learn and works on technical issues. He considers every solution we contributors think of and will go into detailed explanations for any issue we have.
- Tassia Camoes is a community coordinator. She is in charge of communication, co-ordination between contributors and networking within the community. She on-boarded us and introduced us to the community.
- Philip Hands is also a project maintainer. He is in charge of technical code , ensuring sources work and also working on server and its issues. He also gives detailed explanations for any issue we have.
I wish to learn more with the team. On my to do list, I would like to gain more skills on ports and packages so to contribute more technically. I have enjoyed working on the tasks and learning
The impact of this project
The automated tests done by the team help the community in some of the following examples:
- Check the installation and system behavior of the Operating System images versions
- Help developers and users of Operating Systems know which versions of applications e.g live installers run well on system
- Check for any issues during installation and running of Operating Systems and their flavors
I have also networked with the greater community and other contributors. During the contribution phase, I found many friends who were learning together with me . I hope to continue networking with the community and continue learning.
02 Mar 2026 5:23pm GMT
Ben Hutchings: FOSS activity in February 2026

- Debian packages:
- firmware-free:
- firmware-nonfree:
- Bugs:
- closed #481234: firmware-nonfree: Include firmware for p54 driver
- closed #484177: firmware-nonfree: keyspan
- closed #534379: [firmware-nonfree] Please consider including dvb-usb-af9015.fw
- closed #548745: firmware-linux: Fix licence and include edgeport firmware
- closed #588142: Add r8192u_usb (aka rtl8192u) firmware
- closed #597897: RFP: alsa-firmware - firmware binaries used by each alsa-firmware-loader program
- closed #999485: Please add brcmfmac43456-sdio.* files as it's not just used in RPi devices
- opened and closed #1126794: Undistributable file under qcom/qdu100
- closed #1126846: Qualcomm AudioReach topology files are covered by separate licence
- replied to #1126896: firmware-nvidia-graphics: Cannot upgrade from bookworm-backports to trixie-backports
- Merge requests:
- closed !128: Draft: Add Provides: based ABI versioning mechanism
- merged !134: Update to 20251125
- reviewed and merged !135: Drop DSP firmware, migrated to hexagon-dsp-binaries source
- reviewed and merged !136: debian/copyright: correct licence issues
- opened and closed !137: d/copyright, qcom-soc: Exclude undistributable QDU100 firmware
- opened and merged !138: Update to 20260110
- opened and merged !139: Update to 20260221
- Uploads:
- uploaded version 20251111-1~bpo13+1 to trixie-backports
- uploaded version 20251125-1 to unstable
- uploaded version 20260110-1 to unstable
- Bugs:
- hexagon-dsp-binaries:
- initramfs-tools:
- Bugs:
- Merge requests:
- iptables:
- ktls-utils:
- Merge requests:
- libvirt:
- linux:
- Bugs:
- replied to #1121192: kworker: Events_unbound, kworker processes, continually using CPU.
- replied to #1126710: linux-image-6.18.5+deb14-amd64: unable to mount existing XFS V4 filesystem because kernel CONFIG_XFS_SUPPORT_V4 is not set
- replied to #1128397: linux-image-6.18.10+deb14-amd64: open(/proc/$pid/maps) is empty after $pid exec()s, unless you read a partial line from the fd before, in which case it has the rest of the line only
- replied to and closed #1128567: linux-image-6.18.5+deb13-amd64: amdgpu.dc=0 causes Xorg 1:7.7+24 error "no screens found"
- closed #1129029: Bug on VirtualBox and KVM conflict kernel 6.12 (Debian 12)
- Merge requests:
- Uploads:
- (LTS) uploaded version 5.10.249-1 to bullseye-security
- uploaded version 6.12.63-1~bpo12+1 to bookworm-backports
- uploaded version 6.12.69-1~bpo12+1 to bookworm-backports
- uploaded version 6.12.73-1~bpo12+1 to bookworm-backports
- uploaded version 6.18.12-1~bpo13+1 to trixie-backports
- uploaded version 6.18.5-1~bpo13+1 to trixie-backports
- uploaded version 6.18.9-1~bpo13+1 to trixie-backports
- (LTS) updated the bullseye-security branch to 5.10.251, but did not upload it
- Bugs:
- (LTS) linux-6.1:
- Uploads:
- uploaded version 6.1.162-1~deb11u1 to bullseye-security
- Uploads:
- linux-base:
- nfs-utils:
- Merge requests:
- reviewed and merged !36: Drop installation of blkmapd and nfs-blkmap.service systemd service
- Merge requests:
- wireless-regdb:
- Debian non-package bugs:
- Mailing lists:
- debian-kernel:
- posted Agenda items for kernel-team meeting on 2026-02-04
- posted Agenda items for kernel-team meeting on 2026-02-25
- (LTS) replied to Discrepancies between Commits list in changelog of debian and upstream linux git repo.
- (LTS) replied to [Pkg-libvirt-maintainers] Processed: retitle 1124549 to libvirt passes invalid flags for network interface deletion …, tagging 1124549
- replied to linux 7.0
- debian-lts-announce:
- klibc:
- replied to [PATCH 1/2] [klibc] explicitly close arm64 syscall stub generator output
- replied to [PATCH] [klibc] fix arm stub alignment
- replied to [PATCH] [klibc] remove unneeded syscalls.mk dependencies
- linux-hwmon:
- linux-wireless:
- platform-driver-x86:
- stable:
- (LTS) replied to Please apply commit 9990ddf47d41 ("net: tunnel: make skb_vlan_inet_prepare() return drop reasons") down to 6.1.y at least
- (LTS) reviewed and replied to various patches for 5.10 … … …
- (LTS) posted [PATCH 5.10,5.15] ip6_tunnel: Fix usage of skb_vlan_inet_prepare()
- replied to [PATCH 6.12 519/567] gpiolib: acpi: Move quirks to a separate file
- debian-kernel:
02 Mar 2026 4:28pm GMT