Loïc Martin

Email: <loic.martin3 AT SPAMFREE gmail DOT com>

About me

Name: Loïc Martin
Launchpad page: https://launchpad.net/~loic-martin3/
Ubuntu Forums Pseudo: Loïc2

I've been using Linux since 1996, when I got my first PC after years of reading Amiga revues and one year of really owning an A1200. I started with Slackware, soon moved to Debian when I could access Internet at the University and swap floppy disks to try to get updated applications at home. I switched to Red Hat and Mandrake for the few years where I didn't have Internet, but when I could get broadband access and thus go back to Debian I read an article about Ubuntu and tried it (Hoary or Breezy, whoever came first).

Since I'm not a programmer I mainly contributed by reporting bugs, triaging some bugs for a few applications I use, and learning to update packages or build some from source.

I started writing personal reminders of commands and configuration files to update in order to get a working Ubuntu system, and decided to put those online since that meant I wouldn't have to track where I have put the file each time I installed Ubuntu on a computer.

Thus started:

• https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SCIM

• https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wacom

(and a few related pages, plus some editing on other ones)

However, instead of copy-pasting the short instructions I used, I decided to make them full newbie-friendly guides with screenshots and an emphasis on doing things using a GUI, in contrast with all the How-To I had seen at the time. Tracking the Ubuntu long-standing bugs related to SCIM and Wacom, testing Ubuntu versions when they were still in Alpha or Beta stage and trying to figure the bits from different places allowed the guides to be kept up-to-date for each release, and they also got improvements from different contributors to become what they are today.

Most of it comes from one belief - which is also reflected in Ubuntu's motto : why force users to go through hoops (sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for a few hours), when it could be avoided with a few days of efforts from our side?

I also started getting active in the Forums after seeing many threads about SCIM or Wacom tablets, and realising a lot of users never looked on the wiki - even though that's where you can build the most helpful guides.

Work in Ubuntu packages

Although I still don't maintain any packages, I'm an Ubuntu CJK Testers member & keep a look on the following applications :

• SCIM and CJK input packages;
• wacom drivers;
• qGo, a Go board game client and SGF editor.

I'm also interested mainly in :

• video editing and encoding (x264, mencoder, GPAC);
• virtualization (kvm);
• emulation (PSX, PS2, SNES, Genesis...);
• wine;
• drawing applications, mainly Inkscape;
• GUI configuration tools (I'm trying to learn a bit of Python for that reason).

For work in package management, I've helped track a segfault bug in qGo (Bug #4048), reporting and maintaining the bug report, then creating a wiki page on how to reproduce the bug for qGo's developer, who was only using Fedora, helping him get debug information, testing the patch by building the program from CVS, then building a package for Dapper to have it on the program's main page till the updated version reached Ubuntu.

I've also fixed Bug #84705 by releasing a diff and advocating an SRU (the bug was only package related, a missing build dependency, so I could fix it even though I don't know how to program).

At the moment, I'm working on backporting wacom-tools 0.8.6 from Jaunty to Intrepid - Bug #309531 - and following the development of a wacom configuration tool by Alberto Milone (after a discussion on ubuntu-x, I did a Mockup at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Wacom/PropertiesMockup and am also active upstream on linuxwacom mailing list for the tool and evolutions in wacom devices input hotplug).

In the future, I'd like to learn more about package management to help better with bugs in Launchpad (instead of mostly reporting or triaging when I could actually fix some): backporting, helping with merges or building packages from source for Ubuntu and getting them included in Debian.
Target of choices :

• keep wacom drivers up to date in non-development distributions, packaging some tools that are related to drawing;
• keeping emulation related packages up-to-date with upstream version (uae, and get euae in the repos), packaging epsxe (binary only, not open-source), pcsx2 (open-source), aros (open-source, BSD licence), and a few other emulation related packages like cdemu/gcdemu;
• packaging Windows applications through wine if Scott Ritchie thinks it's possible;

Other FOSS work

I maintain on Wine AppDB the few applications I use on a regular basis, submitting test data, writing howtos for installing them and setting them up so they work the best. I also try to test other applications and write test data or bug reports when I can get a hand on them.

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