Name: Chris Peterman
Major: Computer Science
Class: 2008
Lab Hours: Wednesday 2 - 5
IBM Student Mainframe Contest
Details at: http://www.developer.ibm.com/us/en/university/students/contests/mainframecontest.html
End of Semester Status: Still In Progress, will complete as much as possible over break
Debian Configuration Backup Utility
Idea:
I know that I have to reinstall from time to time, mostly due to my own screwing around with the system and deleting something that I shouldn't have. And I thought that others would have the same problem, reinstalling that is. Now most "veteran" Linux users use a separate /home partition, so most application configs are saved there. But what about the packages installed? Or tweaks to config files in /etc, like xorg.conf. There is no way to back those up easily (well packages at least. This script would take a snapshot of the installed packages and /etc files (to be determined) and generate a script in /home (or wherever the user wants it) that when run would apt-get all the packages that were installed at the time the snapshot was taken and also replace any /etc files with snapshot ones. At first it will be a command-line tool, but if it works a simple GUI could be implemented.
Update(9/24/05): Initial source code finished and bug free. Tarball available in the source directory. You'll need standard C++ and C libraries to compile it.
Update(10/1/05): Converted the package into a Debian package. Also as a result the version has been bumped to 0.1-0ubuntu5~beta1. Diff files, original source, changelog, and the signature file have also been uploaded to the source directory.
End Of Semester Status: Done
Ubuntu Linux Work
A side effect of working on DCBU was that I became even more involved with the Ubuntu Linux project. This included going to the first day of Ubuntu Below Zero in Montreal. On December 6th, I was approved into becoming an Ubuntu Member.
More InfoACM Programming Contest
Late October/Early November I went to Montreal along with Pat and Rouslan to take part in the ACM Programming Contest there. Although we didn't win, it was still a good experiance for me personally and I hope to do it again next year.