Kathenas - News

Fedora 41 support

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 14:46:00 +0000

Fedora 41 went End Of Life (EOL) on December 10, 2025. I have removed my Virtual Machines (VMs) for Fedora 41 and will be doing no further maintenance or builds for this release.

Ubuntu 26.04 LTS development is open

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 23:28:00 +0000

For those on the bleeding edge of Ubuntu development. Ubuntu 26.04 (Resolute Raccoon) development is now open for business.

26.04 will be a Long Term Support (LTS) release.

Install images can be found at the link below.

Ubuntu 26.04 latest desktop install images

Fedora 43 released

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 19:56:00 +0000

The latest iteration of the Red Hat sponsored Fedora GNU Linux distribution has been released. Fedora 43 comes with many updates and new features. For more information, read the release notes at the link below.

Fedora 43 release notes

To get one of the many Fedora 43 editions, use the link below.

Fedora 43

Fedora 40 support

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 02:53:00 +0000

Fedora 40 has been End Of Life (EOL) now for a while. I have kept Fedora 40 Virtual Machines (VMs) for the purpose helping with upgrade issue bugs, but it is now time to delete these VMs and move on. I would encourage anyone still running Fedora 40 to upgrade as soon as possible because leaving it increases the chance of upgrade problems.

Abscent, no posts and musings

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 06:22:00 +0000

Apologies for little activity recently. Severe pain stemming from my spinal stenosis in my neck and fybromyalgia enhancing that pain, it has not been a good time for me. Any future disappearances are likely due to this.

After the wiring loom was changed in my brand new electric wheelchair, it is now working correctly - fingers crossed.

Enterprise Linux has always been my primary place of contribution, though some may think that it was Debian, it wasn't. Over and above other work, I am looking to get more astronomy packages through to Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) from Fedora. Be patient as this is a slow process and a little more strict with EPEL 10 and point releases.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) does not contain certain packages that have been previously available such as LibreOffice. This makes Enterprise Linux (EL) 10 a hard option to promote for desktop/general use. I am currently digging to see if this and other packages are to be built for EPEL or would it take a rebuild project such as Alma Linux with appetite to build it and make it available to users.

One musing of mine of late, should Canonical break free of merging packages from Debian and maintain it's own code base of packages. Starting with a tier system, begin with a set of core packages and then take sole control of other packages their customers need as part of their standard user and enterprise offerings.

I have other things that I shall get into later - Mainly EL related.

Expunged from Debian

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 02:34:00 +0000

Another night of broken sleep and have woken to many emails expunging me from Debian with my packages being orphaned and requests to remove me from "Uploaders" on others. This task fell to Tobias Frost to do and is an end to the discrimination and bullying I have suffered for the past year or so.

Anyone sponsoring or given public support to the Debian Project, I would ask them to think about withdrawing it.

Astronomy packaging for Enterprise Linux

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 08:35:00 +0100

This week is further work on Astronomy packages for Enterprise Linux (EL). Filing requests for builds into Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL), building updated packages for both EL 9 and 10 and some contribution to Fedora Linux in and among.

Kathenas Mantis Tracker Instance

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 21:34:00 +0100

With my blocking from the Debian Community and its infrastructure, I have setup a Mantis bug tracker instance at Kathenas Tracker to track the upstream and GNU Linux Distribution projects I have an interest in.

You may wish to help, so feel free to create an account and let's do our little bit for these projects.

Debian - Independent me

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 05:35:00 +0100

I am no longer affiliated with the Debian Project. This decision is after continuously finding out the project has no idea about fairness, standards and that the project fails to answer for itself to groups or individuals about its operation and decisions.

The project speaks of diversity, but has none.

The project speaks of equality, but has none.

Culture of zero responsibility.

My contributions if to Debian packages in no way means I support the project and its poor practices and rules.

Sponsors of Debian events and conferences need to pause and ask themselves if they wish to be associated with such a project.

Update: 2025-10-03

Peaceful protest against the project and stating I will contact sponsors has me now banned from certain parts of the Debian infrastructure and community.

This only hurts projects I worked on. Banning me from Salsa is childish and shows you exactly how Debian is run these days. Time for change.

Looking for volunteering opportunities in Doncaster

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 21:54:00 +0100

I am currently looking for volunteering opportunities in Doncaster. Organisations can take advantage of my:

- Computer skills
- Mentoring
- Teaching and teaching assistance.
- Administration

I am always open to the learning of new skills and support an organisations goals.

I am power wheelchair bound, so appropriate access is required.

Any organisations interested in me volunteering for them can contact me using the email address below.

Email: philip.wyett@kathenas.org

Volunteering - UK 2010 Equality Act

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 10:43:00 +0100

As I found out recently, the 2010 Equality Act. here in the U.K. does not protect volunteers. This information provided to me by the Equality Advisory Support Service is very shocking. This lack of protection allows Companies, Charities and Not For Profit Organisations to mistreat and discriminate groups or individuals at will as I have found out myself.

I may circle round back to this after I have done further research and update on further actions taken or to be taken.

Update: 2025-08-25

I would ask those in the U.K. to consider signing the below linked petition and hopefully stir the U.K. government into looking at the rights of volunteers and others in extracurricular activities e.g. contributing to Debian.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/733537

I believe that this type of safeguarding I would hope expands to cover groups such as Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and other organised volunteer (in whole or part) projects.

I will be following the petitions progress.

Debian - graphviz not using its Salsa repository

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Sun, 24 Aug 2025 19:59:00 +0100

graphviz is a large mature project primarily coded in C. Sadly the current maintainer is not using the graphviz Salsa repository that already exists in the debian group.

This current situation is restricting any chance of collaborative development/maintenance of the package. This really needs to be rectified.

Update: 2025-09-07

For context, I filed the bug below in November 2024.

Debian Bug: 1087327

Contribution is ongoing

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Sun, 24 Aug 2025 19:45:00 +0100

Since deciding to stop Debian contribution in the area of Debian Mentors, I have not been idle. I have been doing commits for packages I maintain and also contribute to i.e. upstream projects and other activities that include Ubuntu bug squashing etc.

With my disabilities, it is important to face challenges be they during my daily activities or within the Free/Open Source Software community. These challenges are hard, fun and make me feel useful.

Onwards and upwards.

Kathenas - Wheelchair and dangerous

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 17:20:00 +0100

This week resigning myself to needing help in daily life and wider, getting out and about. I have this week acquired a Karma E40 Robooter electric wheelchair. This will allow me to go out now and hopefully help in general living.

Kathenas - Support Free/Open Source Contributors

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 13:16:00 +0100

Most of the money you see in and around Free / Open Source Software, Hardware and other projects is in the hands of large companies, groups and self styled organisations, with little or none reaching the actually contributors/maintainer/developers of your favourite projects who actually do the day to day work.

If you wish to support my efforts, please click on the image below to donate.

Kathenas - Debian 11 support

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 12:04:00 +0100

After long consideration, I am ending Debian 11 support by myself. Any packages I maintain will only receive critical and security updates.

Debian - June 2025 was a busy-ish month

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 04:48:00 +0100

With freezes in place and much work being done to prepare for Debian 13, it has been a hectic month.

I have been:

1. Reviewing packages and mentoring as part of my contribution to Debian Mentors[1].

2. Making sure the packages I maintain are ready for Debian 13.

3. Doing testing of what will be Debian 13 and its packages.

I have not:

1. Had any movement of my Debian Developer (DD) application.

More to follow soon on this one.

[1] Debian Mentors

DebCamp and DebConf 2025, Brest, France

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 05:33:00 +0100

DebCamp and DebConf 2025 being held in Brest, France is almost here.

DebCamp: 07-07-2025 to 13-07-2025

DebConf: 14-07-2025 to 19-07-2025

For details on the conference, see link below.

DebCamp and DebConf 2025

Addendum, 2025-0706:

I shall not be attending the conferences in person or virtually - I do not feel welcome with situations as they are.

New Blog

philip.wyett@kathenas.org (Phil Wyett) — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 12:01:00 +0100

Finally found Serendipity, a simple blog platform with easy configuration and gets out of the way so I can just create posts.

The new blog will feature a variety of posts on many different subjects.

Watch this space...