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https://launchpad.net/@@/person Name

Walter Lapchynski

Ubuntu Wiki

wxl

https://launchpad.net/@@/mail Email

wxl at ubuntu dot com

https://launchpad.net/favicon.ico Launchpad

wxl

https://launchpad.net/@@/language IRC

wxl on Freenode, OFTC, and elsewhere

https://launchpadlibrarian.net/7171615/ubuntulogo_s.png Forums

wxl

(i) Homepage

wxl.freeshell.org | polka.bike

http://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/wp-useragent/trunk/img/16/os/lubuntu-1.png Derivative

Lubuntu

Contributions

(1) Lubuntu Release Manager (et cetera)
(2) Oregon LoCo Team Leader
(3) PPC Point Of Contact

About Me (and my relationship with Ubuntu)

I'm a lifelong geek, having delved deeply into the many intricacies of my first computer, a Commodore 128, at 8 years old. I taught myself how to program BASIC immediately. Eventually, armed with a little experience from the CP/M mode (read: PC emulation) on said computer, I upgraded to MS-DOS on a new PC.

As a pre-teen, I made good use out of my 1200 baud modem, calling all over Ohio, much to the chagrin of my father. Soon I found the Cleveland FreeNet, the first free network, and with it discovered gopher, telnet, ftp, IRC, and ultimately, FreeBSD.

Meanwhile I kept loading up Windows on to my PC for those rare cases I might need it. I lived in the shell. One day, after upgrading to Windows 95, I typed some normal command, and was faced with "wrong version." The VER command revealed that Windows had truly taken over DOS. At that point, our relationship was over.

So began a long search for a new love. After a positive experience with Red Hat on a work computer, I installed Slackware on a ThinkPad which was wrought with difficulty, but I made it work, until the hard drive failed. At the time, replacing hardware on a desktop was fine and dandy with me, but I wasn't comfortable opening up a laptop, so I gave it away.

Since I was in college (for a degree in biology), I got a great discount on an Apple PowerBook G4 PPC (New World) I couldn't pass up. For a while, I had quite the love affair with OS X, but the more I used it, the more I found myself in Terminal and the more I did, the more I longed for a UNIX-like experience that wasn't quite so proprietary and funky. I was exploring various and sundry areas of networking and wanted a platform that would require less effort to get things done. Meanwhile I cut my teeth upgrading hardware, getting over that fear of repairing smaller-scale hardware. I even did some repairs on a tiny Palm Pre phone.

After being blown away by the state of Ubuntu, but not entirely liking its bloat, I kept searching. Xubuntu was good but not enough, though I did find myself liking XFCE. I went through all sorts of things, including a rather good long run with Arch (mainly from the XFCE connection though I like their "keep it simple" philosophy).

Finally Lubuntu came out with a PPC release. I got it going on the PowerBook and loved it. When I again got a hold of a ThinkPad that needed a little hardware help, I immediately loaded it up with Lubuntu. I also have a PowerBook G3 PPC (Old World) that has proven quite challenging to get anything on easily. It will eventually be Lubuntized. Every machine in the house (and there are many, including a little mini-ITX server and a Raspberry Pi) has some Debian-based distro on it, mostly Lubuntu.

I guess at my core, I'm a hacker: always tinkering, trying to figure out what various pieces do, experimenting. Linux is, for sure, the perfect platform for me.

I've decided, thusly, to quit ignoring my calling and have went back to school to get my degree in IT, with an emphasis in software development. This way I can actually be getting paid for what I'll ultimately be doing on my own anyways. I've got experience with Bash, Java, C, C++, C#, Python, Lua (awesomewm!), Common Lisp, Clojure, to name a few.

Hobbies

I'm an everyday cyclist and bike commuter and my primary employment is selling handcrafted folding bicycles to an international audience at Bike Friday. I also do various and sundry information services tasks for them.

I'm also a music geek and a free culture junkie. These two often go hand in hand.

I host an electronic music radio show broadcast with my own Icecast server (called ∃ radio) using Mixxx to DJ exclusively free Creative Commons-licensed tunes.

Also, on the other end of the spectrum, I have two more avant-garde/experimental projects that work in the loosely described genre of noise, Brownian Motion and The ERNIE 4, the latter being a collaboration with Jon 7/President Blair. Previously, they have involved taking some source material and manipulating it with the Apple-specific product Audio Hijack Pro. Often, there's a subtle commentary on the nature of intellectual copyright and what exactly is "free" in not only the implementation but the selection of sources. It is ironic then, to not use free software. I'm proud to say current works use Lubuntu, JACK, Pure Data, FreqTweak, jack-rack, and a variety of other free softwares. It is also likely that some generative video will be created via either Pure Data or Processing. Much of my work is available through my label Brownian e/Motion(s). I have an interest in doing livecoding. My friend and I are working on a little project in Overtone (Clojure + supercollider). There is also a likelihood that an electronic music project (likely breakcore) will come into existence care of some tracker (lgpt or Buzztard).

My Contributions

My main focus is on Lubuntu in the following areas (not necessarily in order):

  1. Bug reporting and triage on Launchpad and less so, on Sourceforge where the main LXDE tracker is. I am a member of Lubuntu Packages team, so I regularly get updates on bugs related to our project.

  2. IRC support on #lubuntu on Freenode.

  3. Testing/QA on both virtual and real hardware, with a particular focus on Lubuntu QA (I'm one of two current Release Managers), but also PowerPC/Mac (I'm the de facto Point Of Contact), Ubuntu server, and netboot. I recently was added as a testcase admin to help keep our procedures up to date. I'm proud to say that I was part of the team that kept PowerPC afloat for 12.10 by some very last minute testing.

  4. Documentation on the Lubuntu Wiki but also general pages where relevant.

  5. Facebook, where I helped create and help administer the official group.

I also serve as the Team Leader/Point Of Contact for Oregon LoCo.

My Teams

Future Goals

Short term, I've got some work ahead of me to unite and grow the beautiful State of Oregon's LoCo, spreading the word of Ubuntu throughout the land!

Long term, I want to learn Vala, Qt, and related languages, as well as packaging, so I can help with the development of Lubuntu and ultimately be able to do a better job in the areas I already contribute to.

Testimonials

If you have something nice to say about me, please add it below:


Walter is, as stated above, a very motivated and 'hands-on' person in all areas that he is involved in. For the testing cycle he went far beyond any call of duty. This continues apace with the chasing of outstanding bugs and the re-write of test cases for PPC. He is not limited to PPC and helps out on all areas. He is a wonderful example of the Ubuntu ethos, I strongly support his application for full Ubuntu membership. phillw 28th Oct 2012

update: I've had the extreme pleasure of working with wxl for several years now. He's very good at what he does, and is always willing to help and share his knowledge with others. He's been very helpful in many areas especially with the support and testing side. It is through his fantastic work that each cycle lubuntu has enough people to test PPC and AMD64+Mac images. His work with the Lubuntu Team has always been above and beyond the call of duty. He has now taken the mantle of TL for testing and is also now a release manager with duty of checking milestone ISO's are either a 'GO' or 'NO-GO' for acceptance. He's also always ready to answer any questions concerning where Lubuntu and F/OSS in general is heading. He is active with the areas of advocacy and being the Team Leader for lubuntu testing, liaises well with others and also with lubuntu's other sub-teams. I ask that you look favourably upon his application. phillw Sat 12th July 2014

Walter not only helped us with the testing task on QA Team. He spent hours trying to solve those called minor problems from unexperienced users on Lubuntu's IRC channel, editing and correcting wiki pages or even managing media resources like Facebook to spread the word. I highly recommend his membership application. -- rafaellaguna 2014-07-11 23:16:46

For me as CEO of Lubuntu marketing it's essential to have to have reliable sources that support me and my work. And for me, Walter is such a source. Whenever I need information or support on short notice, I can always count on Walter. He has the ability to make even the most difficult tech stuff understandable for Linux novices like me. And on top, he is patient... Someone willing to explain the same procedure 3 times in a row if necessary. And that's what the community really needs in my eyes. silverlion on Tue 5th August 2014

I've known wxl on IRC for a while now, and I'd say he is an intelligent, helpful person in terms of support and is the current release manager for Lubuntu. I fully support his application to become an Ubuntu member. -- unit193


wxl (last edited 2020-10-14 22:08:22 by wxl)