I was pleasantly surprised to see (as far as I know) the very first article written about APTonCD on last month’s issue (issue 95) of Linux Format, my favorite Linux magazine!

Back in August (or was it September?) of last year I learned that Rafael “CypherBIOS” Proença had started this project written in Python that promised to deliver “a tool with a graphical interface which allows you to create one or more CDs or DVDs (you choose the type of media) with all of the packages you’ve downloaded via APT-GET or APTITUDE, creating a removable repository that you can use on other computers.” Back then I was still tinkering with the idea of porting my BillReminder from C# to Python, just so that I could start learning the language. Rafael seemed eager to have someone else take a look at his code and generously offered me commit access to his SVN repository. My first task was to clean up the code, add some (much needed) comments, and split up the code into classes, as well as divide the glade files into more organizable modules. I then proceeded to recruit some more people to help out and was extremely lucky to have met Laudeci “Pretto” de Oliveira, a developer who was searching for a good reason to take a plunge into the open source development world! I must say that Laudeci was the missing piece of the puzzle, and even though several other developers left their contribution here and there, it was him who fueled up the project and shifted things into a higher gear! Shortly after I started my job at rPath and with the birth if my second daughter, my participation in the project went from developer/supporter to cheerleader! :)

If you’re looking for a cool project to get you started in the open source world and want to learn some cool python skills along the way, visit their web site and come hang out on #aptoncd at Freenode. You will not be disappointed.