3 files changed, 153 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/content/blog/february-2024-news-post.org b/content/blog/february-2024-news-post.org
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..82ca5b3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/content/blog/february-2024-news-post.org
@@ -0,0 +1,89 @@
+#+title: IS CARBS DEAD? (Or February 2024 News Post)
+#+author: Cem Keylan
+#+date: <2024-02-22 Thu>
+#+ALIASES[]: /blog/2024/02/index.html
+
+Every once in a while (maybe like once a month) I check the IRC logs and see
+someone asking for help while I was not available. Unfortunately, the amount of
+outdated packages are rising, 125 at the time of writing this post, which
+inadvertently causes issues for people trying to setup or maintain Carbs
+installations.
+
+I have just recently seen two messages that were posted on the IRC channel a
+couple of days ago asking if Carbs was still maintained so I decided to make a
+post addressing the state in hand.
+
+#+TOC: headlines 3 local
+
+** Is Carbs Dead?
+
+I am fully aware that I haven't been doing a proper job as the maintainer for
+the last couple of months so I can really see where the question is coming from.
+Carbs is not dead, but it would be quite valid to say that it is in a comatose
+state. I have been spending these last months focusing mainly on my university,
+and doing that, I even missed the 4th anniversary of Carbs, and forgot to make a
+post as I usually had done.
+
+However, Carbs is a project that is very dear to my heart, and I still use it
+personally as my daily system, so I have no intention on killing it any time soon.
+Still, there is good need for better communication on how my maintenance of the
+distribution will be moving forward.
+
+** Future of the Distribution
+
+I am still working hard on my tasks as a university student. This means that I
+can only work on the distribution periodically. Luckily, Carbs is a very
+self-sustainable project and it can be easily updated without the need of a
+maintainer. However, leaving a distribution unmaintained is rarely healthy for
+an open-source project, so let's talk about my views on each component that
+makes Carbs a functioning Linux distribution:
+
+*** CPT
+
+Apart from the occasional bug fix, performance improvements, and documentation,
+I don't think CPT needs active maintenance, and I consider it to be feature
+complete. I haven't made any release over a year, and it's likely that I won't
+be adding any new features any time soon.
+
+*** Package Repository
+
+This is in general the tricky part. A user can update packages on their own
+without the requirement of a maintainer. The Carbs Linux repository is part of
+[[https://repology.org][Repology]], a hub that monitors a very large number of repositories to provide
+packaging information. Since tracking hundreds of software packages for updates,
+and issues is near impossible for a person alone without a unified interface, I
+use Repology API to [[https://repology.org/projects/?inrepo=carbs&outdated=1][follow outdated packages on our repository]]. Any user on the
+event that I leave the distribution unmaintained, can go to Repology and look
+for more information on outdated packages to update their own.
+
+I have also written some tools that help me follow these information on my
+terminal instead of requiring a browser, which I plan on releasing somewhat
+soon. Here are some screenshots, as a teaser:
+
+#+ATTR_HTML: :width 800
+#+ATTR_HTML: :alt title
+#+ATTR_HTML: :title Image Title
+[[file:/img/repology-tui-1.png]]
+
+#+ATTR_HTML: :width 800
+#+ATTR_HTML: :alt title
+#+ATTR_HTML: :title Image Title
+[[file:/img/repology-tui-2.png]]
+
+This leads to what I believe is the most important part of this post.
+
+*** Maintainership
+
+I am planning on delegating maintainership for certain parts of the repository.
+This will start with me orphaning some packages found in the community
+repository and leaving them for adoption. Packages orphaned for more than a 3
+month period will be dropped from the repositories. The dropped packages will be
+moved to a graveyard repository where someone wanting the package can request to
+maintain it.
+
+Once the repository back to its usual state, I will also start looking for a
+second maintainer to help me with overall repository management. If this sounds
+interesting to you please do reach out to me from my maintainer email (or on
+Mastodon [[https://mas.to/@cem][@cem@mas.to]])!
+
+See you on the next post!
diff --git a/content/blog/january-2023-news-post.org b/content/blog/january-2023-news-post.org
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..03f07f1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/content/blog/january-2023-news-post.org
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+#+title: January 2023 News Post
+#+author: Cem Keylan
+#+date: <2023-01-31 Tue>
+
+Happy New Year everyone, and welcome to the first Carbs Linux "News Post" in
+nearly two years (wow that really is a long time). We have a couple of news that
+I want to discuss in detail, so I decided that it warrants a blog post on its
+own.
+
+#+TOC: headline 1 local
+
+** Bye bye, X.org
+
+Throughout the years I was already clear on my intentions to drop xorg support
+at one point, and in my opinion both Wayland and its support around it has
+matured enough to make the complete switch. I am currently writing this blog
+post on, as of yet unreleased, pure-GTK build of Emacs which does not depend on
+any X11 components.
+
+Carbs Linux was first published on December 2019 with xorg support only, and had
+Wayland support since February 2021. This month, all xorg specific libraries,
+drivers, and utilities (except for xwayland) have been dropped from the
+repository. If you are currently an xorg user, you can read the [[https://carbslinux.org/docs/carbslinux/Switching-from-Xorg.html][Switching from
+Xorg]] section of the user manual. Feel free to jump on the IRC channel for
+requesting help.
+
+** CPT Version 7 Release
+
+After almost a year of delay, I am happy to finally announce that the 7th major
+version of our package manager is released. You can learn more about the changes
+from the [[https://fossil.carbslinux.org/cpt/doc/trunk/CHANGELOG.md][ChangeLog]] in the source repository. Some of the highlights include:
+
+- Package manager updates will be re-entrant from now on, meaning that you don't
+  have to run ~cpt-update~ twice.
+- The new configuration directory is now available as =/etc/cpt/= in order to not
+  clutter the =/etc/= directory.
+- Package manager hooks are now handled in a different manner.
+- ~cpt-size~ program can now sort the files based on size.
+
+And many more changes and improvements along this one! Coming with this change,
+I will also be releasing a new rootfs tarball soon. Follow the news feed for
+more information.
+
+See you on the next post!
diff --git a/content/blog/three-years-of-carbs-linux.org b/content/blog/three-years-of-carbs-linux.org
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eb2d95c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/content/blog/three-years-of-carbs-linux.org
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+#+title: Three Years of Carbs Linux
+#+author: Cem Keylan
+#+date: <2022-12-12 Mon>
+
+Dec  10th,  2022  marked  the  third  year of  Carbs  Linux,  so  this  post  is
+unfortunately two  days late :) Even  though I did  my best to keep  the package
+repository up to date as much as possible, I was quite distant to the project in
+general, and was unable to release the version 7 of CPT as I promised on my last
+blog post  (which was the  birthday post of  last year). Fortunately,  I believe
+that the distribution has matured enough to not require constant observation and
+intervention to function. Again, I want to thank everyone who has contributed to
+Carbs Linux in any way, people who  continue to hang around the IRC channel even
+though it's been a pretty quiet one this year.
+
+I hope  to bring some  of my  attention back to  the project the  upcoming year.
+Version 7  is mostly  finished, but I  still haven't released  it to  update the
+documentation and tests,  so I am planning  on making a release  in the upcoming
+months :)
+
+See you on the next post!