My experience at
MiniDebConf Campinas 2026

Last week, I spent the entire week in Campinas attending MiniDebConf
and MiniDebCamp. The Debian Brazil community organizes this event every
year, and this year’s edition was the biggest so far.

During MiniDebCamp, I sponsored a few uploads and spent two days
teaching packaging to two participants. I usually teach packaging
online, so it was refreshing to do it in person. I believe the
experience was much better than teaching online.

One of my mentees introduced me to the DDTSS (Debian
Distributed Translation Server Satellite). Even though there are many
i18n contributors in Brazil, this was my first time learning about this
system. I plan to contribute to translations over the next few weeks
using DDTSS.

My Activities

NOTE: I translated every talk title; the original
titles are in PT-BR, so some details may have been lost in
translation.

I presented three talks and led one BoF session. The talks are all
available on Debian’s Peertube:

• Get to
  know dh-make-vim
• Zero-Code
  Instrumentation of an application using eBPF
• DD
  non-uploading can upload

You can also find my slides at people.d.o.

My first talk was a showcase of dh-make-vim, a
tool I created and have been using for a few months. Some people tested
it and found bugs, which was really nice to see.

My second talk was essentially a live version of my blog post Zero-Code
Instrumentation of an Envoy TCP Proxy using eBPF.

I also gave a lightning talk about something many people are not
aware of: non-uploading DDs can also sponsor uploads.

If you’re interested, this bug report provides more context: tracker.debian.org:
Signed by field is missing when sponsoring as DD non-uploading

Finally, I led the BoF session “Experiences,
lessons learned, and next steps from the mentoring sessions”. This
was my favorite session, we had many participants with different
perspectives and ideas, which led to a very engaging discussion. I’m
still working on the action plans and I plan to release them soon.

Here are some photos of these activities:

My favorite activities

This is a list, in no particular order, of some of the sessions I
enjoyed the most:

• Salsa
  CI, showing features that almost nobody knows

  I wrote a blog post
  about one of the things I learned in this talk, and there is still a lot
  more to explore. Aquila Macedo is developing many cool features in Salsa
  CI.

• Free
  Software: Freedom, Autonomy, Sovereignty

  I had been really looking forward to this one. Alexandre Oliva is a
  very important figure in the Free Software movement, especially in South
  America. I’ll need to rewatch it, my futures talks about Free Software
  will likely be inspired by this one.

• What
  I’ve lived/seen in 33 Years of Debian & Free Software in
  general

  Eduardo Maçan was the first Debian Developer in Brazil, so it’s
  always valuable to hear the story from someone who was part of
  it.

• Symbolism
  – an introduction

  Despite the title, this talk was not about astrology! I’ll probably
  rewatch it as well, as there is a lot of information to take in. I
  really like the passion Sérgio Durigan has for C. He is also a great
  speaker and knows how to guide the audience through the topic.

• Debate:
  Contemporary controversies in Debian

  The debate itself was great, but the conversations we had afterward
  were even better. I changed some of my opinions after hearing different
  perspectives. I don’t think this format would work at DebConf, but I
  would definitely like to attend another one like this.

• Why
  LTS on Debian?

  I had a few questions about LTS, and Kanashiro and Santiago answered
  them both during the talk and in the Q&A session. They also shared
  some challenges and how to avoid them, it was a great learning
  experience.

• From
  my first contribution to the Debian Maintainer

  Polkorny was a bit shy but did a great job! I really enjoy this kind
  of talk. It is always nice to see the different paths people
  take.

Unfortunatly, I couldn’t attend everything I was interested in, as
always.

DayTrip – The
Brazilian Particle Accelerator

Sirius is the largest and most complex scientific infrastructure ever
built in Brazil and one of the most advanced synchrotron light sources
in the world. My jaw dropped the entire time; it’s hard to describe how
incredible this is.

My favorite detail: they’re running Debian 🙂

Wrap up

I believe this was the best MiniDebConf Brazil so far. There were
many other things I chose not to include here, as this post is already
quite long. Still, here are a few more highlights:

• A Bug Squashing Party
• Driving Samuel Henrique’s drones
• Lots of capybaras
• A small birthday party
• A visit to two data centers