Meet the Members is a look into the lives and stories behind the incredible human beings whose contributions have helped shape our project and community.
Our featured member today is @itzswirlz
What’s your name (username)?
Joshua Peisach
Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself?
I am the flavor lead of Ubuntu Cinnamon! I am also going to begin studying Computer Science at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, starting in Fall 2026.
When I was young, about like, eight years old, I went to my father’s workplace, and I saw what a virtual machine was. This, along with my access to the family laptop, had me teach myself how to type, surf the internet, create my own virtual machines (which is what lead to my first interaction with Ubuntu, I believe a VM in ~2014), and find my love for computers.
In 2016, following YouTube videos, I made my first Minecraft mod, and from that I found out how much I love coding. I grew a tech-savvy personality and in 2019 I had the idea of a “Cinnamon” flavor of Ubuntu. I’ll talk about that more later.
How did you first get involved in the Ubuntu Community?
In 2018, I got a new laptop for myself, did some distro hopping and landed back at Ubuntu because it was what I was familiar with. It was my “home”.
From there, I started to understand the differences between desktop environments. My first post on Discourse aside from my introduction, (and by the way, my early posts are weird and show how my 11-13 year old self still had his “gaming” mindset on the internet) was actually me sharing how I reinstalled Unity and had bit of a nostalgic response.
As I became fascinated with Ubuntu, I revisited the flavors. The idea of having each desktop as it’s own “distro” fascinated me. So I created a poll asking about how people would feel about a Cinnamon flavor of Ubuntu. The response was positive, so I decided to start working towards it.
A small thing worth mentioning, is that my behavior and attitude in my pre-teen years made me very enthusiastic. I had so much free time, and I still had not gone through my coming of age. That’s why I was very informal. I saw the idea of a Cinnamon flavor as fun! I don’t know if today, at 18 years old, I would see value in creating a Cinnamon flavor. But I am glad I did.
Can you tell us about your contributions that lead to Ubuntu Membership?
My path to Ubuntu Membership basically was the result of making Ubuntu Cinnamon an official flavor.
My fascination of Ubuntu lead me to my early contributions being by pre-release images. I had a lot of fun just installing Ubuntu or a flavor of Ubuntu, and running through each test case. I got to see every application, every environment, every user experience - it was really cool.
Flavors have to be approved by the Technical Board, and there were many requirements. I eventually found people that helped me get an Ubuntu Cinnamon “Remix” going, notably @fossfreedom and @tsimonq2 . The first release was a 19.10 “Eoan Ermine” build. At this point, I had not necessarily “contributed” to Ubuntu. Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix was all in community space.
But when the COVID-19 pandemic came around, I had LOTS of free time. Like, a lot. The 20.04 “Focal Fossa” release of Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix was without a doubt one of my most proudest releases, because of the amount of time, energy, and love I spent into perfecting details, like the theming, wallpapers, and default config settings. This also gave me a chance to do a LOT of image testing. The archived list of top testers on the old image tracker shows how much testing I did. 87 test results for 20.04 daily images, 7 for beta images, and 16 release candidates/final images.
I submitted many bug reports, leading me to learn about Launchpad, the Ubuntu development cycle, and .deb packaging.
I also made a small snap, that was an electron web app for iHeartRadio. It was basically just the iHeartRadio page. It was fun! I don’t maintain it anymore, because.. I just don’t want to deal with it. I’m not a fan of working with the entire NPM environment.
However, the Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix-specific packages were in a PPA, and not the universe repository. This was the big blocker for flavor status. However, I got sidetracked (but in a good way), of learning more about contributing to FOSS and the different kinds of software that exists. For example, in order to build a history of contributions for an upload rights application, I started contributing security fixes. The first one, was an actual bug that created a screensaver bypass (LP #1912060), but I later contributed security patches to openjdk-18 and gdk-pixbuf. There were days where I would just browse the Ubuntu CVE tracker to see what kind of vulnerabilities were available, because it created an opportunity to send in a patch.
I also did some packaging in Debian, joining the Debian Cinnamon team, and also packaging a few other things, like the sc-im application. I did some exploring in Python and Rust packaging as well.
I also spoke at the virtual Ubuntu stand at FOSDEM 2022!
Eventually, around late 2022, @eeickmeyer messaged me, saying that he wanted to bring Ubuntu Cinnamon to official flavor status. He sponsored the Ubuntu Cinnamon packages into universe, checking off the last requirement. 23.04 became the first release of Ubuntu Cinnamon as an official flavor.
But, I still was not an Ubuntu member. Yeah, after all of that! At this point, I started attending high school. Because of my work on Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix and my overall FOSS contributions, I got accepted into the Academy for Technology and Computer Science at Bergen County Academies, a magnet school with a rigorous education. So things slowed down after that. I found the time to participate in flavor syncs and keep maintaining Ubuntu Cinnamon as a flavor with the biannual releases.
I was procrastinating my Ubuntu Membership. I really should have had it, much, much earlier. And I still don’t have upload permissions. As of writing, I plan to apply for those upload permissions so Erich does not have to sponsor my uploads every release cycle, so he can focus on Ubuntu Studio and Edubuntu.
All was fine, until summer 2025, when the main Matrix server decided (for legal reasons), that they would not allow users under 18. I was 17, and I would not turn 18 until October 18, 2025. The 25.10 release was October 9th. I could not risk my account getting banned. Urgently, I needed to get an account on the Ubuntu matrix homeserver. In the span of a week - from application post on July 30, to the meeting on August 7 (the same day the new rules went into effect), I officially became an Ubuntu Member, which was a shoe-in. Still no upload rights, but it gave me access to the Ubuntu Matrix homeserver, and Ubuntu Cinnamon had a great 25.10 release.
Now I need to.. get the rest of my upload rights.
What is the core motivation that keeps you contributing to Ubuntu and the open source movement?
I think there are two parts to this: what lead to Ubuntu Cinnamon becoming a flavor, and the reasoning for keeping it around.
Ubuntu Cinnamon becoming a flavor was a big goal that I had as a preteen. I wanted it to happen, because it would be so, incredibly, cool. And it gave me something to do.
Once I got flavor status, well, I was not going to just throw it all away. Not only does this give me something to do, but the entire Ubuntu Cinnamon journey taught me about FOSS in general. I learned so much, about Linux, desktop environments, applications, programming, and many other countless things because of it.
I think it is important to give people who want to migrate away from Windows (which, I have to say, is unfortunately so hard to use nowadays), different options. And Ubuntu Cinnamon is one of them. And open source software just has so many benefits in general. Not only do you get an amazing, functional piece of software, all for free, but you are able to.contribute to it, or make your own changes to suit your own situation. It is peak customization and creativity.
By default, every coding project I do is open source. From a HTTP server that runs on a Wii U for IoT purposes (wiiu-smarthome on GitHub), to the LEGO Island decompilation and porting, to a C library that does date and time conversions for a proposed timekeeping system for Mars (libspacetime), it is all open source. Naturally, every project I do is put on my GitHub. It is just born into me at this point. And I see no reason to change it. The best parts of technology come from open source. Even the best closed source software, it eventually becomes released as open source or decompiled into open source (or there is a way to see the source of it anyway through other means, like how Minecraft used to give mappings for it’s .jar files for modders, but now has removed its obfuscation entirely). And then there is the best case scenario: You were using open source all along and you did not realize it. Case in point: the software I used to learn about the different kinds of operating systems: VirtualBox. The browser I used as a kid: Firefox. Everything used in Minecraft modding: Gradle, Java, Eclipse IDE - all open source.
So I guess “what keeps me contributing to open source”, is that at this point, I have been doing open source by default. But when I think about it, it’s because open source has already existed, and I am the next generation of users.
I’m even contributing to open source without intentionally thinking about it, like how I have recently started to contribute to Linux kernel development.
What’s your proudest moment or most memorable interaction within the Ubuntu community?
Oh man, there are too many to recall. My big proud moment, was of course, when Ubuntu Cinnamon became flavor. I was in school on that day, and I could not attend the meeting, but I remember going into last period Astrophysics elective (last period electives are very chill), opening my computer, seeing a message from my friend saying “congrats”, and opening my email to see the response that Ubuntu Cinnamon was approved as a flavor.
Other fun moments: The first times I met and talked with @tsimonq2, @eeickmeyer, @fossfreedom, @bluesabre, @m_wimpress, the first flavor sync meeting, the presentation at FOSDEM 2022, the moment I became a member and started having access to my ubuntu.com email address (amongst many other perks).. man, it’s all just made me so happy.
How has being a part of the Ubuntu community impacted you personally or professionally?
My attitude online certainly shifted from the “gamer” mindset to being more formal and professional. You can see that in my discourse posts.
Working in the community and contributing to FOSS has also made me more mature, and as I mentioned, I learned SO much from my journey to flavor status. Like, it is actually insane. Pretty much all my FOSS knowledge comes as a result of this.
Professionally, well, now I have taken to contributing to Linux kernel development, with my first patches being in the amdgpu drivers. I have also built up a lot of experience in Ubuntu and FOSS in general, which really helps. And now I am knowledgable of all the other parts of Ubuntu that are also popular in the professional world, like servers and IoT. And saying that I am a member of the project behind one of the most important Linux distributions in the world, I don’t know what tops that at my age.
Ubuntu Cinnamon certainly also helped me get into Stevens. But it was the catalyst for many other things in FOSS. Personal projects are what drives FOSS, and the success and high quality of it helps drive professional use.
What’s one piece of advice you would give to someone who wants to start contributing but doesn’t know where to begin?
Ask around! Since I have joined Ubuntu, there has been much better guidance on how to help newcomers in the community. Discourse is great, but so is Matrix (and in my opinion, is better than IRC, although IRC is great too. Being able to access Matrix from my phone is really helpful). There is now the Patch Pilot system, which should help with getting your contributions sponsored.
Other easy ways to help contribute: bug reporting, image testing, using the CVE tracker to look for vulnerable packages, and as always, contributing to your favorite software by making the changes you want (or by writing your own).
Outside of the world of Ubuntu and tech, what are some of your other passions or hobbies?
Well, a lot of my life is tech.
Outside of Ubuntu, I am an electronic music fan, a hobbyist music producer (even though I haven’t released anything), a Wikipedia contributor, console hacking and homebrew enthusiast (although I think the future of that may be bleak), and I have also found interests in smart homes and IoT. I have been getting into Home Assistant, and I now have a home server.
In my personal life, I practice Taekwondo, play some video games (Minecraft and Pokemon). I also used to do speedcubing, but since the pandemic I have not picked that back up again.
What excites you about the future of Ubuntu?
How we will continue to see it be used in the world, from the computers and servers that power the internet, to the usage in desktop computers. And of course, how Ubuntu will continue to modernize itself for the latest technology that is available, and as a result, improve society and humanity.