Debian

"As easier as it gets, as simple as it can be" - this is the present Debian at its testing version. I was fortunate enough to get a copy of the debian mirror from Ravi, a hacker and GNU/Linux enthusiast who is also part of the Sampada team.

Now updating the mirror is easy.

I'm no big fan of Ubuntu unlike many of my friends, but Ubuntu has its place too in my office depending on the necessity. But where does Debian figure in picture of distributions? I can't just put it in few words, really. For one, it always presents me this simple face that you could tweak with - much like you shape your own piece of art over clay mould. The other, you have this "real" development aura surrounding it that makes you feel that without Debian you wouldn't be able to do much!

Struggling for words still on why Debian is so different, I feel using it would explain much of what it feels like. Is it the stability? Is it the convenience of not bothering about drastic changes of where stuff went with the new releases - I wouldn't know. But Debian is just too good.

Yesterday, after some time spent with people who had loads of ideas, space and resolution for pushing 'FOSS' in state and central government, we had a quick meal at "Chung's". Of all that we quickly gobbled up, that one recipe which had rice in it (schezwan?) was really the 'eatable' for me.

We then quickly headed towards Nagesh Hegde's farm. A brief stop was to get some Ayurvedic medicine that was out of stock at my place. What was supposed to be an evening visit became a dinner time visit to Nagesh Hegde's place. Making sure the late timing was okay with NH, we cruised on almost zero traffic Magadi Road only to find that the bend near Tavarekere was badly bruised with some repair work that seems chronic to that stretch.

Late night travel on the outskirts of the city isn't all that fun except for the cool, clean air. The darkness on the road, absence of road signs make it difficult to find way even on the familiar roads on the city outskirts. A crematorium as the landmark to the rescue! - we were cruising back on a slightly narrow road towards the farm.

My favorite application for instant messaging - pidgin (previously gaim) seems to be taking up too much of resources on a desktop with decent hardware that I wouldn't want to upgrade or throw away anytime soon. On my machine, since instant messenger is something that stays on all the time, I'd prefer an IM client that occupies less of the available resources and above all, is light weighted and less complicated for use.

On Ravi's lead, I installed empathy today and tried it out. At first glance, it looked impressive. Adding to what pidgin does, this one supports voice as well.

Some screen shots:

After setting up Wacom Bamboo on Ubuntu using this document, I wondered whether I would find some easy set of instructions for Debian as well. With very less time to even check out why I needed to paste the new udev rules and what exactly was getting pasted there anyhow, I wondered whether there was task cut-out to get the tablet working on Debian Lenny.

It is the Independence day today. It is the 15th birthday of Debian tomorrow. You see the connection. :-)

On this occasion, I decided that I would switch completely to Debian (from Ubuntu) on my work Computer. And what better option than Debian testing version "Lenny"?

It was a long time since I installed debian on my laptop. Unsupported hardware issues dogged it the last time I tried it on this (which seems years back). But this time, it was really worth giving a shot.

I found Debian sleek, more nostalgic than any other present distribution. It is probably the best distribution to work with.

But the old kernel that is shipped with etch had some ACPI related issues. And sound wasn't there. I had to download and compile the latest Kernel after which everything is good. Pidgin has to be compiled if you don't fancy gaim. iwp2200 wasn't working fine, but did after installing the firmware. And that is about my log of installing Debian etch on my old laptop. :-)