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?

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.

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.

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.