Debian

XFree 4.3 has *finally* entered Debian unstable. I had some problems with the '<' keys on a Belgian keyboard, but remembered that it was a Redhat8 or 9 problem too, so a fix was easily found :

Edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 and change the XkbModel to 'pc105' and

Edit /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/pc/be and add the line :

key { [ less, greater, backslash, less ] };

So now let's see if XFree 4.3 supports better the crappy Trident CyberBlade that's in my laptop.

linmau.org has a first look at the new debian-installer program, which will be used to install the next version of Debian 3.1 aka 'Sarge'. Still a bit of a shame that it is still a text-based installer, while all other Linux distributions are in graphical boot land, but hey, supporting 11 hardware platforms can't be easy, and the installation has allways worked for me... New & noteworthy stuff in the installer are a more extensive network setup, hardware autodetection and the choice between installing the release (stable, testing or unstable) of Debian.

Update : As it's getting near to a new release time for Debian, Adrian Bunk looks back critically towards the current progress made. Interesting quote :
Debian 3.0 contains 7 CDs with binaries and Debian 3.1 might contain 10 or more CDs.

I have uploaded a new Bluecurve GDM theme package (version 0.1.1-1). It contains a bugfix where my hostname was hardcoded into the Bluecurve-Debian.xml file, and a new lightrays background which I took from redhat-artwork-0.73-2 (default one in Redhat9).

I have packaged the GDM Bluecurve theme in a convenient .deb package. The package installs in /usr/share/gdm/themes/Bluecurve-Debian, and contains a screenshot.png file, so you'll have a nice view from the gdmconfig program. The package also contains some information files, and my contact address. Feel free to comment.

Anthony Towns, release manager of Debian, posted a lengthy mail in which he intends to release Debian 3.1, aka Sarge, in december this year.

Netcraft posted a small article in which they see Debian as the second largest Linux distribution (preceeded by Redhat), and that almost one third of all Debian servers are located in France. Que ?

Debian GNU/Linux is celebrating its 10th birthday. Check debCONF for the birthday party nearest you! In case you're wondering what makes Debian so special, here''s a roundup of all special Debian things :

Debian's greatest achievement is creating a 100% free ( as in beer and free speech ), community supported GNU/Linux operating system, from an activist's point of view.

From a user's point of view, Debian's greatest achievement is having an "unstable" branch that is as stable as some other dist's releases, and of course apt-get, the wonderfull installation tool that is slowly being adopted by other distro's.

From a CS student's point of view, Debian's great achievement may be the package creation and management tools.

For sociologists, it may be the democratic nature of the project.

For me, it's simply that I get to use an OS that sucks less.

Aptitude is a user-friendly front-end for Debians apt-get. Certainly if you are using dselect, you should consider using aptitude. Now, for me, apt is user-friendly enough, but in case you like that extra cheese, check out these aptitude tips.

I really like Bluecurve, so I created a GDM 2.4 theme for Debian based on the Bluecurve GDM theme in Redhat 8 and 9. Only mine has a better logo ;) . Remember that GDM 2.4 is not yet in Debian, but there''s an unofficial package available for Debian unstable.

Just as everyone else, I like to listen to music. But I really hate searching hours and hours on Kazaa for some decent music. Sometimes I only want to listen to an online radio station, and rip the music to my hard disk. Now I have found StreamRipper, which does this task for me. The thing rips online music for me, and nicely saves the music per song, so I don't have just one MP3 file of 100s megabytes. Unfortunately, the Unix version has a rather slim Makefile : I stumbled into problems when I kicked the thing into Debian's automated packaging build system.

Only option left was to build a Debian binary package with the bare hands (no fucking way I'm installing binaries with configure - make - make install on *my* system), just like I allways do on Solaris. By following this HOWTO, I managed to get the job done. My first self assembled Debian package ! If I find the time, I'm gonna hack some scripts around it to make it fully automated.