One of my favorite swims... see the yellow line:

An "Arch-like" Debian Testing !

Well, I finally made my own cooking, thanks to all people whom advices I have read here and there in the world wide web...

I decided to keep my working Ubuntu Hardy and Arch partition, and use the 3rd partition available to setup a minimal install of Debian Testing, following this guide: http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/432

But I didn't install any GDM or XDM... Stciked to startx...

Only OpenBox (with PyPanel...)

Enjoyed reading this gentleman's choice of apps: http://kmandla.wordpress.com/software/

That gave me some good tips, so I installed Mirage (to view photos), ePDFView (instead of xPDF), Leafpad (instead of Mousepad)...

Aterm for a terminal, Exaile for music, radio & podcasts, Claws-mail, Emesene for MSN messenger Alsamixergui for sound control,  and for the rest, very classical apps such as Iceweasel, Opera, Skype, Abiword/Gnumeric, PCManFM, TVtime, Brasero, Transission, aMule, Picasa, Gimp...

I must say I am not yet very used to OpenBox (I have always used Fluxbox for lightweight...), but it seems a dynamic community of users, and I have been reading those guides: http://urukrama.wordpress.com/openbox-guide/ as well as the one from the Arch wiki...

Very informative !

Needless to say the PC boots in no time !!!

One thing, I kept a 32bit Debian, despite having this 64bit amd Sempron... I just don't want to mix any libs... I am on a 486 kernel, might upgrade to 686... Not sure yet...

So the whole concept of this install was to do it "the Arch way", but with a Debian Testing base, since it is my area of choice...

Of course, I will miss my good ol' Nautilus, but the whole point of that is not to install Gnome... And if I really need to connect to other PC's (which I will !), that mean I'll have to reboot into either Ubuntu or Arch :(

Or learn how to better handle ssh and smb without Nautilus... But I am so used to the easy gui thing... We'll see...

bored... (but lots of swimming !!!)... Making my distros to go faster...

Ok, day off today, Corpus Cristi... Sunny days, went to the beach, and swam my @$$ off :)

Been arguing about Arch in the Ubuntu forum... (it's here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=773260&page=3 ), and finally admited that it did boot faster indeed... So that made me want to improve my 'Buntu !

I read that guide: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Optimize-Ubuntu-Feisty-Fawn-for-Speed-53836.shtml

...and it worked... I gain (...only...) 8 seconds at boot time, but overall my Gnome desktop seems faster...

-Is it only a feeling ???

What else... I wiped Slackware for Sidux, but I still am not happy... I guess I am simply allergic to KDE... Or is it the overly complicated version of the apt-get system that disoriented me ?

I might stick some Slack derivative or maybe Mandriva... Don't know... But I'll stick to 32bit...

I know now: I would use a 64bit distro if I needed no 32bit apps... And I still need just one: Skype !

I just dislike mixing 64 & 32...

Bottom line, this Debianista here is still happy with his 'Buntu, despite all of what's online about it... I downloaded a snapshot of Debian Testing netinst i386, but I feel lazy...

I gotta swim more... much more !

I went swimming again, 4 days in a row ! Beautiful, I feel so much better !
It's been warm, we had the elections... Leonel won, here's a photo fo him:



We'll see if he (still) does a good job (it's his 3rd term !)

Strange impressions about Arch...

Ok, so I managed to instal Arch Linux on my main box... I now have a multi-boot with Ubuntu 8.04, Slackware 12.1 and Arch... All are 32 bit version, despite my cpu being a 64bit Sempron... So far I feel better with a 32bit distro...

So I made it... I basically followed the Arch Beginners Guide...

It wasn't that hard since the guide is well done. I understood that I had to set my eth0 to DHCP to connect. That was the mistake that stopped me last week, when I first tried... (and failed).

So now I have a nice Gnome desktop, with mostly exactly the same apps that I use in Debian and Ubuntu... I only changed 2 of my usual regulars: Thunderbird instead of Evolution, and Exaile instead of Rhythmbox... But that was only a fantasy...

It seems to work well... I must admit that I cheated for one thing during the install: Since my xorg.conf file didn't seem to give me the proper res' at my first gui boot, I booted back in Slackware, and copied my Slack's xorg.conf to Arch... Booted back to Arch, and it worked great ! That is one of the beauty of the multiboot...

Also I need to precise that each distro has its own /home partition... I didn't try to have them all share the same one... Easier...

But now, here comes my greatest impression: I don't really see any difference in speed between Arch, Slackware and Ubuntu ! Now, I must tell you that I have been performing any type of exact measure... But the "human" feeling is that they all "work" at the same rhythm...

Furthermore, I would say that (it seems to me...) Ubuntu boots much faster than both Slack & Arch... Strange... I was expecting a "Ferrari" after all those years reading comments on how fast Arch was...

At the end of the day, I am only a "soho user", but apart from the educational factor and the "rolling release" factor, I don't see the big advantage of using Arch over Debian (or Ubuntu)...

I will however keep both Arch & Slack partition and update them often, to see if I missed something, to learn more...

My feelings, after all...

Ok, it's only been 2 days with Slackware, but it keeps on being a "PITA"...

I mean, there's no internationalization! Apart from KDE, everything is in English, plain and simple !

I found some stuff in Italian, but that doesn't really help me, as I need French & Spanish...

Also, I managed to get my usb drives to "automount" following this guide:

http://www.mutaku.com/geeklog/article.php?story=20071218003749377

But it didn't help when I plugged in a friend's Ipod (I don't own any of those...).

Anyway, I just happened to boot back in Hardy, and everything looks nicer, more polished, easier... I am definitely one of those "lazy users", as I tend to enjoy when things "just work"...

I'll keep this Slackware partition, to keep on experimenting, and implementing tips that I am sure I will learn along the way, but I am such a Debianista, and tonight, I know why...

My next experiment will be with Arch (2nd try...)

It's Slack time again !

-So what happened to my Debian Talibanism ???

Nothing... Debian is still my fav' distro... But that doesn't mean I can multiboot to enjoy other distros...

My main desktop is now multibooting Ubuntu 8.04 (works fine for me) and Slackware 12.1 (the new one).

I am mainly a Gnome guy, used to apt-get... So it feels really exotic to boot into KDE (3.5.9), in a Slackware environment...

I can't believe I only found out about "xorgsetup" now... I tried Slackware often, and always complained about issues with the lack of scroll mouse, and the wrong screen resolution... Until yesterday, when I happened to find that useful command !

It fixes all the above mentioned issues, automatically ! Good !

Now, I am not (yet) a Slackware guru, so I did the "newb" thing to install slapt-get and gslapt... I even added the Slacky.eu repos, to get all the goodies. I read on Planète Béranger that it isn't supposed to be the best way, but it was so easy to do, I guess you can blame that on the fact that I am a Debianista at heart... Add a repo, and install all the stuff... That simple...

According to Luis, a gentleman who comments on Planète Béranger, I really have to try Arch as well...

Actually I did, the other day, but I could manage to configure the Pacman repos correctly... However, just for fun, I might add a partition to my spanking new sata hdd (320 gigs !!!), and sweat a bit more...

Too hot !!!

It's a bit of a heat-wave down here...

I have been quite busy last week. The weather is simply gorgeous, blue sky, transparent water, but the heat is unbearable.

Good news, I went swimming a lot last week-end. It felt like a giant swimming-pool, and I have the "good resolution" to get back in shape...

Swimming really helps break the "computer geek" habit of sitting 14 hours a day in front of a monitor... Great for my back, and actually great for my mind too !

So it takes Speedo briefs and Aquasphere goggles, and I feel like an amphibian !

This is the real beauty of living here in Las Terrenas... See the pics on the side to understand...

A quick look to Xubuntu Hardy...

Ok, no fuss, as I only ran the live-cd.

-What was my motivation ?
-Well, I still have that (very old) Toshiba laptop with Xubuntu Dpper. Kept it all the way, instead of my all-time favorite Debian Stable, simply because the PCMCIA wifi card (RTL8180) works out of the box in Dapper, but was "kicked out" of the kernel for some technical reason...

So I still carress the idea of being able to install anything else... No stress, as I still have a bit more than a year of support for Dapper, but Gaim 1.5 and FF 1.5 make me feel like living in the 1960's ;o)

Anyway, back to this Hardy live-cd. Nice boot-splash, beautiful wallpaper (I have to find it for my own use on Gnome). I am ok with the choice of app... Mainly because I am a "Gnome guy", so I am not disturbed by all the "Gnomification" of the Xfce desktop...

That makes me wonder if Xubuntu is really any lighter than Ubuntu... Feel free to post your feedback on that one...

Now, the real question is this one: Can a Xfce desktop be as functional as "good ol' " Gnome ?

I guess it depends on the level of tweaks... I have more homework to do about that...

It's raining today in LT... I have a long long week-end ahead, with departures & arrivals... I'll be kept well busy. Don't be surprised if I don't post for a couple of days...

J'ai des doutes...

I am wondering if any of you readers have troubles reading my blog. By that I mean if the text doesn't appear the way it should. What triggered this is the comment from my good cyber-friend Monsieur Béranger de la Planète du même nom. You can read it under "comments" from the post underneath...
Feel free to post here, it will help me better understand that issue...