Debian 6.0 release is happening now

Debian Squeeze 6.0

As predicted - the release is starting this weekend 5/6 February 2011. IRC channels are starting to buzz -- irc.debian.org #debian-release - and there's also a live commentary session at http://identi.ca/debian

For many people, this is yawn-worthy: Debian stable is seen as old, outdated, outmoded. This is the climax of two years work.

Debian 6.0 will be supported for the lifetime of this release + one year if the past few releases are a guide.

A wrap up release 5.0.9 is planned for the previous Debian 5.0 [Etch Lenny] which will be supported for another year.

Debian works on many machine architectures: it's the upstream for Ubuntu and many other Debian derivatives: it works in many languages, has 1034 developers and maintainers maintaining 28693 packages [last number may vary fractionally depending on machine/architecture].

This is big - and I'm pleased and proud to be part of it. Oh, and there's now over 80 parties worldwide to celebrate :)

[UPDATE - Thanks to my colleagues who pointed out my mistake - Debian 4.0 was Etch, 5.0 is Lenny, 6.0 is Squeeze and 7.x will be Wheezy. Developer/maintainer and party numbers also updated]

Debian 6.0 [Squeeze] nearly due

Debian 6.0 is scheduled to be released on the weekend of the 5th/6th February 2011 - almost two years after the last release on Valentine's day 2009.

I've just reformatted and re-installed a netbook. I'm very pleased to say that the installation was flawless and I've gained a clean installation with KDE 4.

I'm proud, as ever, to be associated with such a great family of developers.

ACPI for Acer Aspire [SOLVED] - and RHCT

As a follow up to the last post - and with many thanks to PC World tech. support staff :)

This happens occasionally: the fix recommended at the barbeque was to remove power cable and battery for a period of time and try again. It transpires that you need to remove the battery and power cable AND also press the on/off button for 30-60 seconds which resets the laptop motherboard ACPI status. Who'd have known ? :)

Also, I'm now a Red Hat Certified Technician - if anybody should ever need one of those in a hurry. My day job is keen on Red Hat and the firm paid for the course. My thanks go also to them for their patience with me over some years - and to the Red Hat instructor who knows me fairly well. I had to promise not to mention Debian for the week so as not to disconcert the other students :)

Madly dysfunctional family barbeque

At Steve's house in Cambridge. First Debian party I'd been to. House full of people I knew only from email, some very old friends. Wires and leads filling the front room floor - laptops _everywhere_ . [My netbook died with nasty ACPI errors - since fixed/worked around - it was practically the one place in the world where I could yell for an ACPI expert and folk knew what I was talking about :) ]

I wish I'd taken a camera - I was there for 1/2 hour before I realised I was only about three feet from a large TV which then became the focus for competitive Wii Fit archery :) Thirty second rule on sofa space - if you left for more than about 30 seconds you had to sit on the floor when you got back (I jammed myself onto a corner of the sofa once I realised I'd barely get through the crush :) )
[Forget students in a mini / UK telephone box - how many DDs can you fit into a very narrow kitchen :) ]

It's a huge, dysfunctional family with its own rules, geeky humour and in-jokes but it's MINE - it's the people I want to hang out with and, as perverse as it sounds, just being there gave me a whole new reaffirmed sense of identity and a large amount of determination to carry on "wasting my time with Linux" and Debian

Thanks to those who signed my key for me (and Noodles who didn't sign but gave a very intelligent rationale as to why he couldn't at the moment :) )
Thanks to Steve for quintessentially being and being the perfect host - and I hope to be back next year. And the food was excellent - chilli popcorn comes highly recommended :)

UKUUG conference and other pleasantries

To Birmingham (UK) on Friday and Saturday last week - first time ever :) Friday was a rather laid back tutorial day: I was learning about Arduino boards and playing a bit with electronics. Good fun - not least watching Phil Hands cursing Java and getting his hands dirty with the command line. Back on Saturday to represent Debian, man a T shirt stall and generally talk. I didn't go to any of the staged talks but did sell a couple of T's. Sheevaplug got some interest :) Lots of interesting people - all sorts of sideline conversations.

Moving computers on Monday: lots of muttering but I think I've got it sorted now: one computer needs connecting to keyboard/mouse/monitor purely to tell it to ignore errors when it hasn't got keyboard/mouse/monitor :( Smaller room so we'll see how it pans out: Desk has 1 mini-PC, speakers, 1 laser printer, 2 x wireless routers and 1 x 8 port switch, 1 x 4 port KVM, desk light, radio and tiny clock on top and 4 x tower cases underneath in 0.75 x 1.5m

Looking to republish useful snippets of blogs to illustrate an argument at (paid) work has meant that I have had to ask explicit permission from other bloggers/mailing list contributors. For any bloggers/contributors in a similar position who may want to quote this drivel of mine in the future.

Boring legal bits
In the absence of any other more restrictive licensing from me, feel free to treat this blog as GPL version 2.0 or later / CC-BY 3.0 or later for the purposes of extracting any quotes or other information This relicensing applies to all prior posts in this blog. I'd prefer that you didn't misrepresent me so preservation of context where practicable is desirable but not essential.