A heads up to my Debian family - before I get to tell some of my other family :) I'm engaged to a wonderful girl. We've known each other off and on for almost 30 years, having met on the first day at university.
Lots of life has happened in the middle - including Debian - but we're now very happily together again.
(amacater@debian.org)
Sunday, 22 May 2011
Saturday, 5 February 2011
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For many people, this is yawn-worthy: Debian stable is seen as old, outdated, outmoded.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]
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For many people, this is yawn-worthy: Debian stable is seen as old, outdated, outmoded.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]
Monday, 24 January 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
What you can learn from watching and listening
I'm in hospital, taking an enforced rest from work and normal life.with much too much time to think. Luckily I have relatively slow 'Net access.
I've just spent about three weeks in a specialist orthopaedic hospital which is also a centre of excellence, a research and teaching hospital. Some lessons for FLOSS:
Research methods matter: open communication matters more
The hospital was apparently doing various research projects, some minor, some major: whether cooling a knee joint in surgery improved recovery and aftercare, whether complete pain relief and comprehensive analgesia stimulated recovery, trying to standardise on a pain score to measure subjective pain - " On a scale of 1-10 how does it feel?"
The knee joint research was being written up and would be shared worldwide - if it proved worthwhile, hundreds of patients could benefit. If it wasn't worthwhile, it would still be written up just as comprehensively with testing methodology, evidence from double-blind trials or whatever as appropriate to save someone else from having to re-invent the wheel.
The analgesia study sounded just like the application of a doctor or nurse's intuitive commn sense and experience - but it was being carried out scientifically and measured. also answering supplementary questions like "If pain is sometimes a helpful indicator of problems, how should you guage reactions when all pain is dulled?" Additionally, the ward had dispensations to use different and more flexible drug regimes to include the use of oral morphine derivatives. Again, everything was being noted, measured and shared.
I've just spent about three weeks in a specialist orthopaedic hospital which is also a centre of excellence, a research and teaching hospital. Some lessons for FLOSS:
Research methods matter: open communication matters more
The hospital was apparently doing various research projects, some minor, some major: whether cooling a knee joint in surgery improved recovery and aftercare, whether complete pain relief and comprehensive analgesia stimulated recovery, trying to standardise on a pain score to measure subjective pain - " On a scale of 1-10 how does it feel?"
The knee joint research was being written up and would be shared worldwide - if it proved worthwhile, hundreds of patients could benefit. If it wasn't worthwhile, it would still be written up just as comprehensively with testing methodology, evidence from double-blind trials or whatever as appropriate to save someone else from having to re-invent the wheel.
The analgesia study sounded just like the application of a doctor or nurse's intuitive commn sense and experience - but it was being carried out scientifically and measured. also answering supplementary questions like "If pain is sometimes a helpful indicator of problems, how should you guage reactions when all pain is dulled?" Additionally, the ward had dispensations to use different and more flexible drug regimes to include the use of oral morphine derivatives. Again, everything was being noted, measured and shared.
Saturday, 9 January 2010
Temporary files hurt :(
Just had to spend some time with my 11 year old daughter to explain why her homework had disappeared - MS Office had saved her word document to a temporary file - which had,, of course, vanished.
A little lesson in how to save (and a lecture from others in how I should take more interest in what she's doing).
Watching the snow - which is also temporary - and enjoying catching up with the rest of my emails and reading.
A little lesson in how to save (and a lecture from others in how I should take more interest in what she's doing).
Watching the snow - which is also temporary - and enjoying catching up with the rest of my emails and reading.
Monday, 21 September 2009
Slowing down?
Trends are deceptive - but I haven't come back to this blogging in a while :)
I did my first Windows XP install for a while today for friends. Their machine had slowed to a crawl and _needed_ a disk format and reinstall. Three sets of media to find, three sets of 20 digit codes to type in. Printer software not found - so they'll have to go and download a huge program bundle from the manufacturer's site. [And it always takes an alleged 39 minutes from first reboot irrespective of the actual speed of the hardware :) ]
New hardware put in - a DVD writer to replace a CD writer which had lasted ten years and moved between at least two machines - that's spectacular in this day and age. The new drive is also 10% of the cost of the old one - £17 instead of about £200.
Total time to put on Windows XP, an AV product, get Firefox and to get part way through an Office 2007 install was about three hours. That's without setting up any accounts, shared directories (or network - the attached wireless router didn't need any changes).
I could do a Debian install onto the 40G disk in well under half that to include X windows, openoffice.org, iceweasel and a desktop environment. It would also run far better in 512M which is what this machine has.
Thankfully, they have data backups and an older laptop which has been the family workhorse - and a new netbook which attached to the network readily, has more disk than all other machines in the house combined, and cost less today than the "big machine" cost ten years ago at about 3 x the performance.
Intelligent questions were asked about Linux - I _wish_ I'd known about Ken Starks' radio advert or had it to hand at the time. See the Blog of Helios at http://linuxlock.blogspot.com for details - it's Free/Libre/Open Source under a CC Atttribute Share-alike 3.0 licence, and is available in a short version used in the radio advertisement .ogg or .mp3 or the longer version (.ogg .mp3 All in all, a balanced and a reasoned argument for switching based on nearly everybody's real life experience :(
[UPDATE] - The owner of the machine was up until 1 a.m - 11 hours total - because the machine decided to do a defrag. :(
I did my first Windows XP install for a while today for friends. Their machine had slowed to a crawl and _needed_ a disk format and reinstall. Three sets of media to find, three sets of 20 digit codes to type in. Printer software not found - so they'll have to go and download a huge program bundle from the manufacturer's site. [And it always takes an alleged 39 minutes from first reboot irrespective of the actual speed of the hardware :) ]
New hardware put in - a DVD writer to replace a CD writer which had lasted ten years and moved between at least two machines - that's spectacular in this day and age. The new drive is also 10% of the cost of the old one - £17 instead of about £200.
Total time to put on Windows XP, an AV product, get Firefox and to get part way through an Office 2007 install was about three hours. That's without setting up any accounts, shared directories (or network - the attached wireless router didn't need any changes).
I could do a Debian install onto the 40G disk in well under half that to include X windows, openoffice.org, iceweasel and a desktop environment. It would also run far better in 512M which is what this machine has.
Thankfully, they have data backups and an older laptop which has been the family workhorse - and a new netbook which attached to the network readily, has more disk than all other machines in the house combined, and cost less today than the "big machine" cost ten years ago at about 3 x the performance.
Intelligent questions were asked about Linux - I _wish_ I'd known about Ken Starks' radio advert or had it to hand at the time. See the Blog of Helios at http://linuxlock.blogspot.com for details - it's Free/Libre/Open Source under a CC Atttribute Share-alike 3.0 licence, and is available in a short version used in the radio advertisement .ogg or .mp3 or the longer version (.ogg .mp3 All in all, a balanced and a reasoned argument for switching based on nearly everybody's real life experience :(
[UPDATE] - The owner of the machine was up until 1 a.m - 11 hours total - because the machine decided to do a defrag. :(
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
WiFi, GSM _and_ Bluetooth?
Just for fun on a Sheevaplug - add a powered four port USB hub. Inspired by the fact that a cheap Bluetooth dongle was recognised out of the box, I added a Netgear WG111v2 (rt8187 driver) and the Huawei GSM/3G E220 dongle to the hub. All were recognised in the 2.6.30 kernel and ID'd correctly.
Given that the Sheevaplug has GB Ethernet and the power to be a good firewall - this might make an ideal multi-gateway for an emergency / conference or whatever.
I haven't actually configured up any of the wireless interfaces - but all should work, though the RT8187 may be only 22Mb and may not support WPA2 - I can't remember.
Given that the Sheevaplug has GB Ethernet and the power to be a good firewall - this might make an ideal multi-gateway for an emergency / conference or whatever.
I haven't actually configured up any of the wireless interfaces - but all should work, though the RT8187 may be only 22Mb and may not support WPA2 - I can't remember.
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