Ubuntu Have No Idea How Debian I Am On Freshness

I spent some time Saturday night nerding out by upgrading my laptop’s OS from Ubuntu 9.04 to Debian Testing (Squeeze).

I say “upgrade” because moving to Debian is a major step up from Ubuntu. Canonical, Inc., the company that publishes Ubuntu, essentially takes a snapshot of the entire Debian project and all its software packages and over the span of a few months sorts out which packages are worthy of going into the next Ubuntu release, and which ones are too incomplete to make the cut. Meaning that by the time a Ubuntu version is released, the software within, especially from the active projects, is at least a few months old.

If you’re one of those late adopters, like me, by the time the dust settles after a release and you finally decide to install the new version, you could easily be trying to tolerate software that’s over a year old. And if you’re using one of the LTS (Long Term Support) versions, like I am on my desktop, then you’re looking at 2 years with no functionality improvements; nothing but security updates. That’s unacceptable.

The straw that broke the camel’s back is the crappy bluetooth stack that was packaged with Ubuntu 9.04. They froze the BlueZ package during a time when the project was undergoing a major push in improvement, so the version that got frozen was largely incomplete and had gaping holes in its functionality and stability. Again, this was largely unacceptable, because the best versions were posted, available for installation, right on the project’s website and was available as a package on Debian Testing, but nowhere to be found on Ubuntu.

See, I come from the Windows world, which to me means I can grab any piece of software, no matter how fresh or stale, and install it for use at any time. I’m used to that paradigm. But that kind of capability isn’t part of the Ubuntu/Debian package management ethos, and it sticks in my craw. Case in point, my desktop system is saddled with Firefox version 3.0.16 — the latest is 3.5. All I’ve gotten for the past 2 years is security updates. On any other OS, I could be rocking with the latest version’s bells and whistles. But not Ubuntu. This is weak sauce.

Hopefully sticking with the Testing branch of Debian will help me get the freshest packages; once any project publishes a new version with bugfixes and functionality improvements, Debian picks it up, does some essential testing during the Unstable phase, and then pushes it upstream to Testing. Following this track means taking some measured risk; in trying to keep up with the newest stuff, breaking something fundamental to the system’s function is a possibility (incompatible libraries being the biggest risk). It also means more frequent updates are required to stay current. But, right now, I feel it’s a worthwhile gamble.

Ubuntu’s coup de grâce is that they take the bother of finding the right drivers for most hardware and package them into their distribution media so most computer systems function right out of the box. This is their strength. They also take the hassle of putting together a cohesively-matched set of packages that work well together with hardly any configuration necessary. A beginner can throw Ubuntu on a box and within the evening be doing their thing with almost no effort. That’s commendable. Contrast that with the driver confusion I experienced (video and wireless drivers weren’t loaded so automatically), and you can understand why people who say “Yeah, I need to learn Linux” try Ubuntu first.

But I’ve already taken that class. Now it’s time for my bluetooth mouse and I to graduate.

What I’d Say If I Were Actually Busy

Yes. There’s that much going on in my life. You people have no idea how hard it is to live my fast-paced life. I can’t keep writing journal articles while I’m trying my best to find ways to kill the boredom, stiffle the ennui, and pay less attention to myself so I can actually focus on something else long enough to do something worthwhile. It’s a tough life, so stop yelling at me for not writing as often as you want me too. Jeez. So just lay off with the flood of blog comments, I hear you. Ok? Ok!

Thank you for understanding.

Begin.

FIRST POST LOL!

And so begins a new day, a new month, new year, a new decade. I feel hopeful for my future…kinda like I always do at this time of year. But I hope some of my lost potential can be regained. I’m sitting at this coffeeshop at my laptop, and I can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to life than this. I was up here last night doing the same thing, and 4 hours before the stroke of midnight I had a look around and noticed that the place was half-filled with a scattering of sad fucks at their laptops on a party night. It was then that I knew I didn’t want to be one of them. So I got up and left. Found a party.

There’s more to life, and sitting on my browser, hitting refresh constantly on Facebook, is not what I’d consider living fully. There are songs to be written. There are loves to be won. And that won’t happen here like this.

All I Got for Xmas

So the holidays were crappy. That’s par for the course. I hate the holidays, but I try to power through them the best I can. At least I’m getting paid holiday pay this time around; thank the stars for not being a contractor anymore. Still, this xmas sucked ass because the only thing I got in my stocking was a head cold. I would’ve settled for a lump of coal instead.

No idea where the germs came from; most likely the coffeeshop I hang out at with all its weirdos and sickos shaking hands and whatnot. But I think what precipitated the collapse of my immunity against it was my mother’s visit for the holiday. See, she brought her two dogs, which I don’t mind as long as I take an allergy pill. But she smokes like a train, and apparently I lack the backbone to tell my own mother that she can’t smoke in my apartment. Others have smoked in here, but it was one smoke here or there; not an entire pack of really, really cheap tobacco. So after a day of exposure, I woke up xmas morning with a heavy knot of crud at the back of my throat. Happy effing holidays.

Two days and two rolls of tissue later, the fever broke and I was able to breathe through my nose again. Finally. I’ve got to take control of my passive-aggressive ways before they ruin my life further. It’s my life, it’s my house, it’s my health.