Merry Christmas and happy 2010

Christmas eve is a very special occasion to enjoy the company of family and friends. I love xmas and I love sharing stories by the fireplace. So it is not likely that I have the time to write these lines in my blog then so I'm doing it right now.

I want to show you my xmas card as well. Drawn with tuxpaint v.0.9.21. A very nice piece of software for these things. Here it is.



The picture says it all. Merry Christmas and Happy 2010!!!

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Christmas tree

And here it is!!!

 Once again I have prepared the tree to celebrate Christmas.

This couldn't have been possible without the valuable collaboration of all the people who have helped me decorate it.

I really love the drawings you made.

I think you all deserve a prize.

The greatest prize of all: Thank you!!!

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Thumbs up (for Up)

Today I've watched UP the Disney Pixar's animated movie and man I can say it's pure poetry. At least in the beginning. I'm not so sure at the end.

When the story begins and until the house takes off you're hooked on the screen. There is hardly any speech and the action is told with images most of the time. It's so lovely, so emotional, so beautiful!!! But then when they reach South America they come across so many unbelievable things that attention falls down.

Flying away with a house tied to a million balloons is a nice make-believe, especially in the way that it is narrated but later on seeing the main character, an old man with mobility problems, fighting and jumping just like Indiana Jones is not justified in any sense.

But anyway I've liked it. It is worth watching.

Skippy's new house

Skippy is thrilled with his new house and so am I. He was too big to fit in his old house and he really felt uncomfortable there. Yesterday I finished this new one and he liked it from the start. He was so happy about it that I was glad I had spent so much time building it. You can't see the details but it is 80% anti-hamster teeth. It's metallic. He can only destroy the front part but I've got a spare one just in case.

Bird house

Today I've built a bird house and placed it in the garden. So far it is just a decoration but I hope that during spring a couple of goldfinches decide to build their nest there. They are welcome.

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Whisky and co.

This picture is several months old. I took it one day early in the morning. It's a very nice snapshot of Whisky, my young male cat. And just right behind him you can see his stepsister (no name yet). They really get on well and spend the whole day playing games.


I had forgotten to upload the picture here. My mistake. I think it's a very good one.

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Debian backports

I do not remember having used Debian backports before. But I needed to install Wicd and I learnt it is not included in Lenny but you can install it through backports. The process is straightforward.
You have to add a line to your sources.list:

deb http://www.backports.org/debian lenny-backports main contrib non-free
And apt-get update as usual and then

apt-get -t lenny-backports install wicd

And there you go!!!

The problem I had was that with network-manager I couldn't automatically connect at startup. I really don't know why because in previous installations it worked perfectly. Maybe it was due to the new drivers or the firmware (iwl3945)

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I'm a gnome man!!!

gnome desktop screenshot

Yes, definitely I am. I'm a gnome man. The first desktop I used was KDE and I liked it a lot. I started using GNU/linux with SuSE and learnt a lot of things with the powerful KDE and all its applications. However since I switched to Debian and installed Gnome by default I grew so used to it that now I can't do without it. (Even though I also like LXDE a lot and on occasion I enjoy the Midnight Commander, a personal favourite)

Last weekend I installed Lenny on Aelita (Acer Aspire laptop) with KDE just for a change but man, I had to go back to Gnome again. It's the one I feel more comfortable with and  besides it is not so bloated with applications that constantly distract your attention. Anyway I might try KDE on future releases. Even though I'm not much excited about the 4.x series. 

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This is my birthday calendar!

This is my birthday calendar for this year. It was high time to change the old one. The design was inspired on a picture we discovered on the net but it grew on its own with our ideas.


I hope you like it and a big thank you to all of you who have helped me with it!!! You  know who you are.


I had to take at least 8 pictures until I found the one I liked best. You can see my penguin decoration below.

Here's inkfly!!!

Let me introduce you to my new printer: The HP Officejet J4580 All-in-One. Its name is Inkfly. It came home on the 19th of November 2009 at 16:45.

I had an Epson Stylus CX3200 called Inky which stopped working on the 12th of November in the afternoon after 7 years of real hard work. It's unbelievable how well it worked and never had to be fixed in any way although lately it sounded as if there was something broken inside but it still printed in high quality until the end. This post is more than an introduction to the new piece of hardware a loving homage of Inky my beloved printer.

In the meantime I borrowed my uncle's HP psc 1315. It does not have the same quality as Inky but it definitely convinced me to buy an HP. Why? It's real simple. HP has excellent Linux drivers!!! What else can I say?

I'm exited about the new purchase. It has a good scanning and printing quality and exellent drivers for Linux. I had hplip installed (hp linux imaging and printing v. 2.8.6) and I used HP toolbox gui to configure it properly. I have been trying it for two days now and I'm happy about the results even though I know it's difficult to foresee its performance in the long run. Will it beat Inky's seven years of service? I have my doubts but I hope so ...

Now inkfly is the default printer. It prints from the gui and also perfectly from the cli using the lpr command.

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Garden season's over

Today with the stone path I've finished the garden work for this season. Now everything is clean and ready for the spring to come when new plants will fill each and every corner with scents and colors but until then ... Let winter in.

In the picture you have an overall view of the garden. Next week I'll start pruning the other trees.

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Almost done with the garden!!!

I have been working in the garden for some time now. Yes, I know it's november and the real work will not start until the spring, but 19 degrees Celsius is quite an unusually warm temperature to resist doing some preparations for next year.

Today I have finished preparing the flowerbeds and this means that I've almost fulfilled all my expectations. I've got the new fence (not painted yet), the table and the swing!!! Tomorrow I'll start with the stone path. It's gonna be a real garden!!! I mean it'll look gorgeous.

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White mulberry tree

If I'm not mistaken I posted some other day that I had finished pruning my white mulberry tree during the summer but I had not uploaded any picture yet. I do now. It was a 12 meter-high monster and it was real hardwork pruning it 90% by hand with a saw. But I did and lived to tell. In the final stage I used a chainsaw.

Next month I'll start pruning the other trees, not so daunting work though.

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You can see here the huge pile of branches after the pruning. It's just the branches; the heavy logs appear in the previous picture.

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Can your pets browse the net? Mine actually do!!!

Obviously just kidding!!! But it is really true that I've just installed a new internet antenna in the country to surf the net occasionally and in time to set up an ip camera. Possibly at Xmas.


In the picture you can see the first orientation attempt . The pun here is that I've got the best signal on top of the dogs' kennel. So I have placed it right there. 

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Halloween

Halloween was great fun but we have carved our Jack o'lantern today. Yesterday it was all about trick or treating. 

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Bad luck!!!

I had no luck this time with peacock eggs. But I'm going to try again and again until I succeed. Tomorrow I'll start with hen eggs.

No news is bad news!!!

28 days in the incubator and still no sign of life from the eggs. Maybe tomorrow ...

Network names

I have finally assigned a name to my computers using the characters of Code Lyoko. The desktop machine will be called "Odd". The laptop "Aelita" and the eeepc "Yumi". The old computer will be called "Franz Hopper"

To make it official I have changed the names in my homepage at The Linux Counter

My next computer will be called "Ulrich".

Fedora 10

Last weekend I installed Fedora 10 in my laptop. It's awesome!!! I had it in a usb pendrive and used it a lot, mainly in my eeepc. I finally decided to try it extensivelly in everyday tasks. So far, so good... I'm really enjoying it. Although I must admit I must refresh my rpm practice because it's a bit rusty.

Today I thought I needed to find a name for my computers. I used to name them chalsattack1, 2 and 3. But now that I own 4 machines I have to improve this naming convention. I think I'll name them after the characters in the Code Lyoko tv series: Ulrich, Jeremy, Aelita, Yumi, Odd... I'll finally decide about it during this week. No need to say it's one of my favourite series.

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Egg turner

Yesterday I got an automatic egg turner for my incubator. Unfortunately it is not recommended for turkey or duck eggs for they are quite big. So I'll have to continue moving them manually. It's ok, but I'm sure that in the future, once I've learnt how it works, I'll be able to use it with bigger eggs than just hens size.

The good thing about the egg turner is that it saves a lot of work and besides you do not have to be constantly watching your clock. It turns eggs every four hours.

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A day at the beach!!!

Rainy day here so I went away to the beach with my uncle. Had a nice sunny day there. Altafulla beach is great.

I have bought a male goose. The male I had, died unexpectedly during the spring. So I needed a companion for the female. They don't have a name yet. Any suggestions welcome.

And last but not least today at 9:30 I have started hatching eggs with this fantastic incubator I got last week. I hope to hatch a thousand eggs. This first time it's peacock eggs. Wait for results in 28 days. Fingers crossed.

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The beginning of summer!

Today summer begins!!! It's been a long day, I mean that the sun was still shining after dinner which is not very usual.

Today I've written an article about Opera Unite, a new technology embedded in the web browser that allows you to share files, photos or even music without using any server, from browser to browser or let's call it a different name, from peer to peer. It's an amazing step forward! from my humble point of view.

Sunday breakfast

Tomorrow I'm having breakfast with some friends. I've got plenty of things to do apart from that:

I must remember to clean the hamster's cage and the fishbowl.

If I'm free in the afternoon and there is no rain I'll ride my bike and take some pictures in the countryside. There is this wonderful light in spring!

Summertime

Summer is a great time to go out and enjoy endless hours of sunlight at the beach or the countryside. So power off your computer, get up of your chair and follow some of my special recommendations:


- Go fishing; great and fascinating sport.

- Ride your bike; Another great sport and pastime.

- Work a bit, just enough not to get rusty, and hard enough just to buy that special thing you dream of.

and swim, dance, sweat, love ... and enjoy yourself.

Have a nice summer holiday!!!!!!!!!!!

Getting Java to work in Lenny

No!!! Definitely I am not very keen on installing non-free packages. However, my thirst for learning about new software is greater than you might imagine. I needed to try Desktoptwo  for a review article I was writing and obviously I was asked to install Java (and also Adobe Reader) to run the software.

Installing the Java runtime environment in Lenny is a blast. You only have to enable non-free in your sources.list file. Run apt-get update and apt-get install sun-java6-jre. And you get a neat and clean installation. However, it will not be enough. It will not work. If you run Sun's Java, your jre will not be detected.

The tip and trick is installing the sun-java6-plugin which allows Mozilla and other browsers to use the java plugin. Java Plug-in comes with the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Just run apt-get install sun-java6-plugin and you are done.

By the way, desktoptwo is okay. I like it but I still prefer eyeOS.

Here is some more information quoted from the description of the packages.

Packages:

sun-java6-jre

*Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 (architecture independent files)

The Sun Java Platform Standard Edition Runtime Environment (JRE) 6

contains the Java virtual machine, runtime class libraries, and

Java application launcher that are necessary to run programs written

in the Java progamming language. It is not a development environment and

doesn't contain development tools such as compilers or debuggers.

For development tools, see the Java Development Kit JDK(TM) 6

(package sun-java6-jdk).

NOTE: You must accept Sun's EULA prior to successfully installing

this package

This package contains architecture independent files.

sun-java6-plugin

*The Java(TM) Plug-in, Java SE 6

Java Plug-in enables applets written to the Java Platform 6

specification to be run in Mozilla and other web browsers.

Java Plug-in comes with the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).

This is a metapackage containing dependencies for running Java in

various browsers.

Installing Lenny (Advanced mode)

I installed Lenny in advanced mode and  lived to tell.

I am proud!!! I am on top of the world.

When I was struggling so hard to install Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 "Woody"  I was desperate to get a nice installation. After a thousand attempts I decided to try advanced mode. Back then I had no Debian experience whatsoever.  I had no idea of how to answer to the prompts.  I had to quit.

But after the years, I decided to install Lenny in VirtualBox with LXDE in expert mode. Now the installer has a menu to select the desktop environment. I chose LXDE and went on in expert mode and I got it!!!!!!!! It worked!!!

. , ; : ...

. , ; : ...

Maybe I should include this blog entry into a new section named "Cheap philosophy" 'cause I was simply daydreaming about I don't know what when I suddenly got this stupid but awesome conclusion:

"Life is like punctuation marks"

It's true, you sometimes pause things to continue later, then you use a comma.
You sometimes stop something to start something different, then you use a stop or dot.
You sometimes need time to think a bit longer, then you use dots.
And definitely when you think you've enough of something you just use a full stop.

And so on...

Grudge against the world

I've got a great wireless internet connection (3 MB down and 1 MB up). Sometimes however I have to wait too long to load a simple page and what seems to be a lifetime to connect to my mail server. It's supposed to happen only when internet is overloaded which no doubt coincides when I'm free to surf the net.  

I've also got a brand new TV aerial and a plasma set with a built-in TDT adapter. Most days however I keep getting the "No signal" warning again and again. So I can't watch my favourite programme and  have to switch to any other channel.

So what is the conclusion? Well I don't know what to think or who to blame. Is it that there is not enough planification and things have gone out of control. Is it that I'm living in a country in which technology has overcome us. Or maybe that all these new technologies really stink and that we are living a great lie after all? All these advances in the end  seem to be a big step backwards.

What should I do now? Poweroff my laptop at once and go to bed? or maybe I should resign and continue living this lie?

ps: It's something similar to what happens when there is an electric power outage. In the past it was possible to use phones, cook or even use water (Among other things). Nowadays when there is an electrical failure, we can't use our mobiles or even drink a coffee. It's sad but true, we are going backwards!!!

My birthday

Today is my birthday. I'm 38 (alive and kickin'). But the main celebration of the day is my brother's wedding!!! Besides, it's my sister in-law's birthday too!!!

I have the feeling it's going to be a great day.

Easter Monday

It's Easter Monday today. We have had a nice day out in the countryside all the family together. It's a traditional thing to do in my region to go on a picnic with  family and/or friends. We eat a special cake that is called "Mona". The name has an arabic origin and it means "present cake" or something like that.
I have woken up at 6:30 in the morning and I have rushed to my cottage to light up the fireplace. I knew I didn't have to hurry because I had plenty of time but I wanted to have everything clean and ready before lunchtime.

In the afternoon we have taken a walk. And right now I'm sending the pictures of the day to my brother and sister.

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Backup schedule

I always backup important data. I might even say that I'm a bit obsessed with backups, especially when it is about irrecoverable things such as photographs.

In the past I used to make security copies from time to time (Quite randomly) but after my hard disk crash I decided to schedule a series of backups just in case. From now on I am going to:

EVERY MONTH: Backup important data once a month. I'll make two copies one on cd/pendrive and one sent to a security server.
EVERY TRIMESTER: Backup the entire home directory to dvd.
EVERY YEAR: (As usual) Everything that's valuable on my network. Documents, pictures, other files, scripts, configurations, programs ...

The great thing about backups is that GNU/Linux offers several excellent tools (Graphical and command line) to regularly carry out your security copies. Once you get the perfect setup you can do all these routine operations unattended because there is GNU/Linux backing you up.You get the pun here?

Using a proxy

I was familiar with the concept of proxy servers. I knew what they were and I had a slight idea of what they were used for. But I had never connected to any. I had tried once but to no avail. You only need to look for their addresses and configure your web browser to use them. Be warned that proxies provide many advantages but they also have some disadvantages. On the positive side, they are anonymous but on the negative side they are less secure.

This same week I have learnt an amazing internet trick. There are some free online services which operate in certain countries but which are not allowed or restricted in some other countries due to legal reasons or special conditions or whatsoever...But you still can access those services connecting to a proxy operating it the countries where the services are available. As simple as that.

I did the trick with a famous steaming radio station which used to be for free until recently (And still is in some parts of the world). In my country they require you to subscribe and pay a small quantity for the service. I connected to a public proxy and now I can listen to the radio as if I was living in that country. Fantastic isn't it?

Simyo

 

Today I've become a simyo [A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO)] user. If you could see how much I spend using my mobile you would surely laugh at me.  Maybe 10 or 15 € a month. It's ridiculous compared to other people's expenses.

Until now I was happy with my rates and services but I was fed up having to pay an scandalous quantity if I phoned a friend from a different phone company. 

That unfair situation had to change and now with simyo I only pay 8 cents a minute to all other operators. Changes sometimes take long but you always have to take the first step to walk a long road.

I'll keep you informed but this company has a good vibe. I hope it works fine.

Note: This is my first spring blog entry. So far everyting is according to plan. I'm finally  writing once a week!!!

 

Hard disk crash

The master disk drive of my network server crashed on Tuesday. I had just bought a usb bluetooth adapter and installed the gnome-bluetooth software. I rebooted for the kernel to load the drivers but I only got a BIOS message saying the disk was dead. Well there was no such message. It was something like "No operating system available". But I knew the truth behind. The night before I had heard a strange noise coming from the drive and I feared the worst.

I tried my best forensics with a usb installation of Backtrack 3 but the damage was already done. Backtrack struggled hard but it couldn't do anything...

I switched the slave drive as master and reinstalled GRUB, the boot loader in the MBR but it was caught in a loop. In the end I had to reinstall Lenny. I lost data of course, but installing a Debian system is my forte. I often say I could do it blindfolded. Just joking.

I lost my eyeOS server but there is always a blessing in disguise. I had Windows 7 Beta in a VirtualBox and the good thing is that I do not have to bother erasing it now. It is so bad that my only wish after trying it was just getting rid of it as soon as possible. I know it is a beta version and of course it lacks many things but I foresee it is going to be a great failure like Vista. It didn't recognize my ethernet and sound cards!!! Shame on them.


Note: Today spring begins officially at 11:44, so next week I'll start writing my blog under the Spring header.

Highschool meeting

Today is Friday 13th, not a good sign for some people. However, it's a real lucky day for me. I'm really excited about a highschool meeting we are going to celebrate after 25 years. It's  not today, it's going to take place some time during Spring. But it's the great news of the week. The story went more or less like this.

Of all the people I met back in high school I was only in touch with one. All the others had disappeared from my life.  That person told me that there was a new group in Facebook made up of our old acquaintances. I had closed my facebook account because as I said in another post this year, I consider it a waste of time. I reopened it because nostalgia was stronger than me this time. And there they are, some look older, some look exactly the same they did 25 years ago. As if time hadn't passed for them. I don't know which category I fit in. I like to think that I haven't changed much but others will tell.

It's an excellent occasion to remember dreams from the past, infatuations and well,  just great memories. I've been daydreaming the entire week, imagining our meeting. 

I'll keep you informed as time progresses.
  
Note: There are other news to comment, but they can't compare to this one. I'll leave them for a better occasion, say next week.

Backtrack 3 usb with Compiz experimental

This week I have been playing with the usb install of Backtrack 3. A remote-exploit distribution based on slackware. Now there is a beta of number 4. But in the meantime I have been testing the usb with their first boot option which is (Compiz experimental) The curious thing about it is that I tested it on my eeepc. And it works great!!! I wish I had a screenshot or rather a photograph.

Well the system freezes sometimes but after a whole week I've only had to reboot on three occasions, which I consider a reasonable thing for an experimental project in my hands. Apart from that I must admit that it is a fantastic distro.

But I may be a bit too biased here because I have followed the project from the very beginning and I love it.  I'm also a huge fan of kismet and airsnort (both included). Besides the live scripts come from Slax which is out of this world for me.

It all may seem too good to be true. But it is real!!! Give it a try and see for yourself!!!

Lenny released

Yesterday Saturday 14th, Valentine's Day was Lenny's Day!!!!!!!! Yes, Debian 5.0 Lenny was finally released after 22 months of development. Now it comes with 25,113 packages. Read the official announcement.

* * *

My eyeOS server is working full-time perfectly. The only problems so far have been with the DNS. I recommend users to access the server directly through my website for convenience

chalsattack experimental

If anyone is wondering what I have been up to for the fortnight, the answer is: I have been working on an experimental webpage that I have called "chalsattack experimental". It is in my list of mirror sites, but it is far from any similarity to this page. It is more similar to a blog or something like that. Anyway it is only an experiment not meant to last long. And since it is a very small thing I quote it all here. I hope you like it:
(I insist. This is the complete webpage so far.)

"chalsattack experimental

*This document is a back to bare essentials experiment.
*It was created using a little script, and it is edited with the powerful mc "The midnight commander".
*There is no markup language, no links and no graphics.
*It is written in a stream of consciousness style.
*It may include a bit of html editing though. Nobody's perfect, not even I.
*It is also intended to be optimised for text-mode browsers such as lynx or w3m. I'll check it as the work progresses.

I have wanted to compose a text-only page for years. I got the idea from Debian's homepage. I like their site a lot, especially because it provides the information that visitors are looking for. That's it!!! Useful information. Visitors are not looking for eye candy. Although I'm not against it. When I design something I try to do it as beautiful as possible. But true inspiration came from Slackware's site. It has a little artwork but essentially it is text. Just text. Useful text.

***
One of the first sites I visited when I started using linux was linuxcommand.org and this week I came back to that site looking for a script and I discovered that the man also has a blog. "

gmailfs

Having more than 7 GB in a mail account is an extraordinary waste of space. Who can really store such a huge amount of "not-junk" mail? Well, if you agree with me you must necessarily be interested in gmailfs. A Python program to mount your gmail account as a local directory. 

I installed it yesterday and I believe that it is a good alternative to store data by sending mail with attachements. I'm still trying it but so far it is working perfectly. The only requisite is a little practice at the command line for it works with the typical Unix commands.

EyeOS in the sky

I learnt about eyeOS on a TV programme long ago, maybe two years from now. I had tried several times to download their software but I suppose that back then their servers were far too busy after appearing on TV.

Yesterday as I was playing with Google docs and wondering how many more features they were going to implement I thought that Google is almost a hidden OS or let's call it a light OS. I suddenly remembered eyeOS. I had retained the name I supposed due to so many times trying to unsuccessfully download it.

And I finally could!!! eyeOS is a wonderful piece of software, it is an open source web based operating system. A real destop on a web browser which can be accessed from any computer. You can have your data safely stored on the servers. Although it is not complex, it has got many programs, including word processors, spreadsheets...an ftp client and even games. The site administrator can install more applications from their repositories.

First I opened an account on their server. Which is extremely easy since you only need a name and a password. I liked it so much that I installed an eyeOS server on my apache web server straightaway. I only had to install PHP 5. And it works perfectly. I have installed several applications including serveral available languages.

It's definitely worth trying. Imagine having your desktop anytime anywhere over the net. Sounds nice!!! and anyway I think that is going to be the rule for the future. In this respect I sincerely think they are making history.

Debian Project

Yesterday I made a small donation to the Debian Project. I'm not posting it here for mere vanity or whatever you may call it, since the quantity is quite an insignificant one. It's just because I know (or at least I hope) that a little can help. I think that some people do not make donations just because they never heard of anyone doing such things. I hope this post encourages more people to give something.

Why donate? Well there are a million reasons, but most of all is that I spend my whole computing time using and enjoying Debian. And it is not just an OS, it is an entire project with a social contract with the Free Software Community.  Worth learning about that, believe me.

*  *  *

Well and last but not least, I must congratulate myself, yes, myself because this month I have written four blog post, (five counting New Year's)
So far everything is according to plan. I intend to publish a post at least once a week. Keep watch to see if I can do it. I'm sure I will in winter but I'm not so sure in Summer. I can't wait to ride my bicycle again enjoying the countryside.

This week we are uploading new activities and notes to the English section. After that we'll  organize the activities into sections and link them all together.

Nvu/Kompozer/Sourceforge

Today I've made a small donation to the Kompozer project. It's a small amount but, it's my grain of sand.

I started building my site back in 2006 using Mozilla composer. Later when the Mozilla project stopped supporting the Mozilla Suite, I switched to Nvu. And when the project stopped being active I started using Kompozer. Well, Nvu/Kompozer is a great piece of software. I use it almost everyday to update my personal page and the more I use it the more new features I discover and find extremely useful. I really like its integrated CSS editor and its site manager.

If I had programming skills I would like to join the project but unfortunatelly I can't so I thought donating would be a good way of contributing. I hesitated though.  But when I discovered that the project is hosted by Sourceforge, then I had no doubt at all. To me Sourceforge is the Great Cathedral of some of the best pieces of software I know. I will always give my support to them. I've been a sourceforge user for years.

Surprising LXDE

Among all the new software packages that come with Debian  5.0 codenamed "Lenny" I discovered a fantastic desktop environment for my eee pc. It's called LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment). I discovered it as a matter of chance surfing the net. And I must say that it fascinates me. I really love it!!!

It is very easy to install since it comes with the distribution. (apt-get install lxde) It is a download size of  20 MB more or less. Even this is fast!!!. After installation you have to restart the X server or reboot your machine. And simply select lxde at the gdm display.

Saying that it is fast is not enough, it is incredibly fast. Gnome works fine on eee but lxde goes at the speed of light, it can open and close windows in the wink of an eye. My special recommendation: DO TRY IT!!!

Apart from being fast it has many configuration options and it integrates well  typical applications of other desktops.

The default layout reminds me of Windows Vista, start menu down left, black colour... but of course it has nothing to do with it. There is this powerful Debian GNU/Linux behind!!!

I think this new desktop beats XFCE. I must confess that I personally don't like XFCE. Besides I read that LXDE is even faster. I believe it!.


If you are running GNOME or any file manager (I sometimes use mc; The midnight commander) on your eee pc and you are satisfied with it, that's ok, but if you believe that it is too bloated for your limited disk space then you can give LXDE a try.

There is a special project to install debian with lxde on eee pc and I quote from: http://wiki.lxde.org/en/Debian

eee PC

• CD image to install Debian with LXDE on to a eee PC
  • Copy the CD-image on to a USB drive with dd

dd if=debian-eeepc.img of=/dev/<USB-DEVICE>


Note: <USB-DEVICE> = the device, not a partition. (/dev/sdX NOT /dev/sdX1)

(And then boot the installer from the usb)

* * *

Now I quote from the Debian Project News newsletter:

Bits from the Debian CD team

Frans Pop sent Bits from the Debian CD team, summarizing various
changes affecting the installation media for the upcoming release of
Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 "Lenny".
The most notable change is the replacement of the Xfce installation
disc with a "light desktop" installation disc for installing Xfce or
LXDE. Furthermore, all four major desktop environments (GNOME, KDE,
Xfce and LXDE) are directly installable from the first DVD image; the
desktop environment to be installed can now be chosen via the boot
menu.

Local repository

Sometimes you need to install .deb packages even when you are offline. That is when having a local repository comes in very handy. I searched google for different ways but as usual the simplest, easiest way suited me most.

Here is a summary of the steps I took:


1.- Create a directory. I did it in my home folder.
$ mkdir /home/chals/.local_repository/binary


2.- I copied there all my .deb packages
$ cp *.deb /home/chals/.local_repository/binary

3.- I generated the file Packages.gz

$ cd local_repository
$ dpkg-scanpackages binary /dev/null | gzip -9c > binary/Packages.gz

4.- I added the repository to my sources.list (You know the drill, use vim or tee)

deb file:///home/chals/.local_repository/ ./

5.- I updated and installed
sudo apt-get update && apt-get install packages

Debian 5.0 Lenny

Last week I installed Debian Lenny in my desktop machine. I had tried Lenny live and had it installed in my netbook, but I hadn't installed it in my network server yet.

I read in the Debian Project News that they are waiting for the debian installer to be ready to finally release Lenny. The installer developers suggest trying the installer which is a RC1 and send a report even if the installation is successful (Which was my case). Here is the installation-report I sent them.
As you can imagine I am writing this post using Lenny. The only regret I have is that I've grown so fond of Etch that I Know for sure I'll miss it. It is so stable and works so fine that I have to come to terms with the idea of letting go. I hope Lenny is the right substitute to take up Etch's place. I'm sure it is!!!

Summertime

Summer is a great time to go out and enjoy endless hours of sunlight at the beach or the countryside. So power off your computer, get up of your chair and follow some of my special recommendations:


- Go fishing; great and fascinating sport.

- Ride your bike; Another great sport and pastime.

- Work a bit, just enough not to get rusty, and hard enough just to buy that special thing you dream of.

and swim, dance, sweat, love ... and enjoy yourself.

Have a nice summer holiday!!!!!!!!!!!

OpenID

This is the first post of the year. Well, let me start by introducing the new features of the renewed chalsattack.com

1st I've changed the background colour from light grey to white. Both are ok for reading but I think white makes a better contrast with dark fonts.
2nd I've included a new section called class Notes. I've eliminated Virtual classes though.
3rd I've rearranged the blog including my personal profile. I intend to write a post once a week (on a wing and a prayer...) and update the site once a month as I usually do.

And now the good news: I've signed up for an OpenID at openid.org I was curious to know about it since I saw the option at the login prompt of sourceforge.net

An openid is very useful to log into different sites with the same username and password. It's kind of a master key for all your accounts. It's supposed to be secure and spread over the internet in a short period of time.

My OpenID is http://chals.openid.org