The Butt Ugly Weblog

--pni, 08-Oct-2004

# apt-cache policy mozilla-firefox
mozilla-firefox:
  Installed: 0.10.1+1.0PR-1
  Candidate: 0.10.1+1.0PR-1
  Version Table:
 *** 0.10.1+1.0PR-1 0
        499 ftp://ftp.fi.debian.org experimental/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     0.9.3-6 0
        500 ftp://ftp.fi.debian.org unstable/main Packages
        500 ftp://ftp.us.debian.org unstable/main Packages

--psi-, 09-Oct-2004

Yeah, with all the problems from unstable, I really don't want to run "experimental". No thanks.

--JanneJalkanen, 09-Oct-2004

I switched from Ogg to mp3 for similiar reasons (no iPod support), and it's no big deal. Lots of reencoding needed of course. I use lame --vbr-new -V 0, produces big files but the quality is excellent (to my ears). I too would love to use Ogg, but it just does not have the needed support (yet?).

About Debian... it's a great server distro, but for desktops it's not that hot because of the lagging versions even if you use unstable. I use Gentoo on my workstation nowadays, and even though it has a rep of a "hacker distribution" I've actually found it very pleasant, and you get new software almost as soon as it's released. Lot of time spent compiling, of course, but "emerge" (the Gentoo package control thingy) automates everything.

--Orava, 09-Oct-2004

I'm hearing mostly positive noises on ubuntu. If I had an ounce of OS tinkering curiosity left, I'd set it up on a spare disk. (And since I don't, maybe mentioning it to you will let me check it out some day.;)

//ebu

--ebu, 09-Oct-2004

Ogg support... Dang, I was going to get an Airport Express too, but I have a huge collection of self-ripped Oggs. Lucky you with your 3 gigs - I've got around 45 gigs which took me half an year of ripping.

Oh well.

--kimmy, 11-Oct-2004

Oh, forgot to comment on the Debian issue....

I switched from Debian to Gentoo because it offered best-of-class documentation, new and working software and because emerge is way more powerful than apt while being just as easy. The only downside to Gentoo are the insane compile times. Gentoo people always try to downplay that issue by telling you to start the emerge just before you go to sleep but it's much worse than that....

.... so in the end the compile times were the reason I switched back to Debian. Blame me for not owning fast computers, but if I can install Debian faster on a P1/90 than Gentoo on my dual P3/800 then there's something very much wrong with Gentoo.

--kimmy, 11-Oct-2004

FreeBSD / Gentoo

Of course, I'm a freebsd advocate but I hear gentoo has the same kind of friendliness for sysadmin like ports/etc...

--Sty, 12-Oct-2004

Thanks people, for the good suggestions. Ubuntu looks interesting, but I don't know how viable it is (Linux distros tend to die pretty fast). Gentoo I've been thinking about, but the recompilation part sounds a bit... harsh. But at least it is used enough so that it won't die easily.

--JanneJalkanen, 12-Oct-2004