Arch

I have been using a Debian/Sidux/Kubuntu combination for some time (Debian for at least 3 years) but of late I have tired of the slow release's (hence the use of Kubuntu and the excellent Sidux) and their attitude towards KDE 4. However, I love having a rolling release model and the brilliant package management.

So after much thinking and looking around at what other Distros have to offer over Debian I took the plunge and installed Arch Linux at the weekend.

I have so far installed the base system and installed the KDEMod (now know as Chakra) packages. I installed it onto an old Thinkpad (p3 1.4, 256mb, 40gb hhd).

So far I am very very impressed. The feel of the KDEMod packages is very fast and responsive and so far I have not experienced any crashes. I would be interested to see what the standard Arch KDE4.1 packages perform like.

I found it very straight forward to install (although I had no wireless to worry about). I also leant a lot about the boot process and config of the system.

Why did I choose Arch over something like SuSE or Mint or any of the other distro's in the Distrowatch top 10? Well I wanted to keep the rolling release model and the easy package management, I wanted a distro that actually seems to be behind KDE and I wanted a system I could learn something with. To be honest my dream distro is Slackware with a decent implementation of Apt thrown in. If that happens I would be on it like a shot. Anyway Arch certainly is filling my criteria and I have read a great deal of good things about it.

I will play some more this week but unless I find anything I can't make work or, like, then for the first time in over 3 years Kermit, my main laptop, will run something other than a Debain based system.

Debian And KDE 4.2

Firstly Happy New Year to anyone reading this!

Secondly, posts have been few and far between due to real life issues (work). 3 high profile clients all going live at the same time and involving a lot of attention.

So back to the subject of this post. Debian and KDE 4. I know that compiling KDE is always an option. However, there are a lot of people that would like to be running KDE 4 on Debian by choice rather than by compiling. I also know that Debian has it's reasons for not wanting to bring KDE 4 into the fold until Lenny finally makes it out of the door (2010 anyone??). I myself have been running the KDE 4.1 packages from kde4.debian.net/. These packages have been built by the Debian KDE packagers and apart from the complete lack of QT/GTK theming engine and a very odd login screen bug they have been really good and solid. Up until 18 November 2008 they where even getting updates based on the incremental KDE 4.1 release's being made by the KDE team.

However, after a recent blog by one of the Debian KDE packagers I realised that maybe Debian might not be the best choice distro for KDE4. They are only offically supporting the above KDE4.1 packages for Lenny. Therefore, there wil be no "official" or "semi-official" (as in from the Debian KDE maintainers) KDE 4.2 (or later) packages for Lenny. Oh ok that would mean there would be no easy access to KDE 4 later than 4.1 for Lenny which could be the stable Debian release for the next 2 to 3 years.

I know there will be various work arounds and hacks but not everybody wants to have to go to great lengths to run their prefered desktop.

Ana's blog has recently released details of kde42.debian.net/. This is a repositry of KDE 4.2 packages. The build is pre beta 2 and is completly and utterly unsupported. Oh and it is for unstable only which I think also shows their plans for KDE 4 on Lenny.

KDE 4.2 Beta 2 Is Available Now.

As pointed out on Aarons blog and on the KDE website the 4.2 beta 2 is now available.

Roll on January!

Scary But True

An interesting and quite funny story that I just read can be found here. It details a mail sent to a Linux project from a teacher believing them to be some kind of illegal software pirates.

And of course the response is also shown.

Rules of branching......

Just found that someone with whom I work has changed the name of a visual studio solution file in one of our branches. The reason was that people where finding it difficult to know which branch they where working on.

I don't agree with this as it goes against what I understand to be branching. I would be interested to find out what other people think on the issue.

.Net Get Assembly Build Date.

Being of more of a (u)/(l)inux mindset these days I like to include some basic info on apps that I write, even simple 4 line command line applications. In C# I have been trying to create a simple library of functions that I tend to use over and over in command line apps and I have just added a nice little method to get the applications build date using reflection.

I would love to own up to writing the code but honors must go to this post on Coding Horror.

Visual Studio Toolbox Choose Items Crash

Here is a link to a know problem which I am now experiencing.

Basically if you try to add items to your Visual Studio 2008 toolbox and have the Power Commands Addin installed and SP1 Visual Studio will crash.

There is a link at the bottom of the post above with a work around.