In my frequent debate with Ubuntu/Debian fanboys I always make the one concession that I wish Fedora had apt and deb for package distribution. YUM and RPM simply don’t cut it. I have had some experience with rolling RPM’s and it wasn’t pretty. Poor documentation and shifting goalposts combined with what I would term a legacy package management utility lead to much frustration. The maintainer for RPM left Red Hat a while back and it has had little attention since.
Now it appears that instead of ditching RPM and YUM altogether, an attempt will be made to rally round and try and sort things out. This is a pity. Despite Suse and Mandriva also using RPM, software distribution on the Linux platform needs sorting out sooner rather than later. New users are now usually asked to choose between compiling from source, downloading an RPM or downloading a deb, dependent on which distro they have started using. If you’re lucky there is a version compatible with theirs. Luckier still is one that is compatible with their distro version.
Autopackage is a brave attempt to solve the problem however the maintainer seems to lack any kind of diplomacy and in a project that must unite, it continues to divide. What is needed is a unified distribution system and I believe for one that the Fedora project should put its muscle into this rather than an overhaul of RPM.
International Business Machines rocking it to you. Recently voted the most Linux-friendly vendor. Here’s a pretty cool promotional video that you may enjoy.
My mobile phone contract has expired and so my faithful little black friend of the past three years which has survived journeys through Africa, Spain (twice), Germany, Holland and to a World Cup along with being dropped a number of times must have decided it was time for a vacation. I was out with the members of the West Yorkshire Linux User Group for their Christmas bash along with Jono and Aq from LUGRadio and it joined the ranks of the disappeared. Other users of the M621 out of Leeds at 12am this morning may have seen the driver of a small green car shouting indiscriminately at Anyone Who Got In His Way.
Still, I get to keep the same number but have lost contacts, music and most importantly, a picture of Clifton wearing a skirt as well as a video of a stone duck being decapitated. So I’m taking it out on anyone and everyone and almost enjoying wallowing in my own misery.
Today’s majestic discovery has been that the SMC EtherPower II PCI card doesn’t sit well with Linux. The last time somebody touched the driver was back in 2001 and I was prepping a computer for a freecycler to pick up when I ran into a looping EPIC_restart() in dmesg. Reloading the epic100 module stopped the messages but locked the system when the network came back up. This on Xubuntu 6.10. I even resorted to making a BIOS upgrade in Windows on my brother’s laptop. Still no success. Eventually swapped out the card for another one and it worked a treat - Realtek chipsets are pretty much flawless it would seem.
Having lost a good few mm in teeth enamel from the grinding I set out to fix a friend of a friend’s broadband problem. It was only on arrival that it became obvious it would be a cinch to sort - error 691. Incorrect username or password. Did I know what the problem was? Erm, well its like this. Your username or your password is wrong. Sure enough, retyped and everything ran fine. Of course, I cant look someone in the eye and charge 40 spondooleys for that! Maybe I’m too soft. 2007 will be the year of rampant capitalism.
Wow, two weeks without a post. Let’s see, a weekend spent with the soon-to-be Firth’s at Torquay, much of which was spent in bed with an awful stomach bug not helped by countless jars of cider celebrating the upcoming nuptials. Still, great to see them both looking on top form and looking forward to the wedding. The week prior had been taken up with setting up Cornwall’s first ski slope in the centre of Truro where I learnt that said town has much to offer the single man in terms of visual distractions of the female variety.
The fireplace is now in and the plaster is taking its fair time to dry. So de-humidifier has been re-located to the sitting room to aid the process.
Last weekend involved no travelling however as I was now driving on two punctured tyres I decided to replace the whole set. Rock ‘n’ roll. Saturday night was spent with Shaun who is at any one time friend, teacher, boss, flatmate and drinking partner. In this case it was the latter and we worked our way steadily across the pumps of the Rat and Ratchet whereupon I promptly left him at 10pm to find Ed my old flatmate from University. Ed’s best mate Peter died a few months back on a stag night in Leeds. Ed was the last person to see him alive - his body turned up a few weeks later in one of the canals. He was running from an altercation and fell in. Having swum around in Lake Windermere as a foolhardy youth with a few draughts of dutch courage swimming inside me I understand how difficult it is. I hadn’t seen Ed since however I had hosted the remembrance website he wrote and we had stayed in contact since University. He was looking the happiest I have seen him and I told him so. At least I think I did. I walked home not long after 12 and arrived home a little damp after having been gently pissed on the whole way home as Yorkshire weather is wont to do.
