Can’t stop fiddling…

12November2007

I keep my nose to the grindstone, work hard every day…

Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source.

Fedora 8 landed whilst I was in Oz and I’ve just got round to installing it. I’m not drinking the Kool Aid - it is beautiful. Here’s the reasons:

- For the first time ever my Atheros-based wifi card works out of the box. Huge, massive, super thanks to the madwifi guys for their awesome work in reverse-engineering this beast.
- Java is included thanks to the IcedTea project.
- Codeina/Codec Buddy installs the mp3 decoder in a snap - a necessary evil. I wish I had the time to re-rip everything to ogg but I’m afraid I don’t.
- The look and feel is clean and crisp - the desktop background even changes colour subtly depending on the time of day.

There is plenty more of course but with the exception of the last point it all leads to less time configuring the system on first install, fewer packages from external repositories - its all good. I know there are probably hundreds of “OMG, F8 FTW!!!!” posts around but its great to see the impressive things that have been done since the last release, this being my second version where I have been following development from the opening of CVS to release.

12November2007

Row, row, row your boat…

Posted by Christopher under: Travel & Leisure.

Farewells are a necessary evil but I keep them as short as possible. Having been through a few of them in the past few days I’m glad they are over. Of course, the farewells tend to get balanced out by re-unions at the other end and few of them were more welcome than the sight of my youngest brother waiting at the airport at 6:30am to pick me up after 20-odd hours of long-haul. Paul wins the 2007 Can’t Stop Fiddling Altruism award.

Of course, one of the many questions people ask on returning is “So, where next?”. I’m happy to report I’m sailing from Gibraltar to the Canary islands on board the tall ship Stavros S. Niarchos in two weeks time, subject to confirmation by the organisation running it, The Tall Ships Youth Trust.