As a Debian user, you may choose to adopt the distro-managed rebuild of the world's greatest web browser. But, by doing so, you may not be able to use G+. Don't worry, the answer is at hand.
While I love using Fedora in my daily work, sometimes when I want to relax I find using an alternative distribution is good therapy. Fedora is fabulous with its GNOME Shell finery, but occasionally I hanker for something simpler and more lightweight. It's also good to see how the other half lives :-)
So, I decided to put Debian on my netbook. With no GUI. Everything I do on it must be by the command line, including web research. Compared to Fedora, Debian's system requirements are practically non-existent, which is especially good if you want your system to still run nice and quick.
First steps...
Firstly, I had of course to grab the distribution. I'm not over-fussed about running cutting edge stuff on this machine. For me, the most important thing is a low-maintenance base where I don' t need to think much about the distribution changing every 6 months.
Next off, I plugged in the USB CD/DVD drive and installed the software, making sure I didn't overwrite my XPpartition. Well, you need a reminder every so often how awful life used to be.. ;-)
I won't go into the installation process here - there's plenty of documentation elsewhere which covers that. So, once installed, I really wanted to keep the installed software as trim as possible. That is, with one or two exceptions...
Firstly, I have tried and tried it again but I just can't/don't/won't do vi, vim or anything similar. It's just not my bag. It's emacs for me. I also want to keep my mail inside emacs, so it's goodbye to mutt - even if it does suck less, apparently ;-)
Also, Exim4. The servers I manage don't use it (generally it's Postfix or QMail) and I already have a tiny smattering of Sendmail knowledge - so I have no desire to pick up on this. I'm sure it's a fine MTA and undoubtedly there are many technical reasons why I should keep it on my netbook... but even so, no thanks.
Therefore, my software changes are:
$ sudo aptitude remove exim4 exim4-base exim4-config exim4-daemon-light vi mutt
$ sudo aptitude install emacs w3m-el sendmail
So far so good. However, I was still stuck with a chunky 80x25 character screen when booting up, which is real ugly. Through much searching and grub configuration editing, I found that my answer was actually to install the intel video package.
$ sudo aptitude install xserver-xorg-video-intel
You're on to a winner here, because Debian Squeeze is already set up for Kernel Mode Setting. In other words, as soon as your system starts booting up, the video drivers get loaded and the optimal video mode is enabled (or, at least, that's the intention).
Whether or not it's worth specifying screenmode in grub is open for debate. FWIW, I put this in /etc/default/grub:
GRUB_GFXMODE=1024x600 GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD=1024x600x16
... And in /etc/grub.d/40_custom:
set gfxpayload=1024x600x16
Then, I simply updated grub with the new config:
$ sudo update-grub
Please note that this step relates to my Intel-based netbook. Yours may vary.
The only significant piece of the puzzle remaining was to get wireless sorted out and connect to my server:
** PLEASE NOTE: this step assumes your wireless network device doesn't require firmware or that you already have the firmware installed in /lib/firmware. **
Once done, you need to uncomment the /net line in /etc/auto.master and restart autofs:
$ service restart autofs
If you want to refer to server by hostname and are not running a DNS server, add the hostname to /etc/hosts (somewhere below the localhost lines):
111.222.333.444 myserver.mydomain.com myserver
At this point, assuming all went well, you can cd to /net/ in either the shell or a file manager such as nautilus (if running a GUI).
So, this takes care of a basic local network configuration, but we still need to actually get connected to it on wifi. So, there is, in my /etc/network/interfaces:
# The loopback network interface auto lo iface lo inet loopback
Once done, save this file and change the permissions for extra security:
$ sudo chmod 0600 /etc/network/interfaces
- and connect up, like this:
$ sudo ifup wlan0=wlan_mynet
Voila! With luck, maybe a little patience, and possibly an extra step or two (which you can hopefully figure out, if needed) these are the key set up steps which will make your netbook/laptop nice and lean, and perhaps more fun to play with.
Next time, I'll go through a few tools I use for 'net stuff.
So, from time to time (read: most of the time) when I'm working I listen to music. More often than not, it's electronic in one form or another.
The point of this post is simply to list a few stations I like listening to, to build up my collection. If it grows over time, I'll probably divide into genres or something.
Google is undoubtedly suffering from some adverse PR in respect of its new privacy policy. While it may have considered itself on to a PR "winner" with its "privacy made simple" approach, there has been considerable backlash in opinion and re-consideration of the use of its services.
So, what could Google do to demonstrate that it still takes on-line security seriously?
Google has the infrastructure, manpower and, I'd argue, interest in doing such a thing. In fact, in many ways, it already offers the flesh around this missing skeleton.
Perhaps it could support the CACert effort with funding and enough energy to get it through the audits required to have their root certificate included in Mozilla's Firefox, as-shipped? And, while Google are at it (restoring their image of benevolence, that is), they could include that root certificate in Chrome too.
Someone lucky enough to participate
in Jeri Ryan's hangout!
There was a lot of buzz around it, with hundreds of comments flying around under the Hangout post, updating in real time. It was pretty hard to get a video stream from Google, such were the number of simultaneous subscriptions.
In many ways, this reminded me of the excitement of the early internet, where we learned about things such as bandwidth... The kids today, they have everything!
Still, the excitement wasn't only in the new broadcast/interaction (intercast?!) method through G+ hangouts, it was the realisation that, should they choose, celebs can now use a nice, safe way of engaging with their fan base. Directly. Over time, this may disarm broadcast controllers and empower people, be they celebrities or fans, into collaboration through constructive, enriching dialogue.
Wil Wheaton, self-confessed geek and well-known actor likewise, was notably impressed with hangouts. It was refreshing to see people observing great netiquette while chatting with Jeri. How much more enjoyable, this, than suffering typically mundane updates as you might in another social networking system.
As Google measures and expands upon functionality in G+, I hope they'll see fit to bring more interactive tools to the table. I get the feeling that hangouts are just the start of the next revolution. As Android gathers increasing momentum and Google+ apps appear on both major mobile platforms, we could see real-time social networking emerge as the number one communication method.
People, known and unknown to each other, will communicate, partly in mimicry, utilising all tools at their disposal. And, with open source platforms gathering adoption, they will inevitably add both their biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.
