And so I jumped the gun.

Yet again.

Altough the battery issue on the MSI PR200 was fixed for a short time. It didn’t really last long.
As of kernel 2.6.27-7, it’s all fucked up again. The computer doesn’t go into poll mode anymore, but stays in interrupt mode instead. Which is exactly what causes the battery state to be read wrong, and sometimes the battery isn’t even detected.

In my five years of using Linux, I can honestly say I’ve never encountered any hardware issue whatsoever. Everything I tried out, always worked well on all of my (reasonably old) hardware. Sometimes it needed a bit of tweaking and fiddling here and there, but in the end it worked. So I never really understood how frustrating it must feel to have something so essential to not work properly.

Until now …

The thing is, I’m really starting to rely on that laptop to be my main, stable and portable machine. The old laptop, and my desktop are machines to play and have fun with. And so I don’t mind if every now and then, something goes tits up on one of them. But the PR200 should always be there, ready and fully functional for me to work on.

So what now?

Well, yesterday I’ve installed Debian Lenny on it. Which is soon to become the next Debian Stable. And it’s currently running on a custom compiled 2.6.27-6 kernel (in poll mode).

It’s something that “just works”. And that’s exactly what I need right now.

In the mean time, I guess I’ll go back to regularly checking the relevant forum threads and bug report pages, hoping for a permanent fix.

While I was sleeping…

The thing that amazed me the most, while I was ‘out of touch’ with what’s hot or not in the world of Linux, is how fast things evolve. Of course, being a Linux user and enthousiast for more than five years, I already knew this. Nevertheless, I was still pleasantly surprised.

To name a few:

- Linux kernel bump from 2.6.22 to almost 2.6.27
A few months ago I was still using kernel .22 (Although .24 was already released and widely in use, but I had to regress to .22 because of hardware isues). Right now I’m using Arch64’s stock 2.6.26 kernel, but I think we’re not far from seeing the release of .27, which by the way, is supposed to cure some of the acpi issues with my laptop even more. So hooray for that!

- Yet another distribution release frenzy is about to happen
Yes, it’s time for another biannual distro release frenzy, with new versions of Ubuntu, Suse and Fedora about to be released, either this month or the next. This is usually good for a string of “Best release ever” and “Linux is finally ready for the desktop” shouting on Linux forums, blogs and IRC channels. And I think it also helps in attracting new users to make the transition from Windows. So, that’s a good thing. Right?

But still, it kind of annoys me as well. Being accustomed to a rolling release cycle (first with Debian Testing, and now with Arch), I sometimes just don’t get what all the fuss is about. But that’s just me, I guess.

Oh yeah, before I forget. Debian is also about to release Lenny. They are even already fashionably late with release (Debian wouldn’t be Debian without a release delay.). I haven’t really noticed a big frenzy about Lenny’s release. Which is a petty because, in my opinion, this a much bigger ‘thing’ than any new Suse or Ubuntu.

- Tint ressurection!
I’ve always found the old Tint (ttm) to be the ideal task list to go with a lightweight window manager like Openbox. Unfortunately, the project died quite a while ago. Although it was still available in an unmaintained last version, I did end up switching to PyPanel in the end. But now someone (Cengztr) was finally brave enough to continue working on this incredible task ‘manager’! The new Tint2 has been cleaned up and was added with some new features. Basically though, it is still as awesome as before.

- Rubyripper made it to the official repo’s.
Of Arch Linux that is. I don’t think you’ll find it in Debian’s or Ubuntu’s. So for Arch users, it just moved from the AUR to the community repositories. Not really big news, but pleasing nevertheless.

All of this is, of course, only the tip of the iceberg…

Linux Server: Choosing the distribution.

For starters, I want to point out that you can run a pretty decent linux home server on just about any distribution, excluding the likes of DSL and Puppy maybe. Some may require a little more tinkering than others, but in essence it’s quite feasable with any decent linux distro. This means I could just pick my favorite desktop distro, Arch Linux, and go on from there.

The thing is, I want to do it thoroughly. And at the same time, maybe learn a thing or two from a type of distribution that I’ve never used before.

Also, and for the record; This is not a guide on which distro you should use for a server.
I only describe here, what I find important and what lead me to my choice.
I don’t make a habit of telling other people what to do.

[HowTo] Install Debian GNU/Linux Etch.

Since I made this noob-friendly install guide of Arch Linux, I might as well do the same for Debian Etch.

I set up another virtual machine in VirtualBox and installed the base of Debian Etch on it. Again, I took quite a few screenshots along the way. You can admire them at that same Google Picasa Webshots thingy.

This HowTo will only show you how to get the base installed. So no X server, no desktop environment, etcetera. After you’ve completed what’s described below, you can start configuring your Debian system, piece by piece. You’ll find plenty of documentation on the Debian website (and other places) to show you how to get that done. Again, I strongly suggest you use the official documentation if you want to install Debian. You can use this HowTo as some sort of “graphical support”, if you find it useful. And also, I might put some things about configuration in a separate HowTo myself, later.