Archives for April, 2011
Rose’n’Thistle - OpenClipArt
Apr 27, 2011 (about 1 year ago)
I have just contributed my first piece of clip art to the Open Clip Art Library.
The picture is something I drew for my brother when he asked me to design his wedding invitation (He married a lovely Scottish lassie in 2007). I drew the picture with a ballpoint pen on a scrap piece of paper, before scanning it and sending it to him via email. He had the picture printed onto some fancy card and the final result looked quite nice.
I had forgotten all about the image, but then I stumbled across it again last night and I thought it might be nice to make it publicly available, so I uploaded it to OCAL.
Note to self: I have hundreds of other doodles laying around, when I get time, I should make the effort to make them available too.
Pleasantly Boring Linux
Apr 15, 2011 (about 1 year ago)
The “Feature Story” of the 400th issue of DistroWatch Weekly is “First look at CrunchBang Linux 10” by Jesse Smith. I am hesitant to call it a review, because after reading it, I thought it was a rather shallow write-up and did not really serve any purpose, other than to be a filler for the 400th issue, which seems like a wasted opportunity to me (I am sure there are far more exciting things happening in the GNU/Linux ecosystem right now). Anyhow, I did find Jesse’s summary interesting:
Once the system was up and running and looking the way I wanted it to, the experience was pleasantly boring. Nothing really jumped out at me as being great or terrible. Thus far I haven’t found any niche CrunchBang fills — its resource usage, install process and user-friendliness seems to be about on par with plain Debian, so I’m not sure who this project is targeting. My conclusion is CrunchBang appears to be a good tool, I just haven’t found any task for it.
Firstly, I would like to address the “pleasantly boring” remark, which I think is a huge compliment to the project. I am not sure what others require from their OS, but I want an OS that does not get in my way and just works, in a pleasantly boring fashion. I can live with pleasantly boring, but more importantly, I can work with pleasantly boring. So, if anyone comes looking to CrunchBang to fulfil some fantastical idea of a whiz bang operating system, they should probably look elsewhere. CrunchBang is pleasantly boring and I am happy that it is.
Maybe it is time to consider changing CrunchBang’s name? Pleasantly Boring Linux anyone?
Secondly, there is the remark about who the project is targeting, which is really easy to answer; nobody. I have said many times that CrunchBang does not have a target audience and that I work on CrunchBang for myself. I guess this concept is quite foreign to some people as this is not the first review which has questioned CrunchBang’s targeting. Having said that, maybe it is just foreign to people who write reviews, as most of the commentators seem to get it.
Just for the record, again, CrunchBang is not a marketing exercise. If someone finds it useful, c’est bon. If not, c’est la vie.
Rathole Roadshow 2011
Apr 10, 2011 (about 1 year ago)
April 24, 2011 8pm – Rathole Roadshow 2011 at The Zanzibar, Liverpool, UK
I am really looking forward to attending this year’s Rathole Roadshow, it should be a really great night. Firstly, it is in Liverpool, a truly amazing city which Becky and I really enjoyed on our last visit (which by some strange coincidence, was for last year’s Rathole Radio and OggCamp spectacular.) I have to admit, not that I want to show my ignorance, but I did not realise quite how beautiful Liverpool really is — there is some wonderful architecture around the city, not to mention the many art installations, sculptures and monuments, which seemed to be around every corner. After visisting Liverpool, it is easy to understand why it was previously named a European Capital of Culture.
Anyhow, secondly, I am looking forward to meeting up with some geeky friends, again. The Rathole Radio listeners are a great bunch of people and it will be good to share some laughs over a drink, or two.
Thirdly, the music should be top-notch! If you have never listened to Rathole Radio, you should do yourself a favour and download an episode, or two. If you like an eclectic mix of musical styles, you are in for a real treat — you will hear everything from mellow classical tunes to hardcore Brazilian electro noise. There is also a free EP download available, featuring the artists that will appear live on the night. Talking of which, I really cannot wait to see 20lb Sounds performing El Bubblino, it should be epic!
All-in-all, the Rathole Roadshow is definitely an event worth looking forward to. Tickets are available from just £5, so grab ‘em now! And if you see Becky and I there, be sure to come and say, “hello” :)
#torrentgate
Apr 10, 2011 (about 1 year ago)
Yesterday, I removed the direct download links from the CrunchBang Linux download page, meaning CrunchBang Linux is currently available to download via BitTorrent only.
In passing, I mentioned that I had done this on Identi.ca and what was tagged as #torrentgate followed (thank you diablomarcus). I tried not to get too heavily involved in the conversation, mainly because I had numerous SSH sessions on the go, but also because while I love Identi.ca, I do think that the 140 character limit can sometimes inhibit constructive conversations.
Anyhow, I am really interested to know what, if anything, people think about offering BitTorrent only downloads for CrunchBang. If you have an opinion on this subject, please post a comment.
Personally, I think that moving to a BitTorrent only distribution method is a good thing. My reasons for thinking this are:
Community involvement: members of the CrunchBang community can easily get involved to help keep the distribution healthy (Jeremy is a fine example of this)— seeding torrents is much simpler than trying to provide a HTTP mirror.
Reduced costs: bandwidth is shared by the users who want the files, meaning the CrunchBang servers use less bandwidth, which reduces their costs.
Increased redundancy: once a torrent swarm has started, there is no real need for any centralised storage, so it should not matter if the CrunchBang servers go nuclear, again.
Automatic scalability: coping with demand for new releases has traditionally been a real headache for the CrunchBang project. By removing the direct downloads, anyone wishing to obtain a copy of CrunchBang will have to use BitTorrent. This should mean that swarms will grow to accommodate demand when new images are released.
Regarding any negatives, fabsh made a valid point regarding internet servers providers who restrict BitTorrent traffic. I have absolutely no knowledge about such matters, so I would be interested to know if anyone has any real facts and figures, such as which ISPs do this and how popular they are, etc. If you have any knowledge on this subject, again, please leave a comment. Thank you. :)