Like I reported in my last article already, the upcoming stable version of Debian – called Trixie – has already less release-critical bugs than the current stable release, called Bookworm.
And thus I decided to have a look on Mitchie’s old Lenovo SL500 laptop which isn’t really used by anybody in this household anymore.
And what should I say? Runs smooth as expected. Here’s a screenshot from the XFCE session:
And here is one from fastfetch which I installed as a first add-on:
This will be a good one, too – like always. Thanks to all Debianistas who make this possible!
Oh, and this blog post was written with it, and on that old notebook.
When I first read about the hard freeze of Trixie – the next stable Debian version – I got excited, and looked up the remaining release-critical bugs page. I don’t remember the exact number as of May 18th, but it was around the 260 mark. As of now, it’s at 178:
I had seen it fallen below 200, but sometimes new bugs are added, so more work for those who are closing them, but better for us all. Once that green line is at 0 (zero), it’s ready as in Debian’s motto quando paratus est – they’ll release when it’s ready, not when some CEO shouts loud enough. Bonus heart points to Debian, as always 🙂
I’ve readelsewhere that one should avoid Linux distributions which release regularly, the main reason being given that not all bugs have CVE numbers, so they wouldn’t even get fixes, and simply taking a rolling release (like Arch, or in a sense, Debian Sid) would be better because you’d always have the latest and greatest software from upstream (the developers of those software packages). I don’t buy it. If a bug doesn’t have a CVE number, then mostly the devs of that package don’t know about the bugs as well, and many of the closed bugs in distributions like Debian, Fedora, and so on will go upstream and be fixed in newer versions because there are fixes already.
True; in Arch or other constantly updated distributions, you’ll always have the latest and greatest – I just got kernel 6.15 in Arch for instance:
I nevertheless find the work of the Debian devs important, and I’m very thankful for it. I trust these people because I know many of them, met them at local groups for breakfast or in pubs, and I helped the Debian team at gatherings like Linuxtag or FOSDEM already, I would have become a Debian developer myself, hadn’t I’ve been interrupted from that by joining commercial IT at my last employer (here in Frankfurt). That was good because it brought food onto the table, but I didn’t really have time for other things except family and work anymore…
Anyway, that’s history. Just wanted to take this as an opportunity to say thanks to the Debian team – oh, and to Arch as well of course. And thanks to you for reading, as always.
P.S.: as you can see at the release-critical bug status page, the number of RC bugs for Trixie is already lower than the one of the current stable release, which is Bookworm – so in case you’ll have a test machine around, try Trixie if you’re so inclined. I sometimes do that before the release day as well. Or even better, if you are capable to look at that bug list and close a few of them, that would be excellent! 🙂
Today, 14 years ago, Wikiloops founder Richard opened the gates, and now at more than 250,000 uploads and tracks later, we can all only thank him for it. Read what he wrote, and/or do this:
Go to my profile, and in it, select the tab “Playlists”. Scroll down a bit past my albums, and select the playlist called “Even more hit singles”. Enjoy, and then submit a few dollars or Euros to keep the thing running, so that we all can provide more like this to you. Thanks!
And thanks to Richard and his family, and to everyone who contributed until now – it’s greatly appreciated!
And: still remember this one? It’s also in that playlist, the music was made by some fellow ‘loopers:
Some of the attendees who were either late or had left the day before already had to be “‘shopped”, as they say, into the picture – you probably see it because of the very different lighting on some of the faces.
The videos have very different maximum resolutions sadly, from 480p to 1080p, and for my taste I’m a bit over-represented in the first one, the second one shows me playing a tune from a lead sheet which I hadn’t seen ever before, so excuse my uncertainty at some times (for instance on when the outro was about to start, couldn’t exactly read this). Oh, and before you ask: no; playing from lead sheet or from notation isn’t what’s representative of the “normal” jamming – but I’m always glad if people put up the chords to their songs anyway. And I love playing OliVBee‘s songs. And the ones from Moonchild of course 🙂
Anyway, enjoy, and like always, thanks for viewing and for reading.
Took this short before sunset on Saturday. It’s the village where the 2024 Wikiloops members’ meeting took place, and Richard’s “Barnadise” is pretty much in the middle of the photo:
Taken with my Pixel 6a phone on my way back from the last walk over the hill with the “Hubertuskapelle”.
This is what I wrote in the song description on Wikiloops:
“I’ve been at the Wikiloops meeting 2024, woohoo! But like all good things in life, it had to end, somehow – and that reminded me that I wanted to play on this awesome track of Isa and Devin. And since both my upright and myself aren’t really up to the task right now, I had to take the fretless instead to noodle around on this a bit. Thanks to Isa & Devin, and I hope you’ll like it…”
So here is it:
This track is embedded with the friendly permission by the creatives on wikiloops.com.
And like always, thanks for listening, and for reading. If you’re a musician, consider to join us and to play with us.
I have a sister who still owns an older notebook which runs Windows 7, and a friend from England who just moved from a Windows 8 to a Windows 10 machine. Both machines wouldn’t run Win11 I guess, tho I didn’t ask. You don’t recommend that to friends anyway.
So what to recommend? Linux of course, yes, but which one? Liam Proven (and many others) think it’s Mint. From his article in The Register, let me just cite these two sentences:
“Linux Mint remains the most sensible, pragmatic desktop Linux out there.” and, a bit further down, “If you have an aging PC that can’t run Windows 11, this is the one to try.”
One remark tho: Mint’s website, documentation, and all are really cool as well – as long as you speak English fluently enough. Maybe the user base could be much bigger if these pages were localized, like Debian’s for instance? Just saying…
For my late brother, using Debian – with a little help of myself – wasn’t a problem, but for any beginner who doesn’t have more “expert” friends or relatives, Mint might really be the sensible choice for now. Try it in a VM if you have the resources to do so, and if not, have a look at the Live image which you can start from a USB stick. One thing it *does* have as an advantage over its grandma Debian is the possibility of an OEM install (like “Mama” Ubuntu offers as well), so I could offer an installation to my sis or to close friends…
Anyway, have a look. It’s better than Win11, as are all other Linux distros.
