GNU/Linux

Some people complain about how GNU/Linux isn't desktop-ready. It's too hard to use, the applications aren't there, it does things in silly and quirky ways... We've all heard the list. And some of us persevere anyway.

Recently, though, I've been working on-site with a client for a few weeks on a PHP project. The web app we are building is on a remote GNU/Linux server. Our desktops are all Windows XP SP2, of course. Because I need to edit the files locally but test them remotely, I need a fair bit of network transparency. Of course, Windows XP provides none unless everything is using SMB, which our production web server does not (naturally). So what setup did I have to cobble together?

As various associates and friends of mine know, my typical Linux distribution of choice is Debian. Once upon a time, the main thing that differentiated Debian from other distributions was a nifty suite of tools called APT, or Advanced Packaging Tool. While users of "those other distributions" wallowed in RPM hell, having to track down package dependencies manually, Debian users relied on a vast online archive of packages all parsed by the apt system. By using the apt-get tool Debian users could install one package, and all required dependencies would be installed and configured automagically. No scouring the 'Net for a specific version of an RPM. Coolness!

Lately I've been reviewing Linux-based server software for a client. I have setup a dedicated test server that I can break, and to avoid rolling my office chair around the room to get anything done (fun as that may be), I've been accessing it almost exclusively via ssh from my desktop.

Generally when I need to download a new program to test, I just wget it on the server and then do whatever it is I'm going to do. That is, until one program didn't offer an actual URL. No, to use their software, you had to use their super-cool download redirect method. Boy I hate those, even apart from the problem of not being able to just wget a file. So I had to download the file on my main desktop and then shuffle it over. Minor annoyance, and computers are supposed to be helpful, not annoying.

So I finally bit the bullet and switched to KDE 3.4. Those who know me will know that I am a big fan of the KDE team's work, and every version has some compelling reason to make me upgrade. There are a couple of them this time around, although as always there's a few places that need some work.

My main desktop runs Debian Sid, the "Unstable" variant. Of course, in practice it's still fairly reliable despite the name. Things do get weird on occasion, but so far nothing show stopping. It's also reasonably up to date (usually more so than Gentoo stable but less so than Gentoo unstable, or masked, or whatever they call it), but KDE 3.4 has been delayed because Sarge, the current Testing version of Debian, is soon to go stable, and the fewer big changes there are in Debian right now the easier that will go. Fair enough, I suppose. Fortunately, the Debian-KDE team has made pre-release packages available for impatient folks like me. Thanks guys! Installation was fairly smooth, except that the kdelibs-data package wanted to overwrite a file owned by kplayer (a video player based on the mplayer engine, for those not familiar with it) and kplayer wouldn't uninstall until kdelibs-data was done installing. A quick Force Overwrite (a useful Jedi power) solved that, and I was soon staring at the new and improved KDE 3.4.