My OS transitions at the moment, Why I am a serial Distro hopper.

Ok I was back on Windows 7 for about a month. I don't hate Windows 7 and am not bashing it, I totally see it's uses and it's appeal but It also has it's bad points just like any OS (the anti virus prompts for one though I recommend Avast free). But anyway 12.04 beta 1 caught my eye and I thought I'd take the plunge and wipe/install. I've been using it for a while now and first impressions were I liked the core but it was rough around the edges (beta so I'm forgiving of that). Updates seem to be coming in every other day, these include major kernel updates (3.0 to 3.2) and an update to beta 2. Stability fine, it seems to have settled down and the updates helped a lot. It's very quick and snappy and is quite an improvement from what I remember of 11.10, the final build will be quite a release if these betas are anything to go by.

The AMD GPU drivers on the other hand have been hit or miss and mostly miss. I have got artifacts and a few glitches, so I tried to install the latest drivers off their website and after a few system updates and a reboot (over a few days) it switched to unity 2D and there was nothing I seemed to do that worked. The worst was booting to a white screen when I tried to uninstall and transition to the default drivers. Luckily I still had the dvd with the iso image on it so I wiped and re-installed and this time ignored the extra drivers and went with the out if the box x.org drivers. This seemed to be fine for a while (a week or so) but today after updates this too has reverted to unity 2D without warning (again after a reboot). Now don't get me wrong unity 2D is perfectly usable and functional but I can't help feeling that if my laptop can handle the extras (which it does easily) then I should be getting them.

Anyway, today while on reddit I saw that Linux Mint Debian Edition has just been released with update 4 and I thought I'd torrent the iso (this is legal they provide the links on their site) and check it out. This introduces Cinnamon 1.4, Mate 1.2 and a whole rake of other changes. Now I have used Cinnamon in the past on Mint 12 (by installing it manually) and liked it a lot. I like the idea of a rolling release like LMDE but will prob get itchy feet after a while and switch up when either 12.04 final comes out or Mint 13. I have in the past preferred the Ubuntu based Mint distros rather then the straight Debian editions but we shall see with this release. I'll have a poke around with it in Virtual Box but am unsure as of yet if I will replace 12.04 with it.

I will post an update on my thoughts soon and am considering doing an ItchyHippo review on LMDE update 4 (though this isn't written in stone and would prob take longer). I am downloading both the Gnome and XFCE 64bit versions at the moment and will share my thoughts on both and which one I prefer.

Photos of Malahide Marina in the sun

It's been an interesting week

Well, it's been an interesting week. Uncles came up for the Ireland vs Scotland rugby match on Saturday. A ticket I was told was set aside for me and my dad I was told on the Thursday before. But then another uncle put his name in the pot and of course I had to voluntarily give up my ticket so the brothers could have a night of it. We were in the pub before they got the Dart to Lansdowne Road and it was suggested that I'd walk home and watch the match there. I didn't of course, I stayed in the pub to watch the welsh and then the Irish match and then they came back and found me propped up against the bar chatting to the bar men. They then stayed for a few more, as though I was bad I wasn't as bad as I should've been after the amount of pints I had (I'm guessing 8-9 at this stage). I'd say it was well over 10 if not 15 by the time be were ready for the chipper and the walk home! As you can well imagine the following morning/afternoon was fun! I had awoken a few times with trips to the loo and desperate cotton mouth during the night. Anyways, they all departed bar one that day (following the match) and we went out with the remaining uncle to dine out on the Sunday night.


During the week was pretty uneventful but I had applied to write tech related articles for Itchyhippo.com. It's not paid (nor would I expect it to be as the guy is maintaining it when he gets a spare moment with study and work). But I was rattling a few ideas as to what to write for my first post over the weekend and during the week. I eventually did settle on a few things and wrote the bones of it on Wednesday. Thurday I did the proof reading a refinements with sentence structure, grammar, spelling etc. (something I don't always do here haha) and today it's up for the world to see!


Last night I went to an Atheists in the Pub meeting to which I'm a semi-regular visitor (depending on money and the timing). Which was good to catch up with a few of the regulars and mouth off at the catholic conservatives who appeared on the RTE's Frontline along with Michael Nugent (Chairperson) and Jane Donnelly (Education Officer) of Atheist Ireland. Both were at the social gathering and laughs were had all 'round. I'm also a Semi regular attendee at the Dublin Skeptics in the Pub and their other social events and organised meetings/lectures as well as a listener to their podcast the skeprecauns (as you can tell if you've read my past blog posts). I find it good to have these brief sojourns outside my usual social circles as it's not only expanding my social circle but it means I can discuss subject that I mightn't if I was amongst some of my friends as I don't always know their comfort level with all subjects of conversation.