Now that I’ve had time to become familiar with Etch, the newest incarnation of Debian stable, I’m very impressed.   Etch, like Sarge before it, runs very nicely on older hardware and comes with all of the most popular software applications but there are some very significant differences worthy of mentioning or even, perhaps, celebrating.

Firefox 1.0.4 was available from the repository in Debian Sarge and, by adding the backports repository to Synaptic, it was possible to upgrade to Firefox 1.5.0.   Firefox isn’t available for Debian Etch, um, well, not exactly anyhow.   This is a little confusing but Mozilla had to produce a different version of Firefox for Debian Etch and change the name to IceWeasel.   According to someone who should know, it’s a bit more than a simple name change but, despite its being fairly geeky reading, none of the differences are any big deal from where I sit.   The current version of Firefox is 2.0.0.3 and the version of IceWeasel in the Debian Etch repository is 2.0.0.3 and that’s enough information to make me happy.   Something else which really impresses me about Debian is the number of choices it gives me.   For example, I can easily use Konqueror (the KDE browser), Epiphany (the Gnome browser) or IceApe Navigator (the renamed-for-Debian Mozilla Navigator browser) instead of IceWeasel.   I’m not sure now which of those came by default with the desktop net installation and which I downloaded from the repository but it’s a moot point because anything in the repository is easily installed on the computer.   There are other browsers available from the Debian repository as well, like Dillo, Lynx, Kazehakase or Galeon.   Oh sure, I know there are lots of available choices in Windows browsers but each comes from a different place and each has to be updated seperately.   The Debian operating system and all software installed from the repository are updated in a single operation as frequently, or infrequently if that be the case, as you choose.

My wife and I like to use a USB drive to transfer data from one computer to another.   It was possible to mount a USB drive in Debian Sarge but only after I got Lee Parmeter, from our local Linux User’s Group, to show me how.   Mounting a USB drive in Debian Etch doesn’t require the services of a "consultant"; a few seconds after the USB drive is plugged in, a pop-up window appears offering the choice of opening the USB drive in a new window or doing nothing.   The same kind of pop-up appears when a CD is placed in the CD-ROM drive and let’s talk about software; seriously, let’s say you needed financial software, take a look at GnuCash, or say you wanted to do some light home recording work, have a look at Audacity.   If you want to do some intense multitrack recording, try Ardour and, while you’re at it, should you happen to need a good drum machine you might consider Hydrogen.   Maybe you just want to play games, fine, browse the list and pick a few.   If I don’t have your attention yet then you should just have a look a the the complete software list, you may be surprised at what you find.   How do you get all this software?   Well, you open a program called Synaptic, click on its "Search" button, type in the name of the software into the pop-up window and click on "Search".   Two or three clicks and a short time later the software is on your computer.   What’s it cost?   Nothing, no, really, there’s no charge.   Why do you think Microsoft is attacking open source so vigorously?   I figure they have stockholders to placate and its real hard to compete with "free".

You know, Debian has finally "arrived".   Heck, it’s as mundane as Windows 98 and more user friendly besides.   How boring is that?   Now I’ll have to find something interesting to blog about. *sigh*

Don Crowder

[tags]Debian Etch, software diversity, user friendly, cost free[/tags]