Weekly Rewind #10

Well well well, now then, don’t worry I’m not turning into Jimmy Saville “now then, now then”; I’m just a bit shocked that it’s the 10th Weekly Rewind already. How did 10 weeks pass by so quickly? Anyway, much like good ol’ Sir Jimmy I’ve fixed it for you to read about what I did this week. So let’s get into it… As I always seem to start these articles the same way with Linux Outlaws on Monday, I won’t go on about it this week but you know what? We did Linux Outlaws 87 on Monday night, nuff said. We were late as usual but only by an hour this time, we’ll keep working on that. Somehow part of the technical equipment always breaks at about 6:45pm every Monday. I’m beginning to suspect sabotage… but then I remember how hopeless we are 😀

I finally published my long awaited (by me if nobody else) Arch review on Monday night after the show and then pimped the hell out of it on Tuesday. It’s been quite well received, thanks to everyone who read and commented. There were about 50 comments on there last time I checked. Good stuff. I edited the podcast this week and managed to get that finished on time for release on Wednesday night. I then shot over to Liverpool to see some of the other Script Frenzy people and have a chat at FACT.

On the distro hopping front, I’ve cloned my Arch install with Clonezilla and taken a little detour on my way to Chakra. I’m actually trying out the first testing release of Fab’s new distro remix, Katian. He calls it “very alpha” in his own words but it seems pretty stable to me, I’m writing this on it right now. We talked about the process of creating it on our last show, it’s essentially a remaster of Xubuntu 9.04 Jaunty. I’ve been trying it for a day or so but I’m not going to do a proper review just yet, I think it’s only fair to give him a bit more time to make a stable release. This is version 0.00 (what’s with all the 0’s?) so it’s very much a work in progress but if you want to give it a try out, please do. There’s a Launchpad page for bugtracking and I’m sure Fab would appreciate any help testing things out. I’m enjoying playing with XFCE 4.6 I must say. It’s been a while since I used XFCE and it’s come a long way. On lower spec systems it would be my first choice, but I’m afraid it just can’t replace Gnome in my heart. I plan to install Chakra in the next day or so and then I’ll report back on it through the week.

On Friday I was a little surprised by the verdict in the Pirate Bay case like everyone else. I wrote my personal response yesterday and got some very kind feedback on it from people which is always satisfying. Thanks to everyone who read it. On Friday evening I met up with the lovely Script Frenzy people again for dinner at the Everyman. It was our halfway party. So far I’m at 50 pages and a little off the pace but I hope to fix that this week. I need to get another 10 done today, we’ll see how that goes.

Upcoming:

So in the next week it’ll be Linux Outlaws as usual on Monday. I also need to get in touch with a few contacts about our much overdue European merchandise store, I’ll let you know what happens with that. If you’d like to join us it’s 6pm UTC/7pm UK/8pm CET over at http://linuxoutlaws.com/live you’re always welcome. I’m crossing my fingers we can start on time this week! I’ll be doing various other stuff during the week but on Friday night there’s the big Ubuntu Release Party at the BBC in Manchester. That should be amazing. I wrote about it a while back but if you’re thinking of coming and you haven’t let anyone know yet, please do. Apparently they require a list of attendees for the BBC fire regulations. I’ll be there so come and say hello if you can make it. I’d be pleased to see you. I’ll be back next week with more shenanigans, until then take care of yourselves and I’ll see you soon. I’ll finish as I started, with some Jimmy Saville…

Jangle jangle 😛

Dan