Updated E17 packages

Now that I'm on my brand new cable connection, I can upload packages with 1Mbit/s - a vast improvement which allows me to keep the E17 Debian repository up to date more frequently than during the last four months.
The new packages include the E17 NetworkManager client (exalt) and its control module (emodule-exalt). Thanks to exchange the E17 user can now download and install themes right from the desktop shell.

At this point I'd like to thank Daniel (aka Quaker) for updating and adding Debian files in the E17 svn tree.

New E17 packages

After many weeks I finally updated the i386 and amd64 packages in the E17 Debian repository. The reason behind the delay is first and foremost my slow internet connection on which it took more than 15 hours (at 6Kb/s) to upload the new deb's. With that in mind I made sure that the new packages work prior to uploading them in order to avoid the pain of uploading fixes.

Nonetheless, due to many changes to the E17 source code since the last update, some issues were brought to my attention most of which are caused by outdated configuration directories. The previous packages are too old and its settings are not compatible. Even though purging the config dir is usually not strictly necessary, I recommend it for future updates if errors occur. Furthermore it might be necessary to remove old packages from this repository before installing the new ones because some libraries (i.e. evas) were reduced to less packages.

In general, I recommend the following upgrade procedure:

1. Backup your configuration directory (~/.e).
2. Upgrade to new packages.
3. Check if the configuration works with the new packages. If yes, skip to 13.
4. Remove the (previously backed-up) configuration directory.
5. Check if E17 works. If yes, skip to 13.
6. Remove all packages from this repository.
7. Run 'apt-get clean' or equivalent.
   
8. Reinstall E17 (i.e. by running 'apt-get install e17').
9. Check if E17 works. If yes, skip to 13.
10. Please make sure to set up pinning as described in the wiki.
11. Check if E17 works. If yes, skip to 13.
    
12. Please contact me.
13. Done.

Any feedback is welcome.

KDE 4.2

I'm usually changing desktop environments on a weekly to monthly basis, depending on their releases. On Gentoo that's a hell lot of fun and could take several hours whereas in Ubuntu it's done in a couple of minutes.
For me the three most usable and interesting desktop environments are KDE, Gnome and - of course - Enlightenment. There are other alternatives, most notably XFCE which offers it's own set of utilities, like file manager, widget set, etc. but I haven't used it intensely in years mostly because it's Qt-based, like KDE GTK-based, like Gnome, and thus isn't as interesting for me.
While Gnome looks most archaic in my opinion but is very well integrated in Ubuntu, KDE is slightly slower but offers a solid framework and a nice default theme. Enlightenment on the other hand offers by far the fasted window manager as well as its own set of graphic and system libraries. I won't go into details regarding Enlightenment, I already wrote enough about it; needless to say, it's my favourite.
Well, back to the main topic. Just a couple of hours after the official release of KDE 4.2 the Kubuntu team already offers updated packages in their experimental PPA repository (a speed which, by the way, reminds me a lot to Gentoo). Unsatisfied as I was about KDE 4.0 and 4.1, I gave it a shot, despite its 'experimental' tag. To my surprise it's a real joy and a huge step towards what I expected of the 4-series of KDE. Until now KDE 4 seemed to be slow and incomplete compared to KDE 3.5, with many feateres missing, such as custom key bindings which I so frequently use to start my most used applications. KDE 4.2 remedied this situation, ships with a brand new theme, a bunch of new desktop widgets (plasmoids), is much faster and I yet have to discover any bugs, not to mention all the bugs and glitches that have disappeared.
I hope the next revision will be as ground breaking.

Back to Ubuntu

Darn, I miss Gentoo already. But lately I found myself spending more time fixing or configuring my OS than actually using it. While this is usually really fun and greatly helps in understanding how things work under the hood it surely isn't desirable on the long run, especially when I want to get things done. Sure, there's always the option to use Gentoo "stable" but packages are simply too out of date and I usually end up using the ~amd64 keyword and a couple of overlays.

Going back to Ubuntu was a matter of 15 minutes - completely out of the league for Gentoo. In the peak of my Gentoo days I installed and configured a modern system in not less than 20 hours. Including actual "home folder" configuration that usually fills two entire days. I don't even dare to remember my first Gentoo installation...

Although Ubuntu's Gnome Desktop runs a little slower than Gentoo's compiler optimized binaries, it works flawlessly and includes enough optional packages to suit my needs. But what always surprises me anew is that fact that Ubuntu offers this certain "wow" effect due to its out-of-the-box working configuration. This is, of course, only possible because of Ubuntu's impressive community and thus manpower which other distribution simply lack. There's nothing easier than looking for a quick and simple solution in the Ubuntu forums or even the wiki.