Debian PSA

[Xyzzy]

We have been using Debian since "potato". (And Slackware and Redhat before that.)

We really like Debian's "social contract" and its stability. However, the last year or so we have found that that stability came at the cost of a lot of newer features that we wanted. So we took a detour with Centos 7.

Well, Debian 8 (jessie) is awesome! It will certainly be sufficient for us, as it is now, for a few years.

Unfortunately, we had to load one non-free file (WiFi firmware) to install the system. We will probably "go all the way" and use a wireless-to-ethernet bridge to eliminate the need for that firmware. We have made it a challenge to do all of our work with completely free software. There are a few areas where we are deficient in this area (some of our other computers) but we are constantly moving towards a completely free environment. Our main PC is free except that one WiFi driver.

In our little world, everything about Debian, from the ASCII "graphics" installation menu to the packaging system, is second-nature to us. It is as familiar as a well-worn pair of shoes and it is nice to be back home.

[alexvong1995]

Sorry but what is PSA? I am also running Debian with 99% free software with the exception of nvidia driver which unfortunately is the only thing capable of gpgpu.
As I finished my semester yesterday, I am pretty free now! I want to try to package mprime for Debian. Should I report my progress here? So far I have only managed to compile the source code.

[VBCurtis]

PSA = Public Service Announcement.

[Dubslow]

What exactly is the PSA about Debian? Other than "hey look it's a thing that exists"?

[alexvong1995]

Hmm... May be it is powering mersenne.org? The website you will be checking if you are bored.

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by alexvong1995

Hmm... May be it is powering mersenne.org? The website you will be checking if you are bored.

mersenne.org is powered by Windows, sadly.

mersenneforum.org is powered by FreeBSD.

[Xyzzy]

We thought it was appropriate to use the "PSA" wording because we think most people consider Debian to be hopelessly outdated for desktop use.

[Xyzzy]

Centos 7 was never this aggressive with caching stuff. It makes a significant improvement in app loading times!

top - 17:10:01 up 19:08,  2 users,  load average: 0.31, 0.33, 0.31
Tasks: 163 total,   1 running, 162 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu0  :  1.4 us,  0.4 sy,  0.0 ni, 98.0 id,  0.2 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
%Cpu1  :  2.8 us,  1.4 sy,  0.0 ni, 95.2 id,  0.5 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
%Cpu2  :  1.2 us,  1.2 sy,  0.2 ni, 96.7 id,  0.7 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
%Cpu3  :  2.1 us,  0.2 sy,  0.0 ni, 97.5 id,  0.2 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem:  16394928 total, 16211516 used,   183412 free,   130608 buffers
KiB Swap:        0 total,        0 used,        0 free. 14568996 cached Mem

[Xyzzy]

We found another neat feature. "Top" allows us to show the memory columns in kilobytes or megabytes or just about whatever prefix we want to use. Pressing "E" adjusts the summary at the top and pressing "e" adjusts the columns below.

[Mark Rose]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

We found another neat feature. "Top" allows us to show the memory columns in kilobytes or megabytes or just about whatever prefix we want to use. Pressing "E" adjusts the summary at the top and pressing "e" adjusts the columns below.

Dude. I had no idea. Very cool.

[Xyzzy]

Debian 9 is here!

https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20170617