[Sun Aug 26 08:57:41 CDT 2012]

Here is an issue I recently ran into while attempting to refresh the repos on my Debian laptop:

W: GPG error: http://repository.spotify.com stable InRelease: The following \
signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: \
NO_PUBKEY 082CCEDF94558F59
W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://repository.spotify.com/ stable/non-free \
i386 Packages \
(/var/lib/apt/lists/repository.spotify.com_dists_stable_non-free_binary-i386_Packages)

It's obviously an error from the Spotify repo. It doesn't have anything to do with Debian itself. So, what gives? It's very simple: Spotify changed their public key. You will need to run the following command as root in order to fix it:

# apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 94558F59

{link to this entry}

[Sat Aug 25 19:30:22 CDT 2012]

Here is a little annoyance about GNOME 3: it comes with a set of pre-configured shortcuts to applications on the dock to which you cannot easily add new ones. Sure, removing icons from the dock is easy enough. Just right-click on the icon and select Remove from Favorites. But how do you add one? It's far from clear. Try right-clicking on the bar, and there is never a menu to let you add anythig to it. Go to the official menu editor application (it's truly Alacarte, if I remember correctly), and there is no option to add anything to the dock. So, how do you do it? Well, it's a bit convoluted, but there is a way. If the app you are trying to add to your favorites is not available in the applications menu (for example, if it's something you downloaded yourself from the Internet and installed in your own home directory), you will first need to add the application to the menu using Alacarte. On the other hand, if the application is already there, it's definitely easier. Just go to the GNOME Shell, search for the application, right-click on its icon and select the Add to Favorites option. That will take care of it. Anyways, it's explained How to create custom application launchers in Gnome 3, from Randell's Blog. Not as difficult as it seems, but I agree they could have come with an easier way to perform this action. {link to this entry}

[Sat Aug 25 19:14:32 CDT 2012]

After installing Debian Wheezy on an alternate partition on my laptop, I needed to add a few packages to get things to a point that is something I can use to do my work. Since I put together the list of such packages a long time ago, all I have to do is make sure it is in a plain text file that contains the name of a single package per line, and then run the following command as root:

# apt-get -s install $(cat my_packages.txt)

That will show a simulation of what will happen if I truly try to install the packages. Once I feel comfortable that it does not give me any errors or cause any problems, I can just as easily run it without the -s option to actually install them:

# apt-get install $(cat my_packages.txt)

That's all it takes on a Debian box. {link to this entry}

[Tue Aug 14 10:26:34 CDT 2012]

OpenSource.com publishes an interview with Todd Robinson to discuss his "one new Linux distribution every day" experiment, where Robinson will spin out a different customized Linux distro every single day during the month of August. It's something that, it seems, he does as a source of revenue too via his website, On-Disk.com. As far as I can see, he works with Debian, which makes perfect sense to me for a project like this. In any case, what I find interesting is that quite a few of the distros he has been releasing are indeed attractive. Once again, witness the power of open source. There is no way you can accomplish this very same level of customization with any commercial operating system out there. {link to this entry}

[Tue Aug 14 10:21:25 CDT 2012]

Although it's not truly a big deal, I must say I like the artwork for the next release of Debian, Debian 7 Wheezy, far more than the one chosen for the previous release, Squeeze. Yes, sure, it can easily be swapped for something else. Still, like it or not, it's the first impression many users will have when installing the distro, and the old artwork looked quite childish, to say the least. {link to this entry}

[Thu Aug 9 11:42:26 CDT 2012]

Although it was published a couple of weeks ago, it was not until yesterday that I had a chance to read the observations and criticism of the GNOME project published on Benjamin Otte's personal blog. Otte outlines a few problem areas with the project, including a lack of developers, the loss of market and mind-share, an excessive dependence on Red Hat, and a lack of clear goals for the project as a whole, among other things. I am not involved in the GNOME project, but I can talk from the perspective of someone who has been using their software for well over a decade on different Linux distributions. In that sense, to be fair, I'm not sure I totally agree with Otte's criticism about the project's lack of clear goals. He points out that the GNOME community describes itself these days as a "community that makes great software", which is not enough to tell us what they are all about. Sure, I understand. However, I'm not sure I have very clear in my mind what the KDE project is all about either. As a matter of fact, does it matter that much for a desktop environment? I mean, their objective is (or should be) to make sure the end user has a good experience while using their software on a computing device, right? I know this sounds like mere inertia but, truly, perhaps we, users, don't care that much about any long-term goals, as long as the end product is usable, cool and provides a nice experience. In that sense, I think GNOME is doing just fine. As I've written somewhere else, even GNOME 3 is fine with me. Yes, it introduces a few changes in the overall paradigm of the desktop environment, but I think it is for the better, actually. My only problem when I tested it on some more or less recent release of Ubuntu was that it was a memory hog and, well, it was obviously not ready yet. Mind you, I don't think it'd be fair to say that GNOME 3 itself was a memory hog, but that early release that I tested. I believe things will improve in that sense. In other words, I don't think everything is lost when it comes to GNOME. Could things be better? Sure. Are there areas where they could improve? Yes. But I don't think it's as bad as so many people say. {link to this entry}