[COLUG] it's come a long way...

[Scott Merrill]

I rebuilt my desktop at work yesterday.  What was originally a Red Hat 7.2
machine had been yum'ed up to Red Hat 9.0, but various bits and pieces had
broken along the way (python, most notably, which prevented any more
yum'ing).  I originally planned to install SUSE 9.1 Personal, but found
out mid-install that the ISO image I burned to disc was corrupt (there
_is_ a reason the distributions publish MD5 sums of their disc images!);
so I downloaded the Debian Sarge Release Candidate mini-CD image [1], and
bootstrapped my system from there.

First and foremost, the new Debian installer is _worlds_ better than the
old one.  It's still text based (ncurses, I think?) but it detects a lot
more stuff than Debian ever had before.  It let me choose either a 2.4 or
2.6 kernel, and then prompted me to choose aptitude or tasksel for package
selection.  I screwed up here, and bypassed selecting any packages, which
gave me a _completely_ minimal system.  This wasn't a problem, though,
because I knew what I wanted.  First I pointed apt toward the unstable
repository, and then 'apt-get install'ed my way to KDE 3.2.  Smooth
sailing all the way.  My KDE desktop is running great, and is quite
pleasant to look at.

Today I decided to see how KOrganizer and/or KPilot might behave with my
Sony CLIE.  My last foray into this "terror-tory" was less than enjoyable.
 KPilot crashed constantly on me before, and didn't like the fact that I
was using USB instead of serial.  I ended up using JPilot[2] (great work,
Judd!); but the underlying pilot-link suite was finnicky and required me
to try several times before it would ever actually synchronize with the
handheld via the USB connection.

KPilot 4.4.1, on the other hand, asked me how my handheld connected to the
system (giving a full list of serial, infrared, and USB options), politely
informed me that it was going to lower privileges on that device node, and
then started to complain that the handheld wasn't talking to it.  I
quickly docked the CLIE, pushed the HotSync button, and presto! the
synchronization started.  *wow*

Better still, KPilot has working conduits between itself and KOrganizer
and KAddressbook.  Color me impressed.  This is one aspect that I'd always
hated about owning a Palm-powered organizer: being constrained to the
?Pilot application to see my calendar and contacts on my GNU/Linux PC; or
being forced to manually export from the ?Pilot app and then import into
the organizer or address book.  Now I can sync my CLIE and immediately
have my entire address book available in KMail.  Just the way it ought to
be.

I know some folks have been enjoying this level of integration for some
time (better supported hardware; better integration from the distribution,
etc).  I know other folks have pieced this kind of integration together
for themselves.  All I can say is that I continue to be delighted with
GNU/Linux and Free Software.
</sappy>

1: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
2: http://jpilot.org/