Return to Gentoo

So, I’m no longer using Ubuntu on any of my computers at home (okay, its still on one box, but I don’t really use that one and will reformat it when I get the chance).  It was fun while it lasted, but some things started to annoy me and I could not deal with it anymore.  So, what bothered me?  Here’s a short list:

• How bugs get fixed and pushed out.  So, what does this mean exactly?  Take for example this: bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/psycopg2/+bug/108067.  This bug alone caused me great headaches at work since the package is completely useless on my 64bit installation.  Not a big deal for one package, but if that is how they are going to handle getting fixes out, I’m not going to be too happy.
• I like being on the bleeding edge.  There are lots of cool things in Ubuntu, and getting stuff to work is extremely easy (most of the time), but the turnaround time on getting new and exciting things is 6 months.
• The overall community.  Yes, Ubuntu is easy, so the community that you have is not as technical as I’m used to.  Yea yea, go ahead and say Gentoo is full of ricers (they are just a very very vocal minority), but there are certainly people that know more about how things work using Gentoo, so its a different atmosphere, and I like it.

Only a few things really, but I just got fed up and decided to switch back to what I know and am used to.

So, I’m back to using Gentoo now and slowly starting to look at bug reports again and trying to help where I can.  Am I going to try and become a developer again?  Who knows, I’m seeing how I like being involved again and take it from there.

 

Syndicated 2007-11-25 02:53:06 from Mark "Halcy0n" Loeser

New site

So, I have set up my new website.  Its using Wordpress now, and it was pretty easy to get it all up and going how I wanted.  Since my last post I’ve switched over to Ubuntu and I’m loving it.  Setting everything up for how I want things is incredibly easy, and I haven’t really had to go and mess with things to make them work (they just do).  I’m looking forward to Gutsy Gibbon and seeing how they have improved things.

Now that I’ve gotten used to the entire work thing, I’m starting to find time to involve myself in coding in my spare time.  I used to be absolutely spent after I got home from work, but I’m left wanting to do more constructive things after finishing whatever I have to do at work.  Hopefully in the near future I’ll have time to talk about some tools I’ve found to be incredibly useful and projects that I’m working on.  Until that time…

Syndicated 2007-09-22 03:27:49 from Mark "Halcy0n" Loeser

Switching to another distro?

So, I've been thinking recently about switching to another distro so I can get involved with the development community again. The question is which should I try? I've been leaning towards Fedora since I've heard good things about the community over there, and Redhat was my first distro that I seriously used. The other option with a nice community that sticks out is Ubuntu. I don't know many people that use Ubuntu though, so I don't have much feedback on the community.

I'm downloading the Fedora CDs right now to install on an extra computer I have so I can play around with Yum and see how I like it. I may do the same with Ubuntu, but probably not if I like how Fedora works. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to try? Did I miss one that maybe I should look into?

Syndicated 2006-10-08 15:20:04 from Mark Halcy0n Loeser's Blog

My Gentoo Overlay

So, I got my overlay listed in Layman (thanks wrobel). I have some stuff in there for gcc, vim, and anything else I care about. If anyone is actually using the overlay, I'd love to know :) Also let me know if anything is broken, or of any bugs you find. If you want an ebuild for an app, and you think I might be interested in it as well, also let me know and maybe I'll write it up.

Syndicated 2006-09-12 17:53:31 (Updated 2006-09-12 17:57:11) from Mark Halcy0n Loeser's Blog

Its nice to see that Advogato is still around. Hopefully it will recognize me as a trusted user again soon so I can syndicate items from my blog (which I don't update nearly enough).

In recent news, I have graduated from Stevens Tech and now I'm working as a software developer at Vonage. Its a great place to work at and I've been learning a lot. My primary development work has been using Ruby on Rails, which is an absolute pleasure to work with.

Hopefully I'll have enough spare time soon to be able to work on some open source projects again. I haven't had nearly enough time to work on anything else except things for work. I'd love to work on some stuff for Ubuntu, or for some of the Ruby projects that I have been taking advantage of.