Goodbye Fedora, welcome back Debian, Part 2: Review of Debian Squeeze

Oh, it "works," but the screen is blurry, wavy, full of noise. I had been reluctantly substituting ATI/AMD's closed-source fglrx/Catalyst driver in Fedora, which at times was slow (especially when not built against the running kernel) but never as fast as its open-source predecessor. Starting with Fedora 14 the fglrx driver stopped working entirely and pretty much bricked the system.

While I've had success in tests of Ubuntu 10.10 with the distro-supplied (yet AMD-created) fglrx driver, Debian Squeeze is still shipping a relatively old 2.6.32 kernel — and one of the very fortunate (for me anyway) byproducts of Debian's conservative policies is that the open-source ati/radeon driver still works (and exceedingly well) with my ATI Mobility Radeon 4200 graphics chip.

And unlike in Fedora 13, where I lost video mid-cycle with the switch (again mid-cycle?) from the 2.6.33 kernel to 2.6.34, Debian Squeeze is "frozen" in anticipation of becoming the distribution's next Stable (capital "S") release and will keep the 2.6.32 kernel and accompanying drivers for the duration of that release, which is generally about a year and a half plus an additional year of patches as "Old Stable" after Debian's next release.

And the clock isn't ticking just yet because Squeeze remains the "Testing" distribution pending its Stable designation (which is imminent, or so I've read).

My tests of Debian Squeeze and Sid via Debian Live images were overwhelmingly positive regarding the video actually working, and once my Fedora 13-to-14 transition failed twice, it was time to make the switch.

I used the amd64 "business card" (meaning very small and able to fit on a business-card-sized CD) image to install Debian Squeeze with the standard GNOME desktop (which I generally use on "newer" hardware with Debian because it'll run faster than most other places).

While I usually opt for fully encrypted LVM as my disk partitioning layout, the Lenovo G555 needs to remain a dual-boot machine with Windows 7 (I pulled the original drive months ago and replaced it with a 320 GB Western Digital driver that after one RMA is working perfectly; I also replaced 32-bit Win 7 Home Premium with the 64-bit build).

While I've set up plenty of dual-boot systems (even though I generally try to avoid dual- or triple-booting), I've never mixed encrypted LVM with any kind of dual-boot setup.

I managed to muddle my way through creating encrypted LVM volumes "manually" in the Debian Squeeze beta installer, which actually allowed me to do the install over WiFi (score!) this time, yet still allowed NetworkManager to manage the wired Ethernet interface after the installation was complete (score! again!).

I'm not set on keeping this install forever, so I wasn't hung up on exactly which volumes to encrypt. In the LVM scheme, I created separate partitions/volumes (I use the "slash" because though I use LVM, I barely understand it) for /swap, / (aka "the root partition") and /home. I chose to only encrypt /swap and /home, fully realizing that since I didn't make a separate partition/volume for /tmp that it sits on the drive unencrypted.

I could have encrypted all three volumes, or broken /tmp out on its own, but I'm glad I didn't because the way Debian does the encryption (or did it in my case) was to create separate passphrases for each encrypted volume, meaning I have to type the passphrase not once but twice (once for /swap, again for /home) before the machine finishes booting and presenting me with GDM where I enter my login password.

I did pick the same passphrase for both volumes, and if I can somehow figure out how to do it, I'll create a "global passphrase," as my Fedora 13 system referred to it (I used encrypted LVM there and had no trouble with the Anaconda installer automatically doing everything despite the presence of a Windows 7 installation on the same disk; a huge win for Fedora, by the way, if you're keeping score).

But entering the passphrase twice to unencrypt the two volumes is no deal-breaker, and any inconvenience pales when I consider that I have a working, super-fast Debian system that won't die on me (unless I kill it with the usual idiocy) for the next 2+ years.

As I wrote above, I've been keeping my eye on Squeeze and Sid for the past few months via live images, and in the course of the release's life there have been changes in the application lineup.

Notable inclusions in the now-frozen Squeeze are the Ubuntu Software Center as an alternative way of managing applications. Yep, you read right: Debian is using the Ubuntu Software Center. It looks like Debian's developers are in a more cooperative mood than they get credit for. I for one am glad to see such cross-pollination between Ubuntu and Debian.

Don't worry — unlike Ubuntu, Debian is keeping Aptitude, and both distributions still ship the Synaptic Package Manager for those (including me) who are more comfortable with it. Even so, I used the "Software Center," as it's called, to install the Filezilla FTP client, and it's a smooth, user-friendly if not information-filled way to manage applications.

Also like Ubuntu, Debian Squeeze includes Shotwell as the default photo-managing app. I didn't like F-Spot, and I'm not about to get started with another underpowered consumery application like Shotwell — especially when the most-important application for me on any Linux or BSD desktop is the gThumb photo manager/viewer/editor due to its ability (virtually singular among FOSS apps, though digiKam does this too) to edit the IPTC metadata in JPG images — a must for manipulating the work of photojournalists (which is a big part of my day job).

Debian ships with Gnash, which is great if you really don't need to do anything complicated with Flash on the Web. Unfortunately I need to do a lot with Flash, so I tested Gnash (it didn't do well), then removed it, added the Debian Multimedia repository (I almost always do this) and brought Adobe Flash into the system. I work with video a lot and need to access a few web-based applications that rely on Flash, so it's a necessary evil.

I also enabled the contrib and non-free Debian repositories, and once I added the Debian Multimedia repositories, at some point in my Aptitude updates the "bad" and "ugly" gstreamer plugins flowed onto my system.

Before I go any further, let me say my absolute favorite part of Fedora 13 was the Yum package manager. While I have little love for PackageKit (it's horrible), Yum is excellent. It's logical, robust and has great plugins, including one that continually looks for the fastest mirror and another (called Presto) that enables it to download only the portions of a package that have changed, dramatically decreasing download times during updates.

So it's with some reluctance that I go back to Aptitude, apt and Synaptic, though Synaptic does kick PackageKit's ass clear around the block. However, on this particular Debian Squeeze installation, when trying to add gThumb in Synaptic, that particular package manager (really just a front end for apt) offered to remove all of GNOME as part of that operation. I backed out of that and used Aptitude, which installed gThumb 2.11.5 without removing GNOME.

By the way, even though many bugs in gThumb were fixed in version 2.11.90, and now Fedora is shipping 2.12.0, thus far gThumb 2.11.5 in Debian is working fine — even the IPTC metadata editing, which is critical for my use (and which allows me to avoid running IrfanView via Wine). That bodes extremely well for my continued use of Debian Squeeze, seeing as gThumb is my No. 1 application.

I was even game to use Tomboy Notes despite its Mono back end. But after creating a few notes, I tried to copy/paste their contents into a Gmail e-mail. No go. I could copy/paste from Tomboy into gEdit, then from gEdit into Gmail (or any other web form in the browser), but there is no copy/paste from Tomboy into the Web browser (I was using Iceweasel, aka Firefox).

I confirmed that this "bug" is also present in Ubuntu 10.10. This is a huge fail for Tomboy. I installed gNote, the Tomboy "copy" written in C++ (and without Mono), and quickly did a test: gNote has no problem copy/pasting into the web browser, and I can easily use these notes to help me organize my thoughts before transferring those thoughts into blog posts, Google Docs, etc. So a fail for Tomboy (which I was perfectly willing to use) is a win for gNote. And it has nothing to do with philosophical/political thoughts about Mono.

I also wanted to give Empathy, the GNOME IM client, a try. But in Debian Squeeze — at this point anyway — Empathy won't allow me to enter information for non-Google Talk/Jabber/Facebook Connect accounts. I unfortunately need to get an AOL/AIM account into any IM client I use, so I quickly installed Pidgin, entered the data for my AIM and Google accounts and went about my business.

Since my initial switch from Empathy to Pidgin, I learned that adding a whole mess of other protocols to Empathy is done by adding the telepathy-haze package. Once you add telepathy-haze, you are able to add AIM, Yahoo, IRC, MSN, ICQ, MySpace, and a whole bunch of other services I've never heard of. Now I can spend some time in Empathy before I decide between it and Pidgin.

One thing I immediately don't like about Empathy is that it looks either difficult or impossible to order my groups of contacts the way I want them. Pidgin allows me to shuffle the groups around and keep my most-used ones at the top. So I remain on the fence. But telepathy-haze should definitely be a dependence of Empathy; that's something that should change in Debian.

I installed my go-to text editor Geany (the "change case" plugin for gEdit is barbaric in its lack of keyboard shortcuts) but have yet to bring Filezilla, my preferred FTP client, onto the machine.

(Before I continue, I've been using gEdit more than you'd think. Aside from the change-case issue — PLEASE ADD A KEYBOARD SHORTCUT, O developers — I find it to be a very pleasant environment in which to work on files.

I had planned to use Claws Mail, which performed so well for me in Fedora 13 but decided to give Evolution a try first. While it took awhile for me to get the configuration right (Evolution doesn't seem as "geeky" as far as selecting ports go, and it took me awhile to get things flowing), I'm impressed by how quick the program is running. This could be due to improvements in GNOME, in Evolution itself, or just the generally swift nature of all things in Debian. Whatever is responsible, I'll take it. For the moment anyway, I'm an Evolution convert.

I also took care of the one very annoying thing in the Debian Squeeze default configuration: the loud system beep/bell heard whenever the machine is powered down.

With rootly powers I opened up /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and added this line:

blacklist pcspkr

That took care of the annoyingly loud beep that isn't the sort of thing you want to hear when others in the house are, say, sleeping. I can't remember where I found this hack, but I believe it was from a Mint forum on the Linux Mint Debian release (which I recommend when you neither want nor need encrypted volumes).

Another interesting note for those who've been using Debian and Ubuntu for awhile: While Ubuntu has always integrated sudo into its system management routine — something with which I wholeheartedly agree — there was a time when Debian didn't. Adding sudo is no big deal, but nowadays Debian includes sudo, at least in the "desktop" build. To be fair, Fedora also includes sudo. If you're unconvinced of sudo's power, read Michael Lucas' "Absolute OpenBSD" for a long explanation of why sudo is better than su. I hope Lucas repeats this extremely valuable information in his FreeBSD books.

One thing that Debian doesn't ship but which I also always need and in this case installed immediately is rsync, the file backup/transfer utility. It's free, it works across the entire Unix/Linux world — and it's how I've been doing my backups and restoring my files to newly set-up operating environments for years now. I even use it in Mac OS, which does ship with rsync (and sudo) by the way.

One of the most painful things about switching from one operating system to another is bringing your defaults/configuration — usually in the form of "dot files," along with you. Since there's the potential for havoc in the configuration files between different versions of applications packaged differently in different operating systems, I generally don't do this.

In the past I've exported my Firefox bookmarks from one installation and imported them into another. This time Fedora blew up before I could do an export, so I had the rsync-generated backup.

Instead of changing profiles (which I've done that successfully in Thunderbird but never in Firefox), I opened up the ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default directory of the new Firefox installation and the same directory in my /home backup and copied all of the directories and files from old to new. It worked great. Everything is just like it was, even though I was running Firefox 3.6.x and am now in Iceweasel/Firefox 3.5.x in Debian Squeeze. I consider this a huge success. I don't know how well this would work across different kinds of OSes, i.e. Windows or Mac to Linux, but for Linux to Linux it worked perfectly.

If I can do the same thing with Filezilla, I'll be pretty happy.

I've been testing a Clear 4G USB device that of course is fully supported on Windows (where 4G is five times as fast as 3G) and Mac but not in Linux. However, it does work in 3G (over the Sprint network) in Linux, is autodetected in Debian Squeeze and easily connected through NetworkManager, a utility that has made dramatic strides over the past couple of years to become a must-have for me. There was a time when Wicd got a lot of traction, and doing anything complicated in NetworkManager was a passport to pain. But now NetworkManager is way more robust, reliable and configurable, and it has become a "best in class" utility in the Linux environment. I wish there were an equivalent in FreeBSD and OpenBSD.

Overall impressions
I've been running Debian on a number of machines since Etch went stable in April 2007. Debian releases seldomly enough that there are always many, many changes between stable releases, and you can really see and feel the progress in the Linux kernel, the various desktop environments, applications and utilities. While Squeeze looks much like Lenny, at least in the GNOME environment, everything seems to work better. As I mention above, NetworkManager has made incredible progress.

While GNOME gets a bad rap as a "full" desktop environment that's correspondingly slow, I've really never found that to be the case. I often use Xfce because of personal preference (I love Thunar and might even install it here as a Nautilus alternative) and not due to any speed advantage. But when it comes to GNOME (or KDE or Xfce for that matter), Debian runs it faster than anything I've ever seen yet doesn't make the user go through hoops to get it configured.

Much like Fedora (though older), GNOME in Debian is largely what upstream ships. That makes for an easy transition between distros, where going from Fedora to Debian means getting my repositories together and using chown to switch my UID 500 files in Fedora back to my user name and UID 1000 in Debian.

I probably did my first Ubuntu install of 6.06 Dapper in January-February 2007, and by April 2007, upon learning about Debian Etch's release, did my first Debian installation. The not-so-well-kept secret about Debian (indeed, about most Linux distributions) is that one is not appreciably harder to install or use than another. If you've done a few Ubuntu installs, you probably know everything you need to know in order to do a successful installation of Debian. It's no harder and probably just a little bit easier to install Debian in 2010 than it was in 2007. That means there's definitely a need for something less quirky like Ubuntu's graphical installer, and I'm grateful it's available.

But as I've written many, many times, just because Ubuntu is easier to install and use, you are still bound to run into problems. And, for the most part, solving those problems is equally easy in Debian and Ubuntu. And the help you find for one distro generally applies to both, especially in this case because Ubuntu is derived from Debian. Hell, I've gotten lots of usable tips from Arch users that have helped me in Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora.

Aside from my fondness for Debian over the past few years, what brought me back this time around was the fact that Squeeze doesn't break the graphics on this particular laptop. In the latest round of "Xorg/the Linux kernel is screwing me in the name of progress for other users," Squeeze is holding the line and making my Lenovo G555 work as well as or better than any other current distribution I've tried.

This time around I pledge to use Backports and/or apt-pinning if and when I need newer packages, and I'll continue to try live images of Ubuntu, Fedora, Salix, etc., to see if sanity and working graphics comes back to the ATI Mobility Radeon 4200 HD, which is way too young to be cast off on an ice floe from the world of Linux/Xorg.

My previous six-month-or-so stint in Debian Lenny was characterized by a lack of problems (and the ensuing drama) coupled with an increase in productivity, and I'm looking forward to the same boring routine during the next six months-plus.

Thanks to the Debian Project, GNOME, Mozilla, the gThumb team and the many other individuals and projects that make up Debian Squeeze — right now you're providing me an invaluable service, and I very much appreciate it.