Bog Roll ::

On one of my systems at home I run Debian Testing, currently "Etch". When I started with this system it was a brand new Debian Sarge/Stable release. I switched it to the then new and essentially identical Etch/Testing version and have let it evolve with daily updates ever since.

There have been days when certain things wouldn't work for example when the kernel/initial file system changed, or when Debian transitioned from XFree86 to X.org, but overall it's been quite a pleasant ride. Soon Etch will become stable and I can upgrade my other systems.

Debian Etch will be a little delayed, it should have gone to the Stable status a few days ago, but it's still on track for stable status within the next month or so. In the last few weeks lots of thing I've not been able to use have appeared as things get ready for stable. I can now run:

• OpenOffice.org, delayed for ages because it couldn't run on a 64-bit system.
• The Dolphin file manager, smaller, simpler and much faster than Konqueror.
• Kqemu - the kernel accelerator for the qemu virtual machine.
• XaraXtreme - the open source version of the famous Xara vector graphics suite.