Well for all those of you that care two hoots :-) Mandrake won out over Debian. Why? Probably just came down to personal prefernce and I've used RedHat based systems more than anything else so it's a little easier for me to pick up the tricky bits.

However having said that I'm going to do my best to get another machine and get Debian running on it.. Looks like it's got a lot of potential.

Just a question some of you might be able to answer for me.. Is there REALLY that much difference between Helix and standard Gnome? Window Manager? a couple of customised apps perhaps? The rather beta Evolution? Was just curious as on first glance there doesn't appear to be a hell of a lot and it's something I've seen backed up in a number of articles referring to the two.

It's an interesting thing with this certification. I was a littlre surprised to see a few more people had certified me. well at least I guess that means some people are reading this drivel. But during my travels I noticed a name I recognised from the local linux community so I checked out his profile. It surprised me a little that a) he had less certs than I (I'd put my yearly pay cheque on the fact he's better known around the traps than I) and that b) all bar one of them (including him certing himself) were at Apprentice. Then there was a single one from something of a linux celeb at Journeyer and hey presto instant promotion to Journeyer. By the way I understand the system it was deserved but it was very strange as to how it happened.. I guess some peopl around here wield a serious amount of clout. :-)

I was on something of a HOWTO binge the other day a noticed some interesting things. First applause and claps on the back to the LDP since it's moved to linuxdoc.org it seems to be really firing. I remember looking at the HOWTOS a while ago and thinking that there were a number of rather important ones that were fairly out of date. One in particular (cant remember waht it was offhand) but it was referring to Linux 1.3!!! Geez, didn't Noah use that to steer the ark??.

However looking at the updated list there is a huge amount of recently updated (as in 2000) HOWTOs and a large number of them in the second half of 2000. Which brings me to my main point. How is it that some of the more obscure HOWTOs remain fairly up-to-date yet some of the more important ones esp. to new users and the less talented amongst us often fall into "disrepair". Please don't take this the wrong way as it's not a crticism or an attack on anybody for not doing whatever. Just curious how it works out.

Having said that I'm just wondering how someone like myself who knows a little (but certainly not a lot) would go maintaining some of them? Hmmmm?? Maybe a chance to further my cause lol... My reasoning behind this is a) I'd like to help out and I think this is something that's always needed. b) On occassion some of the HOWTOs are written by people who know the subject backwrds and can often be a little too technical and lose some of the less intellectually gifted or less Unix inclined amongst us. They are after all HOWTO documents <shrug> Whatever. c) I think there's plenty of people out there with the expertise and the knowledge that they'd love to impart to the unwashed masses but they can't afford the time or they don't want to start something they can't finish or whatever reason. Maybe answering a few emails and supplying some details for a "writer" of sorts might be a way around it. And besides having someone collate the document from a number of authorative sources might help. Might be time to chat to someone in the LDP

Shit I waffle! LOL

Time to go.

Until Next Time