Tracking Packages Not Installed by Puppet

I use [puppet][] to manage my servers (and my laptop), primarily because it's what we use at work. However, I have a bad habit of...

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Ubuntu Fail at Free Software Again

A while back, after all the uproar with Ubuntu including proprietary, binary drivers, Mark Shuttleworth announced that there'd be a version of Ubuntu with nothing...

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LDAP auth on Debian

At TermiSoc recently there's been talk of setting up LDAP authentication shared between all our systems, to make life easier for people wanting to run...

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Getting Rid Of Perl

At the LUG barbecue last week, I was talking to Neil W. about getting rid of the dependency on Perl in Debian, specifically for very...

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A Much-Needed Upgrade

Last night I upgraded bolan from Debian/arm to Debian/armel. The result: it's somewhat faster at floating-point stuff (apparently, encoding an mp3 is about ten times...

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Debian vs. Dell

Dude, you're getting a Dell!

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Debian & Solaris

Whilst looking into Solaris and OpenSolaris, specifically Nexenta (which is based on Debian), I came across this article, containig predictions of the year ahead. It's...

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Debian Multiarch

With the release of Debian 4.0 last week, it now comes with what I've been wanting for a while now: an [install CD that'll boot...

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Reasons the Sisters of Mercy are cool, number 327

Andrew Eldritch is a Debian user, apparently. Nice taste there. He's also an opinionated bastard, which is always fun: > Q. Why can't evolution science...

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Argentina

Hmm. DebConf 8 looks like it'll be in Argentina next summer...wonder if I could beat Seth's record for random long-distance travel. Okay, so maybe it's...

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slug

I've just ordered two NSLU2 network-attached storage doodads from Linksys, one for [Gem][1] and one for myself. These are dinky little ARM boxen that, with...

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Dilemmas

  • [FreeBSD][1] or [Debian][2]? Although I prefer FreeBSD's base system (all essential software is developed by the same group, unlike GNU/Linux distributions which mostly just...
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Software bits and pieces

Well, for anyone who doesn't know about it already, Ubuntu's lack of interest in keeping their distribution [free][] has led to a fork: [gNewSense][]. [free]:...

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debian democracy

The number of Debian developers who are orphaning packages and reducing their involvement after the recent votes didn't go their way is a little depressing....

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APT feature suggestion

Something I've thought for a while would be useful in APT is weighted recommends/suggests. Example: > gnome-desktop-environment recommends epiphany-browser | galeon | firefox-gnome-support Wouldn't it...

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hardware collection

For a while now I've been vaguely interested in starting a collection of different computers (running GNU/Linux or otherwise). I already have several Intel x86...

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free software advocacy

In the last couple of days, I've had a couple of chances to explain Free Software to people: once to a friend who was trying...

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debian archive

Yesterday I decided to try my hand at Debian packaging, and created bmautils, a couple of meta-packages to pull in stuff that I always end...

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gareth on linux

Gareth, my housemate, after getting pissed-off at Windows one too many times, has just completed an installation of [[geek/Debian]]. He seems quite impressed by it...

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ubuntu is...

"Ubuntu" is an ancient african word meaning "I can't configure [[geek/Debian]]" Personally, I never found Ubuntu any easier to install or run than Debian;...

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Dell Support

John Goerzen on Planet Debian describes the differences between Dell and HP tech support. http://changelog.complete.org/ http://planet.debian.net/ http://changelog.complete.org/posts/487-Why-I-Like-HP.html I’ve never really had a...

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Bug-Tracking Woes

The Debian BTS__ is driving me insane. In the course of a couple of hours, I’ve managed to open a spurious bug-report and reassign someone...

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