OpenSUSE 10.3

I've just replaced Ubuntu 7.10 with OpenSUSE 10.3 on my desktop. I occasionally test various distros just to see how they perform but usually go back to the one I got used to use. Ubuntu has been my distro of choice starting from Dapper release (6.06), but I'm getting worried about the directions they take and overall progress of that distro; they seem to focus on adding new enhancements rather than polishing the distro and hammering bugs out; other than that, 6-months release cycle is IMHO not good for the quality - they should rather release it when it's ready. Having said that, I really like OpenSUSE. It has some glitches, but overall it looks really polished and professional. I had some gripes with my Atheros-based wifi card after installation (due to lack od madwifi on the DVD), but other than that everything works great. Yast is a really nice shortcut for doing some initial administrative tasks, although it could see some performance improvements. I also like the idea of OpenSUSE' One-Click software installation - this really works! So, to summarize my two-days experience, here are the pros and cons:
Pros:

• really nice looking default artwork and theme
• runs fast
  
• Yast2 saves time on manual configuration and works well
  
• Huge selection of software via additonal repositories; easy access to community repositories (via Yast2)
• One-click software installation (on http://software.opensuse.org), easy installation of NVidia (and ATI) drivers
  

Cons:

• No madwifi in default installation
• Yast2 can make life difficult sometimes (e.g. by requiring no manual modifications in xorg.conf)
• occasional xdialog popups on errors (probably related to Yast2 errors)
  

printf("Hello world!\n");

12 Nov 07 - this was the day my daughter Ania was born! And this is a 2nd week for me in the new role (a dad!).

More content here: http://picasaweb.google.com/stolowski

QComicBook 0.4.0

After a long struggle with Qt4 porting, new QComicBook release is finally available! It's not too exciting if you talk about new features, but now, as the pain with porting is over, I can focus on adding new functionality. The first enhancement I'm currently planning is an "export" framework, which would support exporting to PDF as well as other archives (archive conversion). In the meantime, I'm evaluating the following enhancements:

• painting via QGrahpicsView & friends with OpenGL (seems to be too slow without OpenGL if image rotation is in use)
• bringing back excellent Imlib2 library for faster image rendering; I had to drop it temporarily when moving to Qt4.

I must mention that Mercurial is a real lifesaver as I'm now able to clone my qcomicbook repo in just a few seconds and work on each feature independently.

Mercurial

I've finally decided to convert my repos to Mercurial. Thanks to the built-in "convert" module that Mercurial has, converting existing svn repos turned out to be as simple as typing:

hg convert --config convert.svn.trunk=trunk --config convert.svn.tags=tags --config convert.svn.branches=branches file:///usr/local/var/svnrepos/qcomicbook qcomicbook

It also turned out, that tags were properly converted - they are just available via Mercurial' "tags" mechanism (and don't appear as subdirectories of the repository...) - just type "hg tags" and here you go... Excellent! Other than that, Mercurial seems to be really fast (as advertised) and easy repository cloning will be a real lifesaver.

Distributed VCS

I've been using Subversion (aka SVN) to handle my source code for a couple of years, but decided to migrate to a Distributed Version Control System. Main reason for switching is easy branching and merging that DVCS offer. I want to have a repo on my desktop as well as on laptop and pendrive, crete separate branches for various features and be able to merge them all easily. I'm currently evaluating two most promising solutions: Bazaar and Mercurial. Both are similar, however Mercurial seems to be faster, more stable and it's already being used by some well known projects (e.g. OpenSolaris, Mozilla, ALSA - just to name a few). So, I'll probably end up with Mercurial. The only problem for now is converting my old SVN repos - both solutions provide ways for such migration, but none is perfect when it comes to tags/trunk/branches layout... I'm still trying to find out a proper way to do the conversion... Stay tuned.

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Hi! Welcome to my Blog! Well... I've never expected this to happen, but finally I came to the conclusion that I need an outlet for my thoughts. Sure I've my home page, but it's not well suited for random thoughts and frequent updates (due to lack of CMS), but rather for hosting my programming projects. Blog seems to be the easiest way for expressing yourself.

So, what is it going to be like? Hard to say for sure, but definitely it's not going to be a diary - I'm not that kind of guy. Random thoughts about Linux, programming, politics, my projects and my life - that's the stuff you can expect. I'll be writing mainly in English and maybe sometimes in Polish (e.g. when it comes to politics). Please forgive me any grammar or spelling errors, since English is not my native language.

Have fun.