I’ve been using Windows and well, let’s just pretend that didn’t happen. I’m somewhat tied to it at work but at least they pay me for doing so. At home Debian GNU/Linux runs very well and while not willing to trade it in, I’m quite curious about Apple and it’s OS. I have the opportunity to use Macs at work, but it just isn’t the same.

Anyhow, after crawling the web and reading about a gazillion reviews and opinions about Apple’s latest offspring and OS X, I finally made up my mind and decided to buy the Mac mini.

Nice try. The Apple Store shipps within 2 weeks (which will most likely add to at least six) and all local dealers only have empty shelves. That is except for the one tiny box they have in their showroom and can’t sell. Even ebay shows a remarkable lack of those little devices, at least of trustworthy offers. And of course, I just can’t buy a used one. Virginity of electronic devices is of considerable importance to me

There’s this thread in VIA’s Linux Arena about the the way VIA deals with the developers of open-source projects like the Unichrome Project, MPlayer or Xine. Quite interesting read..

Luc Verhaegen, one of the developers of the Unichrome Project, comments Epiacenter’s interview with VIA (mentioned below) on the unichrome-users mailing list. As expected, he doesn’t agree with some of VIA’s statements..

epiacenter.com published an Interview with VIA on their mini-ITX solutions and also some words on the upcoming and long awaited nano-ITX boards. Their statements on Open Source and Linux-Support are also very interesting. Funny how the own perception can differ from others.

I have the most stuff installed now, but especially the graphics drm/dri/mesa/unichrome/xvmc/xmmc stuff was pretty confusing in the beginning. I guess I got most of it straight and compiled a little list of which patches/apps i used. Read the rest of this entry »