I'm in the same situation now with Debian Squeeze that I was in back when Debian Lenny was the stable release:

I can't think of a system that allows me to do so much, so efficiently and without trouble as Debian Stable.

Debian Stable can be boring. Nothing new enters the archive. Except this time I'm using Debian Backports, the Liquorix kernels built for Debian, the Debian Mozilla Team APT archive, Google's Chrome browser repository and Dropbox's Debian/Ubuntu repository in addition to Debian Multimedia to shape Debian the way I want and need it.

So as much as I'd like to give some of my other favorite operating systems a try (Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenBSD ...), I'd be crazy to give up Debian as my daily workhorse operating system. It works without complaint. And that means I work without complaint.

I can't help but think that a key component of all of this is the GNOME 2 desktop, which is on the way out in favor of the still-controversial (and not all-the-way functional/finished) GNOME 3. That will come into Debian by the next stable release. Let's hope it works.

Back when I was running Lenny, I got bored and tried to dist-upgrade to Squeeze (then the Testing release, and I don't think there were release notes for Squeeze to help me do the upgrade right). I blew out the installation and then moved on to other systems.

I'm going to try very hard not to make that mistake this time around. Squeeze is running so very, very well that I am extremely reluctant to mess with it on my hardware (Lenovo G555 with AMD Athlon II at 2.1 GHz, 3 GB RAM, 320 GB SATA hard drive).

I don't write as often as I'd like, and my aim is to write less about what OS I'm running and more about everything (and anything) else. But I've been working very hard lately, using Debian to do it, and I thought it deserved a mention.

I tend to write more when things aren't working right, but with Debian, that's seldom the case.

I'm calling this the 1.0 release of my Ode blog. I have all of Rob Reed's "extra" addins working (that's persistent-dating addin Indexette, web-editor addin EditEdit and the Disqus commenting addin).

I'm also using the core Jumper addin to shorten some entries in the index and provide a link to the full, individual entry.

I've made some small changes in the template to allow the blog title and main image to link back to the blog home page from any other page in the blog.

Now it's time to start filling the blog with content, old and new.

I'm also going to work on a version of the Logic theme (what you see here) to produce a "pages"-like theme that displays content without the traditional blog trappings of publication dates. That should be easy.

It's time I started delving into the ode.cgi script (preferably the annotated version) and seeing how the system works. Ode project leader Rob Reed has been very encouraging both in my putting this site together and in learning Perl, the scripting language with which Ode is built.

Right now I'm focusing on the HTML and CSS in the themes, but I plan to work my way into the Perl of the main script and the addins as I go.

Thanks again, Rob, for hacking on this project. There are dozens of blogging/CMS systems to choose from. Even though it derives much inspiration from Blosxom, Ode is unique in many ways, inspired in many more -- in function and mission. That's why I'm using it. Poke around the official Ode site if you want to know more.

Thanks to readers who responded, Service Pack 1 successfully installed on my Debian-squeeze-running laptop.

Here's a chronicle of what I've done to the machine:

Those who read my previous entry on this topic know that SP1 refused to install on the Windows 7 Home Premium portion of my Lenovo G555's hard drive.

And it probably had something to do with my running Linux (specifically Debian Squeeze) on the same drive.

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I just got my Android phone, the LG Optimus V from Virgin Mobile, and I'm naturally looking for my two most important apps -- text editor and FTP client.

Trying AndFTP and Text Edit. As far as an editor goes, I need something that helps with typing HTML tags. This simple editor looks nice, but typing <p> is murder.

AndFTP works acceptably well. Once I get my paths typed in, it'll be quicker and more painless.

(Note:This entry began on the phone but continued at the computer so my typing/thinking speeds match more closely.)