Alan’s Blog

It’s been 2 years I haven’t done any development under Linux. I’ve been a long time debian user. The debian installation on my Dell Inspiron 510m laptop was 2 years old. So I decided to give it a upgrade to the latest Debian testing.

Download the latest Debian testing image then burn the CD, however my laptop’s screen goes out of oder in the late stage of Debian installation. WTF? I couldn’t believe it. So I have heard Ubuntu for a long time, and I want a linux distribution which works out of the box and have easy package management cause I don’t want to spend time on drivers and dependencies.

I mistakenly downloaded Ubuntu Live CD which is the default option on their website. Be careful to download the desktop or alternative CD to burn:).

Installation was smooth. Everything works after installation. My wifi WPA is supported. Fire Synaptic and get everything installed. Apache, Mysql, PHP, just a few clicks! Software development in Linux is just easier. Everything is designed to work together. My external LCD monitor was automatically recognized when I plug it in.

There is a mirror in China. So software install and upgrade is pretty fast.

Go Ubuntu!

There’s been some intensive traveling this winter. It’s a good opportunity for me to experience different winter lifes in Normandy France, Shanghai and Hunan China.

Among the three, life in France is no doubt the physically the most comfortable one. Hunan is spiritually the best place for me to stay. France is most developed and Hunan where I was born and raised is unfortunately the least developed. I lived in Europe before. Naturally there were certain habits that I picked up there. Such as, shower in the morning rather than evening, take my coat/jacket off after entering the house/apartment, shower daily, drink bottled water/soda, put bags on the ground while sitting. Those are the obvious ones I can think of now.

After returning to China, I go back to shower in the evening, but occasionally I have the surge to shower in the morning, so now I shower about 30% of the time in the morning. I shower about every 1.5 days. I keep my jacket on after returning to my apartment because the temperature in my apartment is not warm enough to take my jacket off. For those who have never been to China might ask, why not turn on the radiator, I have to tell the truth, because there is no radiator. I drink boiled/hot water because bottled water is too cold. I still put my bags on the ground in my apartment but I try to avoid that while outside, because the ground is gross, everybody in China knows it.

On average, I  make about 1 call on my gsm per 3 days in Europe. I make about 3 calls per day in China:D. 1 sms per 3 days in Europe, about 5 sms per day in China. More blogging in Europe. Less blogging and more human interactions in China.

I drank cold Cola during tea break in Europe. I drink heated Tea in Shanghai for tea break.

I go home immediately after work in Europe and avoid outside when it’s dark. I feel comfortable most of the time outside in the evenings in Shanghai and Hunan.

I do grocery in Carrefour about once a week in France. I do grocery in convenient store, fruit stand, Watson’s (European equivalent of Kruidvat) and everywhere once every 2-3 days in Shanghai.

I talk to my parents once a week, barely talk to my school friends in Europe, occasionally socialize. I talk to my parents whenever I want, call my school friends often. Meet friends in Shanghai once a while.

Fighting The Day after Tomorrow

Right now, the whole China (at least the south, where cold winter weather is rare) is fighting the freezing winter weather. My hometown Yueyang is at the north tip of the worst affected province, Hunan. Going back home was a scary thing for me. One city called Chenzhou had been without water and electricity supply for 8 days. 27 thousand vehicles had been stranded (tbc) on the highway for 3 days along 160 KM. Thousands and maybe millions of people are suffering from the extreme winter weather.

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