I can write blogs in my iPod touch now!

Have you ever heard of willow whistle? That’s some kind of toy I used to play when I was a little boy.

Here comes the picture:

Willow Whistles in a plate

I am very happy that I can still make these whistles today. I have not done this for about twenty years. I made these two last Saturday. The shorter one can make really good voice.

I’ll show you how to make it.

The whistle is made of willow branch. You break a small segment of branch off a willow, then twist it slightly to separate the bark from the xylem. You can feel it when all the bark has been separated. Then you draw the xylem out of the bark and you get a pipe. This should be done carefully so that the pipe is not broken by the bumps of the xylem. At last, you should remove the thin green outer layer of the bark with a knife and your willow-whistle is ready.

Put it into your mouth and blow it. Wow, what a wonderful instrument!

Enjoy willow whistles in Spring!

Undoubtedly Ubuntu plays an important role in the Linux distributions. It is easy to install, user friendly and sometimes very cool. That’s why I loved it. It was Ubuntu that make it possible for me to throw Windows into the trash bin.

However, things change. The release of Debian Etch caught my eyes. It is also easy to install and user friendly. Maybe less cool, but I don’t care. I do NOT need anything cool. A cool UI just eats more memory and distracts me from my job. So I removed Ubuntu from my laptop and installed Etch. It took me some efforts to install the wireless driver. I think it’s worthwhile though. The best things are, the system is stable and I don’t need to upgrade it every damn half a year. When I used Ubuntu, my girlfriend alway teases me, “hey boy, you are upgrading your system, AGAIN.” I don’t think the Ubuntu team need to upgrade the system every six months. It’s not necessary at all. Debian is much better. The release cycle is about  2 years. Great! That’s the OS I want.

So from my point of view, Ubuntu is losing its advantage. It is based on Debian and is supposed to be more user friendly. One day Debian can be as user friendly as Ubuntu, if the team want it to be. The release of Etch and Lenny has make it come true. Furthermore, Debian is always more stable. If one want some new features and do not care much about the stability, he can still choose Debian testing or unstable, on which Ubuntu is based.

So, as a user who used Ubuntu for 2 years and have been using Debian for another 2 years, I’d say to Ubuntu, “many thanks for having brought me to the fantastic GNU/Linux world, and good-bye.”

This is my blog.