Utah Open Source Planet (UTOSP)

My second week of experiencing Ramadan is already documented, this is week three.

When studying Anthropology in higher education, you learn in your first class the necessity of “participant observation“. This is defined as getting involved with the group you wish to study. In other words, rather than sitting on the sidelines, just watching the group, if you really want to learn what the culture is about, what they do day-to-day, what their emotions are how they speak, etc, you need to roll up your sleeves, and get your hands dirty. You need to participate in the culture you’re studying if you want to get a true, grounded study of the culture. You clean when they clean. You dance when they dance. You cry when they cry. So, that is what I have done with Ramadan. I have attended mosque more than once. I have gone out of my way to associate with Muslims. I have read the Qur’an. I have familiarized myself with the language and customs during Ramadan. While it would be much more effective if I was in a nation predominantly Islam, I’m doing the best I can here.

Now, I ask: is participant observation “extreme”?

On two different occasions this week, I was told that what I was doing was considered “extreme”. One later apologized, recognizing that what I’m doing is just trying to increase the religious tolerance of the American public, and that this person could learn a thing or two from my example. However, the other person did not apologize, and continues to spread the view that engaging in a religious activity other than your own is “extreme”.

On both cases, a discussion ensued about the philosophies and politics of participating in activities in a religion other than your own. The first, who later apologized, ended quickly when I mentioned anthropology and “participatory observation”. The second discussion brought up a fundamental belief in my church, then questioned if I was breaking that belief.

You see, as Mormons, we have temples all over the world. However, only people who have led good, clean, repentant lives, being called “worthy”, can enter the temple. There is an interview with your local church authorities that determines your worthiness. In that interview, a question is asked if you affiliate with or belong to a group that teaches opposing views of the LDS Church. If you do, then you are not worthy to enter the temple. So, it was suggested that by participating in Ramadan, I’m affiliating with a religion that goes directly against the teachings of the LDS Church. Now, of course I don’t agree. After reading the Qur’an three times, and on my fourth time currently; after studying the people and their beliefs and actions, I am confident that I am participating with a religion that has many, many similar teachings as my religion.

Anyway, I won’t go into any more detail about the discussion than that. However, I do want to know that if participating in a religion other than your own is considered “extreme”. What do you think? I don’t see what’s extreme about fasting for a full month. I don’t see what is extreme about reading a holy book. I don’t see what is extreme about making friends. So, I pose the question to you. Discuss it in the comments if you wish.

Here’s how the week went for me:

• 15 Ramadan- School is proving to be somewhat of a challenge while fasting. Not due to lack of energy or starvation, but because I can see everyone around campus enjoying their soda pop, pizza, hamburger, fries, grilled chicken, etc. And with it being the first week of school, there are booths setup everywhere handing out free donuts, candy, drinks, etc. Not only the sights, but the smells. Oh, the smells. It’s really, really hard to resist temptation, and get a bite to eat. But, so far, I’ve remained strong.
• 16 Ramadan- I met someone on the public transit today who noticed me reading the Qur’an. He asked if I was Muslim, as he didn’t know any Caucasian Muslims. I told him I wasn’t, then proceeded to explain to him what I was doing and why. It was a good conversation, and he had a great deal of respect for me doing it. When it came time to break the fast at sunset, I had my standard peanut butter and jelly sandwich with chips and drink.
• 17 Ramadan- I was to meet up with a study group for math at school, but no one showed. I got to the school around 08:00, and stayed until about 18:00. I noticed that as the day got later, I was struggling keeping my focus of solving some math problems. I recognized that this might be a problem for getting good grades on my homework. Thankfully, I really will only have a problem with this on Saturdays, and there is only one Saturday left during Ramadan.
• 18 Ramadan- Went to a family function that my grandparents call “The 5th Sunday Ice Cream Social”. Aunts, uncles, cousins, kids, grandkids, etc all show up. My grandfather makes the ice cream, and everyone is encouraged to bring a treat of some kind. So, there are cookies, ice cream, brownies, and other treats. It was hard to not have any, and it sparked some conversations with my cousins and aunts and uncles. My grandmother made me pigs-in-a-blanket, with mixed vegetables and tomatoes with whole milk for breaking my fast at sunset. After which, I quickly had as much ice cream and cookies as I could handle, and even brought many home.
• 19 Ramadan- I was caught today chewing gum by a fellow Muslim student in one of my math classes. She informed my that chewing gum was breaking the fast. I quickly spit it out, now knowing about that. I told her that I was concerned about my bad smelling breath, but she reassured me that because I’m fasting and resisting temptation to break my fast, my breath smells sweet to God. I felt bad, as I’m a big gum chewer, and have been chewing gum probably every day.
• 20 Ramadan- About a week ago, a good wind came through and blew over part of my fence, and destroyed some of my retaining wall. So, I had a contractor come over and look at it and give me a bid. He asked if I wanted some sunflower seeds, and I declined. He teased me that they weren’t poisoned, so I explained to him why I declined, due to my fasting. Then a long conversation ensued about having religious tolerance. He too held a great deal of respect for me for what I was doing. Two positive experiences this week advocating religious tolerance for Islam.
• 21 Ramadan- Nothing fascinating today. Went to school, went to work. I was offered pretzels by a school-mate, but when I declined, he remembered why I declined (I had already discussed with him about Ramadan). He was impressed that I’ve made it this far. I am too. I never thought I would make it three weeks of straight fasting. Only one week left to go, and I’ll be planning of having a big Eid ul-Fitr with my family. We’re planning a pot-luck, inviting brothers, sisters, parents, step-parents and in-laws. It should be a lot of fun to celebrate ending the month. I also found out that the University of Utah will be holding Iftar on Friday at campus. I plan on attending.

I just discovered Newsbeuter supports synchronization with Google Reader. Not only your read/unread feed items, but you can also share and star items in Newsbeuter as you can in the Google Reader interface. This blog post is documenting how. Further, by using Buzz, you can also comment on your shared items, and others. I’ll cover that as well.

First, I like the command line. I like minimalist function and design. It’s always pulled me in. So, this solution is a command line solution. With that said, the command line doesn’t work well for viewing images, does it? This can be problematic for RSS feeds. I understand this. However, since using Newsbeuter for the time I have, I’ve found that I read a lot of blogs that are 100% images, and when push comes to shove, it’s adding a lot of noise to my RSS signal. As a result, I’ve removed a great deal of those feeds, and haven’t missed them. Again, going back to minimalism, I read fewer feeds now, and the signal is much, much higher. However, the link to the RSS feed is in the post itself, so you can follow the link from Newsbeuter to the browser of your choice if you wish. This will be the minority of the time for myself.

Second, this solution is not only using Newsbeuter, but also Mutt. Really, any mail client will work, but I like Mutt, so I’ll be using it in the solution here. Further, we’ll be tying Reader and Buzz together to make a few things work. But, everyone hates Buzz, right? Well, I don’t. I love the tight integration it has with Gmail and with Reader. Yeah, the design is lacking, that’s for sure. And some of the keystrokes are completely bass-ackwards compared to reader, and can cause problems with Gmail. However, because of the integration, and the reply-by-mail feature, which we’ll take advantage of here, you’ll find you won’t miss your Google Reader much (unless you absolutely have to view images in your feeds).

With that said, let’s begin. First, you need to install Newsbeuter 2.2 or greater and an mail client (Mutt, as already mentioned, will be used here). After installing Newsbeuter, you need to configure it to sync with your Google Reader account. Here’s what I set in my ~/.newsbeuter/config:

# setup google reader sync support
urls-source "googlereader"
googlereader-login "username@gmail.com"
googlereader-password "my-password"
googlereader-flag-share "S"
googlereader-flag-star "s"

Make sure you read the documentation about the Google Reader support. Now, fire up Newsbeuter. After authenticating, you will notice that it has populated your feeds, and you can start pulling down the updates to unread items. Here’s a screenshot of my Newsbeuter “home”:

You now have access to your starred items, your shared items, popular items and people that you follow (what others are sharing), but not the comments. That’s okay, we’ll cover how to get access to that in a second. However, if you have access to your starred items and shared items, how do you share or star an item in Newsbeuter? This is done through flags. Newsbeuter has a flagging system that allows a custom categorization of feeds by the user. The flag must be a letter, ether uppercase or lowercase, A-Z and a-z. You set the flag by pressing “Ctrl-e”, then entering the flag you wish to set. Now, you’ll notice that in my config, I have two options that are for flags: “googlereader-flag-share” and “googlereader-flag-star”. If I press “S” for my flag, then it will share the item. If I press “s” for my flag, then it will star the item. Test it, then log into the Google Reader interface to see it work.

Now, when I would share items, they usually were shared with a comment to encourage discussion with those who are following me (or anyone who can read the shared item). However, in Newsbeuter, there is no way to comment on a flagged item directly. Further, when you read items that your friends share, and they have comments with them, how do you add your own commentary? Well, I have a solution, but it doesn’t involve Newsbeuter. Rather, it requires that you use Buzz and an email client.

With Buzz, you can add your Google Reader shared items as a connected page. This means that whenever you share an item on Reader, it will show up as a new item in Buzz. Further, Buzz will send you an email of all the items you’ve posted to your wall, as well as your items that have been commented on. When you receive the email, the body of the message might be something like this (text copied and pasted from Mutt):

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:59:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: Aaron Toponce <z12dhj4psprvstctz23vcxg5wleozbfi104@gmail.com>
To: Aaron Toponce <aaron.toponce@gmail.com>
Subject: Buzz from Aaron Toponce

[-- Autoview using /usr/bin/elinks -force-html -dump ''/tmp/mutt.html'' --]
   [1]Aaron Toponce – Google Reader   Aug 31, 2010
   [2]Man Already Knows Everything He Needs To Know About Muslims - [3]Aaron
   Toponce's Friends' Facebook Links
   [4]Man Already Knows Everything He Needs To Know About Muslims
   Source: [5]www.theonion.com
   [6][IMG]
   SALINA, KS—Local man Scott Gentries told reporters Wednesday that his
   deliberately limited grasp of Islamic history and culture was still more
   than sufficient to shape his views of the entire Muslim world.
       I seem to recall that in earlier times it was only the court jester
   who could get away with speaking unwelcome truth to power. Perhaps that is
   why comedy often forces us to see things about ourselves we don't want to
   see.
   –––––
   Reply to this email to add a comment to this post.
   Link to this post:

http://www.google.com/buzz/115784859563110525602/BaqgGreVqdT/Man-Already-Knows-Everything-He-Needs-To-Know

References

   Visible links
   1. http://www.google.com/profiles/aaron.toponce
   2. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1068226280&v=wall&story_fbid=124010764315178
   3. http://www.facebook.com/posted.php
   4. http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-already-knows-everything-he-needs-to-know-abou,17990/
   5. http://www.theonion.com/
   6. http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-already-knows-everything-he-needs-to-know-abou,17990/

Notice the “From” address. It’s a long unique string that gives you access to comment on the post directly. As mentioned in the email, all you have to do is reply to the email, adding your commentary, and it will be posted as a comment on the shared item. You’re actually commenting on a Buzz post, not a Reader post, however, because you tied Reader and Buzz together, they become one and the same. Also, Buzz is smart enough to strip signatures and attachments from the reply, so your email signature and S/MIME PGP attachment will also be stripped. Just make sure you trim your email appropriately, so you’re not adding anything irrelevant to your comment (trim everything out of your reply).

Go back to Reader, pull up the shared item, and notice your comment on the post. Of course, you can comment on others shared items by sharing it first (the “S” flag for me), then replying to the mail sent from Buzz. When Buzz gives the ability to be notified of everything that your friends are posting, then you shouldn’t have to share it also. However, I usually reshare what others have shared, so this isn’t a show-stopper for me, even if it is less than perfect.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention Newsbeuter’s tagging feature. In Google Reader, I have separated my feeds into folders. However, when I sync with Reader, it seems all my feeds are in one massive “river of news”. I don’t like this, and wish the folders were preserved. Well, with Newsbeuter, it is through tags. When in the main window, press “t” and it will take you to your “tags”, or folders as Reader would call it. At which point, you can read only what specific topic you’re interested in. However, I do know that Google Reader supports tagging beyond their folders. I don’t know of a way to apply Reader tags inside Newsbeuter.

My first week of experiencing Ramadan is already documented, this is week two.

This week was the week that school started for fall semester at my local university. I’m a bit nervous being able to keep my energy high all day long after going from class to class at school, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out the last few weeks. Also, I’ve been very diligent on keeping up my pace to get through the Qur’an by 27 Ramadan. Some days are light reading, other days are heavier reading, but I’m still ahead of schedule, so that’s good should I have a day or two that I forget or can’t get to it.

By the end of this week, I’m half way through. I’ve now fasted more days consecutively in two weeks than I do in an entire year with my religion. My motivation is strong, and I’m sure I can finish. Also, my cold that I had the previous week is subsiding, so I have more strength and less pain going throughout the day.

Lastly, I’ve been shocked by the anti-Islam and anti-Muslim comments that I’ve received from people close to me or who I have a great deal of respect for, even if our political or philosophical views don’t align very well. I’ve heard comments calling Islam a religion of hate and a religion of terror. I’ve heard comments that Muhammad was a false prophet, and will likely spend his afterlife in Hell. I’ve heard comments that being around Muslims makes them feel uncomfortable for their own safety, because they could be terrorist moles. I’ve heard that the Qur’an endorses murder and terrorism. I’ve heard that Islam is totalitarian, communist, and the perfect religion to build an army of Satan. I’ve heard all sorts of despicable things about these people, and it makes me sick.

Of course, many of these comments are directed to the fact that an Islamic community center will be built 2 blocks away form Ground Zero, in New York City, New York. So, I guess my timing to participate in Ramadan, and raise awareness for their religion, even though I’m Christian myself, couldn’t have been better timed. However, the prejudiced and racist comments that I’ve endured, and the videos I’ve seen, have brought to my attention the naive, ignorant, and belligerent hate that people can have, of which I have never before seen. I grieve for the American people and their “holier than thou” ideals.

Anyway, here’s how my week went physically.

• 8 Ramadan- The cold is progressing, but really, nothing to report here. I just have sinus congestion, headaches and a sore throat. Even though I shouldn’t be fasting while I’m sick, this cold isn’t bothering me enough to justify ending the fast. So, I’m sticking with it. At least until school starts back up again on 12 Ramadan.
• 9 Ramadan- I went to an amusement park with my family today. We got there around 11:30 in the morning, and stayed until 11:00 at night. Temperature was around one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. So, by around 2:00 pm, I was physically exhausted and completely dehydrated. My energy was gone, I was weak and started to get dizzy. I took my health more seriously than the fast, and broke the fast for a couple quarts of water. After rehydrating, I was able to keep my energy level up the remainder of the day until sunset, and eat. The toughest part, was around 6:00 pm, there was a dinner for families supporting adoption (our daughter is adopted). They had sandwhiches, chips, drinks, and cookies. Even though I had broken the fast and had water, I was only doing it for my health, and not for breaking the fast, so I still felt like I was fasting. So, I refrained from eating what looked like a great dinner. At sunset, I finally broke the fast for ending the day, and had a burger, fries and drink.
• 10 Ramadan- Went to another family reunion, and of course, there was a smorgos board of food- three picnic tables worth. Sloppy Joes, chips, Jello salad, pasta salad, brownies, cookies, juice, root beer, and on, and on, and on. And, of course, I can’t eat any of it. I told my wife that this is three very tempting and solid meals that I resisted eating during the month of Ramadan. I could have eaten very well the past couple of weeks, but I resisted.
• 11 Ramadan- Today felt like a standard “Fast Sunday” that we have once per month in our religion, so it didn’t really feel any different. Wasn’t a hard day, wasn’t really an easy day either. However, I am 1/2 way through reading the Qur’an. I’m trying to keep the pace to finish by 27 Ramadan. I think I’m on target.
• 12 Ramadan- First day of school at my local university, and I forgot to wear my topi. I really want to raise awareness for Islam, so I’m a bit upset that I didn’t put it on before leaving out the door. Also, I was a bit nervous at first that I would run out of energy quickly going from class to class, and I wouldn’t have the energy to carry me throughout the day, but I did just fine. I went to a local cafe for dinner.
• 13 Ramadan- I only had an apple, banana and a glass of milk for the meal at sunrise. Needless to say, I was starving very early in the day, and I didn’t have much energy to carry me throughout the day. I quickly learned that was not a wise choice. My wife made parmigiana chicken for dinner with onions and carrots. It was very good..
• 14 Ramadan- This time, I corrected my opening meal with some Grape Nuts (grains, oats, cracked wheat, high in fiber, etc) and yogurt, along with milk and orange juice. I had a much better time getting through the day. I had plenty of energy and didn’t really get hungry until about 8 hours later. Also, I went to the grocery store, and bought some wheat bread, peanut butter (crunchy, of course), strawberry jam and vitamin water for my late dinners at work before heading home. That worked well. Lastly, my cold is subsiding. Finally.

I mentioned that I wanted to participate in Ramadan, even though I’m Mormon. This is my first week of doing so.

So, the first week of Ramadan has been a good one for me. There have been times when I have struggled with fasting, and there have been times when it wasn’t such a big deal. Ramadan started August 12th for North America. The following Saturday, I decided to attend the Khadeeja Islamic Center in West Valley and listen to Tarawih. It was an awesome event to participate in, even if I don’t understand Arabic, and didn’t understand some of the motions that they were doing at the time. It started at 22:30 and went until roughly 00:15. Here’s more of a detailed rundown of what I have experienced during my first week:

• 1 Ramadan- I prepared well by eating a good breakfast at sunrise. It was full of fruit and dairy high in proteins and fats. Had a little carbohydrates as well. Didn’t really start getting hungry until about 8 hours later, which I thought was pretty good. Because I’m used to fasting for 24 hours on the first Sunday of every month, this wasn’t a big deal. I was a bit nervous about getting the shakes, as I usually get them when I fast. At sunset, I had a balanced meal with grains, vegetables and more fruit.
• 2 Ramadan- I prepared just as well this morning, by eating a balanced breakfast, full of proteins and fats to help carry me through the day. However, I got hungry a bit earlier than the day before. But, the hunger pains subsided early, and I was fine, although without energy, for the rest of the day. Thanks to my wife, I again had a good mean at sunset that balanced what I didn’t eat that morning.
• 3 Ramadan- This has been the hardest day for me. First, I didn’t get a full night’s rest. I only slept about 4 hours, as I didn’t retire early the night before. Then, I didn’t eat a very balanced breakfast, and as a result, got hungry much earlier than the previous two days. As a result, I was very tempted to break my fast, and eat early. I held on, although I was completely drained of energy by the end of the day. Part of the problem was going to a family reunion for my wife’s side of the family, where several tables of food was laid out. I resisted and held true to fast. By sunset, I was more eager to have a good meal than previous days. I never did get the shakes
• 4 Ramadan- I must have been close to someone with a cold, because I woke up with a sore throat, a runny nose, and a pounding headache. I debated taking cold medicine. Would that break the fast? I held on as long as I could, but I gave in and took two DayQuil pills to relieve the pressure, pains and general crap that you deal with when having the common cold. I also visited my mother, but forgot to take a meal with me for sunset. So I ate chocolate cake and cookies to tide me over until I could get home and have roast, potatoes and carrots.
• 5 Ramadan- I debating quitting this day. I thought to myself that I’ve gone further than many people would in their entire lives. The temptation from Satan to break the fast and eat was very strong. Further, I can tell that by me fasting, I’m putting my family at a bit of odds, as they eat without me, and I without them. Fortunately, my wife told me she supports me in my decision to keep going, and helped me to be strong. I remade my committment to hold true to the fast for the entire month, and set temptation aside.
• 6 Ramadan- This day was probably the easiest during the week. I never really got hungry, at least not where I really noticed it. Nothing eventful happened today. Although, I did have to mow the lawn and trim the weeds before sunset. I did notice that I didn’t have a lot of energy, so it was a bit difficult to keep the physical labor going, knowing that it had to be done.
• 7 Ramadan- Another hard day physically for me fasting. I definitely have a cold, so I make sure to take medicine in the morning before starting the fast. Then when breaking the fast I night, I take more cold medicine. Hopefully, I can kick it. However, despite not being in top shape, I met a lady from Egypt who was Muslim. She’s attending the University of Utah this fall to study comparative literature. She just arrived last Saturday, and was getting her final paperwork ready for the fall semester. It was good to talk with her. I’ve read more than 1/3 of the Qur’an- well ahead of schedule to finish by 27 Ramadan. So far this week, I haven’t gotten the shakes.

I guess now that I’ve published this post, the rules are written down, even if they are still unofficial. However, with that said, I’d like to address a few things with the popular microblogging service Identi.ca.

I’ve been actively involved with the service since July 2, 2008, which means I’ve been on the service now for three years. In my opinion, it has trumped Twitter by leaps and bounds in terms of features. But, with these features has come uncharted territory, much of which is getting heavily abused. After being involved with the service as much as I have, I’d like to address some points that I would think should be common etiquette when using Identi.ca. All of these items have to do with group tags, or the ability to send messages to a group that you belong to using the exclamation point “!”.

DON’TS

1. Don’t use group tags on “retweets/redents”. When “retweeting/redenting”, strip any and all group tags from the post, and replace them with the hashtag “#”. Nothing is more annoying than seeing the same post posted to the group six, seven or eight times. Once is enough. Further, navigating to http://identi.ca/tag/foo will show all posts about “foo”, both hashtags and group tags.
2. Don’t post off-topic with group tags. When sending a message to a group, make sure it meets the groups rules for staying on topic. Don’t abuse the tag, because you think it’s semi-related to the topic at hand. In other words, don’t send messages to the Linux group and the Arch Linux group, when the post is entirely about Arch Linux. Chances are high most people in the Arch Linux group are in the Linux group as well.
3. Don’t abuse the number of group tags. We all know that GNU and Linux are married at the hip, but that doesn’t mean every post to the Linux group needs to go to the GNU group as well. When you start adding three, four and five group tags to your post, you’re just spamming as many groups as you can, to reach the widest audience, when the fact remains that many people are likely already in most of the groups your spamming. Try to keep your group tags to one or two. Any more than that is just spam, it’s annoying and I for one will block you, especially if you’re a repeat offender.
4. Don’t use the group tag if the person you’re in conversation with is not using it. Use the hashtag “#” instead. The problem with only one party using the group tag, is half of the conversation is available to the group, and if the conversation is highly active, it’s considered spam. If a reply thread has been carrying on during a discussion, people can navigate to the web interface, click the “in context” link and read the relevant discussion. There is no need to keep sending your replies to the group. However, if everyone in the discussion is using the group tag, then feel free to keep it going.
5. Don’t use the group tag and the hashtag for the same word in a single post. You only need to use the tag once. Using the group tag again or using a hashtag on the some word as the group tag doesn’t provide any extra functionality. When people navigate their browsers to http://identi.ca/tag/foo, or click on the hashtag “#foo”, they will see “foo” group tags and hashtags. So, having it once in your post will reveal it to that query. Any additional tagging on the same word in the same post is just silly.

DOS

1. Do use group tags to post relevant questions, stories, links or HOWTOS from the Internet. It’s always great to see a good article that I didn’t have in my RSS feeds that someone posts, and is usually worth of a “retweet/redent”.
2. Do use group tags interweaved with your post. In other words, while appending group tags at the end of your post is fine, using them as words in your post is even better. Same can be said for hashtags. Make them work with you in the post, rather than anchors at the end.
3. Do use the group tag sparingly. While you might be a member of the “listening” group, and your posts are strictly on topic, sending listening updates every 5 minutes might start to piss people off, and you could get blocked, and/or removed from the group.
4. Do use the recycle unicode symbol for “retweets/redents”. Although nothing to do with group tags per se, lots of posts to group tags are reposted. Using “RT” or “RD” is sooooo 2006 Twitter. Using U+2672 ♲, U+267A ♺ and U+267B ♻ seem to be most common. Plus, it saves you a character in your 140 character limit.

I’m certainly no expert on microblogging, nor am I any authority on Identi.ca. However, I have noticed that when these unwritten rules are violated, it usually ends up in pissed off people and a less-than-pleasant experience.

Just over the past couple of weeks, I have done a few Debian GNU/Linux installations for various people, including myself. I am a minimalist. I like to have installed on my system only exactly what I specify. However, I’m also a realist, and know that Debian has likely chosen sane defaults in the installer when choosing whether or not to install the Desktop or Laptop selections. For servers, I do only a base install, then install OpenSSH, and whatever else is necessary for the server.

So, when installing on a desktop or laptop, I’m slightly annoyed by the default package sets that are installed. I understand why they’re chosen, and I’m definitely not arguing with the decisions made, however, some of the packages just aren’t for me. So, on my wiki, I’ve been documenting what should be installed and removed on every Debian GNU/Linux installation I make. As soon as the install finishes, I’ll login to the system, pull up my wiki, and copy and paste the following commands as root (trying to keep the horizontal scrolling in your browser to a minimum):

# aptitude install abiword apt-file checkconfig chromium-browser clusterssh deborphan flashplugin-nonfree git-core \
gmrun gnumeric htop network-manager openbox openssh-server python-docutils rst2pdf screen tango-icon-theme \
vim vim-gnome xfce4 xfce4-icon-theme xfce4-terminal xscreensaver-data-extra zsh zsh-doc

# aptitude purge dasher gnome-accessibility gnome-accessibility-themes gnome-mag gnome-orca gok nano \
openoffice.org{,-base,-base-core,-calc,-common,-core,-draw,-emailmerge,-evolution,-filter-binfilter,-filter-mobiledev} \
openoffice.org{-gcj,-gnome,-gtk,-help-en-us,-impress,-java-common,-math,-officebean,-style-galaxy,-style-tango,-thesaurus-en-us,-writer} \
xserver-xorg-input-{all,synaptics,wacom} xserver-xorg-video-{all,apm,ark,ati,chips,cirrus,fbdev,i128,i740,intel,mach64,mga,neomagic} \
xserver-xorg-video-{noveau,nv,openchrome,r128,radeon,radeonhd,rendition,s3,s3virge,savage,siliconmotion,sis,sisusb,tdfx,trident,tseng,v4l,voodoo}

First, I will identify which xserver-xorg-video driver I’ll need for the hardware I’m installing to, and remove that from the purge, even though the VESA driver always works just fine for me, as I’m certainly no gamer, and it’s never let me down in my desire to power any video card at any resolution and frequency I’ve encountered. I’ll also leave the Synaptics driver in place when installing to a laptop.

Second, I realize that this isn’t for everybody. Most people won’t care about having OpenOffice.org or the GNOME accessibility packages installed. I don’t need them, they free up hard drive space for me, and when running updates, downloads are much faster. So, this works for me.

Lastly, I have a hard time deciding between using GNOME and Openbox for my default desktop. I like the GDM for logging in, and I like the power management features that GNOME brings to the table. However, I like the minimalist approach to Openbox, and its configuration capabilities. I login to both from time-to-time, just in case you noticed that I’m installing Openbox, but also removing GNOME packages that would only come from a default GNOME install.

I’ve gotten tired of executing this on every install, and wondered if there was something more I could do. So, I mentioned my frustration on Identi.ca, not really looking for a reply, but one came through at any event (thread here). The reply was to use DPKG to get a list of the software that is installed when I’m finished with my install and purge, then use that list during the next install.

So, how to do this? Well, after you have your system installed the way you want, with all the packages installed and purged to suit your needs, run the following command:

$ dpkg --get-selections \* > packages.txt

You now have a text file with all the packages that are installed on your system. So, when doing a fresh Debian install at a later date, it’s trivial to get these packages installed, so I don’t have to do the install and purge copy/paste that I was doing before. After installing only the base, and nothing more, login to the system, copy the packages.txt file you created via SCP or some other method to the filesystem, and run the following commands (as root):

# apt-get update
# dpkg --set-selections  packages.txt
# apt-get -u dselect-upgrade

You now have your system installed with exactly the packages you want installed, and nothing more. Not only that, but the latest version as well. No need to update after you login (Windows, you could learn something here).

To me, this is beautiful. This is a simplistic way to clone a Debian system, without using utilities like Norton Ghost or CloneZilla, either though both have their place in administration. I just love the simplicity and elegance of this. To me, this makes administration fun. When I can solve simple problems with core system tools, I'm a happy admin.

Long live Debian.