I stopped by my local library today (must have been 5 years since last time!) and guess what I found:

Yes, Linux. Debian or a derivative with KDE3  running on a HP thin client. Even has Tux! At first I thought it was just this one terminal, but a quick peek told me that all the user available machines ran this system.  And several people where surfing around on the web using Firefox with the with no apparent struggles. The computers for the employees ran Windows XP though. Definitely a step in the right direction, but the fact that I was somewhat surprised tells me that Linux adoption still has a long way to go. Here is another machine:

Maybe I’ll ask them about their experiences with the system when I go there next time. Would be interesting to hear.

At home I’ve migrated all my machines to Arch Linux x86_64 as of yesterday. Previously it was a mix of Arch 32/64 bit and Debian. No major issues yet so I guess I can say that it went pretty smooth. All the machines are now KVM capable so I’ll set them up as a small virtualization cluster. But first I want to install Linux (openWRT) on my router so that it can run DNS/BOOTP/DHCP and give me a bit more flexibility in the configuration.

I’m now also a Linux Foundation member. I’m not sure if I’ll ever use any of the benefits I get, but the cause is worth 25 usd per year none the less. I even asked them to not send me the free t-shirt. I’d never use it anyways, as it was bright white and had big logos on it. And the fit on such shirts are always the same crappy “loose” (read: “shoulder mounted tent” on a slim guy like me). Not my style.

Today I sent in my first deliverable for my senior project. We also had the first meeting and agreed on tasks for the next weeks/months. More about that later!