Fresh install vs. upgrade

As the Ubuntu release dates approaching, the debate of whether a fresh install or an upgrade is the preferred way to get an update-to-date system is re-emerging.

To me, an upgrade is always preferred, simply because it took quite some time to tailor a new system, installing all the required packages, solving dependency issues. It is just too much to do that every once or even twice in a year.

Since I am really busy right now, I may well skip this release and wait for the next one (April 2009).

Copy and paste in Cygwin

Copy/paste from Cygwin: highlight the text will also put the text in the clipboard;
Copy/paste into Cygwin: shift + mouse click will put the text in the clipboard into the insertion point.

Compile aML under Cygwin using g77

I finally got the time to setup a cygwin environment on my computer and tried to compile aML. After several trial and error, I got it successfully built and tested. The procedure is pretty straightforward, with only one thing to keep in mind: choose g77 3.3 instead of 3.4 otherwise the generated binary will issue an error message "core dump" (and this is probably why aML cannot be directly built on Ubuntu 8.04). I only tested on my 32-bit machine and will try it on my 64-bit Vista office machine on Monday.

This is exciting!

Emacs with true type font support under Ubuntu

Following the instructions here (http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/XftGnuEmacs#toc12), I finally get a usable Emacs with true type font support (I use Liberation Mono) installed on my Ubuntu notebook. I have to say, this makes a huge difference and makes it much easier for my eyes. I am going to use Emacs more.