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There’s an increasing number of Linux flavors over the years. In the old days there’re maybe 3 to 4 very popular ones and that’s it. There’re many reasons but I think the main one is the renewed focus on desktop Linux.
Linux used to be for system admins only. Now more and more everyday folks want to use them. When there’s a need… Not only KDE and Gnome have flourished, even the kernel has become bigger and fatter to accomodate newer consumer modules such as wireless network and TV cards.
I just installed Suse on one laptop and Ubuntu on another. Suse installs KDE by default and looks very WinXP like. Suse couldn’t detect the built-in wireless connection. Ubuntu uses Gnome and detects all the components on the machine with no problem including the wireless connection. More to follow as I get acquinted with both systems.

Just came back from UK. Besides the dollar being very cheap, there’re two things I noticed: one is cell phone, the other is chip-and-pin.
Mobile phones stores are all over the place, fashion concious Londoners are snapping up new models (the current one is the Motorola RVZR) like crazy. The services are expensive just like other telecom services – Internet and landline phones. But the availability of prepaid cards is very convenient for travellers. I can just buy a 5GBP sim card and put into my tri-band GSM phone and immediately get a UK cell phone.
Magnetic-stripe based credit cards are being completely replaced with pin-protected smart-chip card. The security of smart card is much better than the magnetic card. This gives UK based banks much better protection from financial losses due to fraud.

I’m afraid that the old IBM Deskstar drive is getting close to old age. Even though fast (7200rpm) and adequate (40GB) for the Linux server, its spindle motor is making a small whining sound now – I wouldn’t have noticed if not for the very-quiet Antec case and fan it is housed in.
Anyway, it’s time to move it up. The original plan is to clone the content to a bigger Seagate 80GB drive I have. It worked with the help of dd – wonderful little Linux command that clones partition very slowly but surely. But I became too ambitious and wanted to try out the new Fedora Core 4… Long story short, it is working now after I figured out how the new security model in seLinux works.
Just noticed updating is not working with Yahoo.