So…

In what seems like the shortest incubation period of anything, ever, the Debian dev’s have released Debian GNU/Linux 4.0, aka Etch, as stable.

I immediately downloaded the three DVD images (I’m weird that way, i like having the full distribution to install, instead of doing a net-install) and went nuts with the install, loving that I could get “back home” as it would be.

After repartitioning my drives to make a larger /home, I went nuts, formatted drive drive on the laptop and started to install a very basic Debian install, the same way that I have always done, up until I got the laptop.

A few things, just simply don’t work as well, if at all under Debian, that worked perfectly under Ubuntu.

• Hibernate crashes the video driver every times, which kills the x-server, and defeats the purpose of using hibernate to begin with. At least for me.
• I have to reset /usr/bin/cpufreq-selector every time i boot, so that it throttles down the cpu to save power.
• It runs noticeable hotter. My hands occasionally sweat while I am typing away on it if it has been running for more than a couple hours.
• The bloody headphone jack still doesn’t work. This is only an issue, because I would like to be able to boot Linux and watch movies while I am on the plane on friday.
• The Disk Mounter applet in gnome-panel displays an icon for my XP-Pro partition, even though It’s not mountable because I don’t have any ntfs drivers installed, and refuse to install them.
• Printer drivers won’t install, and they are not included in the base cups package. Not a huge issue, but a moderate pain in the ass.

There are however, as always, things that work better.

• Installing off of DVD is flat out fucking wonderful. Network lag? What’s that?
• Speaking of installing. The new installer was awesome. Not as slick as Ubuntu’s, but very polished,much more power-user friendly.
• All my little custom scripts worked just fine, shockingly.
• The sheer size of the Debian apt repositories makes my mind start to melt. There is just -so- much software there.
• DVD Ripping and Burning seems to run faster, with fewer errors. It could just be the new media though.
• Virtual terminals work! Ctrl + F1 gets me to a workable console, instead of just black.

All in all, I am so far exceedingly happy with Etch as a new OS, and I am going to abuse the shit out of it for the next couple of months, and see if it’s as good as I remember Debian being.