Steady Hand Fun With The Raspberry Pi - Adrirobot

SQUEEZY OR WHEEZY?Debian Distro's ExaminedIn this article I look at the differences between the Debian 6(Squeeze) and Debian 7 (Wheezy) distributions.SPEEDSQUEEZE (Debian 6)Things are very slow - particularly if you areattempting to run larger apps such as Scribus.STABILITYSqueeze would randomly freeze or completelylock up requiring a rebootIMAGING AND PARTITIONINGIf you have imaged Squeeze onto a larger SDCard, you will most likely want to expand thesize of the primary partition, to make use ofthe available space. This is not a very easy orfun task. The MagPi covered this procedurein Issue 2, but it required use of a Linux basedPC or a Linux LiveCD, and a tricky set ofinstructions for the resize using the 'GParted'application. It's an annoyance that slowsdown the installation process.MULTIMEDIAThis is probably the one area where Squeezecurrently has the edge. You can play mp3 andwma music as well as most video formats,providing you choose the right apps.OMXPlayer is good all-rounder, but cansometimes be problematic with WMA files.'avifile-player' however seems to handle WMAmusic better, but not good for video.Unfortunately development of 'avifile-player'seems to have been discontinued and it is notavailable for Wheezy.GEANY & PYTHONThe programming text editor is great, butunfortunately you do have to make a smallconfiguration change to get programs toexecute from within the IDE (IntegratedDevelopment Environment). Python programsrun reasonably well.RANGE OF PACKAGESDuring the making of Issue 3, The MagPitested and provided a long list of apps andgames that work on the Pi under Squeeze.INTERNETSqueeze comes with a version of Midori whichis rather limited. It struggles with manywebsites. I would recommend installing thechromium-browser which seems to work withmore websites, however the downside isslowness - the browser is rather cumbersomecompared with Midori. You can get by withGoogle's Gmail, IRC chat and Dropbox as wellas many other websites.16