Week of 2008-04-19 17:00 to 2008-04-26 16:59

If you’re new to Linux and trying to decide what distro is right for you, it can be a bit daunting…as Wikipedia’s Comparison of Linux distributions proves. Asking n Linux users will give you n different answers.

Doing some Googling earlier, I came across this spiffy utility that offers an easy way to figure it out: the Linux Distribution Chooser, which leads you through a sort of Choose Your Own Adventure story/test/wizard. Whether you’re a total newbie or grizzled vet, this looks like it will definitely help you make your choice.

The LA Times has a story on a new dictionary that is helping to save Samala (the Chumash language) from extinction: “Chumash language brought back from the brink”:

A generation ago, the ancient Chumash tongue of Samala was all but dead, its songs and sagas buried in a university basement beneath mountains of yellowing research notes.

But now Samala is the talk of the reservation.

Thanks largely to a non-American Indian graduate student who was working for pocket money 40 years ago, the tribe has unveiled the first major Samala dictionary, a key moment in the language’s rebirth.

Continue…

“I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.”

— Emily Bronte, from Wuthering Heights