Here’s a handy sources.list generator for Ubuntu, which includes a number of bleeding edge software sources.

The classic nethack game (tile screenshots) is now available for the Nintendo DS. Some background on the ubercool Nethack, a game that captured the essence of the nerd hacker in the 80s.

Kottke hits it on the nail with Facebook’s lack of public content. Other people have suggested the creep factor, but I haven’t really seen much of it yet (cliques seem to keep to their own). In the end, its shelf life will be short, as is pretty much anything online.

Facebook does do something well that no one has been able to do yet, not AOL, not MySpace, or the others. They’ve captured relationships (networking in the business world) in a way that’s downright slick. It’s damned easy to use too, for the normal folk, and is providing a huge amount of entertainment for people who don’t normally hack at web stuff.

Ever wonder how to get the important C/C++ compiler bits installed quickly on Ubuntu/Debian? There’s a meta package for it:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

Meta packages wrap an important set of related packages, and should normally be used instead of picking packages by hand.

The poem You really don’t want to become a programmer captures the essence of “the zone” that coders find themselves in on the good days.

An apt-like script for Cygwin. I haven’t tried this one yet, but if it works I’ll be happy: using the GUI tool to add a specific application is a bit of a chore.

A writeup about the Sugar UI work done by Redhat for the $100 laptop project. The approach looks quite innovative, something I would have really enjoyed using as a kid.

Alan Cox’s (of Linux kernel fame) thinkpad explodes. Includes pictures of laptop bits.

ArsGeek writes about all you ever wanted to know about apt for Ubuntu/Debian Linux.

Free online text from O’Rielly, Learning Debian Gnu/Linux. Most of the book relates directly to Ubuntu too, which is based on the Debian distribution.