(define (upgrade-9.10) (

So I've upgraded to ubuntu 9.10. They've put a lot of effort into making the UI more consistant, which is nice I guess. Also, it's shaved off a further four seconds from my startup routine; the system itself now starts up about 2 seconds faster, and they changed the login screen so that I can just hit <ret> instead of typing in my user name (which saved the other two seconds).

That's really not why I finally decided to ugrade though this is. Ubuntu 9.20 has apt-get support for emacs 23, and I really didn't feel like going through a manual install from their ftp site. That seems like something I'd have had to do in 1998, not 12 years after the fact.

A few things were obsoleted, but noting important. Though, you may wanna take that with a grain of salt. Like I said last time, I basically live in Emacs, Gimp/Inkscape and Chrome now. Ok, and every once in a while I'll drop into DrScheme for the macro-stepper, Klavaro for keyboard practice or into terminal because Emacs' GIT mode doesn't provide git-init or git-pull (funny story, I actually got Emacs 23 because it supports tab completion when executing shell commands, which would let me write my own little add-ons for those two git commands to obviate the terminal entirely).

Anyway, my point is: the list of applications that I use is short. None of the above have broken, but if you use other programs, check whether they're still supported (one I was surprised to see obsoleted was gcc 4.3, so it doesn't hurt to check).

My .emacs is getting fatter, by the way. Here's the latest evolution:

(setq inferior-lisp-program "/usr/bin/sbcl")
(setq load-path (append load-path (list "~/emods" "~/emods/slime" "/usr/lib/erlang/lib/tools-2.6.2/emacs" "/usr/share/doc/git-core/contrib/emacs")))

(setq erlang-root-dir "/usr/lib/erlang")
(setq exec-path (cons "/usr/lib/erlang/bin" exec-path))

(setq x-select-enable-clipboard t)

(require 'vc-git)
(when (featurep 'vc-git) (add-to-list 'vc-handled-backends 'git))
(require 'git)
(autoload 'git-blame-mode "git-blame"
  "Minor mode for incremental blame for Git." t)

(require 'htmlize)
(require 'blog-mode)
(require 'quack)
(require 'erlang-start)
(require 'slime)
(require 'redo)
(require 'php-mode)
(autoload 'js2-mode "js2" nil t)
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.js$" . js2-mode) '("\\.ss$" . scheme-mode))

(add-hook 'php-mode-hook
          (lambda () (define-key php-mode-map (kbd "<tab>") (lambda () (interactive) (insert-char 9 1)))))

(setq scroll-bar-mode-explicit t)
(set-scroll-bar-mode `right)

(global-set-key (kbd "<f5>") 'eval-buffer)
(global-set-key (kbd "<f7>") 'call-last-kbd-macro)

(global-set-key (kbd "C-w") (lambda () (interactive) (kill-buffer nil)))

(global-set-key (kbd "C-z") 'undo)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-y") 'redo)

(defun other-window-backward (&optional n)
  (interactive "p")
  (other-window (- (or n 1))))

(global-set-key (kbd "C-n") 'other-window)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-S-n") 'other-window-backward)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-a") 'mark-whole-buffer)

(tool-bar-mode nil)
(menu-bar-mode 0)

(custom-set-variables
  ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom.
  ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
  ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
  ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
 '(cua-mode t nil (cua-base))
 '(htmlize-output-type (quote inline-css))
 '(iswitchb-mode t)
 '(show-paren-mode t)
 '(transient-mark-mode t))
(put 'downcase-region 'disabled nil)
(custom-set-faces
  ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom.
  ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
  ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
  ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
 )

Changes from last time:

1. (tool-bar-mode nil) and (menu-bar-mode 0) are now in my default .emacs instead of just on the netbook. Yegge suggests removing the GUI right away, but it actually takes a while before you get used to using the keyboard for everything (and in fact, if you want inter-application copy/paste and you don't know enough elisp to change how the default kill/yank functions work, you have to use the corresponding menu items). I'm far enough along that I don't need the training wheels anymore, and it gives me another 5-6 lines of editor space on screen, so they're gone.
2. iswitchb mode is on by default. It adds one keystroke to the process of making a buffer not tied to a file, but it makes finding existing buffers easy enough that it's worth the trade.
3. Lots more mode-includes including htmlize, my own blog-mode (which I'm using right now to type this), language support for Erlang, Scheme, and Common Lisp (php and JavaScript have been there for quite a while), and hooks into Git mode.
4. Parentheses are being highlighted by default. I get the feeling it was made for Lisp coding, but it's actually even more useful in JavaScript with jQuery, where a code block might look something like

$('#something').click(function () {
   stuff = [$(this).attr('id'), $(this).attr('class'), $(this).attr('src')];
   for(i in stuff){
      clickFunction(stuff[i]);
   }});

In these cases, parenthesis highlighting (which also highlights [] and {}) is critical for making sure you close them all properly, and in the right order. You could probably do it by hand without help, but I wouldn't envy you that task.

EDIT: After upgrading my desktop, I went to upgrade my other machines to 9.10. The HP Mini 1035nr upgrade was not seamless. Almost, but not quite. I had to run

sudo apt-get install --reinstall bcmwl-kernel-source

to enable the wireless card.