I finally get it

I have spent too long wondering why things were harder in apt than I wished they were. Mainly this involves my constant complaint that a package could somehow install without the documentation, and not knowing if it's possible to configure synaptic to honor 'suggests' hints, and automatically install -dev and -doc for any selection. I now finally understand apt-get source and apt-get build-dep, which go a long way toward allaying my problems.

In the past, what I had done was something similar to

apt-get install package

and if package was unfortunately lagging (sbcl is a prime example where the repositories kept an old version, but anything under active development is going to have this issue) I would clone a git repo and build myself. Now, the development tree assumes, you know, that you have current versions of all the development tools, and all the development headers for all the dependencies. Since I had run off the apt track, I regressed ten years back and started package hunting, configure, scratch head, read error message, find next dependency, configure, scratch head...

Remember, this is the problem these package managers were supposed to solve. So I now see how it is solved.

apt-get source package

(does not need privileges) downloads the patched sources to build the binary version in dpkg. This is great, you can modify the options a little, but still let dpkg know you have a version installed for this (to prevent a stupid binary being installed into /usr when the live version is in /usr/bin). However, it still gives me the stable/stale version. So this is where the next part comes in handy.

apt-get build-dep package

will make sure that you have a workable toolchain to satisfy configure's needs. Now I clone the latest and greatest from git or svn, and apt-get build-dep package, and then I'm having nearly an 100% success ratio in building. I always knew the debian tools were the best, I had only forgotten why.

Ventra, your wallet, and you.

The CTA recently rolled out it's new payment system, Ventra. This is an RF chip used in major credit cards that allows you to tap your card above the turnstile reader and go right in. This has the added benefit of flexibility, in that tourists or anyone need not buy a farecard, but can simple use their existing credit or debit card for fare payment.

This is great, except that you may three or four of these cards in your wallet. Looking over my recent activity, at least on train ride was paid by my bank atm card, and another was paid by my america express card. I guess simply holding my wallet up to the reader will not be sufficient, and instead I will need to carefully hold the ventra card alone up to the reader when entering a station. For the most part, it seems that this has been working fairly well, since I have less than a 20% error rate for cards essentially next to each other in my wallet.

This is only a quirk for me, since I don't have a monthly pass (which wouldn't have been used when I pay directly with a different card) and am not yet using the pretax fare payments through my employer. I can see this catching a number of people by surprise, and it's a departure from the previous chicago card chip, which would not accept outside payments, and would work right inside your wallet.