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PCLinuxOS doesn't dissappoint

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:21:00 GMT

Just a quick shout out to PCLinuxOS from a long time Ubuntu user. Nice work!

I haven't found any reason to declare Ubuntu a clear victor over PCLOS. In fact, I am really enjoying this OS for the time being.

Here is a screenshot of my current config. (click image for fullsize)

Testing KBlogger

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:45:00 GMT

This post is being created in kblogger, a KDE kicker applet that supports the Blogger and Metaweblog API's. First Impressions: Very minimalisitic... No image upload support, very little wysiwyg type of options. The only options I see are 'bold', 'italic', and add a link. Only one category.... InstantSpot supports multiple categories, and tagging as well. So this is a little bit of a drawback for those who like to really categorize their posts. It might work ok for this blog though. Buggy... Or at least it seems like it is. As I hit 'enter' it seems to remove any formatting I have done to previous text. Read more about kblogger here: kblogger .pwsp .net Overall...I'm probably not going to continue using kblogger. Scribefire is very superior to this applet.

--------------

Edit:

Ok, kblogger really isn't any good whatsoever. That post above was actually nicely spaced out and somewhat formatted in my kblogger editor.

kblogger...you are getting uninstalled!

ASUS eee PC VS Everex Cloudbook

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 19:58:00 GMT

Asus EEE PC VS Everex Cloudbook

For some reason, I am extremely intrigued by these tiny laptops. As a developer I really couldn't make use of one in my work, the screen is too small, the storage is too limited, and out-of-the-box there just isn't enough memory.

But I can't help myself...I want one!

When ASUS announced they were going to be releasing such an affordable, linux based mini-laptop I was excited. A) because another company was rolling a machine with linux as the OS, and B) finally an ultra small laptop that was cheap!

One of the major drawbacks in my opinion was the 4GB of storage that the eee PC offered (in the $399 model). 4GB is just almost unusable in this day and age.

Everex, the makers of the gPC (the $199 desktop system with an Ubuntu derivative operating system) are about to release their competitor to the eee PC. Lets look at the Cloudbook and compare it to the eee PC.

(PRICE is $399 for each of these two laptops. )

Processor Speed

eee PC: Intel Celeron M processor with 900MHz

Cloudbook: 1.2GHz, VIA C7 -M Processor ULV

Memory (RAM)

eee PC: 512MB DDR2

Cloudbook: 512MB DDR2

Hard Drive

eee PC: 4GB flash-based SSD hard drive

Cloudbook: 30GB HDD

Display

eee PC: 7" WVGA TFT Display (800 x 480)

Cloudbook: 7" WVGA TFT Display (800 x 480)

Weight

eee PC: 2 pounds

Cloudbook: 2 pounds

As you can tell from the specs, these two machines are fairly evenly matched except in two areas, processor and storage. For the same price, you can get almost 50% more processor and over 7 times the storage. Also, in terms of case appearance the Cloudbook is more appealling to me.

That all said, I haven't actually had the opportunity to get my hands on either one so all I can to is admire them both from afar. But if I had to choose, I'd order the Cloudbook.

Get rid of those huge fonts in Fluxbox

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 12:39:30 GMT

One of the things that has plagued previous installs of Fluxbox, is that some of the fonts, unless specifically over-ridden in the style settings, are HUGE. After a lot of configuration tweaking, gnome-settings-daemon running, etc. I finally found the root of the problem. It was nvidia's fault!

Previously, I have often noticed, and been slightly annoyed, that the font for my username/password in the GDM was pretty over-sized. But, since that was just a temporary screen I just kinda let it slip. What I found was a little thing called "EDID" that was sensing my resolution, and among other things, assigning a DPI value.

The EDID includes manufacturer name, product type, phosphor or filter type, timings supported by the display, display size, luminance data and (for digital displays only) pixel mapping data.

There is an xorg option to totally ignore the EDID: Option “IgnoreEDID” “true”

But I opted to just bypass the DPI settings...

Here is my device section from my xorg.conf: (notice the UseEDIDDpi option right before the closing section)

Section "Device"
    Identifier    "nVidia Corporation G72M [Quadro NVS 110M/GeForce Go 7300]"
    Driver        "nvidia"
    Busid        "PCI:1:0:0"
    Option        "AddARGBVisuals"    "True"
    Option        "AddARGBGLXVisuals"    "True"
    Option        "NoLogo"    "True"
    Option        "UseEDIDDpi" "FALSE"
EndSection

Voila, no more huge fonts in the GDM, or in Fluxbox!

Very nice Mac OSX'ish Fluxbox theme

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 15:55:37 GMT

Quick shout out to let people know about a very nice Fluxbox theme called "LintherBrushed"

This is one of the nicest ones I have ever used...

LintherBrushed is a brushed metal theme that looks like OS X Panther's Aqua theme. It requires that you use the development branch of Fluxbox for the pixmaps to work.

(go get it here http://themes.freshmeat.net/projects/lintherbrushed/ )

Fluxbox + Ubuntu + Cool Wallpaper = Win

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 18:31:26 GMT

I love Ubuntu, I am starting to love Fluxbox, and I always enjoy changing the look of my desktop.

I set all of my Fluxbox menu's and stuff to be transparent, so any wallpaper I choose, my menu's take on the color of that wallpaper.

Here is a pic of my most recent wallpaper selection (click for bigger pic):

See more Fluxbox stuff in some previous posts on my other blog: (Fluxbox: My new favorite window manager and More Fluxbox, another pic of my desktop)

Batch image resizing in Ubuntu

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 15:06:08 GMT

One of the things I have found lacking is the image resizing tools available to me through the Ubuntu repositories. Until now, I had always used Gimp to scale an image which worked fine, but really didn't make me happy when I needed to resize a ton of pics.

Browsing through the ubuntuforums recently, I came across a mention of a batch resize script that could be used in Nautilus, via a right-click > scripts contextual menu. Obviously, this sounded perfect since I really wanted something to work like the Windows Power Toys image resizer tool.

I never knew this was possible (I learn new stuff every single day I use Linux) but you can create scripts, make them executable, and drop them in the /.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/ directory and just grab at them by right clicking while in Nautilus.

Anyways, back to the script...

Basically, ALL you have to do is download this script, make it executable and drop it in the right place.

[codeshare aprc6f32]

NOTE: For some reason the "+" sign is lost in the codeShare process... the chmod line should read: chmod u+x Resize_images

ANOTHER NOTE: I didn't have to install rename for this to work, good thing too. It wasn't in the repos!

Now, go into the folder that contains the images you want, select 1-All, right click and go to Scripts and click on the one called 'Resize_images'.You will be presented with a selction of resize options, pick the one you want and click OK.

Another great thing about this script is that it places the resized images in a new directory instead of resizing the originals.

Here is the blog where I found the info for this script

Hooray for Compiz!

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 15:38:21 GMT

Just a quick celebratory post about my sweet sweet compiz desktop.

I really loved Mandriva 2007 for its integration of compiz straight out of the box, but preferred (K)Ubuntu for many other reasons.

I'm happy to say that I finally got my 3d desktop back in action.

Here is a pic as of 5 minutes ago:

Note, I followed this HOW TO:http://go-compiz.org/index.php?title=Ubuntu_Installation_Guide

The trick I found was to install both the Gnome AND KDE packages in that guide, then run:

compiz --replace gconf & kde-window-decorator --replace

HOWTO: Enable your SD card reader

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 17:36:38 GMT

One of the quirks I encountered while running Kubuntu, was that my SD card reader in my Compaq NC6230 laptop didn't work. In doing some digging I found that many card readers are USB, some are PCI, and some are somehow integrated with the CDROM device.

The one for this machine is PCI...so, the first step to getting your card reader to work is to find out what the "address" is (pardon my lack of terminology).

Go to your terminal and type lspci

This will list all of the possible devices to choose from. Look for something that has to do with card readers.

[codeshare feb22a16]

The one you want (if you are using the NC6230) is:

02:06.3 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments PCIxx21 Integrated FlashMedia Controller

Now, turn it on.

I created a launcher in my kmenu called "Enable SD" and all it does is run this line of code in a terminal.

sudo setpci -s 02:06.3 4c.b=0x02

Voila! SD card readination.

Easily manage KDM themes in Kubuntu

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 21:35:03 GMT

KDM themes are what style your "log in" screen when you are using KDE (if you chose to use KDM obviously). Out of the box there isn't a really easy way to change/add/delete these themes with Kubuntu.

Luckily, it is VERY easy to do!

All you need to do is go to your terminal...

sudo apt-get install kdmtheme

Then, after that installation is complete go to your Control Center menu. Look under the 'System Administration' section and you should now see a new menu item titled 'KDM Theme Manager'.

You will find it is easy to add and select your KDM theme there.

Now, you want to get some new cool KDM themes? Go on over to www.KDE-Look.org.

Here are a couple I recently added:

Mandriva with more than 1gb of RAM? Compile your own kernel.

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:40:39 GMT

I just realized, after a few days of using Mandriva 2007, that my system was only recognizing 1GB of memory (I have two 1GB sticks).

First thought...Oh no, my memory is failing!~ A quick check in BIOS and a mem check, all is well. Next guess. The kernel used for Mandriva 2007 doesn't support high amounts of RAM. Well, looks like that was the ticket.

Now, if you are a 2006 user there is a kernel available in the repo's that will support up to 4gb of RAM, but no such luck for 2007 users.

So, if you want to compile your own kernel (I think you should!) this is the method I used....

First, get the latest kernel from www.Kernel.org (I used 2.6.19.2 ). (note: I did this all as 'root')

[codeshare janf28f6]

just to be safe, remove any possibility of there being some left over info from a previous compilation and any default config info

[codeshare jan3e817]

copy your current config over, so the new kernel will be match your current settings (notie the config was for my specific kernel...be sure to check your /boot directory for your own config name)

[codeshare jan2b116]

under Processor Type and Features, look for the High Memory Support and select the appropriate level.

now you can just tab to exit, and then save the configuration.

run the following and you should be good to go

[codeshare jan64bbe]

NOTES:

I had to urpmi ncurses-devel in order to start the menuconfig. If you run in to errors try installing that package.

I lost the cool bootsplash stuff, but I'm sure it shouldn't be a big deal to add later. If I ever get around to that, I will add that in a later post.

Run a launcher as root in Mandriva

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 04:31:38 GMT

Cutting my teeth on Ubuntu helped me start breaking away from the Windows drudgery, but it also was obviously the first and only experience with Linux. Over time I had figured out how to run launch commands with gksu but I needed to figure out how to do that in Mandriva.

The answer is ... gnomesu

All you need to do is:

[codeshare jan4458c]

(just had to use the codeShare :) )

Adding screensavers to Mandriva 2007

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 19:44:55 GMT

A couple days in to the switch from Ubuntu to Mandriva 2007, I am still trying to find anything I don't like about the new to me distro. A couple things I didn't like right off the bat was the lack of a repository-type software library like Ubuntu has, and the lack of all the really cool screensavers.

Well, both of those are easy fixes. First you need to add your "repositories". That can be done very easily if you follow this http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ site's easy steps.

Once you have updated all of the mirrors, you should be able to get what you need by typing "urpmi nameofpackage" in a terminal (as root).

Back to the screensavers, if you want all the great screensavers that come with Ubuntu all you need to do is type "urpmi xscreensaver"

I have been reserving my comments for awhile, just to see what I really thought of Mandriva after some heavy use, and so far...I am really liking it a lot!

Intro to Aaron's House

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 06:03:39 GMT

Welcome to Aaron's "house". I am one of the creators of InstantSpot and I created this Spot to have a place to post more personal stuff and less tech/work-like stuff. (see my other Spot here)

I also intend to use this Spot as a test bed for designs using the Style Manager in the InstantSpot control panel. So, things might just look a little crazy from time to time.

I am going to try and keep this Spot simple...just a blog and some photo galleries. (I hope to get some pics of my family, Jeeps, etc posted to my photo galleries soon.)