Tag Archives: linux

Ubuntu and old hardware

Technology, ,

I got a call from a friend a few months ago saying he had a friend drop off some computer equipment and he didn’t know what to do with it. A few days later I stopped by his shop and what he had was a Dell PowerEdge 2800 Server. This is no run of the mill machine but server grade, 3 SCSI drives, Windows 2003 Server, and weighed 50 + lbs. The tub of incidentals was minor compared to this behemoth. I reluctantly took it not knowing when or if I’d have time to mess with it. Worst case I figured I could recycle it.

It is a few years old, BIOS is from 2005, but should be able to run Linux. The first challenge was how to boot, it has no CD-ROM drive and the BIOS supports booting from a floppy not USB. So the only option that didn’t involve hardware was PXE. That seemed interesting since I haven’t done that before, sounded like a good experiment. To get that setup I followed this reference on the Ubuntu Community site.

Next up was DHCP. My router serves it on the network so temporarily shut that off and enabled it on the server. Note to self here if you’re going to do that don’t assume you’ll have a network connection when you turn it of, change your settings to static before you do that. DHCP was a little bit of a struggle, it’s been 5 or more years since I’ve had to dive into the config files, but that was taken care of in about 15 minutes.

With both of those pieces addressed I turned on the 2800, btw it sounds like an airplane about to take off for the first 10 seconds, pressed F12 when the BIOS information showed up and away we went. Once it got an ip address via DHCP the Ubuntu Server install screen showed up. The install went without a problem the only thing I didn’t do was try to configure RAID. With the drives attached via SCSI controllers Ubuntu saw one drive by default. Not a good thing as I can’t use the three hot swap-able drives as intended but I’m not sure I’ll be running this thing for anything so it wasn’t a big deal. Note: There was an option to configure RAID but I did not take the time to go through that. So the knock on ‘no RAID’ is probably me and not Ubuntu..

Yes it was a good experiment.

Gnome3 and Fedora

Personal, ,

Just before the latest version of Fedora (Verne) was released I was installing the beta on a laptop to take it for a spin. I’d been using LoveLock since beta and Gnome3 suited me well. There has been a lot of talk about it and the lack of customizable options for power users but that must not be me. For a week now Verne has not disappointed and I expect that to continue.

Here’s a pic of my desktop.
Desktop

What I like most is the clean simple look and integration of the windows key to find applications and recent documents. I’ve never been a “put a shortcut on the desktop” kind of guy, to much clutter. So having nothing there is great and I don’t need/want to add anything. The online accounts integration is nice, the notification tray is there but not in the way and using Ctrl-Alt-UpArrow/DwnArrow to move between screens (vs Ctrl-Alt-Right/Left) is just fine too.

Another pic with apps open.
Desktop Pic

Can’t wait to see what’s coming next!

HP you surprised me

Technology, ,

On May 25, 2011 FedEx delivered a new laptop, a HP ProBook 4430s. This is it’s my first purchase where Windows is not the OS from the manufacture. The last few years I’ve used a couple used IBM T42’s which are excellent machines, and the keyboard will spoil you. When it came time to find a replacement I wanted something that didn’t come with Windows, as I wouldn’t be using it, surprisingly the search led me to HP.

At the start of 2011 I did the same search and found Dell’s Vostro V13. I read Dell offered it with Ubuntu pre-loaded but was never able to find out how through their on line store. I did purchase one and it is a good package. Every thing worked out of the box with Fedora 15 and Gnome3 but there were two issues for me, the keyboard was too cramped and batter life was low. That was enough to send it off to mom, she needed something to replace the 7 year old Compaq, and I could search from something more suitable.

I’ve read good things about Zareason and System76, they both have a good selection and offer Ubuntu. The construction wasn’t what I was looking for and some of the other options out there were ThinkPads or Dells with Linux loaded. I wanted to find something with a metal chassis and not much plastic. To compare would be the construction of a MacBook Pro, but I wasn’t looking for a Mac. It took a few months until I came across the HP 4430s Notebook. This model, if you configure it, offers Suse Enterprise 11 installed. I haven’t used Suse for a number of years but the “flavor” of Linux wasn’t important. The fact the hardware fit my criteria and was available with Linux installed sealed the deal.

On first boot it took awhile as it uses KIWI to install the OEM image. A standard suite of applications is included, Gnome 2.82 as the window manager and all the hardware (wireless, camera, card reader, sound) worked… as one should expect. There are plenty of pics on the web, so I don’t need to put up much here but I will say if you like to “get under the hood” access has never been easier. Memory, drive, processor, etc is just pull the battery and slide the cover back after releasing two holding pins.

I’m enjoying it so far especially with an Intel SSD and Fedora 15 (Gnome3). I’d recommend the ProBook 4430s if your in the market for something non-Windows, 14′ wide screen, wireless, bluetooth, card reader, and ever thing working. If Suse is not your flavor pick another. I only had to load iwlwifi-6000g2b for wireless, every thing else worked out of the box. It’s great to see mainstream companies offering solutions like this. Thank you HP!

The HTC G1 still rocks

Technology, , ,

Phones have almost become disposable as technology advances at a speed where what you have is replaced in a month or two by “the new thing”. I like new gadgets but these days at $300 to $600 dollars a pop it’s just not economical. So when I opted for a G1 Dev Phone last year I was hoping for something that might be upgradeable and still have that new feel as the software evolves.

I have not been disappointed.

After the upgrade to 1.6 I was satisfied for a while but then came the next version of Android and that changed things. Better navigation and snappier user interface with screen auto rotation and more. When it didn’t look like there’d be any official version after 1.6 I went looking for a custom ROM, enter cyanogen. I loaded 1.6 just after the first of the year and 2.1 (Eclair) about a month ago, it has been excellent. Checking the site today they have 2.2 (Froyo) available for both the Dream (G1) and the Magic (G2).

It’s been two years since the G1 was released and thanks to folks at cyanogen and other communities like xda developers it has the same software as a Nexus One, HTC Incredible or EVO. Open Source, you gotta love it !!!

Ubuntu Karmic notification icons with messed up video

Technology, ,

For the last month or so I’ve been using Fedora as it seemed to fit my T42 better than Ubuntu did. But wanting to get back to it I plopped in the drive and fired it up. A decent amount of updates were needed and after getting through those things seemed fine. But then after resuming from suspend I noticed the pop up icon in the notification area was blank. It was almost like the something was up with the resolution or video display of the icon itself.

Bad Video Notification

I’m not sure if this was one of those things I thought was a problem when Karmic first came out or not. I did load it pre-release but moved to Fedora shortly thereafter. Finding this to be odd I tried to do a little googling and research, found a few threads that pointed to some of the work the Ubuntu Desktop Experience Team was doing but not much that suggested a solution. The only thing I did come across was talk about video drivers and excelleration. This didn’t really make much sense to me, it has been years since I’ve had to care about the X config file and adjusting it manually. That takes me back to the RedHat 6 days and my Tecra 600. But it did give me a thought.

Video in general was not a problem, just the notificaiton icons. So as a guess I checked what was set for Visual Effects.

System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Visual Effects (tab)



The current setting was None so I changed it to Normal. To test I watched Rhythmbox move to the next song and the icon was normal.

Correct Notification

Good to know that fixed the problem but interesting it needed to be done. Regardless the polish with Gnome in Karmic is really good. Ubuntu has taken Linux on the desktop where no one else has and with that there will always be little challenges. Wonder where they’ll go from here.