Syzygy Tech » xubuntu

Linux and Dvorak Update

syzygy — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 22:50:16 +0000

After using Dvorak for several months now, I am quite comfortable with the layout. Far from my initial struggles, I am no longer annoyed at the layout, but rather enjoy its benefits. I am faster than my Qwerty days, but am not quite to the level of touch typing. I was never much of a typist to begin with, so perhaps being faster in not that much of an accomplishment. Currently, I cannot see myself going back to Qwerty.

On the Linux front, my total conversion over to a Linux based desktop is going along great.� All of my computers currently run Gentoo,� as I just switched one of my servers from Xubuntu to Gentoo.� I do still have my Windows install around so that I can play the occasional game and get a file or two when necessary.� To maintain as much connection to my home computers as possible, I have started to make extensive use of SSH.� Thus, even when I am stuck in the computer labs at school, I can SSH into my box and get all the functionality I would normally have.� Cone has proved to be an excellent command line mail client (with POP and IMAP support) and naim is a functional command line AIM replacement, two common programs that I like to use.� mp3blaster is also a nice program to listen to music.

With the quarter winding down, I should be able to get back to my neglected projects, and maybe start some others.

MythTV

syzygy — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:02:49 +0000

I had bought a Hauppauge PVR-500 a few months ago with the plan to build a MythTV box.� My first attempt at this resulted in a 866MHz PIII with a 10GB hard drive running xubuntu being converted into my first MythTV machine.� As you can imagine, the computer was a bit too slow for it to work well and the hard drive was far too small to be useful for recording programs.

I’ve finally gotten around to making a good effort into the myth box, due primarily by this deal on Tiger Direct.� The price ($400, plus $24 shipping) was excellent, considering the AMD Athlon FX-60 processor alone is $399 at Tiger Direct, and $525 at Newegg.� The Tiger Direct package deal included an OEM Athlon FX-60, Ultra CPU cooler, Ultra V-series 500 watt power supply, Asus A8S-X motherboard, and Ultra X-blaster case.� My main desktop machine has an FX-55 chip in it currently, so I stuck the FX-60 into my main machine and am using the FX-55 for the MythTV box.� This just leaves me to buy RAM and another hard drive to have a very nice MythTV box.� The old MythTV box has been retired, and will most likely spend the rest of its days crunching SETI@home work units.� The case that came with the deal is useless to me since I have everything rackmounted… to ebay it goes!
The only snafu with the new FX-60 in my main machine is that my BIOS doesn’t know what processor it is.� I have a Asus A8N-SLI mainboard, which supports the chip.� Its not a significant issue, as the processor runs the way it’s susposed to, however the BIOS reports it as “AMD Athlon: Model Unknown”.� I checked for BIOS updates, but there are none… oh well.� Its a lot faster than the FX-55, so I’m pleased with the purchase.

The MythTV install on the new box is great, definitely runs better than with the old PIII machine.� Its running on Xubuntu and once I get a bigger hard drive, I’ll reinstall and do a more detailed analysis.

Battery Life

syzygy — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 03:00:38 +0000

Now that I’m safely at my destination, I can continue where I left off.� Recently I’ve been trying to see how long I can extend my battery life on my Thinkpad T30 (aka darkstar, running xubuntu).� One of the methods I’ve been trying is not starting x (and thus not starting xfce).� Of course there are a lot of variables that determine battery life, but so far under normal use I seem to get about 30 more minutes.� Normal use would be internet (elinks vs firefox) and typing (nano vs open office).� I’m going to continue to track battery life over time to get a better estimate over longer periods of time and for different amounts of CPU usage.