teee heee, my new eee PC

So today I walk into Harvey Normans and see the little eee PC sitting next to all the other standard laptops and I think “oh, how tiny”.
I went and had a play with it to find out how small the keys actually feel. They are tiny. Probably a little too tiny for fingers like mine.
On the way home I was thinking that if I was still working, I probably would buy a toy like that…
… after some more thinking, I thought that I really should support something like a quality build and doing a good job of providing linux.
So I stopped off at the Good Guys and bought one for $457

Issues:

• I don’t like laptops suspending when I close the lid. If I want the machine to stop functioning, I will let it know. So I edited /etc/acpi/lidbtn.sh and commented out the line that called suspend2ram.sh
• I don’t know how close the machine is too full charge. The icon in the tray only states the unit is plugged in. There is also a light on the unit that lets me know that it is charging. I have cat’d /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state and /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info but there is no obvious answer as yet. Once it is charged I may be able to deduce it is full based on some information.
• I’m used to NetworkManager configuring the wireless network for me. Need to get myself adjusted to the KDE way of doing things or…
• I’m tempted to find out how well ubuntu or fedora runs on the box just so I can get my gnome life back.

Still to fix:

• I need to turn off the display when the lid is closed. I know the script I need to edit but I don’t know what command to issue.

-= Comments
1. Lucien | April 4th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I am jealousy. I saw a guy at Swin with one the other day which he had installed WinXp on and was very happy with. Anotehr guys I heard about (also at Swin) is trying to install os X on it.

I’m just trying to figure out how to justify buying one for myself. I only just got my new MacBookPro a few months ago, yet…

2. pimaster | April 4th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
os X would be an interesting experiment.

How to justify. That is really a hard one. The only thing I had to justify was “Do I have the cash on me right now”. Supporting Linux and vendors who are going to support Linux (open drivers and community support) was what I wanted to achieve. What I do with laptop now that I have it. I don’t know.

3. Lucien | April 4th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I’m right there with you. I can think of one thing to do with it: since it has the VGA plug, I can run a lecture from it. Now if it will just compile java, it could be my complete “java lecturer in a box” solution.

Printing from Windows to Linux (sharing a linux printer)

When I first setup my server in my room (Yes, I finally got there from this post on 30th June last year), printing was high on the list of todos.
After getting the printers to work locally (worked a lot smoother on fedora 8 compared to fedora 6), I got working on how to print from another linux box. After trying to manually edit some of the printers, I got frustrated and deleted them all to start with a fresh slate. Closed the printer dialogue and re-opened it to find that cups had automatically detected them for me. Fantastic.

The next step was to print from windows. I thought this was going to be easy since I had already enabled smb shares. But I couldn’t find settings that would work in the config file /etc/samba/smb.conf. So off to google I go.
http://www.petersblog.org/node/726 has simple working configuration.
I’ll copy the configuration setting just in case the original ever disappears.

# add to [General] section:
printcap name = cups
printing = cups
security = share

# make sure [printers] section looks like this
[printers]
browseable = yes
printable = yes
public = yes
create mode = 0700
guest only = yes
use client driver = yes
path = /tmp

And bam, Windows picked up the shares, I installed them and am happily printing test pages :D

Truck me

Finally, my search for a 4×4 is over.

Just got to get it registered, get some sort of a cb radio, tire mount and possibly new tires and I’ll be ready to go bush with my brother. He has had his patrol almost 12 months and I have enjoyed going 4wding with him.

-= Comments
1. Mark | February 23rd, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Cool as.

There’s some great 4×4 tracks up where I live in the Yarra Valley.
I crashed my car not long ago.. I’m driving my sisters old little yellow astra’s at the moment.

Keen to get a new one, but i’m poverty sticken.
Remember not to speed - you’ll stand out like the dog’s proverbial. My patrol driving friend has lost hist license twice now.

Long time no fly

It has been bothering me for about two and a half months, that I haven’t flown my helicopter.
For a while I was looking for the right material to repair the skids with but gave up and just used some super glue.

I have tried to do some hovering indoors to see if I could get the hang of the controls but it doesn’t want to hover. It’ll bounce on the floor or it will take off.
I can’t let it take off for obvious reason inside and you learn very little from bouncing.
I fear the next time I fly it I will make it fly a fair way off the ground, zoom around for a little while and crash it spectacular fashion :|

iTunes fun

I was just wondering if there was someone out there with an iPod video that would be willing to do a test for me.
* Find an mp4 file that plays fine on the iPod.
* Rename the file so that it has -.mp4
* Import into iTunes and try to sync your iPod.
I spent a couple of hours transcoding a file and ended up frustrated when it wouldn’t sync. I noticed that no other video I had previously had a - in it so I tried removing it and everything was happy again.
I really can’t believe that this could be a problem in software today and I would love for someone else to confirm this problem (or if it is just my machine).

Hardware problems just arn’t my thing

So the Dell guy arrives. In and out in 40mins. Doesn’t do any checking of his on. Just comes in with the new motherboard and procedes to take my laptop apart.
The first time he turned it on I instantly new that it was working ’cause the hard drive light be flashing. Check the bios (were he has to re-enter the service number) and the bios reports the hard disk is installed. The thing booted, but I screwed with the logical volume (so I had to fix that later).

I like software, I can fix the problem (most of the time).

-= Comments
1. Zooba | January 29th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
It’s probably cheaper to replace 10 motherboards a day than to diagnose and possibly fix 2-4 issues. (Especially when you consider the difference in the training required)

Hang on, Dell is on its way

To alleviate the problebm of a laptop that won’t boot because it doesn’t think it has a HDD, I called Dell since I have 180 odd days of Next Business Day on-site cover.

They’ll be here on Tuesday or Wednesday with a new motherboard. Hazaar.