Archive for April, 2008

Ubuntu 8.04

Published at April 26, 2008 in Linux. 0 Comments

I downloaded the latest Ubuntu bits last night and burned them onto a DVD. I am very impressed by the user experience Ubuntu creates for its users — its very simple. This morning I only spent a couple of hours configuring my dual-screen setup and everything else seems to be working just right.

I especially like the way it recognized my network storage server, so that i could retrieve files that I had backed up.  Now i can get to my real work :-)


a new kind of slideshow

Published at April 20, 2008 in Video and Travel. 0 Comments

The guys from Animoto have a slick online service that lets you create a movie using your images and music.

You can create a 30 second “short” film for free; here is my first one.

enjoy!


1 terabyte NAS

Published at April 17, 2008 in Technology. 0 Comments

Hard drives have increased their storage capacities while prices have dropped dramatically. I usually keep a couple of spare hard drives to backup my personal data (e.g. photos, music, documents) from time to time; This technique works fine as long as I can remember where i put my spare hard drives and where to find the cables that go with it. Wouldn’t it be great if you could connect to a spare hard drive over a network or wireless? That’s exactly what a NAS does. NAS stands for Network Attached Storage and I just got one with 1 terabyte (1,000 gigabytes) of storage.

I am tired of seeing hardware advertisements that say something like “Supports Windows Vista & Mac”. wait a minute, what about Linux?

I ended up purchasing the LaCie Ethernet Big Disk mainly because they proudly say they support Linux on their website, “Supports Linux 2.4 or higher”.

This device is also capable of streaming audio and video over WiFi to other plug-and-play devices in your home. This is awesome!


Penguins Linux Ad

Published at April 10, 2008 in Video and Open Source. 0 Comments

The first Linux ad I ever saw was Prodigy by IBM, This here is another inspiring Linux ad.


dual monitors xorg.conf

Published at April 8, 2008 in Linux. 0 Comments

I got dual monitors working on my Linux desktop. I ended up downloading the proprietary ATI driver then using the aticonfig command. This works on Fedora Core 8 with an ATI Radeon X700 graphics card and 2 monitors.



# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display

Section “ServerLayout”
	Identifier     “Default Layout”
	Screen      0  “aticonfig-Screen[0]” 0 0
	InputDevice    “Keyboard0″ “CoreKeyboard”
EndSection

Section “Files”
EndSection

Section “Module”
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
	Identifier  “Keyboard0″
	Driver      “kbd”
	Option	    “XkbModel” “pc105″
	Option	    “XkbLayout” “us+inet”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
	Identifier   “aticonfig-Monitor[0]”
	Option	    “VendorName” “ATI Proprietary Driver”
	Option	    “ModelName” “Generic Autodetecting Monitor”
	Option	    “DPMS” “true”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
	Identifier   “aticonfig-Monitor[1]”
	Option	    “VendorName” “ATI Proprietary Driver”
	Option	    “ModelName” “Generic Autodetecting Monitor”
	Option	    “DPMS” “true”
EndSection

Section “Device”
	Identifier  “Videocard0″
	Driver      “radeon”
EndSection

Section “Device”
	Identifier  “aticonfig-Device[0]”
	Driver      “fglrx”
	Option	    “DesktopSetup” “horizontal”
	Option	    “OverlayOnCRTC2″ “1″
	BusID       “PCI:1:0:0″
EndSection

Section “Device”
	Identifier  “aticonfig-Device[1]”
	Driver      “fglrx”
	BusID       “PCI:1:0:0″
	Screen      1
EndSection

Section “Screen”
	Identifier “Screen0″
	Device     “Videocard0″
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection “Display”
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section “Screen”
	Identifier “aticonfig-Screen[0]”
	Device     “aticonfig-Device[0]”
	Monitor    “aticonfig-Monitor[0]”
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection “Display”
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section “Screen”
	Identifier “aticonfig-Screen[1]”
	Device     “aticonfig-Device[1]”
	Monitor    “aticonfig-Monitor[1]”
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection “Display”
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

reset xorg.conf

Published at April 6, 2008 in Linux. 0 Comments

I screwed up my xorg.conf file today while trying to setup dual monitors on my Linux desktop. When you have a corrupt xorg.conf file, the computer usually boots into the Console with no graphical interface. (runlevel 3)

Using a second computer, I found a handy command which allowed me to reset the xorg.conf

Log in as root and type:
system-config-display –noui –reconfig –output=/etc/X11/xorg.conf

This should get you back into your system in a graphical mode (runlevel 5). I hope this helps anyone out there trying to get dual monitors working on Linux!