|
|
|
Last Week Next Week Insights Index Daynotes.com Email: tom@syroidmanor.com
I need a dual processor laptop ;-) While compiling the latest glib update from Gentoo (2.3.1-r2) this morning, all other apps became almost completely unresponsive. Multi-tasking my ass... :=0 I don't care about weight, I just wish someone would build a dual 2GHz laptop. I'd even tolerate an external nitrogen cooling system...
On the Good News front: Gentoo and KDE continue to run like a top. Considering I've installed several key library updates over the past two day, this is definately a Good Thing.
Several of my regular readers are predicting that my next notebook will be an iMac. Interesting observation. We'll see. I've mulled just such a scenario myself a time or two. I'm planning to buy a new machine sometime next year, and I plan to look closely at Mac developments when the time comes. My friend Moshe has two excellent columns on OS X versus Linux up on Byte.com. Recommended reading. His latest is here. From an industry observer's perspective, I'd have to concur with Moshe -- I don't think OS X is mature enough to compete in the server environment. But from everything I read, and from all the comments and feedback I've received from readers, OS X "Jaguar" is THE UNIX-based operating system for notebook applications. Unfortunately, iBooks are still a niche market up here in Canada, which makes them very spendy relative to x86-based systems. Of course that could very well change over the course of the next 6 months given the dynamics of the current marketplace.
Thompson Deep Clean day today. Plus I've got to get the driveway shovelled before the wife gets home so it looks like I've done _something_ with my morning ;-)
My Office 11 beta arrived late yesterday. Mmmm. Interesting times indeed. There was a day in the not too distant past I would have been bowled over by the polish and functionality of Microsoft's "next-generation" Office suite. Clearly, what was then is not now. Don't get me wrong. Office 11 is shaping up to be a very impressive piece of software. I played with it for about two hours last night, and with a few notable exceptions, I really liked what I saw. Outlook has a new layout. It's functional, easy to navigate, and intuitive to use. But I can't right-click on a message and choose Reply from the context menu like I can in Mulberry (something I do ALL the time; so much so, the action is an "automagic" action for me). And I can't select a section or block of a message, hit reply, and have just that selection appear in my reply -- like I can with Mulberry.
The release notes that accompany FrontPage 11 list several pages of improvements and added features. If they all work as advertised -- which is a big if and something I haven't had time to explore yet -- FrontPage 11 goes a long way toward correcting most of complaints I've heard from users like Bob Thompson and Jerry Pournelle. In particular, developers have put a great deal of effort into ensuring FP doesn't quietly, behind the scenes, "morph" the code you've painstakingly entered. Which in my mind, is a long overdue "fix". And apparently the FTP and "web update" features have been extensively reworked. Which should correct the problem of FP wanting to update a user's complete web site after only minor changes have been made to one or two pages. But why-oh-why would I spend $400 on FrontPage when I can do everything I need with JEdit? And if there's bugs in JEdit, they're fixed promptly and a new release is issued usually within days. I've yet to see a major bug reported to MS that didn't result in a 50MB "service pack" that took 3 months to compile and release.
In short, I'll participate in the Office 11 beta and dutifully contribute my suggestions, observations, and bug reports to the folks at Redmond, and in doing so, contribute my voice to making Office a better product. But I'll continue to do most of my daily "heavy lifting" in Gentoo, from KDE 3.1, using all my tried and true favorites: Phoenix, JEdit, and Mulberry. Guess that makes me a devout Linux convert. Until something better comes along, that is...
Have I mentioned lately how delighted I am to have a functional notebook again? ;-) Whatever Dell did different this time around, I appear to have a "new" system. As a matter of fact, some things are now working that haven't since day one. For example, I have a special function key that works in conjunction with the four arrow keys to raise/lower the contrast/brightness of my LCD. Never worked. I always thought it was software/OS related and didn't give it much thought as I was perfectly content with the properties of my display. Tried them last night under KDE and presto-pocus, they work as advertised. Which leads me to speculate I've had a problem with either my video card (factory original until Tuesday) or the LCD cabling (also original, to the best of my knowledge, and from I understand from reader feedback, this should be changed any time the LCD is replaced -- and I've had 4 or 5 of those). I'm _very_ cautiously optimistic. My spacebar started to intermittently squeak when depressed last night, but intentionally ignoring this minor annoyance for the moment. It did this once before for a couple days then quit, so one can only hope. If it persists I'll phone and order another one -- they're a snap to replace (five or six screws) and a squeeky spacebar is not worth getting excited over.
KDE 31 RC2 continues to impress me. I found a couple broken bits last night, but they're minor and likely due to interactions with other programs. Even if they weren't fixed for 3.1 final, they wouldn't detract from the functionality of KDE one iota. I still have a couple programs to reconfigure/reinstall as a result of my new RC2 profile, but none of it's showstopping stuff -- just a matter of finding the time to tweak and adjust.
I successfully built the latest development kernel this morning (2.5.45); first time I've been able to do so on this machine. In the process, I discovered several interesting new features. The old make menuconfig && make dep && make clean... procedure is history. Configure your kernel with make menuconfig, then simply do a make bzImage; the build scripts take care of making the dependencies. Second, the first kernel compile takes a long time, relatively speaking (about a 1/2 hour on my 1GHz P3), but any subsequent reconfigurations/recompilations take 30 seconds or less. Only changed options and/or modules are recompiled. Very cool. I haven't been able to get wireless working yet under 2.5.45, but in all honesty, I didn't spend a whole bunch of time trying. With the 2.4.x kernel series, in order to get wireless working I had to disable kernel PCMCIA, select wireless drivers under Networking Devices, but refrain from selecting any of the listed drivers. I then compiled PCMCIA-CS against the kernel, then compiled the WLAN-NG drivers against PCMCIA-CS. With 2.5.45, PCMCIA-CS wants the kernel PCMCIA options selected but when I oblige, the build process craps out with an Error 2. Oh well. Nothing I'm going to lose any sleep over. I use the Gentoo 2.4.19-r10 custom kernel for my daily work, and probably won't deviate from this practise for some months. 2.4.19 works, and with the Gentoo optimizations, it's Good Enough for everything I need to do. I'll continue hacking on the 2.5.x series now that it builds on my system, but strictly as a "hobbyist persuit".
The Dell support guy left about 2pm yesterday, and as noted, my notebook was once again functional -- not perfect, but functional nonetheless. As much as I missed having the use of the system for 5 days, parts of KDE 3.1 RC1 I had been trying to install Friday were broken, so I decided the first order of business would be to get Gentoo squared away. I started with emerge rsync, then opened ./profiles/package.mask in vi and commented out all the KDE 3.1 RC2 entries. Running emerge -up world brought up a LONG laundry list of updates. I had a ton of tasks to complete in what remained of my day yesterday, so I elected to roll the dice and went with the ole emerge -u world option and walked away. The build/update process is still running. Much to the credit of the Gentoo package maintainers, everything has -- so far -- built cleanly. And as the big major pieces are complete (XFree, QT, kde-base, kde-multimedia, etc.), I fully expect what's left to finish without incident. Plus the system hasn't skipped a beat since I started the compile. Given the workout compiling XFree and QT puts on things, it would appear the components installed yesterday aren't going to cause me grief anytime soon.
I'm soooo happy to be using my notebook again. Damn I missed KDE 3.1 and a finely tuned Linux installation. I'd been using RH 8 on my dual 450 box all week, but it was annoyingly slow likely due to the fact I've been robbing from Peter to pay Paul for a month now (read, juggling memory among machines according to project needs. Yeah, I know, I need to buy some more; it's on my TODO list) and the system only had 256M installed. RH 8 running KDE with a couple high-demand apps really and truely needs 512M. Remember when Windows used to advertise it ran in 128M, but we all knew that 256M was a more realistic requirement? Well, it would appear the same process is at work for Linux as well. Not really a huge issue, I guess, considering how cheap RAM is these days, but still...
My system is running like a top. And so it should be. Over the course of the last three days the techies at Dell have replaced almost every single key component. Motherboard, trackpad, CPU, graphics card, LCD, and the LCD cabling. That leaves the keyboard, hard drive, and the CD-ROMs.
KDE and all it's associated apps/components built without a single failure. Total compile time: about 20 hours. Whew. The end result was worth the wait, though. KDE 3.1 gets better with each interation. My magic NFS mount icons have reappeared. KDE 3.1 RC2 starts noticeably faster than the CVS builds I was running (using the latest release of QT, XFree 4.2.1-r1, and a new NVidia kernel driver). Everything I've played with to date works as advertised. The only problem I experienced was a relatively minor one -- KDE 3.1 RC2 created a new set of desktop configuration files, so I had to reset everything (icons, background, fonts, etc). I can't seem to get the colors the way I had them last week, and it's driving me crazy trying, but overall I'm pleased.
Friday I phone Dell. The support tech basically had me gut my laptop -- remove and/or unplug everything so the only component left operating at power-up was the motherboard and CPU. Hit the power switch and nada. No POST. So he arranged to ship a new motherboard and CPU to the local dealer who does on-site warranty repairs.
The technician showed up yesterday about 5pm. He replaced the motherboard and CPU, powered the unit up, and all was well and good until anything graphical appeared (eg, the Windows login screen). The the LCD went black. The third time we tested things, everything quit working completely. Nada. No POST. Sigh. After an hour of diagnostics, the tech ordered another motherboard and CPU, plus a video card.
The new parts arrived this morning (we were both a bit surprised that they arrived so fast). Strip the unit down again, replace the motherboard and CPU again, install the new video card. Success. We got a POST. Slowly we added all the components back one by one. Yup, the system booted to the hard drive. Yup, adding my PCMCIA wireless card gave up connectivity. The CD ROMs were correctly recognized. The mouse worked. Everything appeared to be working again. Until, that is, I closed the lid at the Windows login screen (a secret test I have to ensure the LCD is LCDing as it should). I opened the lid and the display was bright red. Lovely. Another hour of diagnostics and the folks at Dell determined it was either the invertor in the LCD or a bad cable. Both are ordered and should arrive tomorrow or Thursday.
The good news is my notebook is functional again -- providing I don't close the lid. If I do, I have to power it fully off, let it sit for a minute, then power it back up. The display will return to normal and stay that way -- unless I close the lid again. It's also good that I discovered the problem while the tech was still here, and not twenty minutes after he pulled out of the driveway, and that the problem was repeatable. Which made troubleshooting a relatively easy chore.
Would I buy another Dell? Dunno. That's starting to become a difficult question for me to answer.
Send questions or comments about this site to
webmaster@syroidmanor.com.
Copyright © 1998-2002 Tom Syroid. All Rights Reserved
