One of my good friends has just notified me of some great news in Django land: aggregates are upon us! As of revision 9742, Django includes two new operations: annotate() and aggregate().
Ok, ok, so I haven't actually played with Django's new aggregation functionality yet, but I definitely will!! And I'm sure it will rock.
More information:
Today the jQuery team has released version 1.3.0 of their amazing JavaScript toolkit. It boasts a lot of great improvements, such as better selector performance, "live events" (YAY!!), drastically improved delegation filtering, overhauled HTML injection functions, et cetera. I haven't yet had a chance to play with it, but I think it will be quite fun once I do. I have a lot of Django-powered apps that are running on older versions of jQuery.
For anyone who's interested in learning more, check out the jQuery 1.3.0 release notes.
Here are some screenshots of the Windows 7 public beta. I installed it in a VirtualBox virtual machine and allocated 600MB of RAM to it.
The new and improved sloading screen.
The login screen
Logging in....
The desktop.... and a fish!!
Your choices of Microsoft-sponsored security--the ones that will slow down your computer the most!
Oh oh!! It's Internet Explorer 8! Chews up my site like a charm.
Captionless taskbar icons until you hover.
The new Windows Media Player.
It's version 12!
Setting your desktop theme.
Minesweeper wants hardware accelerated graphics.... why??
The all-new Minesweeper.
I won!
Paint. Very perty.
The start menu.
Looking at all programs in the start menu.
Some desktop gadgets and the clock thingy.
Slashdot in IE 8.
Downloading Google Chrome.
What the....? Verifying application requirements??
Ahh... Chrome.
Control Panel--stupid people's version
Control Panel--all options
Administrative tools
Some things never change... but what's up with the 200MB partition??
First UAC popup...
Second UAC popup...
Installing Avast Antivirus.
Windows services.... there are a ton of these as usual.
Pong Service for Wireless USB??
Heh... Preliminary scan results show that malicious or potentially unwanted software might exist...
Oh, nevermind... Windows says we're good now.
Shutting down... took long enough to get a delayed screenshot. Could have probably shot 20 more.
Stage 1 of the sloading screen.
Stage 2 of the sloading screen.
Avast has started its scan.
1% complete... after a few minutes!!
Done! after about 30 minutes...
Third UAC popup...
Trusted publishers? These two screens kept coming up each time I would try to update Avast's antivirus database...
The Resource Monitor. I was doing nothing at the time.
Activating my copy of Winders 7
w00t. I'm legit.
Benchmarking my system.
My VM ranks in at a solid 1.0!
Details, details...
The classic Windows theme and a buffalo butt...
Why all the games?? Why not include something a little more productive??
I only have a minute or two to post a couple of thoughts about Windows 7. More to come later.
First, it installed a lot faster than I had expected, which was nice.
Second, minesweeper requests hardware accelerated graphics. MINESWEEPER!!!!!
Go Microsoft. Way to soup up the most retarded game of all time.
If anyone is having a hard time coming up with ideas for my birthday present this year, or you just want to make a donation to a wonderful cause (my own, of course), you might consider the Asus Eee Keyboard. It's also been dubbed the Keeeboard.
For more information, check out these other sites:
Sadly they all have pretty much the same pictures... While this isn't exactly a new idea, it would make a great addition to my collection of nifty gadgets :)
Just a thought.
I learned something new today about Python 2.5 and newer. I thought it was so nifty that I decided to write a blog article about it. Hopefully someone out there finds it as interestingly useful as I do.
One of the things I find myself doing quite often in my code (be it Python, PHP, Java, or what have you) is a simple conditional assignment like so:
if foo: bar = 'baz' else: bar = 'qux'
In a lot of languages these days, you can use a ternary operator as follows to turn these four lines into a one-liner:
<?php $bar = $foo ? 'baz' : 'qux'; ?>
However, this ternary operator does not exist in Python. I have used various means in the past to accomplish the same task without using code like we saw in the first code block above, but they were all very hackish. Today I was happy to learn that there is an official way to do it in Python:
bar = ('baz' if foo else 'qux')
I'm not sure which one is more confusing to newbies: Python's conditional expressions or other languages' ternary operator. Personally, I prefer constructs like these to make my code more concise. I my mind, they also make the code more readable. I have heard some folks argue that ternary operators and the like obfuscate the code more than necessary, so they discourage the use of such tactics and recommend using the classic approach featured in the first example.
For those who are interested, I learned about it and a few other neat things in Python 2.5 and newer at http://www.python.org/doc/2.5/whatsnew/pep-308.html.
I figured I should probably post something since I haven't done so yet this year. I've been making several changes to the site lately. Most of them are pretty subtle, but I hope they're useful to you. Updates include
You can now send an article to some friends by clicking on the "envelope" icon in the top-right corner of each article. It's a pretty simple mechanism.
You can save any of my articles to your hard drive for later consumption in the form of a PDF. Just click the "save" button in the top right corner of any article, and you will be able to view/save the latest revision of the respective article as a PDF. One thing to note on this, though, is that the program I use to generate the PDFs does not support the line numbers in code blocks. Sorry folks.
For those of you who are interested, I'm using rst2pdf to generate the PDFs from my reStructuredText-based articles.
I've removed the calendar from the sidebar and replaced it with my newest useless side project: django-bibliophile. It allows me to share my reading progress with my visitors, because I know you all care that much. I plan on officially releasing the project in the near future.
Pagination has been implemented in parts of the article archive.
I've added an "article distribution" chart when looking at a year's blog articles.
Other random improvements.
I've decided that if I ever want to really understand Linux, I'll have to give as many distributions as possible a chance. In the past, I've tried to use OpenSUSE on my HP Pavilion dv8000 laptop, but it never seemed quite as robust or useful as many other distributions that I've tried on the same machine.
With the recent release of OpenSUSE 11.1, I downloaded the final 32-bit DVD ISO as I normally do for newly released distributions (even if I don't plan on using them--it's an addiction). I proceeded to install the GNOME version of it in a virtual machine to see what all the hubbub was about. Evaluating an operating system within a virtual machine is not the most effective way to do things, but everything seemed fairly solid. As such, and since I have always had difficulties keeping any RPM-based distro around for any length of time, I plan on using OpenSUSE 11.1 through March 2008 (perhaps longer if it grows on me). If it hoses my system, I will go back to something better. If it works, I will learn to use and appreciate it better.
The first step when the installation program starts is to choose what language to use, after which you choose the type of installation you're going to be doing. Your choices are:
You also have the option of installing "Add-On Products" from another media. At this step, I chose to do a new installation.
Next, you get to choose your time zone. The interface is very intuitive. You get a map of the world, and you click on the region you want to zoom in on. Once you're zoomed in, you can select a city that is near you to specify your time zone. Alternatively, you can choose your region and time zone from a couple of drop down lists.
After setting your time zone, you get to choose which desktop environment you want to install. Your choices are:
I will choose to install GNOME because it seems to be the desktop of the future, especially with the hideous beast that KDE has become in the 4.x series...
Now you get to play with the partitioning. Usually the installer's first guess is pretty good, but I've got a different arrangement for my partitions, so I'm going to customize things a bit.
The next step is to create a regular, unprivileged user account for your day-to-day computing needs. This screen is pretty self-explanatory if you've ever registered for an e-mail address or installed any other operating system.
One thing that seems to have been added to OpenSUSE 11.1 is the option to use your regular user password as the root password. This is probably a nice addition for a lot of people, but I'd rather feel like my computer is a little more secure by having a different password for administrative tasks.
You're also give a few other options, such as being able to receive system mail, logging in automatically, and modifying your authentication settings. Other than the administrative password option, I left everything the same. If you're like me, and choose to have a different administrative password, you will be prompted to enter the new password at the next step.
Finally, you're shown a summary of the installation tasks that will take place. I'm going to customize my software selection just a bit so I don't have to do it manually after the installation is complete. For example, while I do like GNOME to a degree, I prefer to use KDE 3.5.x, so I will choose to install that environment as well just in case I need the comfort of KDE programs. Also, since I like to use the command line interface for a lot of things, I will choose to install the "Console Tools" package, just because it sounds useful. Lastly, I will choose to install a few development packages, such as C/C++, Java, Python, and Tcl/Tk. These changes bumped up my installation size from about 2.8GB to just over 4GB.
After reviewing the remaining tasks, all you need to do is hit the "Install" button. You will be prompted to verify your desire to install OpenSUSE, after which the package installation will begin. While the installation is taking place, you have the option of watching a brain-washing slideshow, viewing the installation details as it progresses, or reading the release notes.
The actual installation took nearly 40 minutes on my laptop. While this isn't necessarily a great improvement over past releases, I'm sure the story would have been much different had I not customized the software I wanted to have installed. The introduction of installation images a few releases ago drastically improved installation times. If you don't customize your package selection, you'll probably notice the speed difference.
When all of the packages have been installed, the installation program begins to configure your newly installed OpenSUSE for your computer, with a "reboot" in between. This is when all of your hardware, such as your network adapters, graphics adapter, sound card, printers, etc are probed and configured. Strangely enough, this step seems to take a lot longer than it does in Windows, which is usually not the case with Linux. What is OpenSUSE up to I wonder?
When all is said and done, the installation program finishes on its own and loads up your desktop.
There are a couple things that really annoyed me right off the bat about OpenSUSE 11.1. The first was that the loading screen and installation program didn't use my laptop's native resolution. My screen is capable of 1680x1050. The installation program chopped off about 1.25 inches of screen real estate on either side of the program. I don't know if this was an intentional occurrence or not. It seems like the artwork in the installation may have been limited to a non-widescreen resolution. If so, that's completely retarded. I'd like to think that more computer users these days have a widescreen monitor than not, at least the ones who would be playing with Linux.
The second annoyance was that the installation program wouldn't use my external USB DVD drive, which I like to think more reliable than my internal DVD drive. I mean, everything would start up fine--I got the boot menu, the installation program loaded fine, and things seemed like they would work. That's up until the package repositories (the DVD) were being built. Then the USB drive just kept spinning and spinning. Once I popped the disc into my internal drive the program proceeded as expected.
I thought it was interesting that I chose to install GNOME, but since I chose to install KDE 3.5.10 alongside it that's what it booted me into after the installation was completed. No real complaints, though, since I prefer KDE anyway. Nonetheless, I switched back to GNOME to stretch my limits all the more. At least the desktop took up the full resolution that my screen can handle, unlike the installation program and boot screen.
Things seem fairly responsive... nothing like Slackware though. I just received a little popup notification with an excuse for the lag I might be experiencing: the daily indexing has commenced and should be finished soon. Whatever it's up to, it's taking up a consistent 100% of my CPU. How nice. I hope whatever it's indexing ends up being useful.
Sound worked right from the get-go, which is nice. Hardware acceleration for my Radeon Xpress 200M doesn't work, nor does my Broadcom wireless card. These will be fixed soon.
It looks like the most important step in getting my wireless to work was executing these commands as root:
/usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware modprobe b43
I did a lot of stuff to try to get my wireless to work before I executed those commands, but nothing did the trick until I tried them. Also, to make the wireless available each time you reboot without requiring the modprobe b43 command, you need to edit your sysconfig.
To do that, open up YaST and find the "/etc/sysconfig Editor" option. Expand the "System" node, and navigate to Kernel > MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT. Then put b43 in the value box. Apply the changes. The next time you reboot your computer, the wireless should be available from the get-go.
This section only really applies to folks with ATI graphics adapters.
I found a tutorial on ubuntuforums.org, strangely enough, which described the process for getting ATI drivers to work on OpenSUSE 11.1. The first step is to download the official ATI drivers for Linux. Each of these commands should be executed as root:
wget https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/\ linux/ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run
Next, you need to download the kernel source and ensure that you have a few other utilities required for compiling a kernel module:
zypper in kernel-source gcc make patch
Now you should be able to run through the ATI driver installation utility, accepting all of the defaults:
sh ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run
If you're on 64-bit OpenSUSE, you need to take an extra step to make the driver available:
rm /usr/lib/dri/fglrx_dri.so && ln -s /usr/lib64/dri/fglrx_dri.so \ /usr/lib/dri/fglrx_dri.so
Backup your existing xorg.conf configuration file and configure Xorg to use the new driver:
cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.orig aticonfig --initial -f
Finally, configure Sax2 with the ATI driver:
sax2 -r -m 0=fglrx
Upon rebooting your computer, you should be able to use the hardware-accelerated 3D capabilities of your ATI card. To verify that things are up and running, execute fglrxinfo as a normal user. This command renders the following output on my system:
display: :0.0 screen: 0 OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc. OpenGL renderer string: ATI Radeon Xpress Series OpenGL version string: 2.1.8304 Release
After having played with OpenSUSE 11.1 for a couple hours, I think I might be able to keep it around for a little while. Despite the lack of speed exhibited by other Linux distributions, the "stability" that OpenSUSE seems to offer is attractive to me. It will likely take some time to get used to RPMs over DEBs for package management.
How bad can it be? I mean, it comes with OpenOffice 3.0.0, which is nice. It can handle dual-head mode on my laptop thanks to Xinerama, which no other distro to date has been able to do. This gives me a little more screen real estate to work with, which helps out a lot when I'm developing a Web site or working in an IDE. The package managers are slow, but how often do you really install software anyway?
Again, we'll just have to see how things pan out. Let's hope it turns out to be a positive experience.
With all of the hype that git has been receiving lately, I started playing with it a while back to see if it suited me and my wants/needs. I found it to be an interesting utility. I won't go into any details simply because I'm not really all that knowledgeable about all the ins and outs of version control systems, but I will say that I have decided I like it. I'm still not sure whether I prefer GIT over SVN or SVN over GIT.
My problem is that basically all of my projects are based on SVN repositories. I don't want to have to start up a new GIT repository for each of my past projects. Fortunately, there is an interface for GIT to use SVN repositories called git-svn. I use this utility primarily on my EeePC because it saves a good amount of space on my small disk (the git-svn versions of the working copies are typically about half the size of their svn counterparts). Sometimes it's a little wacky, but it works well enough for my needs.
I started using this git-svn utility on a Debian-based distribution. That meant it was insanely simple to get up and running: sudo apt-get install git-svn. I recently installed Slackware 12.2, and I was surprised to find out that the git-svn utility wasn't immediately available to me.
I did some googling to see if others had encountered the same problem. There were several accurate hits, but I couldn't quite find the solution I needed. In the end, I finally got things working. The following information describes what I did to achieve this monumental success.
The first roadblock that I encountered, obviously, was finding out that git-svn didn't work on my shiny new Slackware installation. After doing a bit of research, I learned that I could substitute the familiar git-svn command with git svn and continue using it as I previously had.
Once I learned about git svn and tried it out, I got a nasty error about Alien/SVN. I've lost track of the original error, and for that I apologize. Doing a little bit of research led me to execute this command as root:
cpan Alien::SVN
I'm not sure exactly whether that step is required, but you might as well do it :).
Next, I downloaded a couple SlackBuilds to create my own Slackware packages suited for my computer.
For each SlackBuild, you must download the original source code along with the actual SlackBuild itself. For example, when retrieving the necessary files for swig, I must download both swig-1.3.35.tar.gz and swig.tar.gz from the link specified. Here are some example commands, which should be run as root:
mkdir -p ~/downloads/slackbuilds; cd ~/downloads/slackbuilds wget http://slackbuilds.org/slackbuilds/12.2/development/swig.tar.gz tar zxf swig.tar.gz cd swig/ wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/swig/swig-1.3.35.tar.gz ./swig.SlackBuild installpkg /tmp/swig-1.3.35-i486-1_SBo.tgz
The commands above should create a new directory in /root/ called downloads/slackbuilds. Next, the SlackBuild for swig will be downloaded and extracted, after which the swig source code will be downloaded. The SlackBuild is executed, rendering an installable Slackware package. Finally, the package is installed onto the system.
The process is basically the same for the subversion-bindings SlackBuild. On my system, however, I had to modify the stock SlackBuild slightly. I didn't install Apache on my EeePC because I don't use it and it would just be taking up space. When I tried to execute the SlackBuild for subversion-bindings straight from the archive, it complained about a missing apxs file, which has something to do with Apache.
To avoid the error, I modified the subversion-bindings.SlackBuild script to ignore the apxs thingy. The original ./configure section looked like this:
CFLAGS="$SLKCFLAGS" \ ./configure \ --prefix=/usr \ --mandir=/usr/man \ --enable-shared \ --disable-static \ --with-apr=/usr \ --with-apr-util=/usr \ --with-apxs=/usr/sbin/apxs \ --with-neon=/usr \ --with-zlib=/usr \ --with-pic \ --with-ssl \ --build=$ARCH-slackware-linux
I just removed the line that says --with-apxs=/usr/sbin/apxs \ and ran the SlackBuild script again. Worked like a charm.
At this point everything appeared to be able to work properly. Running git svn from the command line no longer spit out that nasty error I mentioned earlier. Instead it gave me the options I would expect to see.
That's when I tried to update an existing working copy of an SVN repository. It gave me this error:
$ git svn rebase Authentication realm: <http://special.domain.com:80> Subversion - code Password for 'myuser': Can't locate Term/ReadKey.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/i486-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5 /site_perl/5.10.0 /usr/lib/perl5/5.10.0/i486-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib /perl5/5.10.0 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.10.0 /i486-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.10.0 /usr/lib/perl5 /vendor_perl .) at /usr/libexec/git-core/git-svn line 3071.
That's not very nice, now is it? The solution was fairly simple: install Perl's Term::ReadKey module. As root, execute the following command:
cpan Term::ReadKey
After doing that I was able to happily update my working copy and move on.
I don't envision that this article will be the all-knowing, all-powerful resource for how to use git-svn on Slackware, but I sure hope it will help some other folks who run into the same problems as me.
Welcome to my second article about installing Slackware on an Asus EeePC. This is a follow-up article to the one I posted in May 2008 soon after Slackware 12.1 was released. In this article, I will assume that you're doing a fresh installation of Slackware 12.2 and that you have access to an external USB CD/DVD ROM drive.
In all honesty, the installation process is extremely similar to what I did with 12.1. However, looking back at my previous article, I realize that my steps may not have been the most useful in the world. This time around I will try to be more helpful.
The first, and most obvious step, is to get a copy of Slackware. Simply head on over to http://www.slackware.com/getslack/ and retrieve the appropriate ISO(s) using whichever method you prefer. I downloaded the DVD version of Slackware. If you download the CD ISOs, you really only need the first 3 ISOs. The remaining 3 are source packages for the binary packages you install from the first three discs. Rarely do you need the source code for these packages.
After retrieving the Slackware ISO(s), you must burn them to a disc of some sort: ISOs that are ~650MB should be burned to CDs and anything larger should (obviously) be burned to a DVD. Be sure you burn each ISO using the "burn disc image" functionality in your disc writing software--simply burning the ISO file onto the disc in a regular data session will not do what we need.
After you have a good copy of the installation disc (the DVD or the first of the CDs), put the disc into your CD/DVD ROM drive and reboot your computer. To ensure that your computer boots from the disc rather than the hard drive, hit F2 when you see the initial boot screen. Then go to the "Boot" tab and verify that your external CD/DVD drive takes precedence over the internal SSD. While we're in the BIOS, let's hop over to the "Advanced" tab and set "OS Installation" to "Start". This will increase the chances that your external drive will be recognized or something.... mine didn't work until I made that change. When you're all done with that, exit your BIOS, saving your changes.
The computer will reboot, and it should access your installation disc immediately after the initial boot screen disappears. Once you boot from the installation disc, you should be presented with a screen which allows you to pass some settings to the installation kernel.
To make the installation go faster, use the following boot string:
hugesmp.s hdc=noprobe
This makes it so the installation will see the internal SSD as /dev/sda instead of /dev/hdc, which also boosts the read/write times by about 13 times.
During the boot process you will be asked to specify your keyboard map. Unless you want something special here, just hit the enter key to proceed.
Next you will need to login as root and partition your SSD. You can do this using one of the following two commands:
fdisk /dev/sda cfdisk /dev/sda
Here are some steps in case you're not familiar with these utilities:
As soon as your partitioning has finished, go ahead and run setup to begin the actual installation program.
Since we don't have a swap partition, can jump straight to the TARGET option. Use the arrow keys to highlight this option and hit enter. Select /dev/sda1 from the list, and format it with ext2. On the EeePC, most people prefer this format since it is a non-journaling filesystem. That means fewer writes to the SSD, which supposedly translates to a longer lifetime.
After the SSD is formatted, you will be asked to select the installation source. Again, I'm assuming that you want to use your fresh Slackware 12.2 disc, but you are free to choose what you want if you know what you're doing.
I went with the default "Install from a Slackware CD or DVD" and told it to auto scan for my disc drive. It was found at /dev/sr0.
Next, you are given the opportunity to tweak the package series which will be installed on your EeePC. I chose the following series: A, AP, K, L, N, TCL, X, and XAP. I planned on using XFCE instead of KDE on my EeePC simply because it is much more light-weight and still capable of what I need. If you want KDE, be sure to check the appropriate series.
Once you mark each of the package series you wish to install, hit the "OK" button. You'll then have to choose which prompting mode to use. I chose menu, simply to be a little more picky about which packages I wanted installed. Installation took approximately 28 minutes with my package selection and setup.
When all of the packages are done being installed, you will be presented with some other screens to finish up the installation process.
At this point Slackware has been installed on your EeePC and you can exit the setup menu and hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete to reboot your computer.
You should now go back into your BIOS and set "OS Installation" back to "Finished", exit and save changes, and reboot again.
You should then see the Slackware boot screen. By default, it has a 2-minute timeout, which seems absolutely absurd to me, so we'll change that later. Just hit enter for now and watch your new Slackware boot. The first boot will usually take a bit longer than subsequent reboots because all sorts of things need to generate their first configuration file.
When your system is ready, you'll be presented with a login prompt. Just login as root, using the password you specified in the last step of the installation process.
Here are some of the first things I do when I install a new copy of Slackware:
This step is very important, because one thing that sets Linux apart from other operating systems is security ;). If you run your Linux system as root all the time, you're begging for problems.
To create a new unprivileged user, I use the adduser command. It walks you through the process of creating a user. This is the user you should use to do your day-to-day computing. Only use the root user when performing system administration tasks. Trust me :)
I have no problem with the command line interface in Linux. I actually enjoy it quite a bit. However, on a device such as the EeePC, not having a GUI just doesn't seem all that practical. It's also not very impressive to your potential converts when they look over your shoulder and see that your tiny gadget just displays a black and white screen when you turn it on...
So, to help ourselves be a little more productive and to impress our followers, let's tell X Windows to start up automatically when we turn on the computer. To do that, we want to edit /etc/inittab and change the following line:
id:3:initdefault:
to be:
id:4:initdefault:
You can use whatever program you feel comfortable with, such as vi or nano. The next time you reboot your computer, you should see a GUI as soon as all of the services are fully loaded.
Along with this step, I suppose we can mention the configuration of X Windows. I usually run xorgsetup as root to get things up and running. Usually there is also a bit of tweaking to get things like the scroll wheel on the mouse to function. This part in particular took quite some time for me to figure out.
Some of you might be able to live without being able to scroll a page or whatever without using the scroll feature on most mouse devices these days, but I'm not one of them. Here is my entire /etc/X11/xorg.conf file:
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "SynapticMouse" "AlwaysCore"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/share/X11/rgb"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/OTF"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "xtrap"
Load "GLcore"
Load "record"
Load "dri"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "glx"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
Load "synaptics"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Buttons" "5"
Option "zAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "SynapticMouse"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "Monitor Model"
EndSection
Section "Device"
### Available Driver options are:-
### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
### [arg]: arg optional
#Option "NoAccel" # [<bool>]
#Option "SWcursor" # [<bool>]
#Option "ColorKey" # <i>
#Option "CacheLines" # <i>
#Option "Dac6Bit" # [<bool>]
#Option "DRI" # [<bool>]
#Option "NoDDC" # [<bool>]
#Option "ShowCache" # [<bool>]
#Option "XvMCSurfaces" # <i>
#Option "PageFlip" # [<bool>]
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "intel"
VendorName "Intel Corporation"
BoardName "Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 1
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 4
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 8
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
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A lot of that stuff might not be necessary, but it's what works for me. Normally the process for enabling the scroll wheel is pretty easy, but something seems to have changed in this respect with the release of Slackware 12.2. I had to edit the /etc/modprobe.d/psmouse script to make this line:
options psmouse proto=imps
look like:
options psmouse proto=any
After making that change, things seemed to work a lot better.
There are a couple tricks we can use to make LILO boot our EeePC slightly faster. The first is to add the compact option somewhere, and the second is to decrease the menu timeout.
Open up /etc/lilo.conf with a text editor of your choosing as root. Add a single line with the word compact somewhere. I put it under the line that says boot = /dev/sda so the top of lilo.conf looks like this:
# LILO configuration file # generated by 'liloconfig' # # Start LILO global section # Append any additional kernel parameters: append="hdc=noprobe vt.default_utf8=8" boot = /dev/sda compact
I also changed the line that said timeout = 1200 to be timeout = 50 to make LILO only hang around for 5 seconds instead of 2 minutes.
After making these changes, we must reinstall LILO to the MBR with the new settings:
lilo -v
Here's my /etc/lilo.conf with most of the commented lines removed:
# LILO configuration file # generated by 'liloconfig' # # Start LILO global section # Append any additional kernel parameters: append="hdc=noprobe vt.default_utf8=0" boot = /dev/sda compact # Boot BMP Image. # Bitmap in BMP format: 640x480x8 bitmap = /boot/slack.bmp bmp-colors = 255,0,255,0,255,0 bmp-table = 60,6,1,16 bmp-timer = 65,27,0,255 prompt timeout = 50 change-rules reset vga = normal # End LILO global section # Linux bootable partition config begins image = /boot/vmlinuz root = /dev/sda1 label = Linux read-only # Linux bootable partition config ends
While the wireless adapter seemed to work great for me out of the box this time, the ethernet adapter is still not functional. I compiled and installed the atl2 driver to solve the problem. You can get it from http://people.redhat.com/csnook/atl2/atl2-2.0.4.tar.bz2. Here are the steps I took to install it:
wget http://people.redhat.com/csnook/atl2/atl2-2.0.4.tar.bz2 tar jxf atl2-2.0.4.tar.bz2 cd atl2-2.0.4 make cp atl2.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/ depmod -a modprobe atl2 ifconfig
The next tweak I added for networking was to boost boot times... The DHCP address request hangs the entire boot process out of the box if you don't have an ethernet cable plugged in while booting. To remedy this problem, add the following line to the first section of your /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf:
DHCP_TIMEOUT[0]="5"
This will tell your computer to continue booting if an IP address hasn't been assigned after 5 seconds of waiting.
We all like out battery to last a long time, right? Well, the EeePC 701 doesn't have the greatest battery in the world, but we can help increase the battery life by enabling the CPU frequency modules. I put this stuff in my /etc/rc.d/rc.local script:
I have an SD card that I leave in my EeePC all the time, and it's formatted with ext2 just like the internal SSD. Without this tweak, I have to mount the SD card each time I turn on the computer, which gets bothersome. My fix is to add the SD card to /etc/fstab, which takes care of mounting the device at boot.
First, you should make a directory that will be used to mount the device. I made one as such:
mkdir /mnt/sd
Now you need to determine your SD card's UUID. I started out by unmounting my SD card and taking it out of the slot. Then I executed this command:
ls /dev/disk/by-uuid
Next, I popped the SD card back in and executed that command again. The UUID that appears the second time but not the first time is your SD card's UUID.
It's time to add the magic line to your /etc/fstab. Add a line such as:
UUID=[your SD card's UUID] /mnt/sd ext2 defaults,noatime 1 1
somewhere in the file. While we're digging around in /etc/fstab, we might as well add the noatime option to the internal SSD to help reduce disk writes. Save the file and exit the editor. Then mount everything (using mount -a) or just the SD card (using mount /mnt/sd).
For posterity's sake, here's my entire /etc/fstab file:
/dev/sda1 / ext2 defaults,noatime 1 1 UUID=30293ff4-5bee-457a-8528-ec296f099e9a /mnt/sd ext2 defaults,noatime 1 1 #/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom auto noauto,owner,ro 0 0 /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner 0 0 devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
Sometimes the sound card seems to make Slackware hang when you're shutting down. Everything seems to turn off fine, but the little green power LED still shines bright. The solution to this problem appears to be adding the following line:
modprobe -r snd_hda_intel
to /etc/rc.d/rc.6 right before the "Unmounting local file systems." line (around line 195).
Slackware 12.2 is already listening for ACPI events by default, so we just need to insert our custom stuff into /etc/acpi/acpi_handler.sh:
And to handle the closing of the lid or pressing the sleep button, we need to create a new script in /etc/acpi/actions/ called lid.sh:
And we need to make sure the script is executable:
chmod +x /etc/acpi/actions/lid.sh
These scripts should enable us to use the mute key, the increase/decrease volume keys, and the sleep key. They should also allow us to close the lid of the EeePC to put it to sleep. Occasionally, when you wake up the computer, you will just see a blank black screen. To get around this, switch back to VT2 by using the keystroke Ctrl+Alt+F2.
Slackware comes with a lot of awesome stuff right out of the box, but it is missing some very important utilities at the same time. Included in this list, for me, is a program called wicd, or a network connectivity manager. This is similar to the "Network Manager" utility found in other mainstream distributions like Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSuSE. Slackware has yet to include such a utility by default.
Anyway, wicd can be found in the extra directory on the Slackware DVD or the 3rd (?) CD. To install it, find the package on the disc (or download it from the Internet) and execute the following command:
installpkg wicd-1.5.6-noarch-2.tgz
Be sure to check out the extra directory on the Slackware install disc. There are some neat tools in there. Some excellent resources for Slackware packages include:
There are some utilities out there to help you in your quest to resolve package dependencies. Two of the major ones that I've used in the past are swaret and slapt-get.
I have to give the Linux kernel hackers props--the 2.6.27.7 kernel is amazingly fast! I'm sure the fact that I'm running a fairly stock Slackware installation (as opposed to something like Ubuntu) helps the speed quite a bit too. This past semester I had Linux Mint 5 (XFCE edition) installed on my EeePC, and that seemed fairly responsive. Slackware blew me away though, and I can still do everything I want to do!
The webcam and sound card work out of the box, just like the wireless. I rarely use the webcam, but it's fun to play with, and my mom appreciates seeing me on Skype occasionally. The wireless connection quality exceeds what it was with the madwifi driver I was using with Slackware 12.1 and other distros like Linux Mint. Programs are ultra speedy and responsive, even with the processor clocked at 450Mhz. I love it!!!
Boot times could be better, but I'm not too concerned with it. My setup takes approximately 50 seconds from boot to a useable desktop interface. Not horrible by any means, but perhaps not the best for a netbook when all you want to do is check your e-mail.
I would like to see the Network Manager that so many other distributions offer in Slackware some day. The wicd application is nice, but it's not nearly as intuitive as Network Manager, and it seems to be relatively limited in its capabilities in comparison. I know I'm not alone in my desire to see Network Manager included, or at least available, for Slackware. It would be tremendously beneficial in a world where wireless networking and laptops are more and more pervasive. Using the command line to adjust your wireless connection settings each time you have to hop to a new access point is just annoying.
In the end, I'm excited to have Slackware on my EeePC once again. I think it will be around for quite a while this time.
Please comment with any advice or problems that you have in regards to installing Slackware 12.2 on an EeePC.