I am disappointed that a device that we all use (and loathe) every day has not progressed much at all in the last 10 or 20 years. I have looked in every store and compared online the options of alarm clocks both cheap and expensive. At best, the alarm clocks out there are basic, at worst they are complex - having too many features that require multiple simultaneous button presses. All seem to suffer from either poor design, poor implementation, or both. The other day I ran into a device powered by Linux called the chumby. At first, the review I read made it seem perfect, but after reading more about it I found that the alarm clock looked more like an after-thought.
So here is what I think a good alarm clock should be able to do:
- Play MP3s, Ogg Vorbis, Shoutcast streaming radio, FM, XM Radio, and possibly HD Radio (if HD Radio turns out to be worth a shit)
- An alarm that will still operate when running on the battery backup (lithium ion?), even if it is a reduced functionality mode (simple buzzer perhaps?)
Continue reading ‘The Perfect Alarm Clock’
I recently purchased an Acer Aspire 5100-5840 that had Windows Vista Premium preinstalled. I was planning on buying a Linux laptop, but I found a deal on this Acer so I decided I may as well keep Windows Vista for any Windows only capabilities I may need in the future. I decided that although I use Debian on my desktop PC, I would try installing the 64bit version of Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn along side of Windows Vista.
Continue reading ‘Installing Ubuntu on an Acer Aspire 5100′
I was looking at buying a laptop from Dell now that they come preinstalled with Ubuntu Linux. I am very glad that Dell decided to start selling Linux and I wanted to buy a laptop from them to support their efforts. I almost bought one, but let me tell you why I didn’t.
Continue reading ‘Dell’s Linux Laptop, Not Worth It?’
My system was working perfectly and I upgraded my system with apt. The next time I started up my computer, X complained that it failed to load the module nvidia. I switched my xorg.conf file to load the open source nv drivers so I could browse the Internet for help. I found Debian Bug #420354, which says the package nvidia-glx version 1.0.8776-4 does not provide the file nvidia_drv.so.
Continue reading ‘Nvidia-glx Broken in Debian’
I finally got tired of trying to get my ATI Radeon 9000 Pro to work properly with Linux. I had to jump through hoops to get Google Earth to work, I had to turn of stars in Celestia with gconf-editor to prevent it from crashing, Neverwinter Nights would crash at random, and I had problems with certain color-depth / resolution combinations. I kept hearing that NVIDIA’s proprietary drivers work much better than ATI’s, and with the fact that ATI will no longer produce drivers for the Radeon 9000 Pro, I decided to purchase a NVIDIA graphics card.
Continue reading ‘NVIDIA 6200 AGP in Debian Linux’
Ever since I upgraded to my desktop to Debian Linux I have not been able to run Google Earth. It would freeze on the splash screen and never open the main interface. I used Google Earth on Debian before, so I knew it was just a problem with my machine. As it turns out, it was the new ATI fglrx drivers that were preventing it from running properly.
Continue reading ‘Google Earth for Linux Freezing with ATI’
My D-Link router died and I bought a Linksys WRT54g thinking I could put Linux on it. Unfortunately, I should have checked a little more before I bought it because I got a v5, which has half of the RAM and flash memory and is not compatible with most 3rd party firmwares. I also found out that I could not forward packets to the broadcast address, which is exactly what I needed to do to get Wake-on-LAN working.
Continue reading ‘Wake-on-LAN on Linux with a Linksys WRT54g’
I have seen many, many discussions about how Linux is faster than MS Windows, or how Gentoo is faster than Arch is faster than Debian is faster than SUSE. Faster? Will I really notice a few milliseconds? Will my hardware have the same speed boosts as these other people are claiming? Will some things be faster while other things get slower?
The answer is yes/no/maybe. I can definitely say that Debian IS faster than Windows 2000 on the same hardware. I can also extrapolate that since Windows XP is just 2000 with some added features (bloat), that Debian is also faster than Windows XP.
Continue reading ‘Speed: Debian vs MS Windows’
I have always had problems installing sound cards in Linux, whether it was on-board or a Sound Blaster. I have tried several SimplyMepis LiveCDs and they always seem to get some sort of sound out of my cards so I figured it was something in my configuration. I recently installed Debian on my main computer, and this time was typical with my Sound Blaster only halfway working.
Continue reading ‘Sound Blaster problems in Linux’
