tsrvesa.com and loadlin.exe

found an old posting on google groups

led me to find the matrox g200 utility zip file, and within, the utility tsrvesa.com

now I have a reason to have kept an old bootable win98 partition...

the tsr enables a vesa mode of the card, and then loadlin loads linux.
Once there, using the fbdev device in the xorg.conf

this typed while running the reasonably recent tinyos on my old K6 ...

and this edited with DSL 3.4.6

both running firefox 2.0.0.x.

general comments:
barely usable for browsing with firefox 2;

much faster with dillo, but fewer and fewer sites are pure html these days...

need to find a super light browser like dillo that supports css.

alsaconf : ancient sound card and modern linux

got the old system's card running with the alsaconf utility

then ran kde's control center to reset the sound system.

Slax now running with the ancient non pnp soundcard

Dapper edubuntu 6.06 doesn't have alsaconf...
had to manually edit /etc/modules and /etc/modprobe.d/alsa_local, then modprobe snd-sb16

ALICE.ORG to teach programming

teaching programming:

http://www.alice.org

3D java/jython beneath the surface, but you don't need to know that

Oreilly Safari

online reading site.

Excellent for the office, references and books to snap code snippets from.

I do tend to still buy books I like, but they are not as quick to search ;)

Linux Live CD+ Google

what else do you need?

boot live cd, and connect to all your google apps...

too much google?

faster web browsing

use cell phone browser... on an old pc...

http://www.google.com/m

zoom!

compiled firefox

needed to compile firefox from source on linux, as older system didn't have gtk2
set the ui as gtk1 and ran compile. works (slowly) on my old system...
need to find place to put it, google pages?

ubuntu + iTunes 7

got sharing working From ubuntu ppc to iTunes 7 on XP

not the other way around yet;

also my oggs don't play, need to get ogg playing working on iTunes...

installed:
ubuntu zeroconf set of debs;
in particular: avahi-daemon

and then Rhythmbox mp3s can be seen...

facebook picasa connections

small fern pic; playing with picasa, and now have a facebook plugin....
yet another google facebook connection....

non Google web app

experimenting with at least one non google web app:

FaceBook

again, primarily other people are what gives that site it's attraction;

no specific features that are required...

now can I figure out how to plug this blog into facebook?

MediaCoder

MediaCoder on sourceforge.

very useful, GPL replacement for what I originally had quicktime pro for...

Joost

"Free" online video content, legitimately available in Canada ...

Like the animation so far;

Free OS CDs/DVDs

7.04 cd package arrived yesterday.

to anyone reading, go to the ubuntu web site, fill out the form and wait a few weeks... then you'll have your media for free!

also get a few ubuntu stickers to paste all over things...
so now I have "official" media CD/DVDs for $0:
Ubuntu: 5 6 7
OpenSolaris
Sun Solaris 10

PPC Ubuntu 6.06 annoyances

recently my iMac DV has not been booting successfully, all the time.

have not yet diagnosed the problem; usually just rebooting works...

need to sit down and review logs...

started ~1 month or so ago, unfortunately more than one update ago (current system only keeps one "old" kernel)

Google stuff

Google!

I'm finding I have many many of google's tools, including this one...

one recent annoyance, is the flash requirement for google talk;

Flash is not currently easily available on my iMac PPC ubuntu box.

What do I use regularly? (in addition to search)

1. gmail
2. news
   
3. maps
4. alerts
   
5. blogger
6. picasa
7. picasaweb
8. iGoogle
9. reader
10. notebook
11. finance
12. patents
13. talk
14. calendar
15. youtube
16. translate
17. calculator
18. suggest
    

I have tried others, but don't currently use them regularly;
Docs and Spreadsheets, base may be useful
google earth is fun, but don't use it; same with sketchup
desktop search was too heavy,
toolbar similarly too much
web accelerator didn't seem to like sympatico

is that too much google?

Linux Live CD: Ubuntu Feisty 7.04

one note, forgot to mention:

Linux Live CD: Ubuntu Feisty/Edgy

these are two disks I've been using for quite a while now.

they both support my slightly odd wireless card, AND the office VPN...

very cool.

These need the newest system NOT the ones mentioned previously, but the laptop that replaced them...

Pentium133 and DSL Linux

Got this running at the Grandparents this weekend;

google for: "dsl loadlin how to" and you get a link to the dsl wiki.

Only one annoyance: windows 98 (surprise).
it didn't close/restart properly, and the install on that machine didn't have a menu on startup;

so when I ran loadlin.exe @options.txt, that worked ok, but then trying to go back didn't work...

it seemed permanently stuck in DSL;
to get back, I had to
1) put the CD in the cd drive
2) restart DSL, from the CD, not HD
3) mount the hard disk (mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 -o rw)
4) move the isolinux dir (mv isolinux isolinux.mv)
5) reboot.

other notes:
no flash plugin on that install;
a pentium 133 is almost usable... was very slow...

Xubuntu 6.06 running full screen on T55D

typing this on full screen Xubuntu 6.06 live CD, running on my IBM T55D monitor, with my G200 mga card.

using the drivers from mga dated July 28, 2006

matrox_driver-x86_32-4.4.0.tar.gz

they move things around, so Google or search directly on their site:
http://www.matrox.com
for the linux mga g200 driver.

minor note; xubuntu puts X modules in
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers

contains up to xorg 7.0.0 drivers (so works with this version of Xubuntu; not tried with more recent releases)

the key entries in xorg.conf were in the mga driver, to enable my flat panel:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200"
Driver "mga"
BusID "PCI:0:10:0"
Option "DigitalScreen1" "yes"
EndSection

then make sure monitor frequencies were set:
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 31.5 - 95.0
VertRefresh 59.0 - 61.0
Modeline "1024x768" 65.00 1024 1048 1184 1344 768 771 777 806 -hsync -vsync

EndSection

K6 449 + T55D + mga g200

old system, keeps on ticking....

most fun is the old digital video card....
default linux distros don't have the correct driver;

most run in 800x600 with vesa drive;

if they are "smart" they pick up the mga, but don't have the exact version...

matrox site has updated drivers (to xorg 7.0.0) that have the magic

Option "DigitalScreen1" "yes"
to make the IBM Flat Panel T55D work ...

G3 iMac DV

system 1 is an old G3 iMac DV (snow)

can be found used locally here in Toronto today for $250 (Canadian) (cpused.com)

my 30gig hard disk died, replaced with smaller older 6 gig

running xubuntu 6.06 with edubuntu packages loaded

yet another tech blog begins

Just setup this to capture notes from work and home...

mostly will involve opensource installs/crashes etc, on older hardware