Linux

Researching resurrecting DVD-RAM for my backups, I've done a 'head to head' analysis of using three different file systems (UDF, EXT2 and ReiserFS) on DVD-RAM. Quickest: EXT2. Best capacity: UDF. UDF is the 'right' format to use for media like this, and the fact that its a little slower to write to is probably compensated for by the fact that its the 'industry standard' packet writing standard for optical media.

Wed 14th May 2008:

Vintage kit

I've been putting Ubuntu 8.04 on a couple of old machines; mainly because the newer ones are all spoken for. On boot up, a message advises that ACPI (power saving) isn't being enabled because the BIOS dates are so old .. in one case ten years old.

Sun 13th Jan 2008:

Sim City has been open-sourced

The source code to Sim City, rebranded Micropolis to avoid trademark problems, has been released under GPL3. The original publisher released the code for the 'one laptop per child' project.

Sun 23rd Dec 2007:

Stopping (customising) those annoying Gnome pop-ups

I don't want to use Banshee whenever I connect my portable ogg player to my computer.

Sun 18th Nov 2007:

Two steps forward, three back.

Rebuilt my database/file/print server today. It got a hardware upgrade 18 months ago, but I kept it at Suse9.3. Its now Suse 10.3

Sat 17th Nov 2007:

No GRUB menu

First reboot after a clean install of Linux, if you're faced with 'GRUB' on the screen and nothing else, no menu, nothing, try this.

Thu 9th Aug 2007:

Up to date sources of Suse packages?

Looks like Suse maintain the latest RPMs for popular packages. I've not tried yet, but I suspect you can load the ones you're interested in into YAST and then install the latest, say, Firefox release from them.

Wed 1st Aug 2007:

Printing PDF files on Suse 10.2

Got it working using a 'cool solution' from Novell.

Sat 16th Jun 2007:

HTML man pages

The Linux man command has an option for producing HTML output direct to a browser, which is rather easier to read!

Fri 8th Jun 2007:

udf on Linux

UDF is billed as the replacement for the old CD filesystem, ISO9660 to its friends. The Linux implementation appears to have originated from a guy called Dave Boynton (hmmm. There's an iSeries guy at work called Dave Boynton) at Trylinux.com, now apparently defunct. Suse has been involved as well.

Sun 27th May 2007:

Gnome keyring and GAIM

Gnome keyring is used to stash passwords securely.

Thu 24th May 2007:

Logitech LX7 wireless mouse

Work in progress ..

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