KCLUG April 2007

kclug@kclug.org

33 participants
33 discussions

RE: Distro for Older Hardware
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 05 Apr '07

05 Apr '07

Regarding your sound problem. I had one of these laptops for a while and it had a Yamaha sound chip in it. YMF Solo-1 or something like that. Back when I got it working I was using the sound system that preceded alsa. It was a royal pain to get working. If you have a LiveCD that makes your sound work, check the settings it uses. I know there is something that can auto detect these chips, but let me tell you, they are a PITA to set up manually. I'm pretty sure that DamnSmall got it right and working. The chip communicates over an ISA bus. >-----Original Message----- >From: Jonathan Hutchins >Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 12:08 PM >I have an old laptop, IBM ThinkPad 380 Z, that had Mandrake >9.1 installed and running reasonably. It's a low-power >system, with only a 300MHz PII, 96M of ram, and a 3G hard >drive, but it ran Mandrake reasonably well. >

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Distro for Older Hardware
by Jonathan Hutchins 05 Apr '07

05 Apr '07

I have an old laptop, IBM Thinkpad 380 Z, that had Mandrake 9.1 installed and running reasonably. It's a low-power system, with only a 300MHz PII, 96M of ram, and a 3G hard drive, but it ran Mandrake reasonably well. Unfortunately, support for 9.1 is no longer available (with good reason, great advances have been made), and that means I can't set up either of my wireless cards, at least not easily. I decided to try Kubuntu on it, and used the Alternate CD that's supposed to allow for older. less powerful systems. The results are pretty poor. The install didn't check to see that I'd passed a custom option to the kernel so it could boot (ide=nodma). It didn't detect the sound system at all (ubuntu seems to be having some serious problems with sound these days). It failed to detect the CardBus ethernet card at boot, although I was able to configure it. It doesn't appear to have adjusted it's package selection by much; I had to remove OpenOffice to get enough space to run the initial package update. The install took around eight hours to complete, the package update just finished after over an hour. I really haven't had a chance to give the system a fair chance yet, but looking at how long the text-mode update took, I'm not optimistic. I have the CD for DamnSmallLinux, and I will probably try that next. I know some of you have built linux systems on older hardware, and I'd like to know what you'd recommend for a system of this vintage. Surely there's something as capable today as Mandrake was five (?) years ago?

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The Old Laptop
by Jonathan Hutchins 05 Apr '07

05 Apr '07

kubuntu is frustratingly slow on this thing. Even running from CD, DSL is faster. I haven't been able to get my wg111t USB Wireless Adapter to work. It "just worked" in Mandriva without any tweaking, just straight forward install. Searching the net, it seems a lot of people have had this problem with debian-branch distros. There is some confusion on what version of ndiswrapper-utils should be installed, and of course manual compiles seem to work better, but I'm thinking that the ancient USB chipset in this box may be the culprit. Unplugging the dongle after loading ndiswrapper causes the system to lock up. There is no sign of a sound system being detected; even lspci doesn't show anything. Sure wish I'd copied the configuration from the Mandrake 9.1 install! That eliminates use as a garage jukebox. Given that I can buy a brand-new laptop from Micro Center for less than $500, there's only a certain amount of head banging that's worth doing for a laptop with no battery.

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Announcing the great (well, the so-so) KCLUG laptop giveaway
by Greg Brooks 04 Apr '07

04 Apr '07

All, I have a troublesome laptop that needs a new home. It's free - you just have to come get it - and it'll go to the person who has the most interesting plans for it. THE MACHINE: . Toshiba P25-S670, P4 processor (desktop - loudish and hotish) @ 3.8ghz or so . 17" wide-aspect screen @ 1400x900; no dead pixels . DVD multidrive that supports DVD +/-/RW/RAM . 1GB RAM THE PROBLEM: The machine has one problem, which is why it's a giveaway. As near as I can tell, something's flukey with the video card (Nvidia GEForce 5700). Here's what I can tell you: . Installs Ubuntu 6.10 desktop and runs at a default resolution lower than 1400x900. Doesn't seem to have any instability with this. . Installs Ubuntu 7.x (beta of Feisty Fawn) and runs at 1400x900, with seemingly no problems. . The minute you start getting into the Nvidia drivers, things go to hell. This is verified by . Install the restricted drivers in Ubuntu, and you get no video on reboot . Reinstall to WinXP Media Center Edition using the factory re-imaging disk, and you get an install that goes well until the files are copied over and the machine tries to go into setup mode, and then the video dies and the computer blue-screens. . Vista Ultimate ran on it for a while with the aforementioned Nvidia drivers - but only when I turned off all hardware acceleration. Now, what does all this mean? . If you want the machine for parts, it's got 1GB of easy-to-extract RAM in two 512mb sticks. The screen is in great shape, with no dead pixels, and the 80GB HD seems fine as well. . If you want something of questionable stability, it *does* seem to run just fine with Ubuntu and the non-restricted drivers. You won't be able to play with Beryl on a rig like that, but that's not huge. . If the graphics card is replaceable, it's probably a fairly cheap fix for a computer currently valued at around $800 on ebay in full working condition. . And if the graphics card isn't replaceable? Well, a new mobo will cost you just about what the machine is worth on ebay. Interested? Shoot me an email offlist, and tell me the interesting thing you want to do with it. If more than one person wants it, the most interesting potential use wins. Thanks, Greg

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RE: Framing web pages
by Jared 02 Apr '07

02 Apr '07

===Challenge=== >> We can from this point either degenerate to bickering -or seek >> consensus on what's ethical or not. ===Response=== > The ethics part of this is a two way street. And this is, as I see it, > where most of the problem comes from. All we ever hear about is the > college kids that are using P2P to rip off the "artist's" intellectual > property. > > <snip>Much clear and reasonable logic</snip> > > Ethical responsibility of consumers to content creators. > Ethical responsibility of content creators to the general public. > > You can't have one without the other, else you create an unsustainable > system. ===New Challenge=== Well spoken. Yet content creators who strongly defend their right to maximize profit believe that they are doing so because of ethics. They justify their position by saying that it is their ethical responsibility to persecute all who "steal" from them. It is wise to draw attention to ethics, and to put the responsibility upon the giver and the receiver. Both of these you have done. Yet how do we manage the folks who believe that they are ethically responsible when they are not? They cannot be persuaded by an appeal to ethics because they already believe they are abiding by a noble ethic. -Jared p.s. Hint 1: For an ethical system to be superior to another ethical system, it must apply _less_ force in implementation. Brute force is the lowest form of ethics. What is the highest? Hint 2: I think Linus Torvalds has a pretty good idea of it, but a lot of people who "follow" him do not. And as near as I can tell, he's okay with that. ;-)

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RE: Free Online Taxes
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 02 Apr '07

02 Apr '07

This would be the perfect opportunity to send them an email that you were able to get it to work on your OS and browser of choice. Confirm that it works and share any bugs you find. OSS or free, this still needs to be done. Who better to check this out than a geek with a clue? _____ From: Don Ellis Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 11:07 AM You could set your browser to lie about what OS (and browser) you're using. However, this skews the results to indicate your preferred setup is not as popular as it really is. This kind of message is really infuriating, especially so when you can switch your non-standard setup to bypass the warning and it performs perfectly. --Don Ellis

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RE: Free Online Taxes
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 02 Apr '07

02 Apr '07

Part of the deal is that once you make over that amount, your tax filing can get quite a bit more complex. The tax software people have agreed with the gov't to provide free simplified software to lower income people to increase the number of e-filers. This should lower the number of errors, number of paper forms they receive as opposed to digital and the overall cost of the IRS budget. Should. >-----Original Message----- >From: D. Hageman > >My biggest complaint is why this service is not open to >everyone. I am sure people's taxes who make over $52,000 a >year was used to help create it. > > D. Hageman

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Re: Kclug Digest, Vol 33, Issue 2
by gary hildebrand 02 Apr '07

02 Apr '07

Paper recycling is great for newspapers, periodicals, and other stuff, but books . . . well, we should be finding a way and a place to preserve them. I was trying to find information on an Apple IIc+ and found that most libraries had pitched books on the Apple II's long ago. Or try to find information on cp/m . . . . ???? I have an extensive library on my Commodore VIC-20/C=64/C128 and Amiga computers, information not readily available to Joe Sixpack computer user. To simply give them away for recycling purposes is to throw away an excellent source of information for kids who are into learning the do's and don'ts of computers. What better way is there to learn machine language then on an 8 bit processor like the 6502, and let them develop their own video games instead of spending megabucks on Xbox360, Nintendo's and Wii's. Mayber a project such as scanning some of these gems to CD, for archival purposes would be a much better idea. I'd give anything to have my COMPLETE collection of Compute's Gazette, Run, and even a few of the old Compute! magazines at hand so I could sit and hack to my own delight. Linux has a similar "hackers' paradise", but is a much much larger subject to master with any degree of proficiency. So go out to garage sales, pick up- a commie 64 and start hacking. Gary Hildebrand St. Joseph, MO > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2007 16:42:19 -0700 (PDT) > From: Leo Mauler <webgiant(a)yahoo.com> > Subject: OT: Old Computer Book Recycling? > To: kclug(a)kclug.org > > > Does anyone know of a paper recycler which will handle > the plastic-like paper of computer books? I'm looking > at a trunk full of these books and I'd like to be able > to take them somewhere where the contents or the paper > will do some good.

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RE: Free Online Taxes
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 02 Apr '07

02 Apr '07

I've used Tax Act in Firefox on both Windows and Linux successfully. I believe you need javascript and cookies enabled. I've started in Windows and then finished in Linux. There were some problems in Firefox last year or the year before and so I submitted bug reports so their Firefox support could improve. I think I've used them for the last 3 years. www.taxact.com Federal e-filing is free to all, but you can upgrade to get more online help and hints to save money. To file state costs money. So I went to the MO Dept. of Revenue and they had a PDF that let you put in info and print the result for free. I then printed that and mailed it off. I did that under Windows with Acrobat so YMMV under Linux. It was not the greatest, but will perhaps improve in future years. Always print hardcopies for your own records and save 5 years worth of tax filing. Brian Kelsay _____ From: Billy Crook Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2007 3:28 PM There's some IRS program called Freefile. If you make less than $52k a year, you can choose any of these companies (http://www.irs.gov/app/freeFile/jsp/index.jsp ) and do your federal return for free online. I used HR block online the last two years, so I was going to again, and I got THIS: We've detected that you're using an operating system that is currently not supported by TaxCut Standard Software. TaxCut Standard Software has been optimized for the following operating systems. Win2000, WINXP, Win Vista, MAC OS 10.2.8, MAC OS 10.3.9 and MAC OS 10.4.8 WTF, Why do they care what OS I run? It's a damn web application. All they need to do is optimize for the only real browser platform, Mozilla, and It'll work anywhere someone has a web browser. Their inflammatory remarks have angered me, and I want to choose some other company now. Any suggestions?

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RE: Old Computer Book Recycling?
by Jared 02 Apr '07

02 Apr '07

> > Here I am with a load of books which are no longer > > useful to anyone except very tiny niche collectors, so > > by handing them off to a library I'm essentially > > saying to a bunch of dedicated librarians "destroy > > these books for me so I don't have to destroy them > > myself." I don't want that kind of guilt, so I was > > thinking of recycling instead. Don't do their thinking for them. Libraries are in contact with many more niche collectors than you. Be wise and take them to a library, where there is a possibility that some scholar who is researching the "Social Trends in Early 1990s Computer Instruction Manuals" can find them. He can't find it in the already-shredded bin of your local recycling outlet. Leave guilt behind and take up simple wisdom. Give your books to the library. They might see a diamond where you see a pile of coal. I knew a man who was director of a university library system for years. He gained a degree by walking around the English countryside studying old chimneys, insightful remnants of a previous era where everyone else saw a pile of rocks where a house had burned down. He got a degree out of it, and is to this day an amiable chap with fine stories of the English countryside. I personally am always looking for 1960s-era computer books which most other people consider to be worthless. Get them to a library. -Jared

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KCLUG April 2007