intel video driver fail

Posted on | March 9, 2010 | No Comments

i have been browsing for a laptop replacement to the compaq i currently have since well before christmas last year. i’ve compared, looked for new features, priced out the current options, and found none that i wanted…until the hp g26t which seemed to be something that had all the things i wanted. intel core i5, 4 gb ram (with room for 8 gb later), non-ati video drivers, nice design. i have specific wants with regard to keyboard and asthetics which also strongly drove my search.

hp g26t

i purchased the laptop with money from tax return, and it shipped to me. i picked it up on friday and unboxed it immediately only to find the keyboard wasn’t what i thought it was going to b (first unmet expectation). i took it home, ran the dvd backup software first, then shoved my fedora 12 (64-bit) dvd into the player for the reboot. the installation went smoothly. i ran the upgrade next (since i hadn’t previously downloaded a f12 respin image and didn’t want to wait for it).

when it rebooted, i noticed the resolution was still stuck on 1024×768. this thing does better, i reasoned. i coped the xorg.conf file to my home directory and rebooted. when it restarted, i had no screen. i rebooted again. same deal. i tried to ctrl+alt+f2 to a straight up text login. nothing. all the f-keys gave me nothing.

i tried rebooting into vesa mode, nomodeset, noacpi…all the same blank nothingness. i set my init to 3 and booted to a command line. checked intel hardware, looked on the google for any hope of someone posting a solution or even a sympathetic blog post of the same problem. nothing out there about it. this machine is too new for that.

after asking for more advice in the #fedora channel on freenode (irc), i realized i’d found an intel video driver the linux kernel didn’t support. i decided it was best to send it back. which i did.

now, i’m back to where i was just before i found this laptop. my second interest laptop isn’t a strong enough want to just simply purchase it. maybe if i wait, i’ll find something i want when they put out some new laptops.

“please say fedora”

Posted on | February 27, 2010 | No Comments

i saw this link on digg this past week: http://blog.nixternal.com/2010.02.18/please-say-fedora/

i have to admit that i have a real dislike/never-use-again mentality for at&t. but this has bought them a little bit of respect from me. don’t get me wrong. i’m still never going to use them again, but i will admire them from my reliable internet connections way over here.

Category: fedora
Tags: at&t > dsl > fedora > netbook > respect > tech support > ubuntu

meeting the fam

Posted on | February 24, 2010 | No Comments

as i posted earlier, i made the trip to florida to watch the last night launch of the space shuttles. i caught up with some cousins who were also in florida for the same reason. i had been corresponding with lowell, who is actually mom’s cousin, regarding the launches. he’s seen a few more of these, and i had asked his advice on best places to stay and where to witness the launch when i made my first trip last year. this time, i finally got to meet them all in person.

my cousins

we had lunch at this little place off highway 520. we all had something fried. they had some shrimp. i had some gator. pictured are lowell, alice, jill, and me waiting for the fried goodness to arrive. this was our first time getting together after they delayed the sunday morning launch.

we met up again on monday after they finally got the fuse lit on endeavour. we were much more tired the second time around after being up for two nights and not getting all the sleep we needed in between. nevertheless, it was good to hang out with family. lowell, alice, and i took a drive down florida 1A1 (atlantic avenue) from cocoa beach past patrick air force base and into a bit of satellite beach. lowell pointed out what was around back in days of nasa when the moon landing was still the goal. many of the places he showed me i’ve been reading about in the right stuff. as with all beach locations, it has been built up much more than it was when alan shepherd and john glenn were being jettisoned into space on rockets.

i’ve uploaded a few photos of the launch that morning to my flickr account tagged “sts-130.” the video turned out the best on my attempts to capture the launch, but those are what i have. of course, nasa has the best pics in the world for these things. incredible angles of the launch. nasa’s collection of photos of the launch, which again doesn’t do the actual site justice. i credit nasa with this image of the launch which the closest i could find to how it actually looked if you had been there. it comes from nasa’s site, but i couldn’t seem to locate it again for a link.