mock technologies » fedora

intel video driver fail

mock — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:53:05 +0000

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 copied 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”

mock — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 11:00:34 +0000

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.

new skin for netbook

mock — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:21:44 +0000

i decided to do a little advertising of my favorite linux distro. so, i ordered a skin from skinit.com. the image is from fedora user and graphic designer ian weller.

before skin

after skin

fedora eleven

mock — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:23:48 +0000

yesterday was the official launch of fedora 11. tonight was when i upgraded a laptop to the new os. i’ll save upgrading my work laptop until i have a few assurances first from my home lappy that things will be fine. the main consideration is the open source nvidia driver set, nouveau, which comes with f11. if that works with my work laptop video chipset, i might be happier than i have been in a while.

a few other features that are of interest to me:

another big bonus i’m looking forward to is the twenty second boot time.
how about individual volume controls for different apps? yes, please.
gnome 2.26 is the default desktop. kde 4.2 is available for those who need bigger buttons and more of a windows vista/7 feel.
and ext4 allowing for up to 16TB file sizes. just in case, you know.

i have to say the artwork is looking pretty good too, good quality.

in all my dealings with fedora, i’ve had to content with several technologies a bit behind the release date, such as the 3-d effects. everything i had installed worked out of the gate for this install. were i to do an upgrade, it would have been practically seemless. the team did a good job with this release.