Multiheaded Madness (was Ze Cool Factor)

How ultimately cool is this?


Finally got a dual-head/multi-head configuration working, with only the nvidia driver, unfortunately. But it works!

The magic includes (despite X telling me that there are two cards) using the same PCI BusID, and setting the Screen parameters in the Device section. Bit of struggle, but finally resolved! nvidia do have good docs for their drivers.

Theoretically, bonszai supports 3 displays, with the third a TV-out (via S-video). Will try that later.

Now, me is pro-programmer, with two displays. If the other display becomes an LCD, it'll be ultimate goodness!

Install Report, Compaq Presario V3133AU, V3000 Series [DRAFT]

(Update Dec 6: This is obsolete document only kept for historical purposes. This is now the definitive version]

(Update Nov 22: I've changed a lot of the info below. For now, bear with me and the strike throughs, as I get a new article written)
Mostly works.

Here are the specs. Note that I'm using Ubuntu Dapper Drake 32-bit for now. I will move to Debian ASAP.

UPD: Moved to Ubuntu Edgy Eft 6.10 64-bit. Waiting for Debian Etch AMD64.

UPD: I've tried getting an external monitor to work, with no success.


What works:

1. All of the keyboard keys including special "multimedia" keys. Some issues with status updates (blue leds don't turn orange :) )
2. Monitor comfortably displays "1280x800" using the nv opensource driver. But it wasn't autodetected, and I had to write out frequencies to the xorg.conf file (though they were automatically detected).
3. HDD, RAM, CPU everything work fine, though I get messages of "BIOS BUG detected" during bootups.
4. Bluetooth.
5. UPD: Wireless works with ndiswrapper and 64-bit Broadcom drivers. bcm43xx does not work.
   

What doesn't (yet) work:

1. Headphones (ouch!), even with the latest and greatest ALSA, though they're working on it. Headphones now work, with stock alsa-1.0.13, but snd-hda-intel requires the disable_msi=1 parameter eliminate an irritating looping and to have headphone support. As a side effect, I don't seem to need noapic anymore. Sound is terrific on these speakers though.
2. Broadcom Wireless LAN has "issues", ad-hoc networking wasn't possible, I'm waiting for my wireless account to test out "managed" networking. I'm using the bcm43xx driver for which my card is "unstable". ndiswrapper refuses to take a 32-bit driver, and picks the 64-bit one and then complains. Don't ask why.
   
3. Wired ethernet worked perfectly, and then decided it wouldn't work without noapic. This seems to have thrown out the CPU frequency daemon out of gear.
4. Suspend and hibernate have issues.

What wasn't tested:

The Card reader (update: I did try this with one card, but nothing happened), the expansion slot, the modem, external monitor and S-Video.

And yes, Compaq expects you to have Windows and IE to test for updates. Ouch!

It's not smooth sailing yet, but there are a lot less issues than I'd been brought up to believe.

Ask for more details, if you need any.

My Computers

The first one was named "MeanMachine". Don't ask why. This was my first ever computer, and was bought on September 24, 1999. Here are it's specs:

• Celeron 266Mhz Processor, no L2 cache, Slot 1
  
• 64MB RAM
• 4GB Seagate HDD
• 14" Samsung 4BNi monitor
• 104-keys Mercury Keyboard
• "Yamada" Speakers
• Creative 32X IR CD-ROM Drive
• Zida/Tomato Motherboard
• Windows 95
  

It lasted for about 2 years, when a power surge destroyed the motherboard and power supply. The replacement "MeanMachine", gifted by a friend, looked like this:

• PIII 550Mhz
• 160 MB SDRAM
• 4GB HDD
• Windows 2000 and Red Hat Linux 9
• D-Link 56Kbps Modem
  

However, with the coming of XP, and with MS deciding to kill off VB, I made the move to Linux also buying a 40GB HDD on the way. Thus "MeanMachine" became "meanlix", and now looks like:

• PIII 550Mhz
• 160MB SDRAM
• 40GB Seagate 5400 RPM
• 17" Samsung 793S
• 104-keys Mercury Keyboard
• "Yamada" Speakers
• Sony DVD-ROM
• Logitech Optical Mouse
  
• Ubuntu Dapper Drake
• USB 1.0
• D-Link 502-T Router
• D-Link RTL8139 chipset based NIC.
  

Along the way, I've replaced the power supply, a couple of mice, the hard disk, the CD-ROM drive, the monitor. I've added the network card and the router, so only the keyboard and speakers have survived from MeanMachine.

Meanlix chugs along fine, though it's no longer adequate for most tasks that family uses it for, though Dapper Drake is (looking) faster than Hoary Hedgehog on this machine. It's time for an upgrade, and perhaps, come December, and with some money, I'll upgrade this machine to a newer one. Any suggestions on what to go for? I'm looking for processor (probably a Core 2 Duo/AMD 64 X2), RAM (1GB/2GB), Motherboard, and perhaps a 80G HDD. Maybe the speakers too. And the keyboard. And yes, the cabinet :) I won't be using this machine much, it'll be a family machine. And yes, it'll run Linux.

Update on the Laptop search

Couldn't buy a laptop while I was in Mumbai, but did get very good leads on some very nice laptops.

BTW, here's what disqualifies a laptop: a Core Duo processor (not 64-bit), 1024x768 maximum resolution, 512 MB RAM or less, less than 60GB HDD. I'll definitely consider Core 2 Duo processors for notebooks, but I can't seem to find any. Any leads?

My sweet spot looks to be around 40K--70K.

So here's what I like:

Compaq V6102AU: This is the coolest model so far, with everything going for it. The only thing that bugs me is the TL-50 (I'd like a TL-52 or better processor -- double the cache). Another possible thing to dislike is the shared video memory, I'm really ignorant of performance problems here. I'll also have to pay the MS Tax, unless I can convince HP to ship it with FreeDOS. But this is one cool laptop. (58K with 3year warranty -- 2 of those years without battery warranty. A new battery costs around 4K)

HP nx6235 Series: This is what been recommended to me by most friends, but the thing that bugs me the most about this is the 1024x768 max. screen resolution. Add the fact that it ships with Windows XP Professional which has definitely pushed the price to greater than 50K, and I'm very very reluctant to buy this.

Compaq V3029AU: This is another cool model, which I didn't list last time as I thought it did not have wireless ethernet. Turns out it has, and so far, it is the cheapest of the lot. It also ships directly with FreeDOS so that's one less headache to worry about. Only difference with the V6102AU as I can see is the 512MB ram, 14.1" display and the 80GB hard disk. It's also half-a-kilo lighter.

Compaq V3133AU: Perfect match at last? AMD TL-52 with everything I'm asking for, including FreeDOS only! This is a new notebook, according to HP who've finally replied when I e-mailed during them office hours (!). Retails for 43K, but I'll have to add RAM (512 default), and suffer a 20GB HDD loss. It's also a 14.1" screen. I'm awaiting more details, as I can't seem to locate this on their website.

On another note, the August 2006 issue of PC Quest had a notebook shootout, can anyone send me the magazine, scans, or anything of interest?

Update: Added the Compaq V3029AU, anybody know of any Core 2 Duo model laptops?
Update: Corrected 3102 to 3029. Sorry.
(yep, this page is gonna see lot of updates)
Update: V3133AU, found what I'm looking for?

Installed SuSE 10.1

I need a GLIBC_2.4 distribution, and SuSE's the only one tolerated here. Had a Debian Sarge DVD but no DVD drives :(

And was reminded why I moved away from RPM-based distributions.

TASK: Install Mplayer.

Solution: Look for MPlayer RPMs for SuSE 10.1 on the i686 architecture. Use services like rpmfind.net and
and realise that RPMs for your distribution have not yet been indexed there. Ho-okay, Google's always there. Find references to a website. Go crawling around the net trying to verify credentials of that site.

Then download RPM! And install!

Installation failed. Missing dependencies. Make "intelligent" guesses as to what RPMs will contain the files that MPlayer depends on. Download each dependency RPM individually, and hope you're right about them providing the file you're looking for.

Try installation. See it fail again due to dependencies by the new RPMs you downloaded. Go back to site and download again.

Install again. Whoops! Forgot to download one RPM. Go back, download and try again.

Failed again. Turns out one of the dependencies provides library.so.54, but the MPlayer RPM requires library.so.48.

Sigh.

Okay. Now I'm mad. Force install of MPlayer. Run it, and it fails, of course.

Go to /usr/lib, and copy library.so.54 to library.so.48. Feel totally unclean.

MPlayer works! Though I doubt H.264 encoded files will play.

It would have been so much more easier to compile from source.

I'm so glad Debian releases next month.