Author: Daniel Mettler

For the logs and Google (I use FBSplash for quite a while already):

(Inofficial) Gentoo FBSplash Howto
(Inofficial) Gentoo FBSplash in 5 steps Howto

Upgrading a FBSplash kernel once you’ve already installed one (procedure for a laptop/desktop or workstation -> you don’t want to use fbsplash on a server, do you?):

1. # emerge -u gentoo-dev-sources

2. # cd /usr/src/linux-{your new gentoo-dev-sources}

3. # make mrproper (just to make sure everything is clean)

4. # cp ../linux-{your previous gentoo-dev-sources}/.config .

5. # make oldconfig

6. verify the new kernel config (if required): # make menuconfig

7. # mount /boot

8. # make && make install modules_install

9. adjust /boot/grub/grub.conf to boot the new kernel. keep the old section as a fallback. a valid section for my box (with a 1400x1050 screen) would look like (don't copy this as it probably won't work for you. just take it as an example. note that the "kernel /boot/vmlinuz .. theme:emergence" line is very long.):

default 0
timeout 5
splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.8-r4 (new fbsplash)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda4 video=vesafb-tng:ywrap,pmipal,1400x1050-32@60 splash=silent,theme:emergence
initrd /boot/fbsplash-emergence-1400x1050

10. adjust the /usr/src/linux link:
# rm /usr/src/linux
# ln -s /usr/src/linux-{your new gentoo-dev-sources} /usr/src/linux

11. # reboot

12. after rebooting, make sure that the correct kernel has been booted (see # uname -a)

13. remerge any kernel-dependent ebuilds.
if you use the binary x11 driver by nvidia, do:
# emerge nvidia-kernel
if you use the ndiswrapper (wlan; intel pro wireless bg 2100/2200 etc.):
# emerge ndiswrapper
if you use alsa you might need to remerge alsa-utils:
# emerge alsa-utils

14. if anything had to be emerged in step 13, do
# reboot

15. if everything works fine, you might want to remove the following things:
- previous kernel sources (# rm -rf /usr/src/linux-{your previous gentoo-dev-sources}/)
- previous kernel modules
# rm -rf /lib/modules/{your previous gentoo-dev-sources kernel modules}
- previous kernel in /boot:
# mount /boot
# cd /boot
# rm vmlinuz.old
# rm vmlinuz-{your previous gentoo-dev-sources kernel}
# rm config.old
# rm config-{your previous gentoo-dev-sources kernel}
- adjust /boot/grub/grub.conf accordingly (remove the section of the previous kernel)

have fun :)

Finally, I bought my Logitech MX510 mouse. Works fine, even with Linux (no driver installation or kernel patching required at all, using the latest 2.6.8.1 kernel)! Thanks to the friendly staff at portable-shop who let me test Linux support in the shop at Jelmoli – I guess they were pretty curious to see Gentoo Linux running on a TabletPC :)

BTW I strongly recommend to make use of the new de-spamming feature in MTB 2.x:

Instead of just deleting a spam comment on your blog, rather click on the comment’s de-spam link (displayed at the bottom of the comment in the admin interface) or on the according de-spam link in your comment notification e-mail message. The latter is probably the most convenient way to report a spam comment to the master blacklist. See Neil’s World – MT-Blacklist 2.0 RC6 Screenshots for some more information.

Spam is a distributed problem. Fighting spam is a community effort.

Uh.. I almost forgot to blog about

symlink.ch | Symlink unterstützt Firefox 1.0 Livemarks :)

Soon, there will be a Firefox 1.0 preview..

For the logs and Google: I just found out that Mozilla Thunderbird is pretty clever at handling line wrapping:

“To start with, Thunderbird/Mozilla is pretty cool because it really understands the text/plain; format=flowed content type. This means that you type paragraphs as one big line but the email gets sent with paragraphs wrapped at (something like) 72 characters. And then when you view it again, the line wrapping gets removed and paragraphs flow depending on the size of the viewer pane.”

(Source: madbean.com)

CPU frequency control for notebooks running Windows XP:

SpeedswitchXP