Author: Daniel Mettler

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farewell suse, welcome debian ;)

when upgrading suse 9.0 to suse 9.1 yesterday early morning, my workstation’s setup got screwed. it wasn’t suse’s fault (one of the cdroms was bad) but nevertheless i had to cancel a party due this unexpected incident (it was my only working desktop linux setup and therefore mission critical for my diploma thesis). as i couldn’t solve the problems, i decided to switch to debian instead (currently “testing”, will upgrade to “unstable” asap). so far, a rather positive experience. debian boots faster, debian shuts down faster and even kde 3.2 runs faster on it (despite of lacking pre-linking!). for installing it, i’ve used the new debian sarge netinst beta4 installer. had still some flaws (e.g. screen resolution was not set correctly, dns settings had to be fixed manually, keyboard settings weren’t correct), but overall, it’s surprisingly stable already.

nb. i still think that suse is doing a great job as a distro (very convenient to use and well integrated). but now as i switched to debian for my desktop, i’ll probably install debian on my tabletpc too, thus standardizing on debian and windows xp for workstations and gentoo for servers.

good news: finally, my toshiba portégé m200 has arrived at the ssd-shop :) i’ll pick it up tomorrow. i’ll use the opportunity to also order a logitech mx510 optical mouse, a lite-on 431 sx slim dvd +/- burner (external, usb 2.0) and a replacement battery for an old vaio.

[update 20040512: ssd’s supplier didn’t have the mx510 on stock, so i decided to buy it elsewhere (i need it now, not in 2 months ;).. unfortunately it’s sold out already in the only shop in zurich where i’ve seen it a couple of days ago. no surprise for me (hey, it’s the ultimate gamer mouse :), but obviously for logitech and partners. i’ve made a reservation so i’ll get it asap.
further i decided to order the lite-on 431 sx slim dvd +/- burner (external, usb 2.0) at fuerst-informatik.ch, who offered it for a really good price with (as i was told) quick delivery. further, as i’ve surprisingly noticed that my portégé m200 features 802.11b/g (not only b), i will also order a new wlan access point: linksys wrt54gs which can be equipped with embedded linux: Linux on the WRT54G, LinksysWrt54g – SeattleWireless:)]

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Technical/business English

Recently, Christian gave an interesting talk how to write correct technical/business English. I hope I can adopt the rules he mentioned, both for my technical writing in papers and in this weblog. Concerning this weblog, I should most importantly try to avoid any expressions that might be perceived as rude, offensive or in any other way inappropriate. This probably isn’t as easy as it sounds as different cultures perceive things differently.

The slides of Christian’s presentation are available on request only (Send him an e-mail message). As a good starting point, he also recommends reading “The Elements of Style” by William Strunk, Jr. which appears to be a classic. Another good web resource: The following Wiki entry.

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No more HTML-ONLY mail

If you send me an e-mail message, please make sure it is in TEXT-ONLY format. All mail in HTML-ONLY format will be marked as SPAM and therefore remain unanswered (messages containing both HTML and TEXT should pass though). Likewise, ANY mail with more than 80% blank lines will be considered as being SPAM.

Thanks for your understanding.

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ergonomically nice mice

currently i’m looking for a mouse with good usability/ergonomics and control. two promising candidates i’ve found so far:

logitech mx510 performance optical mouse (800 dpi/cpi, 5.8 mpixels/s data rate, up to 15g acceleration) (the u.s. model is red as opposed to the european model which is blue)
reviews: hardware pacers, geekextreme, extremetech, gaming nexus. brand new. should offer excellent control (it’s targeted towards hc gamers ;). eventually remove the removable little weight element [picture]

razor viper optical (1000 dpi/cpi, ?? mpixels/s, ?? g)
reviews: ex hardware, tom’s hardware. brand new. razor is renown for gamer gear. probably best control but not very handy for everyday use as it lacks back and forward buttons and other nice features the mx510 offers.

as i don’t intend to use the mouse exclusively for gaming purposes (i mostly use simulators, not fps) i’ll probably go for the logitech mx510 performance optical mouse due to its features (has more buttons).. looking forward to test-driving it :)

btw. it’s a pity that manufacturers don’t offer any truly smoothly scrolling mice.. and last but not least: i don’t like wireless mice for a number of reasons..

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wheelmice and suse 9.0

as i couldn’t post my comment on maol’s recent blog entry (eventually due to a strange konqueror weirdness), i’m posting it here:

Bei mir funktioniert die Radmaus (Intellimouse Exploder 3.0) mit SuSE 9.0 prima (x86, nicht AMD64). XF86Config-Auszug:

Section “InputDevice”
Driver “mouse”
Identifier “Mouse[1]”
Option “Buttons” “5”
Option “Device” “/dev/mouse”
Option “Name” “Autodetection”
Option “Protocol” “imps/2”
Option “Vendor” “Sysp”
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5”
EndSection

[..]

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Layout[all]”
InputDevice “Keyboard[0]” “CoreKeyboard”
InputDevice “Mouse[1]” “CorePointer”
Option “Clone” “off”
Option “Xinerama” “off”
Screen “Screen[0]”
EndSection