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yet another experience (yae!)

fortunately, the blog you’re reading won’t let you miss even a single tiny bit of the following extremely interesting and worldshaking news:

i’ve installed windows 98se on my stone-age-notebook! oh yeah baby – that rocks! it’s the most sophisticated os you’ll ever see.

next i’ll try to install onebase linux (features, screenshots), a promising distro i’ve recently discovered on distrowatch.com.

[update: onebase seems to be very similar to gentoo (and other source-based distros) by concept. it’s just not as powerful and flexible but a bit more joe-average-friendly in exchange. now that i realized that onebase still needs to be compiled from scratch, i probably won’t test it on my notebook (as it would take too long)]

that’s all, folks!

ps. sorry, i’ve forgotten to feed the current blogger hypes! ..like the hysteria about that french band.. uh what was its name again? some three letter thingie.. hm.. *cough* ..looks like i’m somewhat lost in translation here. further there seem to be more and more pin striped suits reading business class.. ehm.. flying, of course. apropos flying.. there’s a new virus circulating which forces bloggers prove their savoir-vivre by posting two-tone world maps. sure, that’s almost monotonous, so better publish a book with your blog’s best entries instead. don’t hesitate, the world has been waiting for it too long. or just stick with blogging and become a us-president one day ..eventually, that is. spicing up your blog with blurry pics and juddered video-feeds (a new “dogma”) may serve as afterburners.. eventually. last but not least, don’t forget to make some fun about those trend-followers, hypers and karma whores – that’s trendy and will make you superior and immortal. remember: “you’re unique, just like everybody else” :)

pps. oops, i did it.. be assured it will never happen again ;>

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progeny componentized linux experience

i tried to install the new progeny componentized linux on my notebook, but the kernel of the installation cdrom crashed when probing for pcmcia support (most kernels fail at this point, my notebook seems to have a wacky pcmcia implementation). unfortunately even the “noprobe” kernel option didn’t help. a componentized, debian-based linux is a nice approach however.

currently, i try to install mandrake 10.0 rc1. eventually i’ll also have a look at the new gnustep livecd..

astonishingly most linux livecds easily detect and correctly configure the hw of my somewhat special notebook whereas most distros already fail when booting the installation cdrom. and if they don’t fail at booting, they usually require the administrator/user (iow: me) to configure most things manually. obviously it’s not the linux kernels but the distros’ installers which are responsible for the installation nightmares.

[update: installation of mandrake 10.0 rc1 failed. its installation routine was rather buggy and quite many essential (base-)rpms couldn’t get installed for unknown reasons. the gnustep livecd failed to recognize the ide controller as, even in expert mode, i couldn’t supply the required ide2=0x180,0x386 kernel option. i know i could supply it using grub’s fallback-menu, but this would be bad style for a livecd..]

an ideal linux installation would be: boot knoppix, then let it install itself (including the configuration!) to the hard disk. good news: it can be done, though i’ve never tried it myself. it’s described in the knoppix faq, last question! uhm.. i think i should give it a go :)

[update: the livecd distro morphix seems to be suitable for persistent installation :) ]

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“longhorn” xp-erience

i just tried to install the windows longhorn pre-alpha preview edition (downloaded from http://00001001.ch/students/).. and.. well, you know.. there was a bluescreen 5 seconds after booting the installation cdrom ..which in turn abruptly ended my endeavour. i guess that’s why it’s called pre-alpha ;)

never mind, it’s xp-erimental only..

Posted on

voodoo

time to start believing in voodoo..

first, i figured out that the wlan card (zyxel zyair g-100) i bought upon recommendation (by another lugs-member) is not that great at all.. looks like an increasing number of wlan card manufacturers don’t include flash-eprom chips anymore.. as a consequence, one needs to fiddle with firmware files for using this card with linux. how nasty! and this just because of a lacking 0.10 $ piece i’d gladly overpay with 10 $. thus: don’t buy this card or any other card with a prism54 chip unless you know what you’re doing!

next, i’ve booted my notebook just to find out that its very new 40 gb hdd is broken. it made some rattling noise and that was it. nada, nothing worked anymore.

murphy #1: the data i had on my notebook was the only data i didn’t have backups for (yesterday i remembered i should backup the stuff soon). gone my nice fluxbox-setup, my suse and win xp installations, most of the stuff of my studies, my mindmaps and so on.

murphy #2: i bought this hdd from a shop (computerexpress) that went bankrupt shortly thereafter. can’t return it.

antimurpy #1: murphy #2 doesn’t matter that much as i would never return/send in a hdd containing private data anyway. no way to “dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hda”-it, it’s severly broken.

at least i still had the old hard disk at hand. transplantation went smoothly, patient (i.e. my notebook) is alive again. yet it’s a very regrettable thing. apart from losing my data i now have to live with the ibm-hdd’s much smaller (6 gb instead of 40 gb), slower and louder predecessor again. dang.

this is now the 3rd 2.5″ hdd within 15 months that died (r.i.p.) and for the first time it was my notebook’s hdd (the other two hdds died due to overheating inside my barebone-server). two of these hdds were manufactured by ibm (now hitachi). coincidence?

antimurphy #2: i probably won’t install linux on that 6 gb hdd again. it’s too much of a hassle (my notebooks hw is rather specific) and space is scarce. positive effect: no need to worry about proprietary and silly wlan cards anymore ;)

antimurphy #3: having lost all that data i am at the starting point again. plenty of options, no more legacy stuff.. os-wise i might even try to install longhorn. i doubt this is a good idea (hw is probably not powerful enough), but it might be worth trying.

it’s not only time to start believing in voodoo, it’s probably also time to watch the market for new notebooks/tabletpcs..

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sonyericsson t630 instead of a smartphone

i’ve just read mobileburn’s review of the sonyericsson t630. seems to be a decent mobile phone more or less suiting my needs. of course they could drop polyphonic ringtones, games and outlook synchronization as i don’t use any of these. but the rest looks fine: it’s small, it’s handy and robust, it features a nice and bright screen and a sleek design, a good calendar/pim application and a long battery lifetime.

i’m pretty disappointed about the currently available smartphones (among them the p900). on one hand, they lack some of the features i’d really need, on the other hand they offer features i’d never use anyway:

need:

* connectivity: wlan/ieee 802.11b (featuring a switch on/off button). there are more and more public wlan networks and i like the spreading of autonomous citizen wlan networks in urban areas. wlan is the default wireless technology both in business and private environments. my home’s default connectivity is wlan, neither bluetooth nor gprs. i wouldn’t need rs232, bluetooth or irda support if there were wlan support.
* weight and size: a lightweight & small device i can easily carry in any veston/trouser pocket. i don’t like to carry “bricks” like the p900 (or even worse: the pocketpc pdas). what’s the worth of a reminder alarm if you don’t carry your smartphone/pda with you? i’m willing to accept a smaller screen size as a trade-in.
* robustness: similarly i don’t like to carry devices in leather cases. the device should therefore be robust enough to be carried in a pocket without any wrapping.
* handwriting recognition: i’d like to be able to write as i’m used to – using normal letters, not cryptic ones such as required by most currently available devices.
* operating system: i want a relatively open os. i.e. an os that allows me to develop applications using c/c++ and java. for example it should be possible to develop a customized data synchronization tool.
* slots: it should have an extension slot for additional memory. i favor an sd slot as i already have some sd cards and they’re good value.
* battery: battery lifetime should be at least 4 days (average use)
* emission and transmission: i’d like to have low emission yet reasonably good transmission quality

don’t need:

* camera/mms: i don’t necessarily need any camera and/or mms capabilities. quality is too bad so far, so there isn’t much to gain here.
* ms-compatibility: i don’t need outlook synchronization as i don’t use outlook (better: ldap synchronisation). i don’t need ms excel or ms word mini-applications as i seldom use excel or word. if there are any such tools included, they should support open file formats (text, rtf, html, xml..).
* games: i don’t need any games on the device. they’re nothing but memory hogs for me.
* ringtones: i don’t need dozens of built-in ringtones as i only use vibra notification.

unfortunately, none of the existing smartphones comes close to my needs. amazingly, even simple mobile phones such as the t630 are more suitable for my purpose. i guess i’ll go for the latter.

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new concept mobile phones

while looking for reviews of cool smartphones i’ve just stumbled over these two pages on mobileburn.com showing concept mobile devices from ces ’04. i particularly like the idea behind sharp’s new 3d screens. amazingly simple and obviously it works.. conclusion: in geekness, urban japanese folks are way ahead of the rest of the world ;)

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google comes to zurich, switzerland :)

nzz: google kommt nach zürich (in german)

welcome in switzerland, google! :)

here’s nzz’s interview with urs hölzle (in german) (his google hp). Interesting. I like urs hölzle’s side-blow to the overly complicated us visa application customs :) concluding from his answers, zurich/switzerland seems to be a really good place for google’s european r&d branch office.. promising and probably a sign for other us companies to open a branch office in switzerland too ;)

[update: symlink-story (german), jobs at google’s branch office in zurich. google will be at the vis kontaktparty on feb 2]