Luke Ashe-Browne Open source, web technology and feeble attempts at eloquence

Life is a series of compromises.

So here I am, a week and a half on with my nx6110 machine with my old hard drive in operation, and to my delight, things could be far far worse. My Virtual Machine (ala VirtualBox) has performed flawlessly, 3d acceleration is back, and possibly even faster. And wifi is easy, battery life seems also to have imrpoved, possibly due to higher level of active charge/discharge cycles.

As I investigated the graphics configuration, I realized that over thinking the configuration was the key flaw in my approach. I had set too many options in the xorg.conf. Some tol me to go back to the i180 driver, but this package is now in deprecation. The xserver-xorg-video-intel package is the driver of choice as it is being actively developed. I reconfigured using 'dpkg-reconfigure' the x server one more time to reset all options. Added in some virtual ram in the options to ensure it would operate to peak performance (128MB) and didn't try to fiddle anything too much. This lean approach proved the most successful, re-enableing my 3d acceleration and allowing me to enjoy the comfort of compiz-fusion once more.

At one point I found mention of a vbios deficiency in the intel drivers, and mention of the need for a "915resolution" hack/workaround. I believe this is now outdated, the latest opensource drivers cover these issues, so if you are finding this a problem, no need to entertain the vast complications of patching your drivers with extra options and xorg.conf configurations. The Issue was only covering resolutions greater than 1024x768 anyway, so for most normal sized laptops you wont need to concern yourself with it.

However, the mystery of Gnome once more eluded diagnosis. I captured the Xorg.0.log file using $~:/tail -f /var/log/Xorg.0.log > xorg.log.txt So I would have the actual output of the file even if it got reset during X's restart when gnome failed to load. But I only have the clue of a hardware state error being listed, and no solution being presented on google or IRC. So until this issue is resolved, I will live in KDE land. That said KDE does have some nice points,, but the awkwardness of it sometimes makes me resentful of the experience. I wish for the clarity and simplicity that gnome offers, Opting to sit at my desktop rather than use the laptop at times. But I am committed to the data contained and portability that the trusty devices provide. It has allowed me to experiment more enthusiastically with network sharing technologies. samba and NFS are interesting technologies when seeing them in action. http and ftp are old allies of mine, but I think their usefulness is more limited to the world of the 'wubwibweb'.

Of course, ssh as always provides for interesting possibilities, tunneling from one machine to another, streaming video or audio, ad even launching remote X applications, fun for the whole family.

One other deficiency of the nx6110 design is, there is no external/hardware or fn+kb key based  volume switches. I had thought there would be a simple solution or obvious control panel covering the option of extra function key controls, but it was not immediately obvious. Then thanks to the advice of friendly people on irc, I found keytouch, a nice package in the feisty repository that allows the configuration of extra function key shortcuts. Rescued once more by the comprehensiveness of the communities aggregated experiences.

So when faced with a problem, compromising the things that have made you comfortable in the past for new and interesting potential solutions is enriching, and that is life after all.