it’s me… henry

When I use GVIM to edit files, I like to have console font and have automatic syntax highlighting.  So, here is my ~/.vimrc

<File ~/.vimrc>
set gfn=Console
syntax on
</File>

I’ve searched and since I’m using the 64-bit version of linux, it doesn’t have the i8k module yet.  So, I searched some more, and found that I need to install dellfand to have the fans work.

Oh… and I found a KDE applet that will show me the speed of the CPUs.  Its called Kima (Kicker monitoring applet).  Very useful to verify what speed the CPUs are on.

So, after I installed cpufreq, I somehow installed cpufreqd.  This caused my cpu to always be max no matter what cpu policy I select.  After trying everything and endless searching on google, I was getting nowhere and about to give up.  But I remember seeing this one post about setting the min and max of cpufreq.  I tried to set the min, and it worked.  Did some more digging around, and I finally can get cpu scaling.  Then I thought it was just a misconfiguration, and now I fixed it.  I rebooted the computer to make sure the settings stayed.

Fingers crossed, and nope, back to the same thing.  So, trying to figure out what was going on, I remembered I installed cpufreq and not cpufreqd on my other laptop.  So I removed cpufreqd, rebooted and everything is back to normal.

Now that I think of it, it must be because cpufreqd takes priority, so even though I set the policy in KPowerManager, cpufreqd checks its rules and says, nope, I’m this policy.

I guess I’m more of a control freak, so I want to control my CPUs and not having a daemon do it for me.

Finally got my new laptop.  A Dell M1330.

Removed Windows.

Had to boot into a live CD to remove hidden partition which is for MediaDirect.  The button which looks a “Home” button next to the power button.  Zero-ed out the whole drive…

$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1024& pid=$!

To check status use:

$ sudo kill -USR1 $pid

After a few hours, we’re ready to install.

I like KDE, so I’m using Kubuntu.

After installing, and first boot into Kubuntu, I want to mount the iso image so I always have the discs. First install smbfs.

$ sudo apt-get install smbfs

Append fstab to mount network drive

//ip/sharename /path/to/mount smbfs username=xxx,password=xxx,rw,user,noauto,exec 0 0

Create the mount paths and change the ownership to myself so I don’t have to always do sudo.

sudo chown xxx.xxx /path/to/mount

Mount the path and transfer iso images.

Edit fstab to always mount iso images

/path/to/filename.iso /path/to/mount iso9660 ro,loop,auto,user 0 0

Add the mounted isos to apt source.  Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add

deb file:///path/to/mount/ hardy main restricted

Only one user, so auto login

Go to “System Settings”, then “Advanced”, then “Login Manager”.  Click “Administrator Mode” and enter password.  Go to “Convenience” and check “Enable Auto-Login”.

This is specfic to M1330.  We must blacklist the driver video, this fixes with brightness being issued more than once when pushed.  Edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

Change the video drivers to use “intel”.  It’s currently as “vesa”, but I want “intel”.  We don’t need to install 915resolution.  But when changing the drivers, we must select the specific monitor and say it is widescreen.

Go to “System Settings”, then “Monitor and Display”.  Click on “Administrator Mode” and type password.  Click on “Hardware” and push “Configure” for “Graphic card: VESA”.  Choose “intel” from the “driver” section.  Then click on “Configure” for “Monitor”.  Select “LCD panel 1280×800″ from “Generic” and make sure the “Image Format” is widescreen.

I like the console font for Konsole.  So lets install the console bitmap font.

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config
$ fc-cache -f -v ~/.fonts

After all this… reboot the laptop to take changes.

 I like gkrellm, so install it.

$ sudo apt-get install gkrellm

A new way of setting up the fan

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4069092&postcount=6

 For some reason, the sound didn’t work… or it was muted.  So, go into right click on KMix, and select “Select Master Channel”, then select “PCM”.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5407780&postcount=8