iphitus

http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=168351 dont remember why or when I signed up, but I guess I did. I also haunt the arch linux forums, ~2750 posts there already. Kickass community there too. James

cheetahs are SCSI. the hda was probably the cd drive? maybe it was a bad burn.

busy! http://archlinux.org/~james/041206.png wmii, qtcurve, tango, urxvt, sonata, leafpad, epiphany.

the free one also seems to try and make you feel like a cheapskate by papering "free" everywhere on it.

to add the panel to xchat, you'd need to know C, as afaik there isnt access to the ui from perl. however, to display a panel, you dont need to know any C. perl is capable of launching a seperate gtk window with whatever you like in it, as is python -- both of which xchat supports scripting in -- so if you dont mind a floating window, you could just use those.

USE URPMI urpmi gcc easy!! problem solved. You don't need to compile things on Mandriva. Go and use gentoo if you want to compile everything. Mandriva has packages that are already compiled! they save you the time and effort, use them. James

i dont think anything supports mrc. although irssi, xchat and most linux IRC clients support perl, and a handful python. although it would help to know a little bit more about what you're script is, generics are difficult to work with. James

aye, those little buggers o'er there on the left.

wooo! coffee!

rsync doesnt have to be across the network, it can be between two directories as well. assuming the briefcase is on the usb drive, just do an rsync between the usb drive and the place you have it on the laptop to update it. as for the other way, it ought to work fine too presuming a briefcase appears as a standard directory on the flash drive

don't worry, I see exactly what you mean, I wouldnt use arch on a server either, and I'm a dev. I'd use debian, quicker security updates, and a super stable tree. James

i think you can use boot camp too, as this simulates a bios, but don't quote me on that...

heh, as for gentoo being a 'learning' distro, I see a lot of gentoo users coming over to Arch who havn't learnt anything about how linux works -- only how emerge and the gentoo way works, or have just setup gentoo from a step by step guide, and learnt bugger all about anything during the setup. James

just about every board either has acpi, or a hardware sensor. take a look and get these goin if you can so you can see for yourself. check the fans are working, fans are moving parts, so they can die and/or wear out. if you dont have any way to monitor temp in linux, your bios screen should be able to show it, check out it's idle temp and post back. James

As far as I know, all the important hardware in current macbooks works under linux. iSight i'm not sure of, but wireless, networking, graphics, chipset etc all work. James

arctic: by default here, it doesnt 'toggle' to the other undisplayed processes every few seconds, rather it just updates the top however many displayed listed by cpu usage. to get a better idea of what it's up to, you can do top -b > somelogfile James

when do the apparent slowdowns occur? increasingly as the file is downloaded? or all at once at the end? what are you downloading with? James

ah. you didnt describe this. now we're getting somewhere. generally that sort of situation is caused by, a - an application burning ram, causing the system to oom. b - something is causing load on the system. In your case, it's probably b. a is unlikely because the kernel kills apps that use all remaining ram. What are you doing that can induce this behaviour? Is this reproducible? Downloading large files... shouldnt do that. Does it happen after the download or during? James

read what I said, you're wasting your time trying to fix a problem that doesnt exist. this is normal behaviour. it is normal for the kernel to have large caches in unused ram. there is no disadvantage to having large caches in unused ram. if you dont want swap to occur, remove the swap, but from what i've seen so far practically 0 swap is being used anyway on your system so there's no harm. James

read that again. mandriva ISNT using up all your ram. look at the buffers and cached bits. that's normal. the system always heavily caches recently opened files and things. this is because ram can be freed instantaneously, so using spare ram for caches has no cost or disadvantage whatsoever, because the moment the ram is needed, it just uses up ram that the cache has been in. The result of this is that you get a noticable speed boost starting frequently used programs and files, with no disadvantage whatsoever. This is normal. This is not a bug, no problem here. James

Either way, as I said, refresh rate makes zilch difference on LCD's, it's a technical remnant of CRTs and analog displays.

you dont need to underclock to get a fanless graphics card, there's plenty of vendors that sell affordably priced fanless cards. nvidia's 6600GT for example has a huge range of fanless cards, and plenty of the newer GT's have fanless versions available. I use a fanless gigabyte nvida 6600GT graphics card myself. There's still mobos with plenty of PCI slots, so goin the PCI route isnt impossible, but the older parts you would use are goin to be a bit more difficult to find. James

doesnt make a difference. by default most lcds "run" or accept 60hz anyway.

get an intel core duo based system, the linux support is far better and it will be more reliable. there's plenty of @intel email addresses on LKML -- intel despite some of their fopars, do have a strong interest in linux. Goin with an AMD based system, you're much more likely to find oddities in the chipset support or even minor stability problems -- sure they work, but they take longer to get to the level of stability of the intel chipsets. afaik there are no PCIE4x gfx cards. May as well just get a mobo with two PCIE card slots, there's plenty of them out there. I like asus, but lets not turn this thread into a brand war :) You'll have a hard time finding decent PCI cards, let alone getting them working in anything more than vesa, and I dont think there are many mobos out there now with PCIE and AGP. James

Refresh rates dont matter on LCD/TFT's. On a CRT, it draws the screen, and has to keep drawing the screen otherwise it will fade. On an LCD/TFT, it draws the screen, and whatever it drew remains, so even on a low refresh rate, you will not see any flickering or effects. James