Comments for The CTRL freak

Comment on Thunderbird flies in the face of reason by ImportExport Tools: A Thunderbird essential « The CTRL freak

ImportExport Tools: A Thunderbird essential « The CTRL freak — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:22:17 +0000

[...] Tools: A Thunderbird essential Posted on April 23, 2009 by Steven Rosenberg Remember my last post about how Thunderbird didn’t have a proper import/export function? Since then I discovered, [...]

Comment on I conquer the fan by YDing

YDing — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 04:48:23 +0000

It really works! Thanks.
Now the PC is very quiet.

However, on my Compaq Presario PC, I need to use:
echo 3 > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN1/state
instead of
echo 3 > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN0/state

don’t know why.
–
YDing

Comment on I conquer the fan by Steven Rosenberg

Steven Rosenberg — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:47:03 +0000

Look at these two entries:

http://www.insidesocal.com/click/2008/03/debian-lenny-freebsd-7-openbsd.html
http://thectrlfreak.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/the-modprobe-squad/

Basically you have to put this line in /etc/rc.local:

echo 3 > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN0/state

But in Puppy, you ALSO have to enable two modules: thermal and fan.

To test this from the command line, open up a terminal in Puppy and do the following:

# modprobe fan
# modprobe thermal
# echo 3 > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN0/state

After running these three commands, your CPU fan should be managed by ACPI, and it will turn on when the CPU gets too hot.

To have this happen automatically, as I said, put the echo 3 > /proc/acpi/fan/FAN0/state line in /etc/rc.local, and put the names of the two modules, fan and thermal in whatever file calls modules at boot time.

I just saw this page: http://www.puppylinux.com/technical/module-loading.htm

It says the Puppy Boot Manager can help you load modules at boot. I would check how I did it on my old Puppy install, but I’ve since wiped that drive and don’t have the pup_save anymore.

Still, all you need to figure out is how to load those two modules, then modify /etc/rc.local, and you’ll be good to go.

Comment on I conquer the fan by YDing

YDing — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 05:04:06 +0000

Hi, Steve,

Do you the how-to for the fan control with Puppy Linux that you had tried?

I installed the Puppy Linux 4 on a Compaq Presario desktop PC, and the fan keeps spinning all the time.

Thanks a lot.
–
YDing

Comment on WordPress vs. Blogger by Wordpress Banner Exchange

Wordpress Banner Exchange — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 04:47:25 +0000

One of the most effective ways of driving traffic to a blog is often a banner exchange that shares the same genere. This is the source of a large number of repeat visitors when quality content is presented.

Comment on gOS may not have a GUI network-configuration utility … but it does have Gparted by Steven Rosenberg

Steven Rosenberg — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 05:54:02 +0000

I used Puppy 3.00 to partition a drive recently, and gparted seemed to work just fine; the scan was just as quick as I remembered it.

That said, I’ve been using the ~~Partition~~ Parted Magic live CD for most of my partitioning work. I also have the Gparted live CD, but I’ve had more success on my various computers with Partition Magic. I recommend it highly.

But … I do love Puppy 3.00.

Comment on gOS may not have a GUI network-configuration utility … but it does have Gparted by Harry

Harry — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 10:43:14 +0000

Anyway to make puppy g parted quicker?

Comment on Slackware 11 — could it work on the $0 Laptop? Not that it doesn’t respond well to Debian, Ubuntu and Puppy by Thunk Different.

Thunk Different. — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:14:34 +0000

Fun name

Comment on Zenwalk Live 4.8 by Steven Rosenberg

Steven Rosenberg — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 20:33:19 +0000

decentralist, I think that Zenwalk may be giving different names to your other filesystems, so copying and pasting might not be working. I suggest a search in the Zenwalk forums. Both Zenwalk and Vector have GREAT users who are eager to help in their forums. The Slackware forum in Linux Questions is almost as good, but not quite. But since Zenwalk and Vector are Slack-based, anything you find out there will probably work in any of the three distros.

joe f, I agree that the Zenwalk tools — especially the ZenPanel, which is slowly improving from release to release — are what make it a better choice for the Slack user who wants to stay with Xfce as opposed to KDE. But you can certainly run Xfce in Slack and just use the KDE tools when you need them. If you do a Xfce install of Debian, for instance, you don’t get enough tools to properly run the system. Better to do a standard GNOME install and add Xfce later when it comes to Debian. At least Slackware has pkgtool, xwmconfig, netconfig and all the other great Slack utilities that work with any (or no) window manager. And those tools are still there in Vector and Zenwalk.

I wish Debian had all of those tools. My basic Debian system, which I built up myself from the “standard” install, could use all those Slack-type utilities. As it is, I have to configure everything manually, since I only have Fluxbox, along with the standard aptitude text front-end for apt. Apt is great, obviously, but pkgtool gives you more control, even though it’s neither as quick or easy as apt.

Fluxbox is great. It’s usually treated as an afterthought and not well-configured in most distros. That includes Debian and Slackware, in my opinion. Fluxbox CAN be really tricked-out and still run great. Just look at Damn Small Linux or AntiX. At least in Vector, Fluxbox looks nice (and runs great, too).

Comment on KDE showdown: Slackware vs. Debian by Steven Rosenberg

Steven Rosenberg — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 20:20:13 +0000

I will have to try Dropline GNOME. Looks like it’s in the pre-release stage.

I’ve had enough issues with apt in the past few days — the klunkiness of how it works with KPackage, not being able to get digiKam into my Ubuntu 7.04 box with Ubuntu’s Add/Del software utility — that I’m beginning to appreciate the relative simplicity of Slack’s pkgtool more and more.

Now if only I could figure out why I can install Slackware/Vector/Zenwalk on my Gateway Solo 1450 laptop but can’t boot it afterward. It’s not X-related because I can’t even get to a console login (default for Slackware anyway). It must be PCMCIA or SCSI related. I’ll have to try passing some boot parameters to knock out those services when I configure LILO (and I should learn how LILO works … coming from so many Debian and Ubuntu installs, I pretty much use GRUB).

That said, I know that GRUB and the utility to set it up are on the third Slackware disc, but I’d like to be able to choose GRUB or LILO during the initial install …