HP6720s and Xorg's intel driver
2009-10-05, 22:47:39
Recently I have noticed very ugly video glitches in both Ubuntu and Gentoo while switching between tty and X. I've found a solution on Gentoo Wiki page.
Gentoo and local domain name
2009-09-07, 21:58:21
(Gentoo Odyssey, next part)
Gentoo Handbook precisely describes how to set a local domain name, but unfortunately it does not work. Why? I don't know.
Gentoo strikes back
2009-09-03, 20:33:09
Two years ago I decided to leave Gentoo and install Ubuntu Linux. The reason was very obvious: I bought a new laptop and I wanted to run any Linux system out of the box.
Emacs and Ubuntu — annoying issues
2009-08-17, 22:14:29
A few years ago I was happy Gentoo user until I bought a laptop and decided to install Ubuntu Linux on it. Some things work better, but some things not. One of the most irritating issues is Emacs support.
Paradise Lost
2009-06-15, 22:32:57
(Previously I was talking about my problems with CD and DVD burning tools)
Few months ago my DVD burner broke with no particular reason. I was able to read a disc or try to burn it (but newly burnt discs were always invalid)
Getting rid of GNOME desktop
2009-05-10, 22:05:14
The latest release of GNOME in Ubuntu Linux distribution comes with a few annoying issues which makes this excellent desktop environment completely unusable. The most important issue is about running an indexer tool in the background — it consumes 97% of CPU and a lot of memory. I have tried to switch it off, but I haven't found yet what exactly runs this indexer (by the way, this indexer collects data for a weird wtf-service, which I did not order).
Ubuntu Linux and mastering CD/DVDs
2009-05-10, 21:46:31
Few years ago I have been using mkhybrid and cdrecord tools to prepare ISO images and to burn them. They worked very well, although command line tools are not very user-friendly. I thought that using utilities with GUI will be much more easier — I can easily select which files are to be used during the compilation (and another parameters)
This was bad thinking. In the latest Ubuntu Linux version I found gnomebaker and brasero, both for the same purposes, but I must use both of them and I don't know why.
Wardrobe full of treasures: IceWM
2009-04-24, 22:38:01
I have bought my first PC in late 2001. That is, it was literally mine, not shared with the rest of my family.
Those days I was a big fan of Slackware Linux Distribution (I have created a lot of Slack packages for my own purposes and I often admired this distro for simplicity) which was the best choice for my lowend PC.
Windows XP WTF issue
2009-04-02, 22:02:28
Windows XP wtf issue
Few months ago I have installed MS Zune theme for Windows XP; just for testing purposes.
Never mind the look and feel; one day I decided to remove it. Remove, using `Add/remove programs` utility.
That was a mistake.
Yes.
A big mistake.
HP6720s, Nokia 6300 and bluetooth
2008-09-04, 22:37:22
Few months ago I have received Nokia 6300 cellphone. It's quite nice cellphone model with many excellent features.
Someday I wanted to examine how bluetooth connection between the cellphone and my HP6720s laptop.
What a pity I have ever thought about it!
Fedora 8 Live and HP Compaq 6720s
2008-05-10, 21:35:17
Recently I have received a CD with Fedora 8 Live (KDE version). I decided to run it on my home notebook.
Using resources in win32 applications (I)
2008-04-16, 13:27:26
Windows executable file (or dynamic library) can contain so-called „resources'' — embedded read-only data. Windows API offers set of routines to manipulate these data in an easy way — for instance it is much easier to load and show prepared dialog box than to create it via many API calls.
Most popular resource types are: menus, dialogs, icons, versions, raw data, etc.
Resource scripts
(Microsoft recommends to have .rc extension for resource scripts and .res extension for compiled resources)
Resources script is a plain text file with resource definitions to be compiled into binary form and finally linked with executable file.
mingw32 distribution comes with windres tool — resource compiler.
Ubuntu 8.04 and HP 6720s
2008-04-14, 13:48:44
A few months ago I have writted an article about Ubuntu 7.x and my HP-Compaq 6720s. Things have changed and now no workarounds are necessary to install Ubuntu Linux on this notebook.
Revolution 2007
2008-01-08, 14:17:43
2007 was a year of rapid and revolutionary changes. Not only in my social, private or professional activities but also in my geeky part of life.
Python vs me (I)
2007-12-20, 13:23:36
After a whole day of intensive python development I tried to run my program, but I got following error:
'import site' failed; use -v for traceback
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "gke.py", line 3, in ?
import gtk
ImportError: No module named gtk
Removing Vista
2007-12-18, 09:47:56
About two months ago I have installed Windows Vista on my laptop. I've heard a lot of bad comments about this version of Windows and unfortunately some of them are true: Vista is incredibly slow and it boots much longer than XP. I decided to remove it because I have no time to use three systems (Ubuntu Linux, Windows XP and Vista)
Creating layouts in GTK+ applications
2007-11-13, 23:21:14
Creating nice layout in GTK+ application is very easy when you obey some rules.
Fixed layouts
Why are fixed layouts bad and should not be used? Many win32 programmers use MSVC resource editor to construct dialogs. These dialogs have fixed size, fixed font (setting larger font causes the disaster to your application) but, in fact, most of MS Windows users uses the default configuration and do not even try to change the settings (except the wallpaper...); GTK+ allows the users to change everything in the look and feel (theme), especially font faces and sizes in the controls. Main developer task is to design the UI to look good everywhere — widgets provided by GTK+ make this task extremely easy.
Sharp fonts in Gnome?
2007-10-31, 09:27:17
Recently I found a how-to describing the way to set a sharp fonts in gnome/ubuntu. The result was awful (squares instead of characters in interface)
There are my observations below:
HP 6720s and Ubuntu
2007-10-22, 08:58:50
NOTE: This entry appeared in Nov 2007 — newest Ubuntu was 7.04; 7.10 reached public beta status. 8.04 and newer versions should install out of the box
Two days ago my fiancee bought HP Compaq 6720s laptop for me. I have never used a laptop for my typical tasks, only the old, pentium-iii based ThinkPad to browse the web via Firefox.
The laptop came with FreeDOS — okay, no need to pay for MS Vista, but it actually means that I have no drivers, necessary for this computer. I have installed Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (fortunately, it works with sata disks) — now the graphics adapter acts like SVGA (800x600), there is no lan/wifi, audio and so on. It will probably take a few days to complete all the drivers, but the superficial googling shows that HP prepared these drivers primarily for MS Vista.
How to build GTK+ application for win32
2007-08-23, 10:32:23
Introduction
Ten years ago Tor Lillqvist aka tml ported gtk+ and gimp to Windows. Now we can enjoy GIMP, XChat, Pidgin, Inkscape and other popular Linux/X11 applications in win32. If you created a nice gtk+ application for Linux/X11, maybe it's time to port it to Windows.
Installation
http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/downloads.html contains the links to latest builds of gtk+ for Windows. These builds are not always up to date, but fairly enough to build an application (e.g. for testing or development purposes). You should download the following libraries: gtk+, glib, atk, pango, cairo, libiconv, gettex, libpng (in this article it is assumed that mingw32 will be used)
