Installing Red Hat

Posted by rae in software
at 9:46 pm on Tuesday, 25 November 2003

Originally, I was going to use Mandrake Linux 9.2 for the Media PC upstairs. However, I quickly found out (a) that it had a bad reputation for being a buggy release, and (b) it was too buggy for me to use. I was experiencingbizarre stuff like CD’s not being readable, or showing bits and pieces of the CD at the root level with nothing else. Really bizarre stuff.

I am hoping that maybe it was a mis-configuration of some sort. Well, in any case, I downgraded to Mandrake 9.1 and the install went smoothly. However, I was still seeing problems with a DVD I got from Linux Format magazine.

As well, many things like the ATi drivers for Linux and MythTV’s RPMs are pre-built for Red Hat. So, although Red Hat recently tossed it in for consumer releases, I’ve decided to go with the last consumer release of Red Hat, version 9. It’s been out for a while, so it should be pretty stable by now. Plus, when I install the ATi drivers and MythTV, it should all just plain work.

To be extra paranoid, I am doing the optional CD check before I start the install. I think it’s doing some sort of md5 checksum or something to ensure that the data on the CD is correct. It’s testing disc 3 now. It takes about 3 minutes per disc.

Oh, I’ve also ripped the WinTV card out of tnir to pu in the Media Machine. This means no webcam for a while. I may hook up something with the iSight, but as you saw, it was pretty dim.

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Mom’s website

Posted by rae in family
at 9:43 am on Tuesday, 25 November 2003

I’m starting to set up my Mom’s website. She bought the domain losthighwayart.ca and last night I managed to get it pointed at tnir. Now all we need to do is to put up more than “coming soon” text. :-)

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Problem with Luisa’s blog

Posted by rae in family
at 6:55 pm on Friday, 14 November 2003

Not sure what it is — it looks like it may be a problem with the database being corrupt? I’m not sure. Fortunately, you can still read Luisa’s most recent posts in the October archives.

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Sick today.. bleaugh

Posted by rae in Reid
at 11:25 am on Thursday, 13 November 2003

My formerly only-annoying nasal infestation has migrated down to my lungs. Bah.

There, aren’t you glad you checked my page? :-D

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No digital pics (except webcam) for a while

Posted by rae in web site
at 10:19 am on Wednesday, 12 November 2003

We sent our Olympus D5xx-Zoom (515? 550? not sure..) off to get fixed, so there won’t be an abundance of digital pics on my page for a bit. The pics of the tree falling for instance have to wait until we finish off the roll in the camera and get them developed.

Actually, I still have a number of pics to scan for Luisa from Argentina. Scanning has been on the back-burner though while the new hardware arrives. G5 today! Wooo!

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Welcome Jamie!

Posted by rae in friends
at 10:06 am on Wednesday, 12 November 2003

John and Kristen had a baby boy yesterday, John James Chew IV (”Jamie”)! Kristen’s labour was long, and ultimately resulted in a Cesarian birth.

Now the obvous question is, what will the poslid be? John is ‘jjcpi’, so perhaps ‘jjciv’? Or ‘jjc4′, in the tradition of r2e2 :-)

Are there any magical “4″ numbers out there?

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Tuesday Night Terror!!

Posted by rae in hardware
at 10:00 am on Wednesday, 12 November 2003

Iain came over last night and we built the two PCs.

As you can see we were quite busy! :-)

The end result was that the MediaMachine (hostname ‘media’) is all set up, with Mandrake 9.1 installed and happy, although the video settings need to be tweaked as it looks like it isn’t using the ATi drivers.

The gaming box, however, is another story.

We were unable to get Windowsd XP to install on it at all. XP failed to “find” the Serial ATA drive. As a test, we started to install Mandrake on it, and it seemed to find it and start formatting it just fine. We killed it while it was doing a low-level format on the drive and returned to our attempts for Windows.

We went so far as to install a floppy drive (which we left sitting on the floor) so that we could try to install drivers for the Serial ATA drive. (Windows would not look on a CD for the drivers for whatever reason.) No luck.

Iain is coming back tonight with another floppy drive and other stuff to see if we can get around this problem. It may be that we will *have* to install a P-ATA drive temporarily or something; I don’t know. The key to it all is that the motherboard did not come with a specific floppy that has the drivers on it. Also a failure was our attempt at dragging various files off the motherboard’s install CD (which looks like it expects to be used *after* Windows is installed), hoping that Windows XP will pick them up.

It’s funny, this is the first instance I’ve experienced where Linux is easier/more compatible to install than Windows. Huh.

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A cure for stomach aches

Posted by rae in family
at 1:41 pm on Wednesday, 5 November 2003

Michael called Luisa and I at work today at lunchtime (around 12:55ish) saying his stomach hurt.

When Luisa heard this, she replied evilly (is that a word?), saying “Well, gee Michael, I wish you had told me earlier so I wouldn’t have gotten these Matrix tickets.”

“For tonight?” came the incredulous query.

“Ya, the 7:30 show. But now it looks like you won’t be able to go so..”

(slightly sheepishly) “Well, I think I’ll be feeling better by then…”

A cure! We have found a cure for stomach aches! Just open a multi-million dollar, effects-laden blockbuster and threaten that the victim can’t go if they’re not feeling well..

Fun With Parenting 101.

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A tale of two webcams

Posted by rae in web site
at 9:43 am on Wednesday, 5 November 2003

I will be taking the WinTV card out of the Linux box soon to do some testing for our living-room MediaBox I am building. The thought occurs that I could use the iSight as a webcam. I found some software that lets you do this and tried it out last night/this morning. Below are some comparison pictures from the iSight and the old webcam. The iSight software an “evaluation” copy, so I get a watermark in these tests.

8:00 am


iSight


webcam

8:15 am


iSight


webcam

8:30 am


iSight


webcam

8:45 am


iSight


webcam

So it seems as if the iSight is a lot clearer, but not as sensitive. But perhaps that is just the current setting of the iSight? I noticed (in using iChat) that the iSight does have an auto-focus (mine got stuck on macro and everything was fuzzy for a while). I wonder if that can be turned off — you don’t really want a webcam to auto-focus all the time when it’s only taking one picture every 15 minutes.

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New Hardware

Posted by rae in hardware
at 12:55 am on Wednesday, 5 November 2003

Ya, okay it’s another computer entry — sorry!

I’ve been on a bit of a hardware-buying spree recently. Some of it is motivated byt tax reasons, of all things. In order to claim hardware expenses against this year’s income, the hardware has to be purchased this year as well. So I am currently awating delivery of a 2 GHz dual G5, and am in the midst of buying some PC hardware as well.

One PC will be a Linux box, sitting in our living room. It will be our VCR and DVD player, and I will do a bit of Linux development on it. Ain’t X Windows great? :-)

The other PC will be my new “main” PC and I will terrorize my fellow Quake and Halo players with it!

The G5 should arrive within a week, and I bought some PC hardware today and will be buying more tomorrow. Actually, part of my G5 order has already arrived in the form of an iSight firewire camera. I’ve been using it to chat with mostly Iain and Andrew so far. Jeff, Mark, Don, and Sergey all have one, so I look forward to more interesting conversations in the future! :-)

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