Nvidia Woes in Linux - (K)ubuntu Feisty

I've been tooling around with Compiz-Fusion in Linux. It's pretty neat, but my old graphics card wasn't up to the task so I bought a cheapo $28 fanless Nvidia GeForce 6200 128 MB AGP. There are some interesting caveats to getting an Nvidia card working in Linux, particularly (K)ubuntu.

If you install the drivers from Nvidia's website (which I suggest because those are always the latest and most up-to-date), you have to disable the module that is packaged in linux-restricted-modules-common:

sudo vim /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common DISABLED_MODULES="nv"

Then be sure to remember to delete any files in /lib/linux-restricted-modules/:

sudo rm /lib/linux-restricted-modules/.nvidia_new_installed sudo rm /lib/linux-restricted-modules/.nvidia_legacy_installed

Those hidden files are created if you've ever installed Nvidia drivers from the (K)ubuntu repositories, but for some reason, they are not deleted if you uninstall (as in the case when before you install from Nvidia's website).

Then just run the Nvidia installer, reboot and you should be all set.

Many thanks to adamk in this thread.

Is a Mac really worth it?

I've been toying with the idea of getting a Mac for a while now. I'd like both a MacBook as well as a Mac Mini. I'm not a normal computer user, so these would be the upgrades I'd get for each of them:

• 2 gb memory
• 7200 rpm hard drive
• Superdrive (aka a dvd burner)

Both the MacBook and the Mac Mini come with 1 gb of memory via two 512 mb sticks. Guess how many memory slots each one has? You guessed it! If you want to upgrade to 2 gb, you can't reuse any of the memory that originally came with the machines.

You cannot add a Superdrive a la carte. You must order the higher end model of each machine to get it.

The 7200 rpm hard drive is about a $100 aftermarket upgrade.

So all said and done, that $500 Mac Mini is looking more like $800 and that $1100 MacBook is looking like $1500.

Now I can upgrade my current computer to have a much faster Core 2 Duo processor than either of those Macs, along with a video card that easily beats them, for a grand total of $400.

"Yeah, but OS X has the best, most badass, eye candy interface ever!" Ehh. Check out this video of what is going to be included in the default installation of (K)ubuntu Linux (released in 10 days).

So now I gotta ask myself... is TextMate really worth $400 to $1100?

Getting PPTP to work with KNetworkManager on Kubuntu 7.04 Fiesty Fawn

I'm blogging this so I don't forget in the future. At the time of this writing, the issues are known and recorded on bugs.launchpad.net, but I'm not sure if they are fixed yet, hence the following steps.

1. sudo aptitude install network-manager-pptp network-manager-gnome
2. restart knetworkmanager
3. When you create a new VPN connection, in step 2 of 2, make sure to select a "Type"!!! It will initially be blank and if you leave it blank when you hit "forward", your connection name will forever be unusable!
4. Restart computer (sorry, I don't know which specific daemon needs to be restarted).

See this pic for the below for what I mean about the blank "Type" select.

If you leave it blank and hit forward, a file will be made using the "Connection Name" you entered in. That file will be corrupt and you won't be able to fix it (via any part of this GUI), so you'll effectively have to start over and use a different connection name.

Here are links to the two bugs concerning these issues:

Bug #74351 VPN connections configure dialog doesn't work on knetworkmanager
Bug #89120 VPN Connection not added...