The Junk In My Trunk

I wish I had a business card like this.

Update 20090225: I am no longer offering these services. Yeah!

So I’ve been trying to put Debian Etch on my Thinkpad T20 that I have. It doesn’t have an LCD screen, so I am going to use it as an mp3 “server” type of computer - possibly for my car. It’s been quite a process. My first problem was that my particular Thinkpad didn’t have on board lan, so the net install cd that I was using couldn’t get an Internet connection. I thought this was going to be a problem, but after some experimentation it turned out to be a good thing (Debian has some issues with PCMCIA wireless card drivers getting an IP address correctly from a DHCP server I guess).

I had some network card issues with a PCMCIA wireless network card that I have, but I figure those issues aren’t related to the ThinkPad, so I’ll leave them off of this post.

Instead, I’ll talk about the sound card that the T20 has. (This also applies to the T21 and T22 I believe.) The Thinkpad T20 has a Cirrus Logic sound card that uses the cs46xx module. This module is built into all new linux kernels - except one tiny catch: Debian’s kernels don’t have it enabled (I believe for license reasons). This also means that even if you try to compile an ALSA module for it, it wont work - it will say that your kernel has ALSA support built in already. So - you have to recompile the kernel and enable this specific module to get it working. That really sucks - I know. But, I’ve already done the work for you - and here are the debian packages:

Linux Kernel Image File - 2.6.24.1-etchnhalfwithcs46xx (deb)
Linux Kernel Header File - 2.6.24.1-etchnhalfwithcs46xx (deb)

To install these files, simply copy them to your /usr/src/linux directory and then run the following commands as root:

dpkg -i (image file name)
dpkg -i (header file name)

Then simply reboot and your new kernel will be installed and selected as default in Grub - and you’ll have sound (you’ll also need ALSA installed of course).

Please don’t post linux questions in the comments, as I am fairly new to linux my self and I wont be able to help you. But this is my solution for getting sound to work on a ThinkPad T20 with Debian Etch - results that took me many hours of work to figure out. I hope it helps someone out - even though the T20 is SUPER old!

On Friday of last week my dad came over. He got to our house at around 8:30pm. We left for Arkansas around 7am the next morning. His van didn’t have any heat, and it was freezing in Michigan. Over the night, we got some serious snow. It was a stressful start to our week.

We finnally got to my grandparents house 18 hours later. A trip that was supposed to take no more then 14 hours, took 4 hours longer then that because of snow, snow, snow, and more snow. I hate snow.

And right away it was obvious that this was going to be a long week. I never realized this before, but my grandparents are hard to get a long with! It’s not that they are bad people - they are great people. It’s just that they come from a totally different generation then we do. And it isn’t even just that, it’s that they come from a totally differet part of the country then we do - which makes everything from our political views, to our religious views, to our eating habbits different.

It is Thursday now, and most of the week is over. I THINK we are going to leave tomorrow to head back to Michigan. We are going to make it a two day trip this time and spend the night somewhere along the way.

But as the week goes on, things have gotten better. we are all getting along, and possibily even having a little fun. Lets hope the rest of the week continues to get better!

Well, today I had a punch biopsy. I thought that the actual procedure was going to the scary part, but it turns out that my pregnant wife passing out and landing on the floor right as they cut me was the really scary part!

I thought the procedure was going to hurt, but they numbed it completly and I didn’t feel a thing. It was almost fun actually. But Tara passed our right as they started cutting me, so I was on the table bleeding and my poor wife was on the floor and there wasn’t much I could do to help her. I tried to catch her as she fell, but I wasn’t in a position where I could. But she woke up right away, and the doctor wasn’t worried. We also called her mid-wife and she wasn’t concerned either. So I guess we are in the clear - but it was an experience we will probably remember for a long time!

screen shot of opensuse 11 with 3d desktop effects, linux terminal in desktop, and 3d wallpaper

I am the kind of person who is minimalistic. For the majority of the past 11 years, I’ve had nothing but a black desktop, with no wall paper, no desktop effects, and everything functional. I had two reasons for this: 1) It was fast and didn’t slow my computer down. 2) It was easy on the eyes - easy to find a white mouse on a black desktop. (I’m visually impaired.)

But since I’ve installed OpenSUSE 11 on my computer and enabled 3d Desktop Effects, my computer has actually been MORE functional, not less. And it still runs even processor intensive applications very easily without slowing down. So I thought it was high time for me to break the black and take the plunge into a graphical desktop wallpaper. But I’ve never liked anything I’ve ever found on the internet, and finding a premade wallpaper that fits my dual monitor setup without stretching is slim pickings.

So, I made my own. This is a simple black background with a dark gray gradient and the OpenSUSE logo with a drop shadown. It doesn’t look like much in the picture becuase you are probably viewing it on a single monitor, but if viewed on a dual monitor setup like I have, it looks great because the logo is on the bottom left corner of the right monitor.

Also, I have 3d desktop effects enabled. You can’t see them here, but I have 3d cube with 6 virtual desktops, a zoomed out mirrored image of all 6 virtual desktops if you move your mouse to the top left corner of the screen, and a card deck view of all open windows accecable with a keyboard shortcut.

What you can see here is my terminal window that is “embedded” in my desktop on my right monitor. Again, it looks silly in this screenshot, but on a dual monitor setup, it looks great and makes a lot of sense. Also, it appears on all 6 of my virtual desktops. I put embedded in quotes because technically it’s not embedded, it just appears to be. I’m using compiz to make the window appear that way.

Over all this setup is extreamly functional, and also visually pleasing. Thus my reason for sharing it.

I also have to use Harvest for work, so I’m in the process of setting up a script to use conky and some icons to keep my harvest timesheet right on my desktop. I’ll update that if I get it working. (Right now, harvet’s api isn’t working right.)

Oh, and I’ve also written a custom cron script to check my gmail account every 5 minutes and display a little popup notification on my screen if I get new email. I think gmail has a notifier for linux now, but I wanted to write my own so I could customize how it works. It stays on the screen until I click it so that I notice it. (I have limited periferal vision, so I don’t always notice it right away.)

UPDATE:
I just found out that harvest doesn’t allow api access with their free accounts (I have a free account because that is all I need). So, the harvest thing wont be happening I guess. Too bad.

Here is the infamous “first post”.

“Hopefully not the last.”

I’ll get more content and links up asap (meaning, don’t hold your breath).