lucis

Have been playing around quite a bit with the gentoo installation on my laptop and at work. Yea, I now use linux almost exclusively on two of the three computers I work on. Just wanted to post an update on some of the cool stuff I’ve installed.

Firstly, I got swsusp2 (hibernate to disk) working, thanks to this howto. Works almost perfectly, including 3d acceleration under X using the X-DRI driver (the ATI binary driver is too buggy). Suspend takes about 5 seconds, and resuming from it about 20. Well, not perfect, but its a start! What I want to do next is to setup a good ACPI configuration to take care of frequency scaling, auto-hibernate, auto LCD brightness control etc.

Also found this really cool add-on to Gnome called gdesklets. This lets you add dynamic content to the desktop. Very flexible and highly configurable. Also provides great eye-candy. Imagine, the latest slashdot headlines, and weather info on the desktop updated in real time! Maybe I’ll try Freedesktop’s Xserver sometime if I am feeling really brave… Cant wait for it to become more mainstream.

Its interesting how once linux was criticized for being too dull and not very fun to look at. Today it is exactly the opposite. Windows is easily the ugliest looking OS around, and it is a battle between Gnome, Kde, MacOSX, and other nifty WMs are fighting for the prettiest desktop!

The only thing that is currently preventing me from switching my home desktop/server to gentoo is iTunes. I really like this app, and have been unable to find something under linux that comes anywhere close in terms of library management, ease of use, and ipod integration. But several apps like rhythmbox, musik, muine, zinf come quite close, and I have a feeling that I will be able to make the switch soon.

After a very gripping and explosive start, the book meanders sluggishly till about the half way mark. It got so slow at places that I almost stopped reading it a couple of times. But once it changes gears, it is a completely different book! Each chapter in the second half of the book is full of surprises. The story perfectly unfolds amidst tonnes of action, and politics. More characters die than I could care to count. I dont think I can do justice to the second half of the book here. It is practically perfect, and I seriously doubt the second half could have been made any better.

If the second book was all about characters, the third is more about the story and history. We learn quite a bit about the history of the land, the Targaryens, and the Lannisters. The book gives very interesting answeres to some of the questions that were raised in the first book, and raises many new questions. Several chapters are written from the point of view (pov) of Jaime Lannister (the second Lannister pov). As usual, Martin wonderfully brings out both the good and evil sides out of him. The fourth book is supposed to have Cersie Lannister as a pov - now that would be very interesting (Cersie is almost your perfect evil queen, and only her bad side has been explored so far)!

On the whole, I think the book equals or surpasses the second book. This inspite of the rather disappointing first half. The fast paced, action packed second half has left me hungry for more. Cant wait for the fourth book, “A Feast for Crows” to be released…

For anyone interested, here is an amazing gallery of artwork related to the series. Simply brilliant. Most characters are exactly how I picture them while reading the book. Also check out this really cool forum for discussions about the book (including spoilers for the unreleased fourth book).

The movie actually turned out to be much better than expected. Nice grand battle scenes (LOTR was much better in this respect though), decent acting, huge and realistic sets, etc. The battle scene between Achilles and Hector in particular, was simply amazing! Easily one of the best one-on-one battles I’ve seen.

Couple of negative points, it was a little too long, and several changes were made from Homer’s The Iliad. Still pretty darn good and worth a watch.

No son of Troy will ever submit to a foreign ruler! Then every son of Troy shall die.

I’ve fought many wars in my time. Some I’ve fought for land, some for power, some for glory. I suppose fighting for love makes more sense than all the rest.

Be careful King of Kings. First you need the victory.

Before my time is done I will look down upon your corpse and smile.

Last week my laptop got a little bump (my backpack fell from like six inches). For a while everything was working fine. Then I started getting all sorts of errors about the inbuilt bluetooth card. I dont really use bluetooth all that much, but the error windows that kept popping up (even with BT disabled) were extremely irritating, to say the least. No sweat, I have Complete care for three years (that means I can run a car over the laptop, and Dell gives me a new one). After about an hour of explaining the Indian Dell representative the difference between Bluetooth and USB, I managed to fix a pickup time scheduled for the next week. The Airborne guy turned up exactly at the decided time with a box for the laptop. And so started what I hoped would be no more than a week without my laptop… This was a couple of days back.

When I found the same exact box waiting for me this morning, my first thought was that Airborne had goofed up. I opened it, and was surprised to find a sheet of paper saying that the problem had been fixed. Woha! Way to go, Dell. From pickup to repair and delivery in under 48 hours!

So I remove my laptop. The screen hinge is fixed - it is not loose like before. The screen is all cleaned up of smudges and fingerprints. The keyboard is nice and sturdy (it was a bit bouncy earlier). Everything is nice and shiny - almost like new. In all the excitement, I almost did not realize that… the Bluetooth card DID NOT WORK! Apparently they had simply re-seated the card instead of replacing it

After another hour of struggling with another Indian “wireless specialist”, I gave up. Maybe I’ll try calling again sometime later. For now I guess I can live without Bluetooth for a while atleast.

Hey, look at the bright side… atleast they were fast in returning the laptop!

Last weekend a few friends and I drove 350 each way to Cincinnati to attend a live concert by none other than Metallica. It was the first time I attended a concert by a high profile band. I am not a big fan of Metallica, but it was totally worth it.

Till the last minute it was not clear as to who all were going, or whether we were going at all! After a couple of false starts, we finally left Chicago around 2:00PM CST, a couple of hours later than what would have been ideal. A few wrong exits, and the ever-so-buggy MapQuest did not help matters. One thing I noticed during the drive was that Ohio is far more beautiful than neighboring Indiana, and Illinois.

We finally made it to the US Bank Arena about an hour and a half late, just in time for the last bits of Godsmack. The place was jam packed! Most people had more piercings on their face than I cared to count. It took another hour before they tore down the previous stage, and got it set up for Metallica.

Then it started! I absolutely loved the light work, the amazing sound, the fireworks, and the awesome use of fire! Well, not so much the music - I had heard very little of it before, and most was not really my type. They did play Nothing Else Matters, No Leaf Clover, and some other songs that I really like. Overall it was pretty amazing. Very different from listening to the music in an office room!

It was close to 1AM before we finally got to have our breakfast/lunch/dinner for the day. Thanks to McDonald’s not accepting credit cards, I’d had almost nothing since morning. Papa John’s pizza never tasted this good! After another six hours of driving, and sleeping, and sleeping while driving (try this at a speed of 80Mph sometime), we were back in Chicago. Another one of those experiences to remember for life…

Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel Is just a freight train coming your way…