Wezzul.com - It's the Dinglez

Her is a link to some directions on how to install the nvidia kernel modules if you are using a vanilla kernel from kernel.org. This is mostly just for my own reference in the future.

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Ok, I found out about a little bug in Ubuntu LTS 6.06 (Dapper Drake) yesterday. It concerns many of the D-Link wireless PCMCIA cards, those using the acx100 chipset. After every successive kernel upgrade, the problem returns, so you will want to make sure to fix this every time you upgrade to a new kernel.

In /lib/firmware//acx/default lies a file, tiacx111c16, which is the file used by the DWL-G630. This file is a symlink to /lib/firmware//acx/2.3.1.31/tiacx111c16. With this file being the one symlinked, you will never be able to connect to a wireless network. To get it to work, you need to remove that symlink, and create a symlink of the same name, in the same place, to /lib/firmware//1.2.1.34/tiacx111c16. Reboot, and things should be good to go.

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Here is what has been happening for some time. If I open firefox while I have something like XMMS open, then at no point during the current firefox session can I do anything and have it play sound. It's like XMMS locks the soundcard, and nothing else can take it back. Turns out it's an issue with firefox. I changed two things, and it seems to be fixed now.

First thing, I added the following:

exec aoss /usr/libexec/mozilla-launcher "$@"

to the bottom of /usr/bin/firefox. The second thing, I added the following:

FIREFOX_DSP="aoss"

to /etc/firefox/firefoxrc. After this, the issue is resolved. Just putting it up here in case anyone else has the issue.

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So the other day, I figured I'd get dual display working in Linux. I had a spare video card and monitor laying around, so there was no reason not to add more real estate to any given desktop.

Though I don't run Gentoo, this site was extremely useful in getting things going.

First, I had to find out the PCI Bus ID's for both video cards. This can be easily found out executing the command lspci. I found the BusID's to be 2:0:0 and 1:6:0 for the Nvidia onboard card and the ATI All-in-Wonder, respectively. These values go in the Device sections. These values are not required for a one card setup, but if you are to use two video cards, it is absolutely necessary to have these Bus ID's in your XF86Config-4 file. Another major difference is adding the amount of video ram (in kilobytes) to that same Device section. I'm not totally sure if this is necessary, but I figure it definitely can't hurt. Next is to define both monitors, which is about the same as you would with one monitor. Defining the HorizSync and VertRefresh values is key for getting the most out of your monitors. Generally, you can find these specs for any given monitor with a simple google search. As usual, you need to define two Screen sections, one for each monitor, listing the device and monitor to be used, as well as setting the depth (in bits) and resolution.

The big differences in the config file lie in the ServerLayout section. Mine as is follows:



Note the RightOf command. This is pretty cool. You can use plain-text requests such as this to define where the second screen is in relation to the first. Also, for Screen0, the 0 0 after the name is the position that the screen lies at. I am fairly sure that, by default, this is where it lies anyways, but there is no need for ambiguity.

A last section that was not in my config by default is the ServerFlags section. I added the following:



Xinerama is a set of extensions for Xfree86 that allow you to use multiple displays as one big virtual desktop, therefore allowing you to move windows between them (much the same way Windows works). If you do not include this, from what I've read, programs need to have coded in them the ability to move from one display to another, and the performance is a bit flaky at best.

In any case, it seems to be working now, I'm not really having any issues with it. There is some tweeking to be done to increase speed, and I will post about that if I get any results. My full config is here .

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