However, here is my latest bootchart (located on the right under Box.net plug-in titled Orinoco-maverick-20101025-.png) from my Sager notebook.
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Tag: Sager
On October 10th at 10:10:10 AM, I took a screenshot of the date/time of my PC running Ubuntu 10.04 using Shutter before installing Ubuntu 10.10. I used Vuze to download the BT files for x32 and x64 versions within 15 minutes. Since I’ve had problems in the past with running Update to install the new OS over the old, I chose to backup my home directory with the rsync command to my external USB HDD. I’ve read, some people had problems installing Ubuntu 10.10 over 10.04. So I was glad I backed up and installed from scratch.
My installation went smooth. I liked the check box to install third party apps (multimedia codeces except for the DVD player). Because of this one feature, I can no longer tell people to install Linux Mint to get all the multimedia stuff running right after install. Please don’t misunderstand, I like Linux Mint a lot. I installed Linux Mint 10 RC1 as a VM on my Ubuntu system. But that’s a post for another time.
I like the purple color theme better than the orange/brown theme of the past, but I still customized my desktop. Using Crebs (Create Background Slideshow) I created a nice 15+ Star Trek rotating wallpaper theme. I also created a Halloween theme too. Plus with Ubuntu Tweak I changed the GDM wallpaper to a nice artist rendition nebula and changed the Ubuntu logo to a Star Fleet one. I didn’t bother to change the window colors, icons and sound effects yet, I’m still looking for something that will work well and easy to install or customize. I also found one thing that has helped me out over the years for reinstalling Ubuntu and Windows, keep a text document of favorite apps and other commands that make installation easy. For me this includes anything that I need to run at the CLI. After all was said and done, I had everything installed, configured and data files restored within 4 hours. No need to go back and install an application or look for a special command that enabled the Ubuntu Menu when pressing the Super key. Its all right there. Plus I add to this text file if i make a change or find a new application that is a must have for me.
Is this a perfect 10 for Ubuntu 10.10? No, but it feel like 9.95. My only grip is the mouse pad stays enabled no matter if I use a USB wired or wireless mouse. I search several posts about this issue. And although some people had some terrific answers, none worked for me. I can’t disable the touchpad in the BIOS either. With Windows 7, the touchpad can be disabled using Logitech’s application. Kind of wish Logitech would develop their software apps for Linux. But I can’t fault Ubuntu for this.
If you haven’t tried Ubuntu 10.10, download a Live CD and try it on your PC. I think you will be surprised with this OS. Now if only Battlefield Heroes would work on Ubuntu.
Several weeks ago I created a VM of Windows Vista with SP2. It ran great on my Sager NP8690. Unfortunately when I created the virtual hard drive I made it a 20GB drive. After all the patches were installed, I was down to about 3GB free. So I read a few posts from VirtualBox Forums about how to resize the drive. Here are the steps I used from the post:
- Close you virtual machine, leave VirtualBox running.
- Create a new virtual hard drive with the new size (I went with a dynamic size with a maximum size of 80GB).
- Download Gparted-Live CD ISO file.
- Add the Gparted-Live CD ISO file as a new virtual CD in VirtualBox.
- Adjust your virtual machine settings to add the second larger hard drive and the Gparted-Live CD.
- Start the VM and boot from the Gparted-Live CD file.
- Choose all the defaults and wait for Gparted to start.
- Select the second hard drive and set the partition to msdos.
- Select the first hard drive, right click on the graph and select Copy.
- Select the second hard drive, right click on the graph and select Paste.
- This will take some time.
- Once completed, shutdown the VM.
- Adjust the settings for the VM by removing the old hard drive and the Gparted-LiveCD. Add your Vista CD or ISO file.
- Boot the VM and press any key to start from the Vista CD.
- Select the option to Repair the OS.
- Once it repairs, reboot the VM and do not press any keys. Vista should boot and run a check disk of the VM.
Now when I boot into Vista, I have a 80GB hard drive with plenty of free space.
Thanks to gushy and bwh1969 for the original posts.
Well it’s been a busy month for me at home and work. I migrated my Sager NP8690 to Ubuntu 10.04 and created three virtual machines; Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. To my surprise Windows Vista SP2 is extremely stable as a VM. I disabled UAC because I don’t like being asked “are you sure you want to do this” from my PC. Both Windows 7 and Windows XP SP3 ran well also. Over all I was pleased with the performance from each VM. Of course that changed when I tried to run two VMs at the same time, I was running out of RAM. I think if I had 8GB installed, running two VMs would have worked fine.
However, I was never able to get get Blu-Ray running in any VMs or in Ubuntu. This bummed me out since I wanted I watch Star Trek. Maybe I’ll ask Santa to bring a Blu-Ray player for Christmas. Then I was informed by my wife that she needed Windows in order to work from home. Plus she was not too thrilled that I didn’t create a account in Ubuntu for her. Oops!
So I backed up everything (again) and reinstalled the image I took before wiping out my hard drive. Since I am dual booting between Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.04, I deiced to leave Windows with a larger partition and keep all my videos there. I can access then easily enough from Ubuntu without much hassle. I still need to install a few application in Ubuntu (Thunderbird, Filezilla) but for the most part I am finished.
Instead of trying to use Gwibber a buddy of mine said I should look into TweetDeck. TweetDeck requires Adobe Air to install and run. Being Adobe has issues with x64, there were no .deb files for my OS. I downloaded the .bin file and from a Terminal window I typed ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin. Now I can install TweetDeck and have access to my LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google Buzz accounts.
At work, I was asked to test a kickstart install script for RHEL 5.3 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) client install on a test PC. I used a Dell Precision 370 which has a Intel P4 3.4 GHz single core, 2GB of RAM, 80GB Sata drive, Nvidia Quadro FX 1400 card, and a DVD drive. Installation took about 30 minutes. I test several applications, accessing network shares, and printing to several network printers. I still prefer Ubuntu or Linux Mint over RHEL, but it was fun to be part of a Linux project.
I also help with installing a new Dell server this week. The job required us to install a keyboard/mouse tray, move an existing server and tape library up, install a new IP console KVM, and install the new ESX server. Due to space limitations, we placed a LCD monitor on the side of the rack. Because I hurt my back several day earlier I was asked not to lift anything. So for me it was more of a learning experience. Hopefully I will be asked to assist with other data room projects.
Right now I’m downloading openSuse 11.3 x64 on DVD. Maybe this weekend I’ll try it out on a VM to see some of the new improvements I’ve read about.
My Sager NP8690 is one awesome notebook (except for the battery life). Right now I have it configured for dual boot between Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows 7. The only time I really use Windows 7 is to watch Blu-Ray movies and the occasional office document that down for display correctly in Open-office. But rebooting the PC to go back and forth between the two OS’s is an inconvenience.
To resolve this issue I installed Oracle Virtualbox 3.2.4. Currently I have one VM with Linux Mint 9 x64 which works well. So I attempted to install Windows 7 x32 just like I did at work on an old HP D530 tower. When the install reaches the point of Installing Updates the OS fails stating it’s unable to find the hard drive.
I searched for an answer but nothing really fixed my problem. Then I noticed the HDD controller for my Windows 7 VM was set for AHCI with a blank check box. Selecting the check box allows the VM to access the HDD controller directly. Installation of Windows 7 is complete.
Everything in Windows 7 seems stable and running well minus the Aero effects. I checked for updates and out of 21, only 3 installed. That’s no good, time to reboot the VM and tried again. None of the available updates would install. I found this solution for Windows Vista and it worked on Windows 7.
And since I am setting up VMs, I decided to install my copy on Windows XP and Microsoft Vista. Why Vista? Because I got it for free and gives me an opportunity to learn something new. Plus I have friends and family that run Vista and they call for help on occasion.
Unfortunately I made a small error when I installed Ubuntu 10.04. Since I chose to dual boot, I kept the Windows partition at 2/3 total drive space. Since I created four VMs I am down to about 7GB free on my Home partition. If I can get my Windows 7 VM to play Blu-Ray I will copy off all VMs, backup all data files from both OSs, and then rebuild with Ubuntu 10.04 and import all data. Looks like I’m in for a long weekend.
UPDATE:
After spending 2 hours reading posts about playing Blu-Ray in a VM, it looks like this is not possible. I plan on moving forward with the migration since I’m out of drive space. I read a solution in Ubuntu Forums that might work.
I’ve installed Ubuntu 10.04 LTS x64 on my Sager NP8690 notebook. Installation was fast around 20 minutes. I took a break to watch some TV with my children and after their show and they went to sleep, I spent the next 2 hours installing programs like Gimp, Picasa, Shutter, GParted, Cheese, Camera Monitor, Stellarium, Skype, Vuze, Dropbox, HP LaserJet 2605dn, Bootchart, configuring Empathy, Gwibber, Nvidia drivers, and other Desktop eye-candy. Saturday I installed Thunderbird, dvdrip, some additional codecs, and restoring some files from my last backup.
I should have grabbed some screen-shots but it didn’t occur to me at the time. However, here is my latest bootchart (located on the right under Box.net plug-in titled Rubicon-lucid-20100502-1.png) from my Sager notebook.
I will rebuild the Dell Dimension 8200 with Ubuntu 10.04 and see what the performance is compared to version 9.10. I hope the Flash animation and games my children play at Cartoon Network will work better.
On my Dell desktop I use a Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer. I’ve used this mouse for years because it is reliable and comfortable. It takes me a long time to find a mouse that I’m comfortable with. I like to play games like Diablo1 and 2, Quake 2, 3, Arena, Jedi Knight 1 and 2, and Heroes of Might and Magic 3. I use the mouse a lot and if it’s not comfortable, my hand will cramp and I won’t be happy using the PC.
After I purchased my Sager NP8690, I was using a Dell Bluetooth mouse. The mouse is ergonomic and functions well, but its not comfortable. It has too much height in the back and doesn’t feel right.
So over the last week or so I researched at Newegg.com, Staples.com, BestBuy.com, and Amazon.com several models buy Microsoft, Logitech, HP, and Kensington. I read reviews about why one mouse was better than another, which one seems to have more problems than others, and the latest technology.
I finally decided on the Logitech Anywhere Mouse MX. Its very comfortable and as you can see from the pictures it is very cool looking too. One of the best features is the scroll wheel. It normally has the “click” when you scroll up or down. When you press the mouse wheel the free wheel is running. This is great if you have a long webpage or multi-page document. While some have complained about missing the third mouse click, I like this new feature. Also, when I click on the button behind the scroll wheel, You are presented with an exploded view of what programs are open.
This mouse also works great in Linux Mint 8. No drivers to install, just start Linux and your ready to roll. In Linux Mint 8, the button behind the scroll wheel enables the Desktop Spinning Cube (as long as you have it enabled).
I guess the most technology advanced piece is the Dark Field laser. There is a PDF in the Box.net plug-in on the right side of this blog. They say the table needs to be at least 4mm thick for it to work. I might try the bedroom mirror to see how well it works.
Well I finally received my new notebook on Tuesday January 26. I wanted to use my bootable BartPE USB jump drive to image the HDD before starting the first boot into Windows 7. Unfortunately I didn’t have the correct drivers in the BartPE image for the NIC or the AHCI controller. Even with this small issue, I enjoyed the nice color contrast on the 15.6″ widescreen at 1920×1080 with the glossy display. I’ve seen displays exactly like mine at retail stores. Usually the displays are all gunked up with fingerprints and grime from shoppers.
I like the simple look of the case – flat black all around except for the small silver Sager logo centered on the lid. There are only 2 stickers by the keyboard (HDMI and Intel Corei7) which does not give the computer a junked up look. The chiclet keyboard, which has a number pad on the right) took no time to get use to. Also there is little give in the center with normal pressure.
I booted into Windows 7 Ultimate and completed the mini setup wizard. I am happy to report no bloatware installed. Just the following applications:
- Microsoft Office 2007 Standard 25 day trial (removed since I already own a copy of Office 2007 Professional)
- Fingerprint reader
- Blue-Ray player
Windows 7 recognized my wireless network and I installed the 64bit drivers for my HP 2605dn Color Laserjet network printer. Test pages printed without problems so now it was time to customize the screen by installing the Star Wars and Pittsburgh Steelers Desktop Themes I made awhile ago.
On Wednesday I installed Ubuntu 9.10 64bit – removing Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit. Ubuntu recognized everything except for the Nvidia card, but the Hardware Detection manager found the correct drivers for me and suggested which one to install. Desktop effects and Compiz were enabled and finally have the cool 3D spinning cube, wobble windows, and all the special effects I could want on my notebook. To finish up I installed the latest codecs for my multimedia files, Flash for Firefox and Virtualbox OSE. But soon I started to have some problems.
VirtualBox OSE installed correctly. I created a vm, installed Windows 7 and rebooted the vm as needed. The performance was extremely slow. WHAT?? This is a Core i7 with 6GB of 1333MHz RAM and a high-end Nvidia card with 1GB of dedicated RAM. After shutting down the vm I verified I had my settings correct and tried agin. Booting into the vm was extremely painful. I do not have this issue at work on my Intel P4 3.4GHz with 2GB of RAM. Since it was late I went to sleep to figure out what to do tomorrow. When I got home from work the next day I booted the system and logged into Facebook to catch up with some friends. While I was playing Farmville the session rebooted. That was strange. So I logged in again and went back to Facebook and the session rebooted again. After logging in a third time I googled for a reason Ubuntu 9.10 64bit would randomly reboot the session. Within three minutes it rebooted my session again.
Now I am extreamly upset with the system. I fired off an e-mail to a buddy of mine, reinstalled my Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit CD and rebooted. I spent the next several hours rebulding my PC. Windows 7 installed within 20 minutes, spent the next 30 minutes running the drivers CD (the user interface was awesome – good job to the folks who designed it), and the rest of the time spent installing Office 2007 Professional, Thunderbird 3 (with all the addons I like), Firefox 3.6, Filezilla 3.3.1, Quicktime, VLC, Google Earth, Picasa, Skype, Trillian 4.1, and a few other applications.
I really wanted to run Ubuntu on my new notebook, but the 64bit seems too unstable. Maybe I should have installed the 32bit version instead. Either way, I am happy now with Windows 7. I might at a later date install Ubuntu 10.04 or Linux Mint 9 on a second partition and have a dual-boot system.
I purchased Star Trek on Blu-Ray over the weekend and enjoyed watching the movie. The picture looked great but the sound from the computer speakers was difficult to hear with the fans running. I was able to connect the computer to my HDMI input for the TV, but the audio was not available. I might be missing a setting for HDMI.
I have two issues with this notebook – battery and bluetooth. For the battery you will get one hour out of it. You will not be playing games, watching a movie, or reading at the local coffee shop unless you have p power outlet near by. A two-hour battery should be the bare minimum for any notebook in my opinion. Everytime the computer sleeps or reboots the bluetooth is off. There is no option to leave it on in the Phoenix BIOS. I don’t think any notebook PC I’ve ever used from HP, IBM, or Dell had bluetooth off with each boot.
I also purchased a Swiss Gear IBEX backpack to carry the computer and other stuff. The bag is made of good materials and holds everything well. I did read about a few people having problems with the zippers. Out of the two bags at the store, only one had zippers that moved easily.
Besides these few issues with the hardware (battery life and bluetooth), I really like this computer. It is fast, Windows 7 works great, Ubuntu 9.10 64bit worked well the first day (maybe a different distro for me in the future), cool options available, and a sweet screen as well.
Drahusz 