I have just installed Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron Alpha 6 on my Dell Inspiron 2600 (Intel 830M graphics, 256mb ram)

I used the alternate install disc due to lack of RAM and concerns that my graphics chipset would not be recognised. It turned out that the graphics were still not recognised, and after some playing with the exciting new recovery mode and a lot of googling I found out that I needed to downgrade the bios to version A08 I2600A08 due to the way the chipset was initialised.

I downloaded this on another Windows machine and found it required a floppy drive to unpack to. I investigated Dell biosdisk scripts but these only created a disk image by copying the unpacked files into a freedos floppy image and the downloaded exe wouldn't unpack except directly to a floppy (or removable device 1.44mb in size). So I used Virtual Floppy Drive and burnt the contents to a bootable CD-R with Nero. To my amazement this worked and now I had downgraded my bios.

I started up Ubuntu again and found the screen still lit up with crazy lines and garbled nonsense at the graphical login. I learned that Hardy now relies on xorgs improved hardware autodetection instead of it's own scripts to write to xorg.conf. However it didn't seem to be working, perhaps because something had already decided what my hardware was before I upgraded the bios. I didn't fancy trying a time-consuming reinstall from scratch, so after another round of forum searching and dead ends I found all I had to do was specify the i810 driver in the Device section of my x11 configuration file /etc/X11/xorg.conf from the root prompt:

from:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Option "UseFBDev" "true"
EndSection


to:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Option "UseFBDev" "true"
Driver "i810"
EndSection


Now everything is working perfectly and I'm surprised how snappy Gnome is with only 256mb of RAM. I even have compiz effects!

15 Storeys High - Sean Lock and Mark Jones' (aka Mark Lamarr) quietly hilarious and inventive sitcom.

Loco Roco - modern classic cute, wobbly, beautiful platform game for the PSP.

At Swim-two-birds - brain-tickling roam through Irish literary student life and fiction by Flann O'Brien.

All highly recommended!

from History of the Button

I finally got a component cable for the original Xbox from MVS through Amazon. The problem, as described earlier was that I was rather naively searching for the word 'component' which doesn't appear in the name of this item.

I'm glad to report the difference in picture quality is astounding. I can actually see jaggies! And the colour depth is like going from the built-in speakers on a portable telly to an amplified 2.1 system. A tenner including delivery.

Be sure to check out The Daily WTF's Pop-up Potpourri, now complete and replaced with the new series Error'd.

Have recently been given an xbox, I've noticed how difficult it is to buy new xbox games now. The original xbox and all games have been replaced in large retailers like HMV and Virgin Megastores by Xbox 360 hardware and titles, while searching online retailers inevitably mainly throws up results for the 360. Sony did the exact opposite when the PS2 came out, re-releasing the PlayStation as the cheaper PSone thus saving all sorts of naming confusion.

Mainly I want to get hold of an xbox composite video cable, but such a thing is out of stock wherever I look. Have manufacturers stopped bothering with the ugly dinosaur console? Or do Microsoft operate some noxious scheme to incite third party accessories manufacturers to move away from the less profitable older platform with expiring licensing agreements or some such?

Update!

Of course I'm not the only one to think of making a musical instrument/game.

fijuu

fijuu 1 was started around the same time as Shape Sequencer by two much more competent developers, and appeared at various high-profile international digital arts/media festivals. I found out about it about half-way through my first development phase and while finding it beautiful and exciting, hoped to make something a little less stylistically imposing on the player.

ergates

I found out about ergates when it was announced on the pd list last October and still haven't got it to run. I might investigate it again, now that bugfixes have been issued and pd HID support is getting attention from various angles.

More alternatives will be added as I remember/find them.