Category Archives: Linux

Ubuntu open source ATI radeon driver power usage tweaks

I've always had Nvidia GPU card in my PCs. The only reason for that is great Linux support. Recently I've bought laptop with ATI HD4200 integrated GPU so I had to learn "how to walk on Linux" all over again. First thing there are two opensource drivers and fglrx proprietary ATI driver. Quantity is not quality so any of those drivers is not up to pair with current Nvidia drivers.

Open source driver lacks good 3D acceleration and quality power save functionality (it is laptop we're talking about) and fglrx driver has poor 2D acceleration. Basically it is up to you to decide which driver to use based on the way you use your PC. I've picked open source driver in spite the fact that it has no power save capabilities. Actually it has some basic power save capabilities, but they are turned off by default. In this article I will show you how to keep you ATI graphics card power usage under control on the Ubuntu Maverick based Linux operating systems with open source ATI radeon driver (could work for Debian and derivatives with kernel >=2.6.35).

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Wireless network Ralink RT3090 Ubuntu driver PPA

Wireless network iconRecently I've purchased HP Compaq Presario CQ56 laptop with Suse Enterprise Linux preloaded. First thing I've done after first boot is removing Suse and installing Ubuntu Maverick. I didn't try installing latest Ubuntu Natty because of my hate-hate relationship with Unity and Linux kernel 2.6.38 power drain bug. So far everything works great only I had little trouble with integrated HD4200 graphics power usage, but open source driver I'm using is getting better every release togeather with its power management subsystem. In one of the next articles I will show you what I've done to turn open source ati radeon driver power management on.

Notice (01.02.2012.): I've created Ubuntu PPA with updated Ralink driver supporting rt3090 wireless devices on all officially supported versions of Ubuntu Linux operating system on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and 10.10 versions of Ubuntu Linux operating system. More info here.

In this article I will show you how to install proprietary Ralink RT3090 wireless network card driver using Markus Heberling PPA (thanks Markus for your great work). Reason I've chose proprietary instead of open source that comes by default on Ubuntu is that open source driver even it is good doesn't find all my networks in the area I use my laptop. So here it is ...

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Ubuntu disable/enable compiz when on battery/AC bash script

HP Compaq Presario CQ56-100SMLast week I won an award from my college sponsor Končar Electrical Engineering Institute for my graduate work on the topic of creating an advanced web social networking system using open source technologies. I must express my gratitude to the fine people on my college who nominated me and to the Končar Electrical Engineering Institute for rewarding my effort. By the way, this social networking system is work in progress and when ready, I will set it up for testing because I value your feedback for my little projects like Quick Chat.

What did I do with my reward you ask? I bought myself a laptop. My laptop selection priorities were low price and Linux operating system compatibility. I have selected HP Compaq Presario CQ56 with Suse Enterprise Linux11 factory installed. It is really good laptop for the price and very Linux friendly if any of you Linux fans are on a Laptop hunt. I might post a review on this great piece of hardware when I find some available time. Yesterday I've installed Ubuntu Maverick on this laptop and everything works great. But when everything works great, we people usually go to the picky side and start inventing problems. So to create myself some work, I've given myself a task of creating script to turn Compiz off when on battery, and turn it back on when on AC. My goal was extending my shiny new battery life for a few minutes and have fun in the process of creating this script. So here it is...

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Prolog programming using Gprolog on Linux

Prolog is a logical programming language perfect for description of artificial intelligence knowledge base I was working on for one of my AI projects. The idea is that you make a knowledge base and then ask your knowledge base what ever you need to know. As Linux user I needed Linux tool so I went on Google and inquired about my options. I really like GNU software so I've opted for GNU Prolog implementation called Gprolog. In this little article I will show you how to get it working on Debian based operating systems.

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Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal review and more

Really sad TuxA while ago I've planed to do full review on new Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal. I'm not going to do that. What happened someone might ask? Canonicals latest desktop called Unity happened. The feeling after booting new Ubuntu 11.04 for the first time seemed familiar. The feeling of being powerless when someone forces you to use an application that you don't like under excuse that you don't know what is good for you. I thought I left that feeling a few years ago after I have left Windows XP to find myself a better desktop solution. What is wrong with Unity? Please read on...

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