tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-264255812009-04-03T14:23:23.671-04:00Everyday drivel from yours truly.downhillgameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15136155782477161414noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26425581.post-51169097763479171142008-12-28T04:47:00.002-05:002008-12-28T07:09:56.941-05:00A while back, my mother actually asked me to install Kubuntu/KDE4 on their -- my parents' -- compy when she saw all the cool things it could do. KDE 4 itself runs just fine, but 'problem is, Linux likes to ramp the fan up and down. Enter the famous lm-sensors. I knew it was supposed to give you sensor "support," but I didn't know to what extent - until now. lm-sensors doesn't come installed on Kubuntu by default, so you gotta install it via, well, I would say Adept, but honestly, 3.0 is a hunk of junk. It can't do nearly the same stuff as the old one could. Anyway, one way or another, get the packge lm-sensors installed and run <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">sensors-detect</span></span> from a terminal. Setting this whole thing up was <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> as easy as the rest of the distro. Not by a <span style="font-style: italic;">longshot</span>. It asked a bunch of questions about whether or not to probe the subset of buses and what not, almost all of which you'd say yes to if <span style="font-style: italic;">you</span> ran it; The last 2 or so are ones you might want to answer differently to, depending on your degree of experience. After having ran it, modprobed the modules it listed at the end and running <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">sensors</span></span> to check and see if it was working, I had a readout of what was going on with temps, volts and fan speeds.<br /><br />Temperatures, voltages and fan speeds, oh my!<br />Temperatures, voltages and fan speeds, oh my!<br />Temperatures, voltages and fan speeds, oh my!<br /><br />Moving right along, the next step was to configure the fan speeds. Never before have I felt stupid trying to make my fan speed adjust. Well, there's a first time for everything, so I got to learn about "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-width_modulation">Pulse-Width Modulation</a>" while using <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">pwmconfig</span></span> in order to make my parents' fans adjust dynamically according to the temperature of the chips using <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">fancontrol</span></span>. After multiple tries and multiple failures -- including a few incidences of "fan stoppage" -- I finally got the northbridge fan to calm down until it hits ~50C. Then, in theory, it ramps up to 100% until it hits 30C, ad nauseum. The funny thing is, I couldn't test it fully because they were already going to sleep. Let alone get the <span style="font-weight: bold;">other three fans</span> working. That's how ridiculously long this all took.<br /><br />If you want *real* step-by-step instructions on how to do this, there's a <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=42737">nice thread on the Ubuntu Forums</a> that still works on Ibex (wtf is an Ibex anyway?). I warn you now tho, only attempt it with low blood pressure and low stress :) Wow.<br /><br />On the bright side of things, I was surfing around and randomly stumbled upon <a href="http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/?content=91918">this really nifty plasmoid</a> to control (at the time of writing) newer ATi video card fan speeds and read GPU temps. The best part, I never saw an official statement in the driver release notes that said my card was supported. But, the fan control driver feature actually <span style="font-style: italic;">works</span> for my card<span style="font-size:78%;">[1]</span>! <span style="font-style: italic;">And with ease!</span><br /><br />Cheers,<br />-DHG<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">[1]</span>My current video card is the HD3870X2 by Sapphire. It's a pretty damn good card, if I do say so. Rest of the specs are below for those interested:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.pcprofiles.com/p/downhillgames"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 125px;" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_moyMJVfYu7Q/SRjwuCRRfWI/AAAAAAAABWA/PYoSVuqtpBY/cluboc_sig.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/26425581-5116909776347917114?l=masterdownhillgames.blogspot.com'/></div>downhillgameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15136155782477161414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26425581.post-88237845547843115352008-12-18T09:24:00.006-05:002008-12-29T00:11:23.256-05:00One of the kind folks in #kde pointed me to my now <a href="http://www.terminaldigit.com/2008/08/08/get-firefox-to-honor-kde-file-associations/">Original Source</a> of this short HowTo.<br /><br />To make Firefox work with any and all mimetypes, regardless of KDE 4, 3.5, Gnome or anything else that supports xdg-open, follow these very simple instructions:<br /><br />Locate xdg-open on your system:<br />1) Open a terminal<br />2) Type in: which xdg-open<br />3) Copy that location (or remember it)<br />Hint: In any *Buntu distro, it's located at /usr/bin/xdg-open<br /><br />Now in Firefox:<br />1) Open up Firefox<br />2) Download something random (Save to File)<br />3) Open the file via Firefox's download manager<br />4) Tick the "Remember This Association for All Files" box, and click "Choose"<br />5) In the location bar, paste in (or type in) the path you got earlier<br />In the case of Kubuntu, that's /usr/bin/xdg-open<br /><br />That's it, every file should open properly without any extra dialogs, files, dirty hacks, etc. Thanks a load TerminalDigit and Frederik :D<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/26425581-8823784554784311535?l=masterdownhillgames.blogspot.com'/></div>downhillgameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15136155782477161414noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26425581.post-55528327252018738082008-12-07T00:37:00.004-05:002009-01-16T14:03:17.256-05:00(12:33:11 AM) Stew: X.org has crashed. Would you like to?<br />(12:33:17 AM) Stew: 1. Restart in Windows<br />(12:33:21 AM) Stew: 2. Redo xorg.conf<br />(12:33:28 AM) Stew: 3. Pull the plug<br />(12:33:29 AM) Stew: 4. Swear a lot<br />(12:33:35 AM) Brendan: 5. ???<br />(12:33:37 AM) Brendan: 6. Profit<br />(12:33:40 AM) Stew: 6. Proit<br />(12:34:02 AM) Stew: I was trying to type it faster than you were :p<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/26425581-5552832725201873808?l=masterdownhillgames.blogspot.com'/></div>downhillgameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15136155782477161414noreply@blogger.com0