Loud ramblings of a Software Artisan

rt2x00 is a project to support Ralink RT2400 and RT2500 chipset for 802.11b and g. The really interesting bit is that Ralink release their Linux driver under GPL, unlike most of the other manufacturers. So I'd encourage anyone willing to get a 802.11g card to run on Linux to get one using RT2500.

I personaly haven't tested it, but I put that on my list.

Linksys WRT54G are already known to run Linux and Linksys provide the source code. OpenWRT is project dedicated to provide an Open replacement for the Linksys WRTG firmware (and other compatible hardware). Seriously tempting to play with.

From Slashdot Walmart now sells sub-$500 (USD) notebooks. The don't run Windows, because of the cost of the OEM license, they run Linspire, a Linux based operating system. It is not a fast laptop as VIA-C3 1GHz CPU is not really snappy, but it is decent for most people use.

They also have more expensive models with faster CPUs include AMD Athlon, inlcuding one 50$ more expensive, with wireless and Window XP Home (sigh). The makes me think that the sub-$500 notebook is just overpriced, but under the $500 barrier.

So I wonder what is the real justification of using Linspire ? Because it just cost less enough to bring the price down under $500 ? I don't think, given that the XP license is something around $100, they could have done it on the other laptop as well, as well as stripping out wifi. And they would provide Linspire on the other models as well.

Got a Fedex package today: SuSE Linux Professionnal 9.2. Complimentary copy, I still don't know exactly why, but I suspect this is for my gphoto2 contributions. Problem: I still don't have a machine to install it on, since I still haven't a PC at home.

Thanks you SuSE.

I'm sitting 2ft away from the access point and apparently I get no signal with my Airport card. Why ?

This card has worked at GUADEC. But I don't know about the AP, a Linksys Wifi router. Any clues ?

$ sudo /sbin/iwconfig eth1
eth1      IEEE 802.11-DS  ESSID:""  Nickname:"foo"
         Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.422 GHz  Access Point: 44:44:44:44:44:44
         Bit Rate:2 Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm   Sensitivity:1/3
         Retry limit:4   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
         Power Management:off
         Link Quality=0/92  Signal level=134/153  Noise level=134/153
         Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
         Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Update (Dec 10): I just tried with a BEFW11, the 802.11B only version, by just pluging it in, and I get link. In short my router is probably DOA.

Today, I upgraded from Debian to Ubuntu. Upgrade instructions are crystal clear. The trickiest part was the lack of disk space to download at once 400MB of packages.

But a few issues:

• I can no longer switch workspace using ctrl-meta-arrows or windows using meta-tab, with Metacity
• The wireless applet do not find my wifi device that is bound to eth1

I asked on #ubuntu. No answer so far. Nevermind. I'll find solutions.

And I don't understand how NetworkManager works. I don't know what to start, and apparently the rebuild package (they are not available on PowerPC, so I had to rebuild them with debuild) don't start anything after installation.

Otherwise, congrats to the Ubuntu team. Great job.

The Register has an article about PalmSource to build Palm OS on Linux. Does that mean we'll be able to have GPE running on this little beast by scrapping the Palm layer to only keep the Linux kernel ? That would be fun.