X on IBM ThinkPad 760ED //at 02:39 //by abe

As many of my friends know, I installed Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 aka Woody on my IBM ThinkPad 760ED (Pentium 1, 133 MHz, 48 MB RAM, 1 GB HD) named bijou at Chemnitzer Linux-Tage this spring. Although many helped me trying to configure X, I didn’t get rid of the LCD “forgetting” more or less pixels each row so that the picture got blurred towards the right rim.

During Berlinux, a not so convinced Linux user (he told me he likes the feeling of Windows, but got stick with Debian because his modem just didn’t work with Windows) told me that he had similar problems with a graphics card with similar chips as the ones in my ThinkPad. Since I never was sure, if my problem is a hardware defect, a driver or a configuration problem (but I tended to hardware defect or a not supported chipset, since I read about several Trident 96xx and 98xx chipsets to be unsupported under Linux), his comment was a ray of hope to me. He told me he found the solution on Werner Heuser’s TuxMobil website, whom I showed my X problem also Berlinux but who hadn’t an idea what it could be. He also told me, that XFree86 4.x doesn’t support this graphics chip, but XFree86 3.3.x does.

But somehow I had forgotten that TuxMobil not only has informations about Linux on laptops but also a big bunch of links to pages which deal with specific models. I can’t remember, if I looked there already back in March, but it felt like I didn’t although my own small text about bijou is linked there, too. I looked through the other 760/770 ED/XD pages and on the second or third I found someone who seems to have had the same problem and also with a 760ED. He wrote, someone else has gone down that path already so he linked directly to the XF86Config he found elsewhere. That sounded like an easy earned money so I followed the link — 404. Shit! For luck a few lines down he linked also his own XF86Config, so I grabbed it, uncommented everything unnecessary and put in the essential parts of his XF86Config of which the most important parts probably were the modelines. The one for 1024×768 was commented as the only one working, those for 800×600 and 640×480 were commented out. Then I downgraded X to XFree86 3.3.6.

It didn’t work as expected. The display stayed black which was less than I had accomplished before. Shit! But giving up is not my style. So first I reduced the color depth. No change. Then I started with reducing the resolution. With 800×600 and 16 bit color depth, it finally worked. No hardware defect, no unsupported graphics chip. Just not the right modelines. That was all. YESSS!

I guess the guy whose XF86Config I used didn’t have a 760ED but a similar model with a LCD with higher resolution. because my 760ED definitely has no 1024×768 resolution because 800×600 fills the screen completely.

Still leaves the problem with the svgalib: The system just freezes with a black screen if I start a svgalib application like e.g. zgv. First I found out, that svgalib indeed has a configuration file which (at least under Woody) can be found at /etc/vga/libvga.conf. Copied the modelines from the now working XF86Config, configured the mouse and tried again. Freeze. Hmmm, in the config there is mentioned that if svgalib doesn’t correctly recognise the graphics card’s chipset, you can hardcode it with a configuration directive, e.g. “chipset VGA” for otherwise unsupported chipsets. And that worked, although only with 640×480 yet. So I tried the only setting for Trident cards found in the list of supported chipsets. And what happend? Right, the system froze again. So svgalib probably recognised the card as Trident and used the only available Trident driver which was obviously the wrong one. So here are my XF86Config and my libvga.config working on the IBM ThinkPad 760ED.

But nevertheless — this 0€ laptop has just proven that it can be even more useful than it already was with text mode only. I also already played Frozen Bubble up to level 25 or so on the train back from Berlin. Old hardware rules.

But I now also have another problem (again): Since X works now, I can run Galeon 1.2 on the ThinkPad, but GTK 2 respective GNOME 2 are much slower than in the 1.x versions and also need much more ressources, which the laptop just does not have. And since I — as most of the people who read my blog or Planet Debian should know ;-) — don’t like Galeon 1.3, I probably won’t dist-upgrade my ThinkPad to Sarge that fast although I already thought about it. XFree86 3.x isn’t in Sarge either IIRC but this should be no problem since the Woody packages are said to work under Sarge, too. Well, still yet another reason for forwardports.org… ;-) Or maybe I can get Kazehakase running on Woody so I can drop at least the whole ballast GNOME 2 comes with. We’ll see…

JFTR (Update on 2nd of May 2007): My current XF86Config-4 for Sarge on my ThinkPad 760ED named bijou.

Berlinux and Linux-Info-Tag Dresden //at 02:28 //by abe

Like alphascorpii, I’ll be at Berlinux in Berlin next weekend as well as at Linux-Info-Tag in Dresden the following weekend.

At both events I’ll present the Website Meta Language (WML) in a talk (similar to the WML talk I held at Oscomtag 2005, only more detailed) and in Dresden I’ll also hold a workshop about understanding and efficiently using command line shells (based on the Shell Efficiency talk at DaLUG last month). It will be focused a little bit more on shell beginners and intermediate users than on shell cracks. At Linux-Info-Tag they should better have a look at Sven Guckes’ zsh workshop.

After Dresden, I’ll be on holiday for a week.

Back from Berlinux 2005 //at 02:27 //by abe

I was at Berlinux 2005 this weekend and though the very chaotic — because understaffed — organisation it was interesting and also funny.

Thursday I arrived around 20:15 in Berlin, met Klaus Knopper and others at the train station, headed to Sven Guckes’ appartment for dropping all my luggage, then going back to meet with Klaus and the others for a theremin concert with Dorit Chrysler. No wonder that it sounded sometimes like one of my favourite musicians, Jean Michel Jarre, since — according to the Wikipedia theremin article — he also plays this instrument.

On Friday I held my talk about WML in front of a — for that topic — surprisingly high number of auditors (around 30, maybe 35). In comparision to my WML talk at OscomTag 2005 all people who asked questions had understood about what the talk was, so the questions were most time interesting and justified. As usual I held the talk using Lynx with LSS support (picture by Sven Guckes) on my nine year old Pentium 1 ThinkPad bijou running Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 aka Woody.

Before and after the talk I helped out at Werner Heuser’s xtops booth (another picture by Sven) and the booth of the Debian Project (yet another picture by Sven :-) directly beside Frank Ronneburg’s Debian powered model railway. (picture by you-know-who ;-) In the evening I was at the social event, hanging around with alphascorpii, Tolimar and Joey and being surprised that Joey studies biology — as I did as minor to computer science.

On Saturday I was on alphascorpii’s talk about why being a BOFH is not funny, hung around at the same booths as the day before, fixed the X configuration on my laptop after hints on a unknown Debian booth visitor. Before the exhibition closed I heard a very interesting talk about web accessibility held by Sebastian who is blind himself. Although or maybe because I’m interested in that subject, the talk opened my eyes regarding two things: First »Captchas are evil« and »Blind HTML tables aren’t as evil as all the priests of web accessibility are always preaching«. They are easier than frames for blinds and seem to have only little disadvantages against a CSS based layout for blinds nowadays if used the right way. Oh, and btw. — nested tables are still evil. :-)

Saturday evening I had dinner together with Stefan Gerdelbracht, Frank Hofmann, Klaus Knopper and Manfred Krejcik. Later Thomas Winde joined us. It was very interesting evening, especially talking with Klaus and Manfred.

On Sunday, after having brunch with Stefan and Manfred, we met with Sven (who was our host at Berlin, thanks again!) and shortly after that, Stefan left for visiting some other friends in Berlin. Sven, Manfred and I visited C-Base where Sven stumbled over a sound editing seminar while Manfred was preparing his zipFM show for Monday which mainly consisted of an interview with Klaus. After that we headed to a small but fine birthday party of a friend of Sven and were back home around 2:30.

My train left Monday morning at 8:56 and I was at home around 14:30. And on Friday I’ll go to Dresden for the Linux-Info-Tag by train just to go back to Berlin afterwards, where I meet my parents for a two week baltic sea holiday in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania near Rügen. But due to the Systems fair at Munich and autumn holidays I have to stay at work this week.

And yes, I wrote this and the other postings posted today offline, so they’re dated quite close together. :-)

Image based captchas are evil //at 02:20 //by abe

I always found Captchas annoying. But since I also had or have problems with guestbook or comment spamming, I understood that people and especially companies saw no other choice against comment or wiki spamming, mass account grabbing, etc. But since most captcha are based on the fact that people can still read deformed or garbled texts in images while machines can’t or at least only with a big effort, there is one big drawback with them: They are even more an insuperable obstacle for blinds or visually handicapped people than for machines.

The blind computer science student Sebastian Andres showed at Berlinux how blinds navigate and use the web and where they (must) stop. So because of GMail uses visual captchas as a defense against mass account grabbing, he couldn’t get such a “free” e-mail account. (And yes there exist non-visual captchas. But they’re seldom used.) Thanks Sebastian for this insight.