Suzaku’s Upgrade, Dust, and Community
May 22nd, 20071. After almost 2 years, Suzaku (my desktop) finally got a much needed upgrade! Say hello to my fancy new monitor.
It was my first ever LCD monitor purchase, so I was quite anxious about it. Fortunately, everything went well, and got it working easily. Funny thing was that X on Kubuntu Feisty (through the Monitor & Display module) couldn’t detect the correct model. But then again, it didn’t detect my video card correctly, either. On Gentoo, I couldn’t get the correct Refresh rate, even after I manually entered the correct HorizSync and VertRefresh values (stuck at 50-54Hz). At least it works. I can troubleshoot later this week.
2. As I was cleaning my room earlier (to make way for the new monitor), I realized how much dust I acquired again, and after only almost 2 weeks. I’m caught in a difficult position. I have to leave my room’s windows and door open, otherwise it becomes a microwave. But doing so invites lots and lots of evil dust bunnies. Not only is it bad for my health (I’m asthmatic), it also exposes Suzaku to a lot of harm. Aside from air conditioning this small room, any bright ideas out there?
3. Christer Edward’s post got me thinking again about community. I am a firm believer in the importance of community, much more in FOSS projects than in any other software. The community, not just the users but the developers as well, is one of the glues that keeps a project together. Community begets (or should beget) communication, openness, and cooperation. Values that are essential in keeping Free and Open Source Software projects alive. One of the strongest points of Ubuntu has been its community. Now, I can’t really compare other distro communities, since it takes time to really get to know those communities. But it was the promise of a wonderful user community that help me make Kubuntu as my first distro. I wasn’t disappointed. Of course, no community is perfect. Like any other community, there are rifts and misunderstandings, mixed fruits of varying freshness or rottenness. There will always problems in the community. The more important thing is how the community responds to these problems. And even then, the responses may not always be perfect or ideal. It’s an ongoing process. I personally think what’s more interesting to watch is how different “sub” communities (like the user community, the developer community, the IRC coummunity, the forum community, etc.) interact with one another. Another area of personal interest would be resources (documentation, people, etc.) which seem to be a bit scattered, not only for Kubuntu, but for KDE as well. Maybe one of these days, when/if I have nothing to do, I’ll try to take a peek into these things. It’s quite interesting to work with communities, but equally difficult and tiring at times. I’ve had my own share of burnouts.
Just some small updates, while I'm trying to get off my ass and migrate the site completely to Textpattern.
May 22nd, 2007 at 12:47 am
On the matter of dust, it’s depends on the type that you’re talking about. If the particles are big enough, try putting a section of pantyhose over the intake fans. You have to clean it fairly often depending on your environment, but it will limit what goes into the computer.
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:19 am
50 Hz sounds normal for a TFT. They usually run at 50 or 60 Hz.
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:30 am
for the windows you could use a cloth or aircondition filter. If you own your house you could try some of those green building sites for ideas like bury a pcv pipe your yard and draw air through the earth to cool it. Shade over sun exposed windows will also shave a few degrees
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:45 am
http://oikos.com/esb/34/shading.html
here is a good guide on maximizing cooling through clever shade use.
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:24 pm
hehe. i have been finding some things to be quite humorously parallel in our digital progressions! we both seem to be peers of a sort, learning code at the same level, helping out in IRC at close to similar levels, and purchasing LCD monitors within days of each other! funny, we live thousands of miles apart!
i do concur it _is_ all about community.
May 24th, 2007 at 11:56 am
@chuck: Thanks! I’ll try that and hope it at least lessens the dust inside the tower.
@matthew: thanks for the link. My room already has some plants outside and a bit of a shade. Except in the afternoon, the setting sun directly faces my window. A bit of an idea what my room looks like:
http://jucato.org/gallery/v/photos/workspace/outside.jpg.html
@nathan: that’s just freaky
May 26th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
gwapo natin pareng Jucz ah
May 26th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
sorry to clutter your blog with links but i just found this which might interest you, being a voracious ebook eater, http://book.opensourceproject.org.cn/distrib/ubuntu/unleashed/