Moving on from the horrible tax situation, I’m struggling to get three pieces of hardware working. I’m terrible with hardware. Can anyone help me get these working better, please?
- I’ve been lent an Asus M5200N after I busted my shoulder with a 7kg laptop at #davebcs. I’ve managed to enable processor scaling as ondemand, but like the page says, the fan is noisy. Other sites report that the Centrino’s thermal limit is 100C, so is it OK to set the fan not to kick in until 78C on the sensor? The default is 40C which means it’s permanently on – the coolest the fan makes it is about 74C.
- The Asus has Ubuntu on it (intrepid I think). Is there an easier way to get my three GPRS connection working than copying the config files from the old laptop and using the terminal? Network Manager doesn’t seem to work and I can’t see what it’s trying to do or why it’s failing (where’s its debug log?). Alternatively, is there a distribution better suited to occasional laptop use than Ubuntu?
- I’ve been lent an iPod Touch. However, when plugging it into the USB on the Asus, the screen says simply “iTunes” and the quick start guide says to connect it to iTunes. Can gtkpod do this, is there another way to start it up from Ubuntu, Debian or GoboLinux, or shall I beg access to a computer running iTunes?
Thanks for any answers. I may send out small gifts in return because questions 2 and 3 seem very awkward to me.
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5 comments so far
1 Marius Gedminas // Jan 26, 2009 at 4:15 pm
1. Don’t know about CPU thermal limits, but, personally, I wouldn’t play with it. Even if the CPU can survive, can the other motherboard components nearby?
2. Are you using Bluetooth to talk to the cell phone? Then forget N-M (although I think I’ve heard someone post on a blog somewhere the magic HAL .fdi file that makes his cell phone visible to Network Manager). If you’re using a USB cable, it might Just Work, or, again, you may need to craft a HAL .fdi file. I don’t know how to craft .fdi files. I do my dialup the old-fashined way: ‘pon’ in a terminal, with configuration in /etc/ppp/peers and /etc/chatscripts.
3. You’ll have to beg Apple to release the protocol specs and remove the cryptographic vendor lock-in protection. Good luck. (This is why I’m not giving any of my money to Apple, even though iPhones and iPod shuffles look very appetizing.)
2 MJ Ray // Jan 26, 2009 at 4:22 pm
1. well, the default critical temperature is set at 98C, so I’d hope they can, but maybe I have too much faith in the BIOS setup.
2. yes, Bluetooth, with a USB dongle. That reminds me: the gnome bluetooth tray applet didn’t seem to form a usable connection. It looked like it was connected to the phone, but I couldn’t sdptool browse the phone address. I guess that’s the first thing to fix.
3. Yeah, I won’t give money to Apple. It’s only a borrowed iPod, so it should mean one less iPod sold at some point in the future.
Thanks for the question-answers!
3 Nico // Jan 26, 2009 at 4:27 pm
You can use the iPod touch with Ubuntu.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PortableDevices/iPhone
You can easily go around the new crypto imposed by firmware v2. (there is however a progressing effort on this, but very hush hush, as Apple tends to send take-down notices rather quickly…)
There is a project that is reverse engineering the USB multiplexing that Apple uses for the iPhone/iPod Touch, but it is not completely ready for normal use:
http://matt.colyer.name/projects/iphone-linux/index.php?title=Main_Page
4 Tim Kersten // Jan 28, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Hi,
I don’t know if your phone supports it, but my k660i lets me go to:
settings->Conectivity->USB->UsB network type->Phone as modem.
Then when you plugin the phone to your laptop via USB, it auto connects via network manager- no config needed what-so-ever. Perhaps this is possible with your phone too?
5 MJ Ray // Jan 28, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Sorry, I don’t have the USB data cable for my phone, only a charging cable, so that won’t work.
I’ve discovered that the problem with intrepid Ubuntu is probably https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/268502 so I guess I’ll either rebuild the kernel or replace Ubuntu. I wonder if this is common to all 2.6.27 kernels – I’ll check the kernel changelog when I get time.