I checked last night to see if new drivers had popped up for RadeonHD video cards. I try to keep them as up to date as possible. I never know when the new version will help with video glitches in Compiz-Fusion when playing movies.

The improvements are (taken from AMD):

• CrossFireX support
• Adaptive Anti-Aliasing support
• Support for new Linux operating systems
• ATI OverDrive™ Support for Linux
• ATI MultiView™
• Auto Detection and installation of distribution packaging

The Crossfire support has really got me hoping that they will start supporting the HD 3800 series as well. I bought an 3800 series a few months ago. So that part I can’t wait to see what happens.

The other nice feature that I noticed was that I now have the ability to overclock my GPU. I don’t know how much that will help me. I figure doing that on a system that is simi unstable as it is, could cost me a lot of time. I’m not willing to risk it yet. I will do more looking into the abilities of it though and report back here at a later date. Maybe with screen shots even.

I use Ubuntu at home. I’m still learning Linux. I think that on in January I will switch to another Linux OS. For now it is Ubuntu.

So in Ubuntu you have brown. Brown is everywhere. I like to have some custom stuff done to my desktop. So I created to Gnome Login screens. The Zelda screen was created for my wife Sydney and the second was an AMD Spider login for myself.

I was asked on my personal blog, Mouse Clone, how to install one, so I thought that I would share it here. So lets get started.

First step: Use Add/Remove Applications to install Start-up Manager. This will allow you to modify the GDM Login screen.

Second step: Either make or download a GDM Login screen. You can get Zelda or AMD Spider that I made from Gnome-Look.org.

Third step: We are going to say that you downloaded to your desktop. Go into System -> Administration -> Login Window. Put in your password for sudo. Click on the second tab, which is Local. Click Add. Browse to your desktop, or where ever you downloaded the tar.gz file. Click on the tar.gz file and click Install. Then you will need to select the GDM theme.

Forth step: CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE will restart your Gnome session. Make sure you have saved your work before you do this. I’m not responsible for your data loss.

A special note. Make sure that for Theme: you have Selected Only. Otherwise you may have to login a few times before you will see it, if it is set to randomize selected.

I would also like to say thanks to Julien for asking the Question over at Mouse Clone.

Windows Server has provied DHCP service for as long as I can remember. I started using Windows Server in the 4.0 days, but still touched the 3.1 version from time to time.

On small networks I have always used Windows Server for DHCP. It has always worked for single sites, no matter what size, with single subnets. The company that I’m currently with has multiple sites, with multiple subnets. It would appear that even though you have set the lease to expire in 8 hours or less, that traveling from subnet to subnet. Even setting the lease time at 1 hour would not have worked. Why? Too much traffic on the WAN. You really do not want computers checking every 30 minutes, which is the split time of the lease, to make sure that they can keep the same IP address.

I also had issues where Windows Server was saying that an IP address was in use when it really wasn’t. This gets to be a pain. The computer is spouting that its IP is in use else where, and you disconnect the computer from the network and you are unable to ping the Ip address. So, you know it is not in use anywhere else. The only conclusion that I was able to come up with is an over taxed DHCP server on Windows Server.

As stated previously, I started using DHCP from the Cisco routers. I have set DHCP up on all of the Cisco routers at all of the locations. I no longer have the issues with District Managers going from location to location. This has saved several support calls by getting this going at the local stores.

So if you are having trouble with multiple subnets / multiple locations, you may want to run local DHCP to each network. I’m not going to say that a Cisco DHCP server woudn’t have the same trouble as the Windows Server, but I have yet to see it on our main switch. Our main switch runs about 5 different DHCP configurations on it, while each remote location runs its own DHCP server on the local Cisco router.

I have been installing new copies of Windows XP and I have had the MS Windows update break on me every single time. The installs are clean with SP2. Still when going to MS Windows Update, it breaks right after it install SP3

So I did some searching on the web and found a fix that has always worked, and I wanted to post it here. This information was taken from the Tech Republic Forum. Thank you who ever posted this up. It has worked every time I have needed it to fix the broken updater.

What you will want to do is either copy and paste the following in to a bat file and run it, or you can must paste it directly into the CLI or command program.


net stop wuauserv
regsvr32 /s wuapi.dll
regsvr32 /s wuaueng1.dll
regsvr32 /s wuaueng.dll
regsvr32 /s wucltui.dll
regsvr32 /s wups2.dll
regsvr32 /s wups.dll
regsvr32 /s wuweb.dll
net start wuauserv


This should get you back on the road to getting your windows updates.

Please let me know if this article was helpful to you by commenting below.

After a harddrive crashed, I have finally gotten some time to get Zenoss 2.2 back up and running. It takes time when you are busy with other fires. I know you all want to know how I can take time to write. Well, writing really help me. I may help some of you, but writing on this blog is a good way for me to reference things that I have done so that I can find them again. More so when I have done things that I couldn’t find on the web, and I had to piece things together to get a result.

So back to Zenoss. In getting to relearn some of the Zenoss 2.2 fetures, I would like to say that they made this easier than first thought. So here is one of the first things that you do when you get Zenoss installed and running.

Discover Devices
You will want to discover the devices for the network that you either added or was discovered automaticly. If you leave Zenoss up for a period of time, it will start to get your network mask on its own. You will find that Zenoss will ping every ip in a subnet. Then it will list the devices under Main Views -> Device List. You will then be able to make any changes that you need to a device; Name, SNMP community, Hardware, Software, and other such things.

Model the Device
Lets say that you had to rename some devices, and that you needed to set a different SNMP community string. You will need to set the device class and then you will need to remodel the device. This will set up the performance meters and such for your device.

That is really the basics of Zenoss. I have only tested and played with it. I really need to dig down and get into the grit of the system. From what I can tell, it is a powerful tool that will help you manage your network and keep track of events.

There is one last thing that I would like to add. Zenoss seems to have some trouble with Opera 9.5. I’m not sure if it is Zenoss or Opera. It is more than likely the way that Opera handles redirects or something. In any case, FF3 works just fine.

The new version of FF3 was released today. I have downloaded and placed a copy of it here.

Thank you for visiting my blog. If you care to look around please feel free to do so.

Bill Gates is less that 1 month away from stepping down at Microsoft to spend more time with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This will be a new role for Bill Gates, as he states, ‘this will be the first time in 30 years that [he] has not done software’.

The question on everyone’s mind is what will happen with Microsoft. Gates has always directed the focus of Microsoft, and I am sure that he will continue to have a small hand in directing the future of the company.

What I’m trying to get to is, Linux is in the distance and Gates is stepping down. For anyone that doesn’t thing that OSS is big business, then you will really need to catch up on the fact that Microsoft is getting into the OSS business. Will Microsoft migrate to an OSS model?

Time will only tell what will happen with Gates gone. Microsoft has more than enough money, it would take several years to spend it all.

In the mean time, Microsoft is forcing its almighty dollar at anyone that could pose a problem. Microsoft is running ad campaigns for the Asus Eee 1000, “It runs better with Windows” and the Eee was designed with Linux in mind. I would highly doubt that it does run better with Windows, more like, “It has more bloat with Windows” taking a 12gig harddrive down to about 2 gig of usable space over time. I know because I have server that over time have chewed up the 10gig OS partition, constant maintenance.

Please comment if you have an opinion about where you think Microsoft is headed with Bill Gates out of the picture.

A month ago I wrote about the AMD Spider platform PC I built, New AMD Hardware, so I wanted to let you all know how things were going.

I couldn’t be more please. The speed of the system is great. I have yet to find anything that will really tax the system. All the games that I have downloaded and installed work great, and on the highest settings.

Now, none of the games were 64bit. The OS is not 64bit Windows XP. In fact I’m not sure that there is something out there that would use the 64bit, as far as gaming goes right now. So you really do not have to worry about this.

As for the Linux side. I have compiled code with blazing fast speed, in 32 bit and 64bit. The 4gigs of RAM really pays off in Linux as well. It is impossible for me to test games because AMD/ATI doesn’t have full 3D drivers for any of their video cards yet. I was warned about this when I bought the system, but I didn’t really care.

After a month of use, I don’t have any complaints. Everything seems to load faster. Programs are quicker to respond. I guess if I did have to complain about something it would be 2 things: 1) Linux drivers need a lot of work for the video.

I really would like to make a suggestion for AMD, if I may. AMD, you should really take more time for your Linux users. Over all Linux users are buying Intel and nVidia just because of compatibility. You should make 1.5 - 2 time the effort that you are making now. Why? Because even though there are only 6-7% of the market using Linux, to me that is a ton of people, you are loosing out on sales just because you are not 100% with it yet. Although you have made great efforts in catching up to nVidia, you need to do more. Your 3800 series video cards are great, and I have been an nVidia fan for a very long time, we just need more.

AMD you have always been cutting edge. You maybe late at times, but your not taking short cuts. That is why I bought your products. Please do not start to take short cuts. I don't mind waiting for a superior product to Intel. Bench marks don't mean much, even less to me because I feel they are skewed for Intel. Keep up the great work and I look forward to the 12 and 16 core CPUs.

Thank you for making a great product.

Now with that said, flame away. I know you can’t resist.

I’m done with experiments.  Wordpress is what I should have stuck with.  I was always fighting spammers with Drupal.  It is not that Drupal was bad.  I just couldn’t deal with it any more.

So I move all the post form Drupal here.  You will still be able to get to the old blog by going to http://19incheswide.com/old.

The Drupal blog will be comming down soon.  I have to make some changes in different places, but for the most part it is done with.

I hope that you enjoy the layout.  I don’t know if I will mod it or not yet.  We shall see.

Last week I bought new guts to my home PC. I decided that I would go with all AMD chipsets. The reason is that I have always liked AMD. They were the first with 3D NOW!, 64bit x86, and now the Quad Core. I didn’t really really need a PC, but I have not done a major upgrade in 5 years, and my old computer will be rebuilt for my mother, with Linux installed on it of course.

Let’s get to the hardware that is making up the guts of my PC now. If you look at AMD’s website you will see that it is a system based off of the “Spider” platform.

K9A2 Platinum 790FX AM2+ ATX Motherboard
Radeon HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCIe Graphics Card
AMD® Boxed Phenom X4 Quad-Core Black Edition Processor 9850
XMS2 2GB PC-8500 DDR2 Memory Kit

I have to say that this is one sweet system. I know people have bench-marked the Spider platform at less than the Intel Core2 Duo. I don’t really care for supporting Intel. That is a personal opinion, and I will bash Intel later for “cheating” to get into the Quad Core market. Intel thinks that they were first, but AMD has 4 single cores, and not two dual cores fused together.

I feel that Intel’s Core2 Duo was built for the “right now” and not for the future. AMD built a Quad Core that, I would say, 80% of the software doesn’t support. What do I mean? Multi-threading. I noticed that when using apt-get, in Ubuntu 8.04, to build the dependencies for WINE that during the install one core would max at out 100% while the other 3 cores just cruised along. Just about the time that one core would drop to 0% another one to max out to 100%. This means that for each lib that was installed, apt-get was only riding on one core, thus not multi-threading.

I have yet to do any testing in Microsoft Windows. Although I have installed Microsoft Windows XP, I will still need to do some test and installs to see how it goes with the Phenom. If my hunch is correct, XP will function as a 2.5GHz 80% of the time. Maxing out 1 core while the others run other processes. We shale see.

As for the ATI RadeonHD 3870. The processor speed is at 800MHz. I have seen some of the same cards boast 851MHz, but I have not tried to over clock the GPU yet, and I may not ever. From what I can tell the few minutes I played GuildWars, the responce time on graphics is great. Everything was turned up as high as it would go. I’m looking forward to getting some other game time in and seeing how the system preforms.

I will work on getting more information and data about the Spider platform when I get some time. I do feel that for the money and the future you will get more out of an AMD build long term, than you will from Intel. Intel seems to be a right now company and not a future company, are they taking lessons from Microsoft?