Here are a couple of screenshots, to serve as conversation points. One belongs to me, and one doesn’t.
On the left is one that pete.t sent, and if you look close, you can see a clever splicing of both dvtm and dvm at work. Using one multiplexer shouldn’t discourage you from nesting another within it, sort of like I mentioned a while back with screen.
pete.t said that machine is an Athlon XP 1500 with a lowly GeForce4 video card, but it doesn’t seem the least bothered by the workload … if htop is any indicator. I can vouch for the video card, by the way: I believe used to have a mobile version, and it was no sluggard.
The image on the right is mine, and it’s a bit of a project. Progress is slow, but the intended result is something like a mix of a weather map and clock.
The host (and by host, I mean it in the host-and-parasite sense) is that less-than-spectacular K6-2 I brought home a few weeks ago. I’ve been tinkering with it off and on, and debating its future.
Technically, it’s a has-been. It has a number of quirky points which make it ripe for disassembly, and yet on the other hand, it’s still gameworthy.
I could list all its faults, but if this little adventure pans out like I want, I might have something to show off. I’ll save the details for later.
As it stands, the machine is running Debian 6.0, with only conky, xplanet and openbox on board. Given the siliconmotion driver’s general and ongoing state of disrepair, that’s about all it can handle.
The goal here is to get the machine to boot straight to X, download and render the weather maps at regular intervals, hide the mouse cursor, and — if I feel overly ambitious — cut power to the backlight at night and restore it in the morning.
If I can get everything working how I like, I’ll literally tear away all the components that don’t work (like the keyboard) and move on to the second step: mounting it on the wall.
But that’s a little bit into the future. And I have a couple of issues to solve before then … like how in the heck I can do a factory reset on my wireless router, after accidentally setting it to serve as an access point. That’s a whole different story though. … 👿
Motho ke motho ka botho 
one not…
The image is the dynamic window manager (with the pertag patch applied) with a monocle layout on Debian testing, using fbpanel (as hacked for dwm by Julien Pecqueur) and a status script by dbbolton.
I could achieve the same effect natively in dwm by using the bstack patch but as I use dvtm in vt terminals (i.e. no X) using it here for a bottom stack layout is no chore.
gopher://sdf.org/1/users/happy/phlog/11022011
NB: If you are among those that are gopher challenged try
http://gopherproxy.org/
or
http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/
Ah, sorry. I forgot the link. 😳 Thanks. 🙂
The extra time in making the link available allowed me to add an addition screen grab.
I’m also quite impressed that WordPress automatically hyperlinks gopher urls 🙂
Most routers are usually factory reset by holding the (presumably existent) reset button for about 5-10 seconds. Although I’m assuming you tried that already. 😀
Routers usually have a small button on the back, which you’ll need a pen or a paper clip to push. Might have to hold it for a few seconds to reset things rather than simply reboot.
Thanks, yes, this one has a reset button. I’ve tried it and it does reset the router, but not to factory settings. It’s a little difficult to explain. I’ll see if I can do better later, after I dig out the owner’s manual and wade through the kanji. 😐
Nice bloging here man, thanks for sharing the expirience.
For the router try holding the factory reset in the back press the power switch to give him life then power off. hook everything and try if it did some good…. at least that works for my box when i over do it 🙂
This is entirely unrelated to this post, but I’m proposing an irc channel that’s inspired from this blog. A channel devoted to people who’d like, or are running, minimal installations of linux. Anyone else interested?
I’d probably idle there, though my load out can hardly be considered ‘minimal’ by any of the standards set here, but I do like my OSes light and fast 🙂
If you build it, they will come. 🙂
I’d be willing to check it out. As a general rule, I’m not much of an irc user. But I’d be willing to try. 😉
Good idea. I’m not sure if it works like this, but how about registering #minimallinux on freenode?
I had originally had a dash in there, but yeah, that’s around exactly what I was thinking.
Freenode would be a good place for this (that, and then I don’t need to make a new user in znc).
Pingback: The geeky details: Clock and weather map « Motho ke motho ka botho
What is the name of the application located on the bottom-right of the first image?
tload
If you want to turn off/on the display, you might try vbetool. I built a digital picture frame from an old laptop (mounted on the wall now), and I use `sudo vbetool dpms off` (or on) to control the display. Simple and fast. 🙂
I’m one step ahead of you … 🙂
Pingback: A comfortable arrangement: Musca and screen « Motho ke motho ka botho