Kyle Farnung: The Blog

Well, as typically happens with me, I got bored and decided to try something new. This time it was Ubuntu Linux on my trusty Thinkpad T60. I hadn't tried Linux in quite some time and was pleasantly surprised by my experience.

First, my specs:

• Core 2 Duo T7200 2.0GHz
• 2GB DDR2
• 120GB HD
• ATI Radeon X1400 128MB
• DVD Burner
• Intel Pro/Wireless 3945

To start, I was excited that my wireless worked right out of the box with my family's WPA protected network. The install worked flawlessly and I was soon booted into a working operating system. After connecting to the wireless network, I rescanned the repositories and installed all of the provided updates. That's all it takes to get completely up to date.

One of the other things I was really interested in trying out was Compiz Fusion, also knows as "Desktop Effects" in Ubuntu. Trying to enable them using the default "radeon" driver did not work, but enabling the proprietary fglrx driver allowed them to work flawlessly. Although ATI has had a spotty past with their Linux support, this seems to be a very good step forward for them. Even suspending and resuming the computer works almost perfectly.

As far as other hardware, I have yet to try the bluetooth, but it is detected by the operating system when enabled, which is encouraging. In time I will hopefully try that out, but it's not really high on the list of priorities. I've also neglected the modem since I really don't have a use for it, but it looks to require the Linuxant proprietary drivers (which cost money).

The touchpad worked perfectly right out of the box and Ubuntu does provide a small number of options to configure it. One of the problems I did have was the sensitivity of the scroll, but that was easily fixed using a small Xorg configuration change. Just add the following line to the touchpad section of the xorg.conf file:

Option "VertScrollDelta" "130"

A higher number (up to 255 I'm assuming) seems to make the scroll go slower, while a lower number seem to make it scroll faster. As far as the TrackPoint, it worked perfectly as a mouse, but the center scroll button did not function. This was also easily fixed with a few more tweaks to the xorg.conf file. Just add the following to the "Configured Mouse" section of the xorg.conf file:

Option "EmulateWheel" "true"
Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2"

Since I seem to have most of the hardware under control (my biggest concern), I'm spending most of my time trying out new applications and learning about everything that a modern operating system has to offer.

Since most of the other services I've tried (I'm looking at you Flickr and Spaces) have limits about the number of photos you can upload, I'll be posting all of my pictures in my personal gallery from now on. Go check it out!

http://gallery.kylefarnung.com/

Well, summer is finally upon us in Seattle, the weather has been beautiful for over a week now and it's been great to be able to get outside. Not only has it been rain-free, but it's actually been pretty hot out here! This gave another intern and I the opportunity to go out hiking at Wallace Falls State Park. There are pictures from the hike posted at my Windows Live Space, if you happen to be curious about it. It's a pretty awesome sight.

In other news, work has been pretty great lately, but time is really flying by. Next week is the fourth of July (and hence a shorter week) and the following week is the "Midpoint Review" for my internship. This is a chance for both my mentor and myself to assess my performance during the first part of my internship. I really hope that I've been able to live up to their expectations so far, but I'm confident that I have. After that, there are merely six more weeks of work out here in Seattle before I'm flying back to Rochester (on August 24th). I'm very excited about the next few weeks, so I'm sure they will fly by.

Well, that's about it for this check-up, I'll be back in Rochester on July 11th, but only for the weekend. Either way, it will be exciting to see some familiar faces!

Hopefully more to come...

Last weekend was my second round interview for Microsoft out in Seattle. Given how little I travel in general, the trip was really exciting by itself, but the interview added another dimension to the situation. Although it was a rather stressful few hours of technical interviews, it was an enjoyable experience which allowed me to find out a lot more about the company. By the end of the day (a few hours after I had left), I had a job offer which I couldn't help but accept.

While I was out there, I explored downtown Seattle and hit the major points of interest, Seattle Center, Pike's Market, and the harbor. I happened to be there during the Seattle Maritime festival and spent a good deal of my day watching various demonstrations by tug boats and helicopters. There really is a lot to do out there, any I'm looking forward to going back in June.

For those interested, I posted my pictures on Spaces:
http://kfarnung.spaces.live.com/photos/

It's definitely been a while since I last updated this blog, but I still decided to update the software for it. Due to major changes, the skin will and parts of the interface will be noticeably different. Further skin revisions will probably be forthcoming, but at the moment I'm going to leave things as they are.