Comments on: Ubuntu Hardy on Compaq Presario 1240 (Living Without X)

by: ExxonValdeez

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:33:56 +0000

Very interesting. I have been wanting to try something similar myself but haven’t gotten around to it. I did recently install Arch on my laptop with Openbox which I am going to play around with for a while. However, I am considering using xmonad, which is similar to ratpoison. Overall, very neat what you can do with an old system like this.

by: dawn

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:21:12 +0000

I use dwm. All ligthweight window managers start within a fraction of a second on both machines.

The delay is in the “black screen” while X is initialised. On my old computer, the screen turns black for 2-3 seconds and then the window manager pops up. On my newer machine there is some flickering between deep black and a lighter shade of black before X spits the stuff in .xinitrc. I suppose some auto-detection mechanism is delaying the process.

by: Luke Maciak

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:48:05 +0000

Heh… Do you use Ratpoison on your regular machine? Bare bones X usually starts very fast on any machine. It’s the window manager that usually bogs it down. Ratposion on the Compaq pops up much faster than the KDE on my 2.6 GHz dual core laptop for example.

by: dawn

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:40:43 +0000

Actually it’s the trident package for me. It didn’t improve anything but I guess I exagerated. Now that I’m on the little old machine, I realise the resolution is fine with both the vesa and the trident driver. It’s not like I’m going to do graphic manipulation on a 800×600 px screen anyway. As long as video playback is smooth… (and I don’t even need X for that).

I also realise the old machine boots faster and starts X faster than my “regular” computer. Ah well, Crux beats Arch in some ways.

by: Luke Maciak

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:56:22 +0000

What bothers me the most is the screen resolution. Not because it’s 800×600, but because it’s 800×600 on a 12 inch screen (I think). Graphic elements and anti-aliased fonts don’t look great on that kind of resolution.

Have you tried installing the xserver-xorg-video-neomagic package? It really improved things for me. But yeah, the screen size make the resolution painful.

by: dawn

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:52:22 +0000

I have a Compaq Presario 1200 with a similar config, but I only start X if I realy need to see something in Opera.

What bothers me the most is the screen resolution. Not because it’s 800×600, but because it’s 800×600 on a 12 inch screen (I think). Graphic elements and anti-aliased fonts don’t look great on that kind of resolution.

That’s why I stick with screen with a tab bar. My philosophy is one task per tab. If I need to have centerim and elinks in the same tab, I use dvtm.

Programs such as mplayer don’t behave in screen, though, as you mentioned. Do you happen to know why by any chance?

by: Luke Maciak

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:01:19 +0000

I think on unbuntu it’s in a package of it’s own. I’ll check it out though. Thanks!

by: gp

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:39:50 +0000

I recommend using the Terminus font for the console, its included in the “console-setup” package in debian (so i think it may be the same for ubuntu).