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Jan 14th, 2011

ClearOS Review

Recently I built and set up a new ClearOS machine. ClearOS is an open-sourced router and server distro based on CentOS, the free version of Red Hat Linux.

The machine is based on an Intel Atom 330 (dual-core 1.6Ghz) with 2Gb of DDR2 800Mhz RAM. It has one onboard Realtek 8168B PCIe gigabit ethernet controller (LAN side) and I have installed a VIA Rhine II 100Mbit PCI network card (PPPoE/WAN side). I have also installed a Marvell 88SE9123 PCIe SATA 6.0 Gb/s SATA controller and a Silicon Image SiI 3114 3Gb/s SATA controller for extra hard disks. The Marvell chip on the former card is the same one installed on many new motherboards which boast SATA3 support, and will be until Intel, AMD, VIA et. al. start incorporating SATA3 controllers into their chipsets, so it is already well supported and will be for some time. It is only a 2-port card but that is perfect for RAID0 or RAID1 configuration, not that I am using the fakeraid hardware controller on board.

So far the system has had several teething problems. I am using a standard Billion 7300 modem/router as a simple ADSL2+ bridge, with the ClearOS box performing PPPoE negotiation and all routing (NAT) duties. I have left my previous modem/router, a Billion 7404VGPX configured and connected to the LAN on standby duty in case I have problems with ClearOS, which I have. All I need to do is move the phone line from the Billion 7300 to the 7404 and re-enable the DHCP server on the 7404 to revert to the old setup.

The ClearOS installation procedure is fairly straightfoward although it is somewhat limited by the fact that you must install from USB or CDROM if you are setting up ClearOS in Gateway mode like I have done. You cannot do an install from the internet unless you are running standalone mode. This doesn’t really make sense to me, surely it wouldn’t be hard to specify temporary network settings during the installation procedure to gain access to the internet?

Some of the problems I have had so far with ClearOS:

Hard locks (hardware problems): the Sil 3114 card has caused some hard system locks while accessing attached disks. Considering this card has been in use for the last 3-4 years in an older fileserver with four disks attached (it now only has two), this is either indicative of the card reaching its end of life, a problem with its physical installation or some incompatibility between this and the motherboard. The latter is highly unlikely, but the former are possible. That said, it has been working well for the entire time in a well-ventilated case and is essentially ‘good as new’, so who really knows? I have reseated the card in the PCI slot and so far the system has been operating for 25 hours straight. Still early days, but previously it’d only worked for less than that before problems arose.
Soft locks (software problems): I have managed to lock the system two or three times by clicking around the web control panel. It seems as though running certain reports causes catastrophic failures somewhere, so much so that it ceases function as a router and does not even respond to SSH any longer, requiring a hard reset. This has not happened since I reseated the Sil 3114 card though, so maybe that was at play here.
Random service failures: the web configuration sometimes dies and comes back. Usually after performing a CPU-intensive task, like listing the currently open connections or generating a report.
PPPoE: doesn’t seem to receive DNS server address information from the ISP. Or if it does, it doesn’t redistribute this information via DHCP automatically. I’ve had to manually input the preferred DNS servers into the DHCP client.
ClearOS doesn’t support transparent web proxying AND QoS bandwidth allocation. This is a well-discussed problem with ClearOS, apparently the developers think the problem is too hard to solve without more money. However, other freely-available Linux-based routers can do transparent web proxying and QoS bandwidth allocation. Guess it wasn’t too hard for them…
Also doesn’t provide NFS services out of the box.

Aside from it crashing a few times (which is looking more and more like it was my fault), the system has been pretty good. It has most of the features anyone would need as an SMB or advanced home server.

Routing and WAN performance with routing and such is excellent. Pings to local gaming servers seem to be slightly reduced by 20-30 milliseconds. The web proxying cache seems to have sped things up a little bit, though with most of the content I access being hosted locally in Australia the speed is already there, it’s more to do with saving bandwidth on not re-downloading the same content all the time.

I still can’t figure out what the deal with network fileserving is. The CPU load while transferring files at gigabit speeds are around 80-90%; I guess this is owing to the fact that I am using an mdadm Linux software RAID0? Samba to Windows Vista only yeilds about 30Mb/sec; though FTP is 80-120 Mb/sec (given this high number is impossible, I am doubting the accuracy of these numbers). iperf between systems is about 850Mbit though so I know the network isn’t the problem. It will require further troubleshooting methinks.

Jan 13th, 2011

Queensland floods

Queensland has been flooding for the past week. Quotes like ‘floods the size of Texas’ have been thrown around. The floods have been roughly equivalent to those that occurred in 1974 but are not as bad as those that occurred in the 1890s and 1840s. My suburb has not been affected, but my workplace has. We are closed until next week. It’s not really been a huge interruption for us because last week was the last week of holidays for us so not many people were in the office to be sent home anyway.

A lot of peoples homes have been inundated quite comprehensively, but due to the Wivenhoe Dam upgrade that occurred from 2003 – 2005 this flood has not been as bad as it could have been. However I await the inevitable shitstorm that will follow the cleanup efforts because no doubt a lot of stupid people along with Anna Bligh’s political enemies will come out of the wood works blaming her and everyone else in order to further their own agendas.

Dec 29th, 2010

Party: music, videos and visualisations

I have a birthday party coming up and it’s a milestone year. Appropriately, I’ve invited some people around to my place and – all going to plan – it’ll be a good party. I have put a bit of thought and effort into the entertainment which will be available; mainly in the form of music. I have some large floor-standing speakers (an idea; photo taken during construction), an appropriately powerful amplifier to drive them, and a large collection of high quality music. What else can be done?

Well, there’s the obvious things: lighting and ambience. I’ll be making use of several sets of disco lights: of what type I am as yet unsure, but I imagine they’ll be standard fare. At any rate, that kind of stuff is either simple (random) or complex (programmable); unfortunately I don’t have the equipment or the time to deal with the latter, so the former will have to do. As for ambience, I am also going to have a smoke machine running and probably set up a light-sensitive plasma ball as well.

Then, there are the not so obvious things: video and visualisations. Fortunately in this day and age of high-def YouTube, it is sometimes quite easy to obtain good quality music videos. I have a few and I’ll be putting them to good use, but being able to do so was a small effort in itself (which I’ll get to later). Visualisations are basically mathematic representations or interpretations of the music being played. You’ve probably seen one before, there are some basic ones that come with most media players. Most times you will probably see bars moving up and down or a wiggly-wavy line, these are very simple forms; then there are more elaborate interpretations such as projectM, some of which can produce quite stunning and interesting imagery.

My plan was to make use of projectM in conjunction with my home theatre PC. This would provide an excellent central place to display the visualisations and obviously as my home theatre speakers are already connected, it just makes sense. But what else? Normally in clubs and such (The Met is a great example), they have multiple screens set up doing this kind of thing … how could I do that too? Turns out, pretty easily. PulseAudio is an awesome piece of software for just this purpose. With the click of a few settings I was able to setup my HTPC as a multicasting audio server with my desktop and laptop computers receiving the multicast; now, with projectM running on all three systems, I am able to have an easy to organise multi-screen system which makes use of existing network cabling in my home. The projectM instances on each computer won’t be synchronised (unless I specify a list of presets, but there are literally thousands – maybe I will, but probably not), but I think that’s fine. If they’re all displaying different imagery it just adds to the experience in my opinion.

As for music videos, that was a little more difficult to figure out because I wasn’t aware if it was possible to do what I wanted. There were no media players that support projectM and video playback at the same time; and technically, there still isn’t, but I was able to use qmmp to achieve what I wanted. qmmp allows me to add audio and video files into the same playlist. When qmmp reaches a video title in the playlist it simply launches mplayer to handle the file. mplayer is a handy video utility: it plays pretty much everything and it’s also highly configurable; not having its own graphical front-end makes this a requirement. It was a pretty simple process of reading the mplayer man page, adding a few options to its configuration file and having it behave exactly how I want: on the HTPC television screen, projectM will be fullscreen until a movie is played, whereupon a fullscreen mplayer is launched over the top of the projectM display to play the video file which then automatically exits at the conclusion of the video, at which point the next song plays and the projectM visualisation is once again visible. Neat, huh?

So, I was able to configure qmmp, PulseAudio, projectM and mplayer in such a way that I can remotely control (via vnc, but other options seem viable) the music and video playback for my party. I’m happy!

Oct 25th, 2010

Sale of the Century: Who am I?

My purpose in life is to get married and have children before I am old enough to do so responsibly. I will then get bogged down in life working a shitty dead-end job and grow increasingly angry at the small world immediately around me while simultaneously growing increasingly ignorant of the world at large. I will expect the government to solve my problems and I will develop erroneous thought patterns moulded upon common logical fallacies. This unstable state of mind will be fuelled by modern media and I will easily succumb to the confusopoly of modern society. Who am I?

Aug 10th, 2010

My new phone, and why Telstra doesn’t suck anymore

Telstra were the first company I signed a phone contract with, way back in 2004 if I recall correctly. They had the phone I wanted, but it was on a pretty ridiculous plan. Still, I signed with them anyway. This was before 3G and cap plans. This was when EDGE was a big deal, and Push To Talk was being flouted as amazing technology.

Well, we know where all that stuff is now: long gone. With the likes of 3, Vodafone, Virgin and later Crazy Johns all jumping in on the 3G + caps bandwagon, Telstra was left behind with their decades-old poor value phone contracts (you pay $80, you get $80). I paid out my Telstra contract early and went with 3, and I’ve been there since about 2006/2007, and had two phones with them.

Recently, 3 has been puchased by Vodafone as you may have noticed. But not so recently; say, in the last six months or so, 3 has been growing steadily irrelevant. Their once great coverage (3G + 2G on Telstra) became standard. Their once great range of phones diminished over time. They got to a point where they are now: they have three or four flagship phones, but nothing else. Hell, they don’t even have the iPhone 4 yet. No ritzy midnight launch from 3.

Although 3 has been good to me, I was tired of getting drop-outs everywhere along my short journeys to and from work. 3G is slow enough already, even when browsing ‘mobile friendly’ sites, but it’s made worse when between my home station and the CBD, reception would drop completely about two or three times for several minutes at a time.

It was with much trepidation that I decided to check out other providers – Telstra initially wasn’t even on my radar as, well, we all know Telstra is shit, so why bother?

But that’s where I was wrong. It turns out that as Telstra has recently sold all of their copper-monopoly to the government they were only left with their NextG mobile network monopoly. Which, combined probably with a thousand other things behind the scenes in Telstra’s board room, has made them really think about their place in the market and where they want to move in the future. Hence, their residential broadband services are now actually good value. You can get 200Gb of data on Telstra cable at 30Mbit for around $60-$70 per month. I pay more than that for less data on much slower ADSL2+. Other mobile carriers have the new Android and iPhones on $60-$80 caps, most of the time with more included call value and data, but still with a higher entry price point than Telstra, from whom you can get the latest and greatest Android and iPhone starting at $49 per month, which is exactly what I did. They actually have a deal going at the moment where you can double your data for free – for the period of your 24 month contract. So, the included 200Mb on the $49 cap goes to 500Mb, which is alright. But what really got me was the fact that this applies throughout your contract period, even if you change your data plan! If you bump your included up to 500Mb, you actually get 1Gb, and so on.

A lot of people will tell you that in metropolitan areas, other networks are just as good as NextG for speed and coverage. Well, they’re probably correct most of the time. However, the advertisement on television you see with the apathetic girlfriend and the eBay-fanatic boyfriend is actually true, mostly. I have tested it. You really can maintain mobile reception, data connection, calls, etc, inside elevators, with NextG. I went to Townsville recently for work and took a NextG data card with me for my laptop. I was downloading at about 100-200Kb/sec on the outskirts of the city, inside a concrete building. That’s impressive. I could barely make a call on my Vodafone work mobile.

My reluctance to choose Telstra was removed – temporarily. I had a bad experience turn to a good one while attempting to sign up.

First, I went to my local Telstra store. They told me I couldn’t have the double data deal. I was confused because I was sure it had been advertised. I was right, and they were wrong. So I left a whinge about it on TEX, the Telstra Exchange blog and forgot about it. I went to another store, waited for 45 minutes to be served, and eventually signed up. I got my double data deal. However, on that day in particular Telstra were doing some upgrades, so my number couldn’t be ported then and there. This meant leaving the phone with them until the next day, as they can’t give the phone out without porting the number first due to the risk of fraud. OK, so I waited again.

It turns out the store I visited first is a “Telstra licenced” store, which basically means it’s a franchise and they do their own thing while carrying the “T[life]” branding. I thought it was pretty ridiculous because thousands of stores who franchise under hundreds of companies don’t selectively pick and choose what deals they honour or products they stock. Why is Telstra different?

I was then surprised and impressed to receive an e-mail from a Telstra customer relations manager in a followup to the little whinge I left on their blog. He wanted to know which store I had been to and whether he could get someone to call me to help me out. Frankly, I was shocked. Telstra, the same Telstra who everyone hates, has actually e-mailed me out of the blue to ask if they can help, based solely on a little rant I left on their blog. “THIS IS INCREDIBLE!” I thought, “TELSTRA ARE ACTUALLY ENGAGING WITH CUSTOMERS USING MODERN COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUES!” my unnecessarily loud and excited thought continued. Since then I have exchanged a few e-mails back and for with the fellow concerning Telstra and the phone I bought, and frankly I am really impressed.

The phone I chose is the HTC Desire, but I think I’ll write another post about that later – this one is already just over 1,000 words!

Apr 25th, 2010

Building a NAS: Stage 2 (Software and Maintenance)

With the system up and running, it made sense for me to make an effort to see it stayed that way. I needed to be able to have the following things happening without any intervention on my behalf:

Users’ Windows PCs backing up automatically to their respective folder on the network
These backups being automatically rsync’d with an external disk, for a true backup
Reports on the status of the machine being made available to me at regular intervals

The first is turning out to be the most difficult. Initially I wanted to write a batch script that handled this for me and then configure it to run once a week using Task Scheduler in Windows. However, there are three different versions of Windows for me to contend with out of my five users, (XP, Vista, 7), so it wasn’t as straightforward as I thought it would be, with Vista and 7 including “Robocopy” out of the box, and XP not. However, we all know the most straightforward solution isn’t always the best one. Even with Robocopy, you cannot do incremental/differential file copies. You can coarsely say “all files changed after some date”, but it still copies everything in full.

Enter FTPSync, a nice little FTP tool which has a built-in differencing algorithm and allows full, incremental and differential backups. Its configuration is somewhat obscure, but nothing too difficult to understand with the help of their online documentation (which as it always happens, was actually down the first time I wanted to access it). After some initial tests on a small dataset, I think it will be most suitable for my purposes, for two reasons: (a) incremental/differential backups, saving time, and (b) it does this over FTP, which is the most CPU-efficient protocol for my underpowered file server.

Setting up the user home directories was pretty easy: just enable the [homes] share in your Samba configuration, and you’re away. Mine are actually redirected via symlinks to another disk, so you also have to add “symlinks = yes” to the [global] section of your config, or your home directories won’t appear as intended. The rsync configuration was also pretty straightforward, but I’ll include my backup script here for your reference:

#!/bin/sh
# 200GB is 209715200 bytes
# rsync.pwd file must be owned by root as script is executed from roots crontab
RSYNC=/usr/bin/rsync
SSH=/usr/bin/ssh
KEY=/home/owen/ssh-key/owen-rsync-key
RUSER=owen
RHOST=192.168.1.50
RPATH=/home/owen/backup/fileserver-backups/owen/
LPATH=/var/data/owen
# $RSYNC -az -e "$SSH -p 768 -i $KEY" $RUSER@$RHOST:$RPATH $LPATH
# rsync -az /var/data/owen/ owen@boxenmkiv::owen –password-file /home/owen/rsync.pwd
homeSize=`du -sD $LPATH | cut -f 1`
emailMSG=""
MAILSUBJ="Backup summary for $LPATH on `date`"
RECIPIENT="owen"
if [ $homeSize -gt 209715200 ]; then
emailMSG="User $RUSER rsync backup failed.nReason: $LPATH size is ~ $(($homeSize/1024/1024)) Gb"
else
emailMSG="$LPATH is ~ $(($homeSize/1024/1024)) Gb, proceeding with backup at `date`.n"
# $RSYNC -az -e "$SSH -p 768 -i $KEY" $RUSER@$RHOST:$RPATH $LPATH
rsync -az /var/data/owen/ owen@boxenmkiv::owen –password-file /home/owen/rsync.pwd
emailMSG=$emailMSG"$LPATH backup completed at `date`."
fi
echo $emailMSG | nail -r "my@email.net" -s "Owen’s Backup Result for `date`" my@email.net

There’s actually a lot of junk at the start of the script which I haven’t cleaned out yet (since changing from an rsync over SSH approach), but the important part, the part that does all the work, is the rsync call on line 28. The simple if construction checks the size of the data to be backed up, and then proceeds if below 200Gb, otherwise does nothing. The result of the script is e-mailed to me when it finishes. Also, I have created a little script which runs every now and then to collect the temperature of the hard disks, a df output or two, and some other info, which is also e-mailed to me periodically, just to keep an eye on things.

There is a version of the above script for each of the five users on my system, and they are all executed using roots cron daemon. As noted in the script, the rsync.pwd file must be owned by root for this to work.

Apr 18th, 2010

Building a NAS: Stage 1 (Rationale and Hardware)

Currently I live in a share house with four other people. It’s a very internet-connected sharehouse; three of us are heavily into gaming, all of us are heavily into internet, three of us are students, and all of us have precious data which is important that we’d rather not lose.

Enter me, and my extensive ability to play with neat toys. Surely there’s something I can do, or build, or make, that can benefit everyone? What do you know: there is! I picked up an old file server system from my parents’ place which was serving as a back up system for my dads business. It had 2x 500Gb Western Digital hard disks running in a RAID1 (mirror) array. The system ran fine for about three years and was based on the following, which I had aquired from eBay and the local computer store some years prior:

Intel Celeron 1000Mhz (Tualatin)
2x256Mb PC100 SDRAM
Intel i815-based mainboard
Sil3114 4-port PCI SATA150 card
Realtek-based PCI network card

It ran Arch Linux (a mistake, but once it was setup, it never needed administering, so not too bad I guess), and worked without issue for several years. Come a few months ago, and it was no longer needed, so I reclaimed it. Aside from one of the disks having ~1700 bad sectors (but thankfully still in warranty), the rest of the system was fine, if a little dusty.

Of course my operating system of choice was Linux. Two main reasons: (1) it doesn’t cost anything, and (2) (and this is the real reason) should my hardware die, (which is more probable than it not dying, on account of the fact that it is coming up on ten years old) with a Linux-based system I can literally plug the hard disks into a totally different CPU, motherboard & RAM and have it back up and running in no time at all. In the event of a mainboard, CPU or memory failure, the system would not need to be rebuilt. Linux’s ability to cope with massive hardware changes is perfect for my untrustworthy hardware.

In the meantime though I thought to myself that the old Celeron could be used once more: the PCI SATA card still had two free ports, and PCI gigabit network cards are cheap. So, I bought two Western Digital “Green Power” 1Tb drives and a Realtek-based PCI gigabit NIC and away I went with a Ubuntu 9.10 Server install. After dealing with a small issue of the operating system not booting because the version of GRUB it ships with had some strange bug whereby it couldn’t find PATA hard disks, I had it up and running.

Some figures: the maximum write speed I can put to the system over network is a fairly pedestrian 25Mb/sec; that’s over FTP on a “Gigabit” network (I say gigabit in quotes because I went cheap on the switch; using iperf to benchmark it yields a maximum throughput of about 370Mbit). The CPU usage is 100%. scp-ing stuff over the same link maxes out at about 9Mb/sec, and rsyncing maxes out at about 2.5Mb/sec, all three figures because the CPU is maxed out. The only good figure I see out of the system is its power draw: using an inline measurement tool I picked up from Jaycar, the system pulls a max. of about 44 watts. That’s with:

Intel Celeron 1000Mhz (Tualatin)
2x256Mb PC100 SDRAM
Intel i815-based mainboard
Sil3114 4-port SATA150 card
Realtek RTL-8169 gigabit NIC
Western Digital 200Gb WDC WD2000JB-00GVC0 (boot disk)
Western Digital “Green Power” 1Tb WDC WD10EADS-65M2B0
Western Digital “Green Power” 1Tb WDC WD10EADS-00P8B0
Western Digital “Blue” 640Gb WDC WD6400AAKS-00A7B0
Western Digital 500Gb WDC WD5000AAKS-00YGA0
2x 120mm fans, 1x80mm CPU fan, 1x80mm PSU fan

For general file server usage it is fine. I can stream 4x 720p movies from the system without any trouble. Copying large datasets to it over Samba or FTP isn’t too bad. However, the main purpose of the system is to be a backup of important documents etc with each person in the household having up to 200Gb available. At present, the rsync of a ~180Gb dataset has taken approximately 15 hours; and it is still running on account of that heavily CPU-limited 2.5Mb/sec that rsync manages. This is however on the first pass, so I wonder if the performance will be so terrible on the second pass?

The puzzle I have is thus: with all the traffic going over the PCI bus, which maxes out at 133Mb/sec, is that 25Mb/sec write speed I see over FTP on account of the CPU being maxed out from calculating the data flow (ie, the data itself), or is it maxing out calculating the PCI subsystem (ie, co-ordinating the data)? Theoretically I should see at least 66Mb/sec (PCI bus total speed divided by two); but I have measured the average write performance of one of the “Green Power” disks to be around 38Mb/sec. So, it won’t reach the theoretical maximum of the PCI bus when writing, however that 25Mb/sec still falls short. At least I have some headroom to maximise the performance of my disk subsystem with faster buses.

There are fortunately a lot of options becoming available which I can use to my advantage; specifically, a lot of Atom-based mini-ITX boards with low power computing in mind. Unfortunately many of them are not really designed for low-power NAS duties with most only having two SATA ports and no expension options. There are a few however that are going ‘all-out’ on the features department, but many are not available in Australia yet. The Zotac boards, Supermicro boards, and the Gigabyte boards have 4+ SATA ports, with the Zotac being my favourite as it also has a single PCIe x16 slot – with the addition of a simple graphics card, the system could go from NAS to full-fledged HD-capable HTPC. While I don’t currently have that purpose in mind, there’s no reason why it couldn’t happen in the future.

But, would this really improve the performance of my server? I am going to assume that it would. The NM10 chipset has modern data buses to support it: DDR memory, PCIe, and USB2.0 to name a few. What of the CPU, though? The D510 is a dual-core, low power solution running at 1.6Ghz. But, the Atom achieves its low power through some trickery: it’s actually a RISC CPU with a CISC wrapper around it. There was some worry when they were first released that their performance with unoptimized software would be terrible.

PassMark CPU chart for the Atom D510, and PassMark CPU chart for an Intel Celeron 1000Mhz (scroll waaay down) – no competition, right? Let’s hope so. With this, and anecdotal evidence collected from forums stating that an Atom-based NAS can achieve 1Gbps+ (with dual NICs in a team), I shouldn’t expect to see a drop in performance.

At present, my favourite local retailer has “preorder” status on the Gigabyte GA-D510UD for around $110. I can’t find Zotac solutions being offered for sale anywhere in Australia. I will have to keep an eye on the performance of the system to see if upgrading would be worthwhile.

Apr 10th, 2010

Apple sucks.

Haha. My favourite:

Thing 2.0

The tech world is on the verge of frenzy at the release on Tuesday of Thing 2.0 by market leader StuffCorp.

“It completely revolutionises the nature of stuff. Thing 2.0 is basically like nothing we have ever seen before. The game has literally changed.” said StuffCorp CEO Chris Warner.

And it seems like the public agrees, with over 2,000 people lining up outside of StuffCorp’s Silicon Valley superstore in order to be one of the first to get their hands on Thing 2.0.

IT aficionado Sam Doyle, who we spoke to after having lined up for 14 hours to get his hands on Thing 2.0, was adamant that it was worth the wait.

“Thing 2.0 is just in a league of it’s own. It does stuff twice as fast as its closest competitor, up to 12 trillion things per second, and that’s just unrivalled in the current market. I love it.”

But, behind all the hype, what does Thing 2.0 really offer? Well, the main change to Thing 2.0 that differentiates it from the original Thing is that it is 33% smaller, 20% lighter and can do literally ten times more shit than the original thing could do.

The improved performance of the Thing 2.0 essentially comes down to the BuzzWordDrive, which features 3 blue LED lights and an aerodynamic design, allowing it to perform the vast array of functions that the original Thing could only dream of.

170 million units of the Thing 2.0 have already been preordered, merely confirming how, in today’s fast paced world, it is simply irresponsible to get left behind.

Thing 2.0’s tagline “Do more shit per second, today.”, has clearly resonated with a public that has more to do, and less free time, than ever before.

But will the public be satisfied? This reporter thinks so, but with rumours of Thing 3.0 already in the works, public expectation is on the rise.

Mar 16th, 2010

I can’t buy the netbook I want.

I want a netbook that has:

1366×768 resolution or more (~11.6″ screen)
Competent graphics (no Intel GMA500; it isn’t Linux compatible)
Upgradeable memory (3Gb at least, please)
Good battery life (3 hours minimum with WiFi)
Preferrably with a built-in 3G modem
As already mentioned, Linux friendly
Sub $1000 AUD

It seems as this kind of a netbook simply doesn’t exist in Australia at the moment. A prime candidate would be the HP Mini 311; however, it’s not available in Australia. This laptop has received great reviews and meets all my requirements.

There are similar models available in Australia, but they all seem to miss one or another of my requirements. Why is it so hard to buy a high-end Atom netbook in this country? Christ, the platform has been out for at least 18 months, if not longer!

Why do I want all this? Well, some use-case scenarios:

At home on the couch: I can fire it up and be browsing the ‘net in seconds. By being ultra low-power, I rarely have to worry about where the power cord is. A dual-core Atom and nVidia ION graphics will ensure I can handle online 720p/1080p YouTube streaming. While working on documents or doing whatever.
At parties: connected to a home theatre system via HDMI, it’s a portable media centre for use at parties. I have a certain fondness for ProjectM which may be slightly unhealthy.
At work: in a data centre, despite being surrounded by computers and networks, you don’t always have easy access to power or internet. With at least 3Gb of RAM, I could create a RAM disk to store my working files on temporarily and shut down the hard disk completely, putting the netbook into a kind of ultra frugal battery mode. The built-in 3G modem means I don’t have to worry about dongles hanging off it while I work in confined spaces.

I can’t buy from the US because I’ll have nil support from HP warranty. That sucks.

Mar 13th, 2010

My laptop is dying

Unfortunately it seems as though it’s nearly time for my laptop to die. Earlier today, while processing some photos, I saw the temperature of the graphics chip exceed 80 degrees celcius. It stayed at 83 degrees for some time, and then the screen began to artefact. I have subsequently removed the bottom panel which normally covers the cooling fan and heatpipe arrangement, and placed the laptop, open and on its side on my desk, with cables sticking out vertically, using an external monitor.

I thought maybe it was just the temperature at that point in time causing the issue. At present, the graphics chip sits at 54 degrees celcius, but similar graphics artefacts are occasionally occuring. This makes me a sad panda. Although I have had this laptop for just short of two years, I don’t really want to buy another. What really annoys me about this is that I know it’s not my fault the thing is dying.

I look after my things. This is the reason it’s dying. nVidia and Dell fucked up a few years ago; nVidia made some dodgy graphics chips and then those dodgy graphics chips made it into several models of Dell laptop, mine included. Although Dell admirably extended the warranty on all affected laptops for 12 months for this particular issue, I still feel as though I’ve been cheated somewhat. I still have a desktop system that I built late in 2004. It’s still running perfectly fine because I thought out the system before I purchased it, built it properly, and looked after it. Despite the fact that I use my computers more than the average person (that system in particular was operated nearly 24/7, literally for about 4 years), they stand the test of time. Not so with my laptop, because nVidia and Dell fucked up.

So, although I really like Dell laptops, and I have since bought other nVidia products, I might have to look elsewhere for a future laptop, if indeed I buy one at all. My needs have changed and I rarely make use of a full laptop system anymore. I could probably do with a basic netbook, although even for simple tasks the abysmal screen resolution on those things would annoy me. I think I’ll have to have a ponder.

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