I decided to upgrade my work/main computer yesterday (IBM T61p with an Nvidia Quadro FX 570M affectionately called “the_brick”). Because I’m installing a non-stable desktop, I wanted to make sure that I budgeted in a fair amount of time to conquer any issues I might run across.
Here are some of the issues I faced:
1. The Nvidia 1-click install requires a newer version of the Kernel than the one available on the Live CD. I found the most recent kernel for OpenSUSE, 2.6.27.18, in a repository. BTW, I found the solution here.
Also, you need to use nvidia-xconfig in order to generate a new Xorg.conf. And of course, you need to run “Sax2 -r -m 0=nvi” to configure X – double check the “nvi” piece from the Xorg.conf file. I was unable to get composite working, and to be honest with you, I’m sort of happy going without this.
2. The default Live CD installs OpenSUSE 11.1 and KDE 4.1.3. In order to install KDE 4.2, you need to use the 1-click Factory install to update to KDE 4.2. All the repos are located here. Because this is a Factory install, there are probably bugs and other issues – you have been warned.
3. KDE 4.2 requires the latest version of QT libraries. I don’t remember the 1-click install warning me about that. So when it booted to a command line, I was stumped. Luckily, I figured out that I could use Yast to configure my network and add packages/repositories. I was able to find the latest Trolltech libraries here
I don’t think that this configuration is for the faint of heart. I’m not all that tech-savvy, granted, but I did blow 8 or 9 hours on this yesterday. On the bright side, I have a working install, and KDE 4.2 is really beautiful…lots of eye candy, even without compositing and compiz.
There are a lot of news items about Citibank today, but this one caught my eye. Citibank is saying that it’s balance sheet is so weak that it cannot afford to pay the interest payments on the loan.
Citibank received $45 Billion dollars in funding from the US Government. This is in addition to the money taken from Abu Dhabi{EE380D20-B249-4399-A1BE-52061D9B273F} and equity investments from Prince Al Waleed.
Republicans have repeatedly argued against “Nationalization” of banks. The fact is that our government now owns a substantial stake in Citibank. Citibank is on the brink of insolvency. At this point, there will either be a run on Citibank with catastrophic consequences or the government will have to take the bank into receivership and reorganize it.
The only difference between Citibank and the other insolvent banks seized by the FDIC every week is size. Postponing a reorganization of Citigroup only benefits the current shareholders and politicians who are willing to risk disaster for their principles.
As Krugman argues, nationalization is as American as Apple Pie. I agree with Krugman and think that Citibank should be taken in and out of receivership/reorganization as soon as possible.
I know that this has been blogged to death and made the highlight reel on Sportscenter. Regardless, I have to share this goal by Ovechkin for all the folks who read this blog but aren’t into hockey.
The best thing about this is that the Cap’s were playing the Habs when Ovechkin decided to make his move. Guy Lafleur completely trashed the Habs, who are freefalling through the standings.
ma.gnolia.com flamed out pretty badly there. I’m a complete outsider, so I am actually onto this story late. But apparently there was some sort of error trying to recover their database. I’d really love to see a detailed post-mortem on this someday.
I feel bad for users of their service. I’ve been using del.icio.us for a while, and that has been great. However, I almost never bookmark important things there. I like keeping a local copy so I can back it up myself.
In the past, I’ve seen a few companies that use ma.gnolia.com or del.icio.us streams to post stories/news items/etc. I understand the ease of use, but seriously, if you are working for a big company, you probably shouldn’t rely on miniscule startups to provide vital services to your customers. Just my opinion.
In order to hammer in the point, Speaker Pelosi posted the following blog entry on her website.
As I posted in my earlier blog post, unemployment matters, the big fear is that job losses will exacerbate the real estate slump. At this point, it is completely unavoidable and the damage is being done.
There are a bunch of people who are pissed off that Obama is taking a Centrist tone in his approach. I’m pretty sure that economically the package will not be as effective because of the reliance on tax cuts. However, I think that passing anything is better than doing nothing.
I was really curious about how the teams would stack up against each other if they were scored using the revised points system I mentioned before.
The table below is a ranking of all the NHL teams using the three point system. Just for kicks, I left in the old points in the second to last column. As you can see, it shuffles around some of the teams, but it isn’t as drastic as you might expect. “NP” stands for normalized points.
