The joys of plug and play

Oh, that scanner. Well, apart from that, it works OK, albeit slow.

Getting PDF two-page views righted

This has bugged me both in Okular and Adobe Reader: They are capable of displaying facing pages next to each other, but both display the first page on the left by default and all the following as they come, so individual pages are on the wrong side in standard books, where page 1 is on the right.
Annoying if you want to check layouts.

• Adobe Reader solution: View->Page Display->Show Cover Page During Two-Up
• Okular solution: Settings->Configure Okular…->General->Centre first page

I think all of this could be a little more intuitive.

Wireless trouble and more

After some major update my wireless stopped working on Tisiphone (Samsung R55 Cavan, Intel 3945 chipset). Not good. wlan0 didn't even show up in the ifconfig output. dmesg showed some startup problems with the iwl3945 kernel module.
The solution was to remove the compat-wireless drivers, you don't need them for the Intel 3945 chip (Some other update tried to sneak them in again, so beware!)
On the way (rebooting at least once without a working X server), I found that I had both a default and a pae kernel, which was interesting (to put it mildly), the latter had accompanied the uvcvideo-kmp-default module. No idea why.
To top everything off, the uvcvideo, wacom and nvidia modules refused to work with each other's preferred kernel version, and I wondered how my system had been running before and what my webcam was doing with uvcvideo when I had championed gspca previously. No matter, I changed the driver to gspca-kmp-default (not in the default repos, search software.opensuse.com for it).
So finally I can film myself using the Wacom tablet with the webcam and stream that over wireless all at once - I'm so hip I can't see over my pelvis.

Sloooooooow printing

...with our office HP LaserJet 1300n, especially for anything containing images, until I changed the printer model in YaST->Hardware to LaserJet 1300n hpijs with the corresponding .ppd file. See the OpenPrinting database for the differences between the postscript and hpijs drivers.

Empowering a Powerbook

To make it kind of a challenge, the Powerbook Aluminum 12'' was addled by a small HD, a slightly bent case, little RAM and a coffee-soaked combo drive.
Good news: most standard notebook HDs, RAM and slot-in optical drives (remove the slot facing on the replacement drive) fit, and Linux ought to run OK an a New World ppc.
Specs (L*W*H, in mm): optical drive 129*128*12.7, HD 100*70*9.5 ATA, RAM: SO-DIMM PC333 (2700) DDR, only one slot.
Bad news: you have to disembowel your powerbook completely to get at the optical drive, including removing the mainboard, detaching the heat sink and managing over 50 ridiculously small screws. Hard disk replacement happens on the way. Check the ifixit guide.
Additional things to have at the ready: ground bracelet (exposed mainboard and processor, remember), tweezers for lost screws etc, thermal conductivity paste, a soldering iron (for accidentally ripped cable connectors). A big hammer. Patience. Bravery. Faith.
Actually, the ifixit guide comments the necessary removal of a few keyboard keys with: This is scary - take a deep breath before continuing. A few pages later, you get such laconic gems as Support the heat sink with both hands, and carefully lift it out of the computer, or Lift the logic board partly up from the optical side - without any further encouragement. God, I need a shrink now.
Tisiphone (Samsung R55 Cavan) got a hard drive upgrade parallelly: a matter of two screws and one cable…
After that, everything went OK: We left 50 GB for Linux in the Apple partitioner. By patiently pressing "C" during bootup, the Powerbook was persuaded to boot both a Kubuntu hardy ppc CD and a SuSE 11.1 ppc DVD, though we haven't got around to installing anything yet.

WTF???

iPod Classic: not again the composer tag!

I use to organise my largely classical mp3 library via Amarok: stored in a composer->album directory tree, sorted by composer tag, album art selected by the Amarok Cover Manager. Some folders contain old .m3u playlists.
Results of dumping the whole shebang onto my iPod via gtkpod:

Apple is not that nice.

Apple sells slick high-quality hardware and software combining usability and eye candy admirably. It's hip. It's not Microsoft.
Thus, we are tempted to confuse the cuddly guys from Cupertino with some kind of universal messianic benefactors - and forget they can be pretty evil and patronising, too.

• Macbooks run only at half-speed when you remove the battery "This prevents the computer from shutting down if it demands more power than the A/C adaptor alone can provide." Besides, you might accidentally detach the maglock. I still fail to see the method behind this madness. How about a maglock arresting switch :-p And I haven't seen a laptop yet exceed its A/C adaptor - Macbooks are not exactly high-performance machines anyway.
  
• Expensive spare parts - and pretty gruesome to take apart.
• What on earth does one need a power cord for? OK, we all know the iPod just has the USB connector cable. That the Universal Dock, which is specified as a standalone charging station, comes without any cable, is a tad brazen.
• Speaking of the dock: it ships with the Apple remote sporting a "Menu" button which has no effect on an iPod, because it's for FrontRow. Maybe the remote hardware guys could talk to the people developing the iPod firmware about that - they happen to work just around the corner. OK, right: Menu without clickwheel is a bit pointless - but couldn't the button do something?
  
• Persistently ignoring the USB standard. Hang 'em high - with their own connector cables, preferrably.
• iTunes. Said enough.
• The new Shuffle and the headphone issue. BoingBoing Gadgets seriously suspects Apple of scheming for world domination. Well, good luck against Google.

I suppose my next computer will still not be an Apple machine - although I'm severely tempted each time I see a Macbook Pro.