Just a minor theme tweak - flipped the colours for the links and sidebar headings; should be easier to tell where the links are now. XP
I just have the "Linux" tab left to migrate from version 1, which is quite a bit of posts and the majority of the content. Once that's done, my Google+ feed won't be flooded as I write all these. XD
04 November 2014
Inquisitor
I was going to write about Inquisitor again after finishing writing about the cluster, but I forgot until now.
Since I had more patience this time to fiddle around with it, I found that it actually Actually, it seems like I never wrote about it before today.
I found Inquisitor on DistroWatch, and even though it's discontinued, I decided to give it a try to see if it helped me get info about a machine pretty quickly.
When I initially tested it, I found that it had the ability to test the system, and since I didn't have a lot of patience, I didn't see that it had the ability to pull hardware info, so I put it aside.
I decided to give it another try this morning when trying to find out specifics about the processor of the cluster nodes. Eventually I found an action called "Detects" and, unfortunately, the description for it just says "Detects only". I figured it probably detected the hardware, and ran it, which then let me know that it was finished detecting hardware (controller, cpu, etc) and to press enter to return to the main menu.
I then went to view the logs (having known about that part before) and saw "lshw.log", "lspci.log", and a few other logs. I checked lspci first, which told me that the cluster had a gigabit ethernet controller, which surprised me, and afterwards, I checked lshw for the processor.
Now that understand how to use Inquisitor to check a machine's hardware, I'll keep it with me as part of my toolkit, even though it's a discontinued distribution.
I found Inquisitor on DistroWatch, and even though it's discontinued, I decided to give it a try to see if it helped me get info about a machine pretty quickly.
When I initially tested it, I found that it had the ability to test the system, and since I didn't have a lot of patience, I didn't see that it had the ability to pull hardware info, so I put it aside.
I decided to give it another try this morning when trying to find out specifics about the processor of the cluster nodes. Eventually I found an action called "Detects" and, unfortunately, the description for it just says "Detects only". I figured it probably detected the hardware, and ran it, which then let me know that it was finished detecting hardware (controller, cpu, etc) and to press enter to return to the main menu.
I then went to view the logs (having known about that part before) and saw "lshw.log", "lspci.log", and a few other logs. I checked lspci first, which told me that the cluster had a gigabit ethernet controller, which surprised me, and afterwards, I checked lshw for the processor.
Now that understand how to use Inquisitor to check a machine's hardware, I'll keep it with me as part of my toolkit, even though it's a discontinued distribution.
Cluster
Last night, I got the model number off of the cluster nodes and tried to use that too look up the specifications, but it didn't get me anywhere, so I had to pull the nodes themselves.
By opening the case, I found that each node has 512MB of ram - which is enough - and no PCI slot, making me wonder where I got the notion for using a low-profile PCI wireless card from.
After getting into the BIOS, I was able to find that the processor is a Pentium 4 2.4GHz Northwood core (533MHz bus, 512KB L2 cache), but unable to figure out if it has HT or not.
One of the CMOS batteries for the nodes died, so I decided to check the voltages - the dead one was jumping between 0.022 and 0.000, while the other two read 2.78 and 2.8 - and tossed the dead battery.
I then booted back into BIOS, and the node with the 2.78v CMOS battery refused to POST, and after some extensive digging around on the internet, I went and looked at the capacitors inside the node. Sure enough, one of them was bulging. Of all the times it could've vented, it decided to do it right after checking the CMOS battery. I transferred the CMOS battery and CD-ROM drive into the other node (the one that had the dead battery), and gave the "dead" node the floppy drive; I gave the stick of RAM to the node with the 2.8v battery. I was hoping I had a 16-volt 680µF capacitor in my collection of salvaged capacitors, but when I checked this morning, I certainly didn't.
Looking online, it seems like I technically can substitute with a capacitor with higher capacitance (µF), however since computers are sensitive components, it may cause a longer boot time or some sort of instability - I'll definitely pass on the notion in that case.
I also found that each node has the ability to boot from USB, which was surprising and nice, seeing that I'm not limited to using a 2.5-inch IDE hard drive for installation. It took a bit of digging around on the internet, but I eventually gave up and poked through the BIOS option very thoroughly, finding the USB option under the hard drive order; I test booted into the Linux stick and it worked just fine.
This morning, I grabbed Inquisitor and looked through my capacitor collection before plugging a node in to boot Inquisitor. Since I had more time, I figured out how to use Inquisitor properly for my intentions (hardware probing), and found out that the ethernet port is actually gigabit! I was quite surprised, but as I thought about it, it made sense since (1) it was built to be a business machine, and (2) the switch that connected the three nodes (when they were being used at my old work) was upgraded to a gigabit switch.
I didn't find out anything more about the processor though, which sucks, so I'll probably have to get the processor from the "dead" node to get the actual specifics.
I was thinking to maybe make one node as a summer computer, as it probably puts out less heat compared to any of the other desktops, but the problem is the lack of a hard drive. The options are to either use the 30GB hard drive from Sae-chan and to keep the drive usage light, or to run it as a fully live environment. I suppose using the hard drive wouldn't be that bad, but the lack of the drive cover is a bit unnerving.
My main point is to find out the exact processor in one way or another before I go digging around for a Linux distribution to test with - last thing I need is to have a kernel limitation like I did with the Half-top.
By opening the case, I found that each node has 512MB of ram - which is enough - and no PCI slot, making me wonder where I got the notion for using a low-profile PCI wireless card from.
After getting into the BIOS, I was able to find that the processor is a Pentium 4 2.4GHz Northwood core (533MHz bus, 512KB L2 cache), but unable to figure out if it has HT or not.
One of the CMOS batteries for the nodes died, so I decided to check the voltages - the dead one was jumping between 0.022 and 0.000, while the other two read 2.78 and 2.8 - and tossed the dead battery.
I then booted back into BIOS, and the node with the 2.78v CMOS battery refused to POST, and after some extensive digging around on the internet, I went and looked at the capacitors inside the node. Sure enough, one of them was bulging. Of all the times it could've vented, it decided to do it right after checking the CMOS battery. I transferred the CMOS battery and CD-ROM drive into the other node (the one that had the dead battery), and gave the "dead" node the floppy drive; I gave the stick of RAM to the node with the 2.8v battery. I was hoping I had a 16-volt 680µF capacitor in my collection of salvaged capacitors, but when I checked this morning, I certainly didn't.
Looking online, it seems like I technically can substitute with a capacitor with higher capacitance (µF), however since computers are sensitive components, it may cause a longer boot time or some sort of instability - I'll definitely pass on the notion in that case.
I also found that each node has the ability to boot from USB, which was surprising and nice, seeing that I'm not limited to using a 2.5-inch IDE hard drive for installation. It took a bit of digging around on the internet, but I eventually gave up and poked through the BIOS option very thoroughly, finding the USB option under the hard drive order; I test booted into the Linux stick and it worked just fine.
This morning, I grabbed Inquisitor and looked through my capacitor collection before plugging a node in to boot Inquisitor. Since I had more time, I figured out how to use Inquisitor properly for my intentions (hardware probing), and found out that the ethernet port is actually gigabit! I was quite surprised, but as I thought about it, it made sense since (1) it was built to be a business machine, and (2) the switch that connected the three nodes (when they were being used at my old work) was upgraded to a gigabit switch.
I didn't find out anything more about the processor though, which sucks, so I'll probably have to get the processor from the "dead" node to get the actual specifics.
I was thinking to maybe make one node as a summer computer, as it probably puts out less heat compared to any of the other desktops, but the problem is the lack of a hard drive. The options are to either use the 30GB hard drive from Sae-chan and to keep the drive usage light, or to run it as a fully live environment. I suppose using the hard drive wouldn't be that bad, but the lack of the drive cover is a bit unnerving.
My main point is to find out the exact processor in one way or another before I go digging around for a Linux distribution to test with - last thing I need is to have a kernel limitation like I did with the Half-top.
02 November 2014
Lie-chan 3 and Melty 5
A few months ago, I decided to use the PCIe card in Melty again, plugging it into a PCIe x16 slot that wasn't "tied" to the one that the video card is in, and unfortunately, the two PCIe x16 slots that fit that description was either already blocked off by the GPU heat-sink or the one directly underneath the Vantec fan card. With the sound card underneath the fan card, the temperatures weren't bad, but it definitely couldn't stay there forever.
Since Lie-chan was using the switch-box as an extension cord, I had to just live without sound when I was using openSUSE on Melty. I eventually got a couple composite cable couplers and was able to find some spare RCA cables to extend the headphone to RCA cable to the receiver/amplifier, giving the switch-box back to Melty.
Eventually I got a PCIe x1 to PCIe x16 riser "card" which allowed me to drop the sound card to the bottom PCI slot of the case (the Cooler Master HAF X has 9 slots) and plug it into the PCIe x1 slot above the video card. At first, I read that I didn't have to use the power cord, but when I tried it, the sound card wasn't detected; after some wire management, I plugged the power into the x16 side of the riser card and the sound card was detected afterwards.
Since Lie-chan was using the switch-box as an extension cord, I had to just live without sound when I was using openSUSE on Melty. I eventually got a couple composite cable couplers and was able to find some spare RCA cables to extend the headphone to RCA cable to the receiver/amplifier, giving the switch-box back to Melty.
Eventually I got a PCIe x1 to PCIe x16 riser "card" which allowed me to drop the sound card to the bottom PCI slot of the case (the Cooler Master HAF X has 9 slots) and plug it into the PCIe x1 slot above the video card. At first, I read that I didn't have to use the power cord, but when I tried it, the sound card wasn't detected; after some wire management, I plugged the power into the x16 side of the riser card and the sound card was detected afterwards.
Melty 4
I think it was roughly the middle of this year when I decided to flip the side fan to draw the hot air from the GPU out, and although it doesn't seem to make much of a difference, at least the hot air has somewhere to go now.
31 October 2014
iBook G4 and Debian PPC 5
A few days ago, I decided to look into the open-source Radeon driver more, and found a way to check for it and install it.
I first tested it out with Sae-chan, since it was easier to do so, and found that one package out of three wasn't installed, and after installing, nothing happened (well, technically, I cleared up an error message for the driver).
I was thinking about using the 30GB hard drive to test Taiga out, but after running the check, Taiga wasn't any different from Sae-chan (missing that same package), so I decided to just do a blind install.
I shut Taiga off and spent a few minutes reconnecting the connector (the thing was annoying to try to plug back in), booted her up and tested out the power save after enabling the screen. Unfortunately, it changed nothing in that aspect, so I shut her down again to unplug the screen again.
It's kind of a shame it didn't make a difference, but I really prefer using the monitor since I get more screen space (although the monitor takes up that much more space). I'm not exactly sure what could possibly be wrong, but I don't care too much, since I still solved the problem in a different way.
I first tested it out with Sae-chan, since it was easier to do so, and found that one package out of three wasn't installed, and after installing, nothing happened (well, technically, I cleared up an error message for the driver).
I was thinking about using the 30GB hard drive to test Taiga out, but after running the check, Taiga wasn't any different from Sae-chan (missing that same package), so I decided to just do a blind install.
I shut Taiga off and spent a few minutes reconnecting the connector (the thing was annoying to try to plug back in), booted her up and tested out the power save after enabling the screen. Unfortunately, it changed nothing in that aspect, so I shut her down again to unplug the screen again.
It's kind of a shame it didn't make a difference, but I really prefer using the monitor since I get more screen space (although the monitor takes up that much more space). I'm not exactly sure what could possibly be wrong, but I don't care too much, since I still solved the problem in a different way.
Raspi 2
A couple months or so ago, I decided to try openSUSE ARM on the Raspi, but only got to a command line, so I gave up on that.
The other thing that happened was that the fan controller no longer worked properly, and the fan was much too loud at full speed. I decided to use USB power instead of Firewire (5v instead of 12v) to slow the fan down, but the fan didn't want to spin after that, so I had to use a different fan and redo the mount.
I had to play around with a bit, but I got it to work, mounting the fan to two of the brackets, then using the other two brackets to keep one bracket from sliding around. While I could've properly mounted the fan, I didn't feel like doing any extra drilling, so this was the easier solution. I also used a zip-tie (blue) to secure the cord to the case where the fan controller used to be.
The other thing that happened was that the fan controller no longer worked properly, and the fan was much too loud at full speed. I decided to use USB power instead of Firewire (5v instead of 12v) to slow the fan down, but the fan didn't want to spin after that, so I had to use a different fan and redo the mount.
I had to play around with a bit, but I got it to work, mounting the fan to two of the brackets, then using the other two brackets to keep one bracket from sliding around. While I could've properly mounted the fan, I didn't feel like doing any extra drilling, so this was the easier solution. I also used a zip-tie (blue) to secure the cord to the case where the fan controller used to be.
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