Month: August 2009

Well, I had several options to improve performance for the AAO. I realized one of the drawbacks with Ubuntu, specially in underpowered systems is the bloated kernel which is compiled in a general way for any system that might use it. This lack optimization, I’m sure, it’s a major contributor to the sluggishness of the AAO.

Downloaded :
Kernel 2.6.31-rc7 headers+image from http://www.kuki.me

after that just clicked on both to install

Results :
pizzaman@monsterxx8:~$ glxgears
1013 frames in 5.0 seconds = 202.283 FPS
1095 frames in 5.0 seconds = 218.342 FPS
1103 frames in 5.0 seconds = 220.491 FPS
770 frames in 5.0 seconds = 153.872 FPS
1021 frames in 5.0 seconds = 204.021 FPS
982 frames in 5.0 seconds = 195.903 FPS
952 frames in 5.0 seconds = 190.391 FPS
889 frames in 5.0 seconds = 177.743 FPS
1056 frames in 5.0 seconds = 209.370 FPS
981 frames in 5.0 seconds = 196.015 FPS
906 frames in 5.0 seconds = 181.198 FPS
904 frames in 5.0 seconds = 180.167 FPS

A nice improvement, with little effort.

Been doing some benchmarking with glxgears ( I know it’s a no no). Trying to lower the CPU usage of xorg which currently it at up to around 30% at some times just updating $top. I’m starting with :

xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.7.1-0ubuntu1~xup~1
Running on an unmaximized window.

pizzaman@monsterxx8:~$ glxgears
get fences failed: -1
param: 6, val: 0
641 frames in 5.0 seconds = 128.159 FPS
902 frames in 5.0 seconds = 178.897 FPS
767 frames in 5.0 seconds = 153.358 FPS
791 frames in 5.0 seconds = 158.163 FPS
753 frames in 5.0 seconds = 149.902 FPS
767 frames in 5.0 seconds = 153.033 FPS
754 frames in 5.0 seconds = 150.108 FPS
830 frames in 5.0 seconds = 165.593 FPS
812 frames in 5.0 seconds = 161.758 FPS
700 frames in 5.0 seconds = 139.640 FPS
765 frames in 5.0 seconds = 152.974 FPS
691 frames in 5.0 seconds = 138.121 FPS
717 frames in 5.0 seconds = 143.342 FPS
853 frames in 5.0 seconds = 169.600 FPS

Will see if I can get out any improvements.

Reminder for ping.fm * before a link stops ping.fm from shortening it. http://www.test.com

Added the latest drivers for intel chipsets to see if I gain any performance improvement. Source for the drivers http://ping.fm/7qn2n . Reference http://ping.fm/etcz8

This is a message to remind myself of the different ways of posting thru ping.fm. To post a blog -> @b Title^Body, microblog -> @m and status @s. Then to post to the different services @lj for livejournal, @id for identi.ca, @fl for flickr, etc.

Acer Aspire One : Wireless with Ubuntu. After a while trying to figure out why the wireless seemed to be not realiable with the athk5 drivers (will get disabled and greyed out in network manager after using kismet for example and wouldn’t come back even after a reboot). I found this comment from the developers of the acer_wmi drivers : “NOTE: The Acer Aspire One is not supported hardware. It cannot work with acer-wmi until Acer fix their ACPI-WMI implementation on them, so has been blacklisted until that happens.” (http://ping.fm/ijBLT). The solution was simply to remove the driver with “sudo rmmod acer_wmi” and then adding it to the blacklisted modules on /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-wifi.conf. That fixed the greyed out wireless connection in network manager and also fixed the wireless led.

Finished installing gpsdrive + kismet + postgresql + mysql + openstreetmaps + mapnik to get a database of scanned AP’s. Had a few problems with access to mysql and also the connection between kismet and postgresql to access the openstreemaps database, it still doesn’t load correctly at first until you add and remove the check marks of mapnik a couple times.

Installed Sygic Drive, another PDA gps navigator that also works in Windows. It’s running thru wine in Ubuntu. Map files where a bit tricky, requiring a properly configured *.mlm file and an activation code for the maps.

Installed Igo 8 in my Ubuntu Netbook Remix, was pretty easy just install wine and you’re good to go. I needed to create a symbolic link from the bluetooth /dev/rfcomm0 to com1 in wine. Just went to ~/.wine/dosdevices and did a ln -s /dev/rfcomm0 com1.

Been playing with Ubuntu Netbook Remix on my Acer Aspire One 110. Before I wiped the SSD and sent the netbook to repairs I had this same problem the panels on gnome window manager disappear, in both classic desktop and the Ubuntu Netbook Desktop. Searching the forums I found the solution :

This a bug in the desktop-switcher package (https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/desk…er/+bug/349519), which I’m trying to fix and get uploaded to Jaunty before release.

To fix the issue you have currently (gnome-panel and/or windowmanager not starting), please run the following command depending on which mode your currently running in:

If in Netbook-mode, should execute:

gconftool-2 –set /desktop/gnome/session/required_components_list –type list –list-type=string ["windowmanager","panel"]

If in Classic mode:

gconftool-2 –set /desktop/gnome/session/required_components_list –type list –list-type=string ["windowmanager","panel","filemanager"]