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Linux

Installing Linux On Old Hardware? 507

Posted by Soulskill from the where-are-those-old-telegraph-drivers dept.
cptdondo writes "I've got an old laptop that I've been trying to resurrect. It has a 486MHz CPU, 28 MB of RAM, a 720 MB HD, a 1.44MB floppy drive, and 640x480 VESA video. It does not have a CD drive, USB port, or a network port. It has PCMCIA, and I have a network card for that. My goal is to get a minimal GUI that lets me run a basic browser like Dillo and open a couple of xterms. I've spent the last few days trying to find a Linux distro that will work on that machine. I've done a lot of work on OpenWRT, so naturally I though that would work, but X appears to be broken in the recent builds — I can't get the keyboard to work. (OK, not surprising; OpenWRT is made to run on WiFi Access Point hardware which doesn't have a keyboard...) All of the 'mini' distros come as a live CD; useless on a machine without a CD-ROM. Ditto for the USB images. I'm also finding that the definition of a 'mini' distro has gotten to the point of 'It fits on a 3GB partition and needs 128 MB RAM to run.' Has Linux really become that bloated? Do we really need 2.2 GB of cruft to bring up a simple X session? Is there a distro that provides direct ext2 images instead of live CDs?"

Comment Re:Can't wait for even worse quality. (Score 1) 220

by kybur (#29668801) Attached to: AT&T To Allow VoIP On iPhone
It actually can be better than with Wifi. If you pace around like I do while talking on the phone, you'll find all kinds of little weak spots around your house/yard that will disrupt a call. I've made some phone calls in the past with skype on a jailbroken iPhone, and it worked fine, but there was really no point since I never use all my regular minutes.

People who need to call international will like this a lot though.

Comment This is awful (Score 1) 140

by kybur (#29663301) Attached to: New Graphical Representation of the Periodic Table
I don't want to bash it just because it was designed by a Microsoft scientist, but...

A circle is really hard to read and jumping away from the center and then counterclockwise to get to the next "row" is wacky. If you can't read the numbers very well, you won't be able to tell what order the elements are in.

Won't it look nice on a Zune HD (chemistry edition) though?
Science

New Graphical Representation of the Periodic Table 140

Posted by kdawson from the thulium-and-thalium dept.
KentuckyFC writes "The great power of Mendeleev's periodic table was that it allowed him to predict the properties of undiscovered elements. But can this arrangement be improved? Two new envisionings of the periodic table attempt to do just that. The first uses a new graphical representation that shows the relative sizes of atoms as well as their groups and periods. The other uses the same kind of group theoretical approach that particle physicists developed to classify particles by their symmetries (abstract). That helped particle physicists predict the existence of new particles, but may have limited utility for chemists who seem to have discovered (or predicted) all of the elements they need already."
Hardware Hacking

#twatch Open Hardware Networked LCD Screen 52

Posted by CmdrTaco from the fun-little-hacks dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Dangerous Prototype's #twatch is a DIY network appliance that displays real-time topic trends from Twitter. It can also show system statistics, RSS feeds, mail notifications, and more using a TCP server on port 1337 that accepts commands from LCD control programs like LCD Smartie (Windows) and LCDproc (Linux). Everything you need to build your own is on the project's page. We've covered this hardware hacker's work previously."
Image

Teenager Invents Cheap Solar Panel From Human Hair Screenshot-sm 366

Posted by samzenpus from the 50-watt-shampoo dept.
Milan Karki, 18, who comes from a village in rural Nepal, believes he has found the solution to the developing world's energy needs. A solar panel made from human hair. The hair replaces silicon, a pricey component typically used in solar panels, and means the panels can be produced at a low cost for those with no access to power. The solar panel, which produces 9 volts (18 watts) of energy, costs around $38 US (£23) to make from raw materials. Gentlemen, start your beards. The future of hair farming is here!
Emulation (Games)

C64 Emulator Finally Approved For iPhone 214

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the give-us-basic dept.
Gi0 writes "After a couple of months of rejection, the C64 Emulator has finally been approved for the iPhone (and is available at the app store now). 'BASIC has been removed for this release; however, we hope that working with Apple further will allow us to re-enable it. Despite its absence, BASIC is not our focus; ultimately, fans of the C64 want games.' It comes with 5 bundled games and will certainly give you that retro fix for your iPhone."

Comment Re:Liability insurance (Score 1) 487

by kybur (#29287529) Attached to: Build Your Own $2.8M Petabyte Disk Array For $117k

Well, switch to SAS drives, and replace each 1.5T sata with 3 450G SAS with 1,500,000, and you will also have drives fail at the same rate. (3x longer mtbf but 3x more disks). Seems like you are really criticizing lack of tiered storage, rather than consumer grade hardware here.

Additionally, if you RTFA, you would see that they were using RAID6 + a hot spare and have split up their arrays so they are not too big and do not end up with ridiculous rebuild times. A RAID6 + HS solution will not lose data with a double drive failure, and can handle three drives out so long as the first parity segment has been rebuilt by the time the third drive fails.

Clearly this solution would not work for most enterprise needs. It is just disk based backup, and with the hardware they are using, it is just barely "online", but certainly far more "online" than tape would be.

On top of all that, the company explains what they are doing, so their customers know exactly what they are getting into. You do not pay $5/month for unlimited backup and expect to get a high-end tiered backup system with high availability.
Cellphones

Why AT&T Killed iPhone Google Voice 304

Posted by CmdrTaco from the doesn't-take-a-genius dept.
ZuchinniOne writes "The Wall Street Journal has a very interesting article about the likely reasons that AT&T and Apple killed the Google Voice application. 'With Google Voice, you have one Google phone number that callers use to reach you, and you pick up whichever phone — office, home or cellular — rings. You can screen calls, listen in before answering, record calls, read transcripts of your voicemails, and do free conference calls. Domestic calls and texting are free, and international calls to Europe are two cents a minute. In other words, a unified voice system, something a real phone company should have offered years ago.'"
Image

School Uniform To Block Cell Phone Emissions Screenshot-sm 153

Posted by samzenpus from the luddite-high dept.
Foehg writes "ForeignPolicy.com reports, 'A Belarusian textile company has developed a special school uniform that protects kids from electromagnetic radiation emanating from their cellphones. The uniform features a dedicated pocket that can store the phone and make it safe for those who wear it.'" Now someone has to create an oven mitt that can protect you from the harmful radiation given off by your microwave oven.

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