And does anyone know where to find the best XFree86 driver for the SiS315 chipset? I'll post back here if I find one myself.

Ok, XFree86 comes with a "sis" driver, but apparently it simply wasn't autodetected by xconfigurator. It has 2D accelleration, but not 3D (DRI). So, it's good enough for now, but not something I'll want to stick with.

So, what card has the best 3D performance under Linux (preferrably with stock XFree86 drivers)? nVidia has closed source drivers (tried them once, and they didn't let me run at 1600x1200 for some reason). ATI has ok stock drivers, but there are separate opensource drivers, which work better (and are required if you want to use the All-In-Wonder video input). I've heard good things about Matrox. But which card? G200? Which will also offer me some kind of usable "dual head" fuctionality (under Linux/XFree86, of course)?

Main computer back running (mostly). Now has a P4 1.8GHz, but only 256MB RAM (one of the PC133 DIMMs turned out to be bad). Once I get back up to 512MB (or more, what the heck), I'll be happy.

And does anyone know where to find the best XFree86 driver for the SiS315 chipset? I'll post back here if I find one myself.

My employer is moving our office. Nothing useful like giving us individual offices. Probably just got a better deal on rent. At least it's a couple exits closer on the interstate.

Current music: Rush, A Farewell To Kings

In a Dyers Eve mode again. I think that's all that needs to be said. Well, I'm mixing in some To Live Is To Die. I'd mix in some Beyond The Realms Of Death but the song doesn't really match the title (a shame, as Judas Priest is really underrated as a metal band).

Now I know just how dependant I've become on having a computer at home. Reading my email, checking things on the web (movie times, directions to an address, etc.), writing small (sometimes useful) programs for my own edification, and so on.

My main computer (Athlon 1.4GHz, 512MB RAM, RedHat Linux 9) died April 29th. Since then, I've been using my "old relable", a solid-as-iron (and heavy-as-iron too) SparcStation 2 running Solaris. For those of you not up on Sun workstations, a SparcStation 2 has a Sparc processor running at 40 MHz. So, that's something less than 1/30th the speed of my preferred machine. Also, I get to experience the web in the glorious 64 colors of its CG6 graphics card. This was a great machine when it came out in the early 90s, and its still a great machine for experimenting on, relearning Solaris, checking portability of my programs, etc.

Now, I also happened to have a Pentum 133 with FreeBSD on it sitting around. So, I thought, I'll get about 3 times the speed, plus I can run 24-bit color. Now FreeBSD has never had an easy-to-setup XFree86 (at least as easy-to-setup as RedHat Linux's Xconfigurator). When I installed FreeBSD on that machine I was intending to play around with firewalling/routing/etc. so I never installed X and other GUI stuff on it. It has 8GB of disk (twice as much as my Solaris machine) and 64MB of RAM. Just to get X up an running, I needed a mouse. I then discovered that the 3 NIC cards I had installed didn't leave any IRQs for my PS2 mouse. Once I figured that out (it wasn't obvious, the main symptom is that the system would freeze as soon as the parallel port driver was installed.

I finally got X installed and running, and discovered that GAIM insists on having a full-blown Gnome system running. And, I discover that running a full-blown Gnome system plus Mozilla needs just under 128MB of RAM. So, now, I not only have a system that's still less than 1/10th the speed of my preferred system, but it's swapping like crazy too.

I'd have run right out and gotten a new motherboard (I think mine fried its northbridge chip) but we're behind on so many bills it isn't funny.

Have I said "my life sucks" lately? Well it does. :-(

According to this quiz, I am: You are a - Geek Sheep! You're one l33t g33|< 5|-|33p! No one understands a word you're saying, but you don't care. Bespectacled geek by day, fearsome DND warrior by night! Geek power ;)

Which flock do you follow? (this quiz was made by alanna)

I know everyone gets songs "stuck in their head". But do other people just listen to a song over and over and over? I do. Sometimes I do that with an album. Headphones help, because no-one within hearing distance will stand for such repetition. Typically, the song will fit my mental state to such a degree that I find myself saying "yeah, that's it... they've nailed it!"

Today's song is "Dyers Eve" by Metallica. First, the grinding, churning melody just matches my mood. "Gaaa! Get out my way!" The lyrics, well... It's not that I had smothering parents. They gave me freedom as I needed it, let me sink or swim when I needed to. But the underlying themes of "I'm being held back" and general emotional hurt. And, sometimes, society in general can be that smothering parent. You kids know what I mean. ;^)

Anyway, I've been listening to it, non-stop all afternoon (about 4 hours now). Not tired of it yet.

Well, I took yet another Myers/Briggs test. And I came out a bit more strongly INTJ... where in previous tests, I came out somewhere between that and INTP. I think the J ("Judging") part of me becomes stronger and stronger, the older I get (less patience for things I consider to be "a waste of my time").

So, now I'm obsessing over this, and reading all the web pages I can find on INTJ. Hmmm... wonder if I'm being hypocritical, by spending so much time on something which isn't really of practical value. ;-)

As expected, phone service back Friday morning, and within minutes, everything was back to normal.

I suppose should find something else to write about now. Maybe later. :-)

Well I'm leaving tomorrow at daybreak
Catch the fastest train around nine
Yes I'm leaving the sorrow and heartache
Before it takes me away from my mind -- Black Sabbath "Tomorrow's Dream"

Well, we seem to have the temporary mail-routing thing working (I love my ISP). Should be back to normal sometime Friday. And after that, I'm going to start laying in a supply of spare parts.

Ok, some good news:
We replaced the power supply on Suffolk, and it is now up and running.

I also emailed my ISP, to see if they can temporarily reroute my email. We shall see if this harebrained scheme of mine works.

Also, for you Amiga users in the DC area, this means that www.ncaug.org is also down at the moment. I apologize.

In case people have been wondering (and happen to find their way here), steeds.com is down at the moment. We have 2 basic problems:

1. Phone bill not paid on time. So, we have to get that paid. But we just caught up on the mortgage, and have no spare cash. Sucks to be us.
2. Suffolk, our Linux/Athlong server, died. I suspect the power supply, but have to buy a new power supply in order to confirm that. Not too expensive (if that's the only problem), but see above.

We'll post a new message here, when we're back online, which I'm hopping will be within the 4 days for which our backup MX server will queue mail.

We may also just stick suffolk's disk in another machine, but cobbling up a server out of spare parts may be difficult.

My name it means nothing/My fortune is less/My future is shrouded/In dark wilderness -- Black Sabbath