It’s interesting to see how Western Europe is the region with a greater quota of free (and probably open source) tools, followed by Latin America.

The tips of this post are only applicable to Lithium-ion batteries.

PowerTOP

The easiest and faster way of improving the power efficiency of the laptop, is at software level. With the PowerTOP application we can not only monitor which software is responsible of our CPU cycles and hard disk spinning, but also  (and more important) tune several parameters related with the energy. For example, enable the auto-suspend of an external USB device when not in use, or an energy saving feature of the wireless card.

That’s the PowerTOP tunables section on my laptop, with some settings not optimized.

After playing with it, you will probably notice that the settings are not saved, and after rebooting you have to run PowerTOP and set everything again. Solution: if you run PowerTOP with the –html option, it will generate an HTML (surprise!) report with all the command line instructions to set each tunable. So, then you only have to add these commands to an init script (for example, /etc/rc.local on Arch Linux), and you’re done!

Just a last tip: do not enable autosuspend for an external mouse… it’s really annoying.

Charging cycle

If you are like me and usually run your laptop connected to AC, your battery it’s probably almost always charged at 100%. This is not good. But but be optimal, is having it charged at max of ~85%, and then let it discharge by its own until it reaches ~35%.  About “telling” you laptop to follow this charging cycle, I only know how to do it with Thinkpads, which is setting:

echo 40 > /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/start_charge_thresh
echo 80 > /sys/devices/platform/smapi/BAT0/stop_charge_thresh

having Tp smapi installed. Details about how to implement it on a script can be found on the ArchWiki.

Actually, the best way of keeping a battery in an optimum state, when not in use, is having it at 40% of it’s charge and storing it on the fridge. If you try that, please put it on a sealed plastic bag, with some rice to absorb humidity!

Alternative to Google Search

There is not much to explain here, as I’ve dedicated a whole post to this topic. The more I use Duck Duck Go, the happier I am with it. Particularly because it is quite easy to change between a world wide search or a local (country) search. I use the former for general queries like programming issues, info about books, etc., and the other when looking for restaurants, leisure activities, etc.

Alternative to Google Maps

This one is a bit tricky. I have to admit that Google Maps offers better search capabilities than its main competitors: Open Street Map, Yahoo! Maps, and Bing Maps. You can misspell the name of a business or just provide some keywords, and it will try to find the best match.

But (there is usually a but), I like quite much the “art” of Open Street Map, because it reminds me paper maps and some bonuses like detailing the exact position of the underground entrances (which Google doesn’t, just the approximate location of the station). So, sometimes I use one, and sometimes the other.

Alternative to Gmail

There was not much sense on switching to Hotmail, Yahoo or any other company if privacy was an issue. More or less they all share the same practices. So, the best solution was having my own mail server. I have a modest VPS on Linode, so I set-up the server as you can see on this guide. Therefore, I have an IMAP server which I can use with Thunderbird or when in roaming with the nice Roundcube webmail.

The only lacking functionality is server-side filtering, which I still have to set-up (if you know a way to extend a day to more than 24 hours, please tell me!). I could live with client-side filtering on Thunderbird, but I also want to enjoy it when using the webmail interface.

Alternative to Google Calendar

Having already a mail server, why do not have a calendar server? I took the same approach, and set-up a calendar server using CalendarServer which I can sync with Thunderbird and my iPhone. For even more functionality, I added a web interface with AgenDAV. This time, there is not any feature missing.

Alternative to Google Reader

I wanted to use my feed aggregator on several computers, so setting up a desktop client on each one and trying to get all of them synced was not a viable option. Therefore, I opted for an in-the-cloud solution with a web interface, as Google Reader is. And again, my server comes to rescue! I liked what I saw on Tiny Tiny RSS webpage, I installed it, and I’m very happy with how if works. Nothing to be jealous from Google Reader. It even have a mobile-optimized interface, so it’s not a hassle to check it from the phone.

Alternative to Picasa

To make it clear, I didn’t check the terms of service of Flickr and other providers. I suppose they’re good enough because they’re used by several artists, but I decided to choose the hard way: build my own web gallery. I found Piwigo, with all the features I was looking for and with enough eye-candy to please me. So, after one afternoon of work, I had it working on my server.

Conclusions

I realize that all the options I’m using are not an option for everybody, because of the simple fact that you need your own server and set it up. This simplify the issue to your priorities. If you want privacy and company-independence, learn how to do it or pay somebody to do it for you. If you don’t care, you can just keep using the free services.

Up to now, and after a heavy use of it, I’m very happy with the decision I’ve taken. It has also been useful to learn some new things, and as learning is fun, it has been a nice leisure activity. Mmm, maybe they’re right when they call me geek :P

>:(

UPDATED: http://www.archlinux.org/news/449/

I’m a bit sad about how the community has responded to it :\

1. Install the Linux Wacom drivers. On Arch Linux, you can find it on AUR.
2. Configure the X.Org server to use it. I post my xorg.conf file as an example:


Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen "Screen0"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "touch" "SendCoreEvents" # Only a few TabletPCs support this typeEndSection

EndSection

Section “Files”
ModulePath “/usr/lib/xorg/modules”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/misc”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/TTF”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/Type1″
EndSection

Section “Module”
Load “dri”
Load “xtrap”
Load “dbe”
Load “glx”
Load “extmod”
Load “freetype”
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Keyboard0″
Driver “kbd”
Option “XkbLayout” “es”
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Mouse0″
Driver “mouse”
Option “Protocol” “auto”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/mice”
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5 6 7″
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Driver “wacom”
Identifier “stylus”
Option “Device” “/dev/ttyS0″ # SERIAL ONLY
Option “Type” “stylus”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″ # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Driver “wacom”
Identifier “eraser”
Option “Device” “/dev/ttyS0″ # SERIAL ONLY
Option “Type” “eraser”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″ # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Driver “wacom”
Identifier “cursor”
Option “Device” “/dev/ttyS0″ # SERIAL ONLY
Option “Type” “cursor”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″ # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Driver “wacom”
Identifier “pad”
Option “Device” “/dev/ttyS0″ # SERIAL ONLY
Option “Type” “pad”
EndSection

# Uncomment the following section if you you have a TabletPC that upports touch
Section “InputDevice”
Driver “wacom”
Identifier “touch”
Option “Device” “/dev/ttyS0″ # SERIAL ONLY
Option “Type” “touch”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″ # Serial Tablet PC ONLY
# Adding manual calibration, since proper calibration seems impossible.
Option “BottomX” “915”
Option “BottomY” “940”
Option “TopX” “48”
Option “TopY” “90”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
#DisplaySize 260 160 # mm
Identifier “Monitor0″
VendorName “LEN”
ModelName “4011”
Option “DPMS”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “HDMI-1″
Option “Ignore” “True”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “HDMI-2″
Option “Ignore” “True”
EndSection

Section “Device”
Identifier “Card0″
Driver “intel”
VendorName “Intel Corporation”
BoardName “Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller”
BusID “PCI:0:2:0″
Option “monitor-HDMI-1″ “HDMI-1″
Option “monitor-HDMI-2″ “HDMI-2″
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Screen0″
Device “Card0″
Monitor “Monitor0″
DefaultDepth 24
Option “RandRRotation” “on”
SubSection “Display”
Modes “1280×800″ “1024×768″ “800×600″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section “Extensions”
Option “Composite” “Enabled”
EndSection

And thats’s all! With just these two steps you can use your pen or your finger to control the screen :)

The distribution I have chosen is Arch Linux. It’s not an “everything works without having edit configuration files” distribution, but with a laptop with special hardware (i.e., tablet pc), you end doing it anyway. In addition to this, I like its principles, the community (AUR, forums, mailing lists) around it, and the wiki :).

Base installation

The laptop does not have a optical drive so we can install booting from USB or from network via PXE. First I tried the simplest case: boot from a USB drive. But the last stable (this word is not appropriate on a rolling release distribution, but I expect you will understand the idea) installer release does not include drivers for the Ethernet or the Wifi, leading to a almost useless installation. So, I used a “non-official” boot image with the kernel 2.6.28, which supports all my networking options. But, I didn’t discovered why, but this image doesn’t boot on my laptop. The screen goes blank with the message “Boot Error”. Then, I tried to boot from network using this newer image (fortunately, I have a home server that could provide DHCP and PXE), following this guide, and everything worked fine. From this point, everything worked as expected and leaded to a full operational base system with network capabilities.

Apart from the network drivers issue, I spent A LOT of time trying to shrink the Windows partition to gain space for the Linux. The problem was that it had some unmovable files near the end of the partition, that limited how much could it be resized. After playing with several defragmentation tools (even some of them commercial software in trial version mode), I could gain enough space to be happy :).

On next posts I’m going to talk about how to configure the system to use most of the hardware (rotation and touch screen, special buttons, bluetooth, etc.).

Hay dos series, la tx2500 y la tx2600. ¿Diferencias? Pues de la web no se saca nada claro :S. Supongo que seran bastante internas (chipsets, etc), y que un modelo reemplazará al otro. Extrañamente, googleando rápidamente he encontrado poca información del tx2500 y Linux, y _nada_ del tx2600 O_o.

El tx2500 parece que tiene un huevo de problemas, derivados del tema del ACPI… así que si ya empezamos con estas, vamos mal. Descartados quedan. Si funcionan de p*ta madre pero no he sabido buscar bien… mea culpa, por vago.

Para acabar, diría que són los Tablets más baratos que he visto… en parte los hace apetecibles, pero también me hace desconfiar… :

Para mi sorpresa, Toshiba parece bastante enfrascada en el tema de los Tablet PC, como una sub-web dedicada a ello, o publicidad en flash para distraernos. Pero lo que mas me ha gustado, es una web que tienen donde te dicen como son de compatibles sus ordenadores con Linux. Esta hecha por la sección alemana de la empresa, pero está en inglés. Cubre no solo portátiles, sino todo lo que pueden. No están todos los modelos (por ejemplo, no hay ningún Tablet PC :( ), pero puedes hacer una petición de que modelo quieres que hagan el test de compatibilidad. Me ha agradado mucho esta iniciativa, las otras marcas deberían tomar ejemplo.

Volviendo al tema de los Tablet PC, si no me he liado, en España hay disponibles los Portégé R400 y M700. Y sobre su compatibilidad, resumiendo (que es tarde y tengo ganas de irme para casa, que aquí las 8 de la noche es como si fueran las 11 :S), pues a partir de links como este, este y este, pues es el típico de “va todo tocando estos archivos y parcheando tal cosa”.

Y ya está, hoy no posteo más :P. Mañana quizá cuelgo algo sobre los metros de Glasgow, depende como ande de trabajo.

Desde hace tiempo que tengo entendido que el hardware de los Thinkpad suele dar buenos resultados con GNU/Linux, por lo que respecta a compatibilidad. Así que empecé a analizar los modelos bastante esperanzado. A dia de hoy, los modelos Tablet PC son los pertenecientes a la Serie X Tablet. No confundir con la Serie X, a secas :P. Tienen dos gamas, la X60 i la X61, y realmente son muy parecidos. Me ha dado la impresión que solo cambian un poco la tecnología de pantalla, y que uno ofrece algunas opciones adicionales como “32-byte hard drive password & BIOS port lock down”. Bueno, sí, y que por ejemplo uno tiene un Core Duo y el otro un Core 2 Duo, etc. Pero ya son temas de “potencia”, que repercuten en si el hardware “delicado”, como la pantalla táctil, esta bien soportado o no. Por cierto, dentro de cada gama (X60 y X61), hay múltiples modelos, en función de processor concreto, etc. Para muestra, un botón.

Las instalaciones parecen ser sencillitas, dentro del ámbito de los Tablet PC con GNU/Linux. O sea, tocar unos cuantos ficheros de configuración e instalar algunos programas/scripts. Ejemplos en Gentoo, Arch y Ubuntu.

Ale, uno más que añadir a la lista de posibles candidatos. Al final, a falta de un vencedor claro, me están saliendo un montón de posibilidades. Con la pereza que me da ponerme a analizarlos más en detalle :S.

Lo primero que me ha chocado, es que mientras que otras marcas más dedicadas al mundo de la informática como Dell i Asus solo tienen un modelo, esta dispone de tres. Uno de ellos, el Stylistic, queda descartado al no poseer de teclado. Nos quedan pues los Lifebook serie T y serie P. El serie P es demasiado pequeño para mi gusto, ya que el monitor alcanza solo 8″. Si estuviera todo el mundo arriba y abajo con el portátil a cuestas vale, pero de momento llevo un ritmo bastante nómada.

Después de buscar tutoriales y opiniones de como funciona un Linux en este hardware, me he encontrado un par de buenas páginas (Ubuntu, Gentoo). Me ha congratulado que funciona casi todo con solo instalar algunas cosas y editar algunos archivos de configuración, sin hacer guarradas ni parchear. Me ha dado la impresión que es un modelo de los que menos problemas dan, así que está bastante arriba en la lista de los elegidos :).