[Lancaster] Re: [offlist] Re: Laptop Power Managment

[Andy Baxter]

> > i just found out via do a mini-itx motherboard with built in 12V DC-DC
> > converter, so you can run it off a lead acid battery (The via EPIA-TC).
> > could be useful for anyone wanting a pc to use in a vehicle or off
> > wind/solar power.
>
> This mini mobo could have advantages in remote areas. It's unlikely to
> be cheap and therefore not viable for poorer areas.

£125, which isn't so much considering what you get onboard:

Finally available - The EPIA TC is the first Mini-ITX motherboard from VIA 
with an onboard 12V DC-DC converter, allowing the board to be powered from a 
regulated 12V supply or silently with an external power brick (up to 60W). 
The TC 6000E has the benefit of being fanless, allowing for a near-silent PC. 
600Mhz Eden Processor and heatsink, onboard Apollo CLE266 graphics with MPEG2 
acceleration, Stereo Audio, 10/100 Ethernet, 2 x USB 2.0, Serial Port, PCI 
Slot, 2 x IDE Ports, 12V DC-in Jack. Image is of EPIA TC 10000.

> > some of this is fair enough, but on the whole i've found debian fairly
> > easy to keep running once you know how things work. e.g. to set up X,
> > just use 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86'.
>
> I tried using 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86' and failed. That's why
> I went looking and found my old friend 'xf86Config', etc.

OK.

> > Usually when you install a new package it
> > gets set up with sensible defaults - e.g. apache is configured to server
> > pages from /var/www. A good point is the range of packages is greater
> > than any other distro i think - e.g. SuSE 9.1 has audacity but not
> > rezound; debian has both. Also apt-get plus synaptic or aptitude makes
> > package management quite easy.
>
> That may be so when you get to know them all, but with 'YAST', you can
> find practically everything under one UI. SuSE can handle not only RPM
> packages, but also DEB packages, so with a bit of care (and possibly a
> bit of head scratching) most software can be made available under SuSE.
>
> I looked at the rezound page on sourceforge and found that the latest
> version is only 0.9.0beta. I have both audacity v1.1.1 and broadcast2000
> v1.0 running on this SuSE box. I might try 'rezound' as well.
>
> It comes down to what you know and this is my point. A newcomer to Linux
>   will have a tough time finding his/her way into Debian (I did and I'm
> already reasonably familier with Linux), whereas Fedora, Mandrake and
> SuSE make life a lot easier without cramping your style later on.

they do a bit - if you want to change one of the standard scripts you have to 
hunt round more to see how to do it without interfering with the standard 
setup.

> > What would make it a lot better is if there was a program which let you
> > select packages to configure from a menu - e.g. there's no easy way to
> > tell atm that it's xserver-xfree86 you need to reconfigure to set up X,
> > out of the 3 or 4 X packages.
>
> Here! Here! Even the 'sarge' installer is pretty crude by modern standards.
>
> > things that annoy me about it are:
> > - the out-of-dateness of the stable distro.
> > - sometimes things get changed for no reason when you upgrade, like the
> > fonts in different applications.
> > - the documentation isn't that well organised - it would be better if
> > there was a single front end to all the documentation, like in suse.
>
> It seems to me that the Debian documentation is more concerned with the
> philosophy of the Debian project and less with actually how to get into
> it and do something usefull.

not quite fair - there's the debian manual, which has pages of hints and tips 
on how to do various useful things - e.g. running a dual stable/unstable 
system, with the base system running from stable and the gui and apps from 
unstable.


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Thanks, andy.