GENZARD Blog

I love Linux My main dev machine runs Ubuntu 8.04 and I had PCLinuxOS 2007 on my laptop (Fujtsu-Siemens Amilo A1655G) until yesterday evening, when I decided to replace it with openSUSE 11.0. Why? Well, I haven’t had a chance to check it out recently and I just wanted to see how the new version works and feels

The installation went smoothly and it detected all the hardware. However, when I tried to turn the wireless card on (there’s a button right beside the power button), the HDD light flickered a bit and nothing happened. I checked again and after some consultations on the openSUSE Forum, we concluded that the card was successfully detected and installed, but was “simply” turned off…

Checking the log file (/var/log/messages) revealed that the OS did not know what to do when the wireless button was pressed. My first idea was to try to find the correct key code and just link the button to it, but after some unsuccessful attempts I found something better – a kernel module (fsaa1655g) which allows turning the wireless card on and off from the command line

The installation of the module failed the first time i attempted it, but installing kernel sources and updating the kernel to match the source version did the trick and I managed to install the module. That’s when the wireless LED finally agreed to light up for me

So, why do I love Linux after all the trouble? It’s an excellent OS, that’s why

Exactly one month ago, on a Saturday morning, I received an SMS message from the phone company, notifying me that my application for an ADSL line has been approved. All I had to do was to visit them, sign the contract and pick up the router. It does sound nice and easy, doesn’t it? Professional even. That’s if you don’t know the rest of the story…

I’ve submitted the application more than 3 and a half years ago! Yes, years – it was on February 17th, 2005. I’ve given up any hope that such a technological advance would ever reach my doorstep. As the dial-up connection was far too slow for my work, no wireless access points anywhere in sight, no cable company interested in providing internet access, I’ve decided to go for a satellite connection. It was faster than the dial-up (up to 2Mbit/s downlink with OpenSky’s SatSurf subscription), but it was a one-way connection and there was the uplink problem. I used the old dial-up for a few months, but finally decided to try a GRPS/EDGE subscription from my mobile phone company. And it worked OK… It had its downsides (satellite round-trip delay, configuration issues both on Windows and Linux and it simply involved a lot of hardware), but it was far better than the alternative.

Now it all feels like a bad dream I had a very long time ago. I’ve also added a wireless router to the mix – all computers can access the internet, nice and easy. I simply love happy endings