The kindergarten browser wars

By , 2011-06-25 23:15

A friend posted this on Facebook today:

Quite an accurate depiction.

Image credit: The Shoze Blog

ATI/AMD Radeon HD cards in Mac Pro

By , 2011-06-23 21:40

Update: Just went and exchanged the HD 6450 for an HD 6670. This one works great, runs Starcraft II on High and doesn’t crash the machine!

After some discussion with a coworker, I decided to try putting a Sapphire Radeon HD6450 into my Mac Pro, since the 8800GT was a real power hog and heater.

Just my luck that today the 10.6.8 update was released, containing – you guessed it – HD6xxx drivers!

So I ran the update, then popped in the HD6450, and what do you know, it works! Only two problems: First, no EFI support which means no boot screen (white/grey apple). Second, it seems to crash when launching any game. I tried Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and Starcraft II, and both caused the screen to go blank and kernel panic.

Anyway, nice experiment, and at least it works for regular desktop work….

For anyone interested, here are all the Radeon HD6000 series cards supported by the 10.6.8 kexts, IDs and names.

  • 0x67681002  CAICOS 6450M
  • 0x67701002  NI CAICOS [AMD Radeon HD 6400 Series]
  • 0x67791002  NI Caicos [AMD RADEON HD 6450]
  • 0x67601002  NI Seymour [AMD Radeon HD 6470M]
  • 0x67611002  NI Seymour [AMD Radeon HD 6430M]
  • 0x67501002  Turks [AMD Radeon HD 6500 series]
  • 0x67581002  Turks XT [AMD Radeon HD 6600 Series]
  • 0x67591002  NI Turks [AMD Radeon HD 6500]
  • 0x67401002  Whistler XT [AMD Radeon HD 6700M Series]
  • 0x67411002  NI Whistler [AMD Radeon HD 6600M Series]
  • 0x67381002  Barts XT [ATI Radeon HD 6800 Series]
  • 0x67391002  Barts PRO [ATI Radeon HD 6800 Series]
  • 0x67201002  Blackcomb [AMD Radeon HD 6900M Series]
  • 0x67221002 ATI Radeon HD 6950
  • 0x67181002  Cayman XT [AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series]

Configuring multiple static IP interfaces in Arch Linux (netcfg)

By , 2011-06-22 14:29

Being a long-time Ubuntu/Debian user, I’m used to editing the good ol’ /etc/network/interfaces file to configure network interfaces.

Recently, trying Arch Linux, I discovered that networking isn’t always that simple.

Most basic system parameters in Arch are configured in the /etc/rc.conf file. However, that file is limited to configuring one static wired ethernet connection.

In order to configure multiple interfaces, you need to install the netcfg package and create profiles for each NIC in /etc/network.d :

There are some examples provided, however none of them mention how to set a custom netmask or multiple DNS servers. So here are my two network profiles:

interface 1 (/etc/network.d/interface1-static)

CONNECTION='ethernet'
DESCRIPTION='Static IP WAN'
INTERFACE='eth0'
IP='static'
ADDR='172.32.24.108'
GATEWAY='172.32.24.1'
DNS=('172.16.24.1' '172.16.24.3')

interface 2

CONNECTION='ethernet'
DESCRIPTION='Static IP LAN'
INTERFACE='eth1'
IP='static'
ADDR='192.168.2.80'
NETMASK='255.255.254.0'

Once the profiles are created, go back to the /etc/rc.conf and make them activated at boot. The values for the NETWORKS array are the two files previously created in /etc/network.d:

# Enable these netcfg profiles at boot-up. These are useful if you happen to
# need more advanced network features than the simple network service
# supports, such as multiple network configurations (ie, laptop users)
#   - set to 'menu' to present a menu during boot-up (dialog package required)
#   - prefix an entry with a ! to disable it
#
# Network profiles are found in /etc/network.d
#
# This requires the netcfg package
#
NETWORKS=(interface1-static interface2-static)

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# DAEMONS
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# Daemons to start at boot-up (in this order)
#   - prefix a daemon with a ! to disable it
#   - prefix a daemon with a @ to start it up in the background
#
# If something other takes care of your hardware clock (ntpd, dual-boot...)
# you should disable 'hwclock' here.
#
DAEMONS=(hwclock syslog-ng net-profiles sshd netfs crond dbus @cups kdm)

Posting from Posterous

By , 2011-06-13 15:18

All right. Time to revive the ol’ blog.

A little while ago I “discovered” a service/site/blogging engine (whatever you want to call it) called Posterous. Aside from the typically attractive Web 2.0/AJAXy/social media/modern design goodness we’ve come to expect from online services, Posterous (like many other sites) promised to make sharing things online easier than ever. So, as another step on my endless quest for blogging/sharing perfection, (and yes, by the way, I know I use slashes too much) I decided to sign up for a posterous account. One interesting feature is the “Autopost to everywhere”. and when Posterous says everywhere, they mean it. Every social service I use is listed. I went ahead and added WordPress and Facebook for now. And now I’m testing the whole thing out by writing this post.

So, posterous: revolution? or social “spamming” made easy?

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