Milan Zamazal's Weblog

Today I had to print something. My aging DeskJet refused to print it in sufficient quality again. I had to use another printer connected to a Windows machine. That meant an interesting challenge to print a Czech OpenOffice.org document on Windows. OpenOffice.org 1.1.3 PDF export produced a document with Czech characters missing. This can be fixed by printing the document into PostScript and converting it to PDF. Such a PDF looks well in xpdf but not so in Acrobat on Windows, which can't display Czech characters in it correctly. Fortunately, PDF export in OpenOffice.org 2 beta seems to be fixed so after two hours of hardware and software experiments I was finally able to print the document.

That story encouraged me to buy a new printer. About a year ago I considered buying Epson R200, but I got discouraged because of very expensive ink and paper. Today, there is Epson R220 available, it's a bit cheaper than R200 was last year and the ink and paper seem to get cheaper as well. I need new printer anyway, so I'll give it a try. HP is out of question, all HP devices I tried to use have suffered from some troubles so far. Low-end Canon printers may be more economic, with less clogging troubles and with a better text printing quality when compared to Epson. But unlike Epson, Canon seems to be careless about Linux drivers thus their devices are completely useless to me. Epson printers are well supported on Linux and I've already got good experiences with two Epson scanners on Linux, so Epson is where I'm going to spend my inkjet money.

I've added information on running the Epson Perfection 2480 Photo scanner and Epson Stylus Photo R220 printer on Linux to my small Linux hardware page.

If you find those small pages useful, please consider sharing pieces of your knowledge on Internet as well, it can help to many people. My Linux hardware pages are almost the only pages visited on my site, they are visited mostly by people looking at Google for information on running something on Linux, so people need this kind of information. I'm going to write more on the topic of sharing knowledge on Internet sometimes.

Having finally an AMD64 system in my hands, I'm positively surprised by its performance. When I switched from a Duron 650 MHz to a Celeron 2.6 GHz a few years ago, the performance increased much less than I expected. This applied to Sempron 2400+ (~1.6 GHz?, Socket A) as well, it ran only slightly faster than the Celeron. The increase in performance was significantly lower than increase of the (AMD) CPU frequency. After that experience and having read some articles about current processors and 64-bit systems, I didn't expect too much from an upgrade to Athlon64 X2 3800+ (2.0 GHz), despite AMD64 users around me reported great performance with their AMD64 systems.

Surprisingly, according to my first tests GNU/Linux runs about 2-3 times faster on the Athlon64 than on the Celeron (measuring single processes). The overall user experience confirms the timings, e.g. Firefox doesn't feel like a terrible CPU hog now. I can think about the following reasons for the great performance:

• CPU+bus PC technology finally improved in such a way that it can deliver much better performance with the same CPU clock frequency.
• The 64-bit mode is faster than 32-bits on AMD.
• 32-bit system binaries are compiled for a general i386 architecture, while the 64-bit system is optimized directly for the target architecture in Debian.

Overall Athlon64 at 2.0 GHz seems to be very roughly about 5 times faster than the 6 year old Duron at 650 MHz, which means that the performance increased more than the CPU frequency. Cool.

As for the dual core performance, it seems to serve its purpose. Of course, don't expect it to speed up your single tasks. At best you can try to run 'make -j3' on 'make' based build systems. If you're lucky, your compilation time can decrease to almost half the standard compilation time, but you may face two problems: 1. Not everything can be built in parallel (e.g. speed improvement of Emacs compilation is only about 10%, since the Lisp part compilation is not parallelized); 2. Conflicts can occur in parallel compilation (as happened to me at least twice – in Emacs and in Festival), forcing you to manually restart the compilation. Well, I don't use Gentoo nor run a Debian builder machine so compilation time tuning is not that important to me.

The real benefit of the dual core architecture on a mixed desktop/server system is that background tasks run without disturbing your interactive work. You no longer need fear to run big rsync tasks (such as backup) or multimedia processing on background while doing unrelated interactive work. (This is something to be appreciated with the current state of software when one should buy a strong machine just to use a modern web browser comfortably.) So far it works well, but I must wait until the machine gets into its full service before making my final statement about saving time, patience and coffee.

ATI graphics cards suck and I can't recommend buying them. I've spent significant amount of time trying to get run their proprietary drivers on Linux and the conclusion is that the X.Org free drivers are dozen times better than those from ATI, despite 3D acceleration and TV-out don't work with my ATI card. Effectively, my new ATI card is a 3D incapable device without TV output.

I don't believe NVidia is much better – I've once had particularly bad experience with an NVidia graphics card. Intel cards are well supported, but does Intel make anything else than onboard cards? We clearly miss real competition on the hardware market.

I really can't understand the ignorance of hardware vendors. They are incapable to produce stable and well working drivers for Linux. Well, why don't they provide specifications to their devices then and let people make good drivers for free? What's so secret on accessing 3D graphics acceleration or making a printer to print a borderless photo?!

Will Linux and other non-proprietary operating systems still be usable without essential modern hardware features? I doubt. But what's the solution? Current market turns into unbreakable oligopoly in many areas, so the natural market mechanism doesn't work. Open hardware would be the best solution, but it seems this is not something that could become widely accessible in the foreseeable future. Apparently there is not much else to do now than continuing the reverse engineering battle. :-(

I've been a user of Microsoft products for some time now. No, I didn't install their operating system on my workstation of course. But I started to use their Natural Ergonomic Desktop 7000 wireless keyboard + mouse set.

When looking for an ergonomic wireless keyboard several months ago I've found that the Natural 7000 set is the only choice. Except for Microsoft, only Logitech offered split wireless keyboards, but they didn't manage to understand where the backslash key belongs to so it was no option for me.

Surprisingly this new Microsoft keyboard is based on the standard keyboard layout, with addition of some more or less useful keys. It fits into my hands very well and typing on it is more comfortable than on my old Chicony ergonomic keyboard. Its adjustable tilt looks like a good idea to me, I like it. It was just necessary to get use to the keyboard as it's somewhat different to my previous keyboard in its shape. I also had to get rid of my bad typing habits to use the keyboard well. I can't judge on real usefulness of the extra keys because they don't work with the latest Linux VServer kernel and I have to wait until VServer gets updated for the last Linux changes. My only complaint about the keys so far is that the multimedia keys look very cheaply built and feel like they could fall apart any time. But Microsoft offers three year warranty for the set so we'll see.

The mouse feels very well too. I think the side holding approach is a very good idea, it became relief for my hand after some time of its use. The mouse is nice to handle, it's just too sensitive for my taste (any way to get it change in X?). Some people complain the mouse is too heavy but for me it's completely fine. The side buttons are easy to reach for me (unlike for most people who reviewed the mouse on internet). There is one problem with the mouse: The left and right scroll wheel movement and especially clicking the scroll wheel (the middle button) are very though. I often have to press the middle button more than once before it actually clicks. I don't know whether this is a feature or a problem of my particular mouse.

It's necessary to note that my hands and fingers are longer than average and that people with smaller hands may feel both the keyboard and mouse uncomfortable.

I can't say much about the operating range of the keyboard and mouse as I use them very near to the receiver. I tried to type something and handle the mouse at several places about 5 meters away from the receiver including one thick wall in between and it seemed to work well as long as there was no special obstacles in the way, as a computer case or my body.

As for the power source I put some old NiMH accumulators to both the keyboard and mouse. They last for about 1-2 months in the keyboard and for about twice as long in the mouse (note I use a keyboard much more than a mouse). Although both the devices are equipped with low battery warning lights, they appeared to be useless. For the first time when the accumulaters got exhausted the keyboard suddenly stopped work in the middle of typing, the same happened later to the mouse. The next time the keyboard light just blinked shortly three times and the keyboard stopped work immediately after that. Perhaps it would work better with alkaline batteries, I don't know.

Overall I'm pretty satisfied with the set despite its minor annoyances. It's really ergonomic and well usable and this is what matters for me.

I looked at a price list of PC CPUs after some time and wondered what AMD Phenom is. So I looked at the AMD website. To keep the story short I'll limit my experience to a single FAQ entry labeled What is the AMD Phenom(TM) processor?, well representing overall information provided there.

The first part of the answer says:

AMD Phenom(TM) processors represent the next generation of AMD's award winning multi-core Direct Connect Architecture with AMD64 technology enabling greater memory throughput, lower latency and ultra-fast connections to system resources including graphics processors and accelerators.

Well, so they say the new family of processors provides better performance than its predecessors. I wouldn't expect the opposite, so nothing new to me.

The next paragraph:

Featuring true quad-core technology, AMD Phenom(TM) processors are designed to deliver unprecedented megatasking performance and highly tuneable performance platforms to meet the demanding needs of technologically savvy enthusiasts.

This paragraph is interesting because it contains the only single bit of information of the whole FAQ entry answer, i.e. that these processor are quad-core processors. But I could read this already in the price list. As for "unprecedented megatasking performance" and "highly tuneable performance platforms" I couldn't find anything indicating that it describes any real features so I suspect they are just marketing idle talks.

And finally:

AMD Phenom(TM) processors are designed for phenomenal performance and optimum energy efficiency for a growing list of demanding applications, including digital content creation, high-definition video editing, multi-threaded gaming and creative design. AMD Phenom(TM) processors are targeted toward mainstream users who crave more performance and productivity.

I see, these processors are designed so that one can work with a computer. What a surprise!

So I still don't know what the Phenom thing is about. But I know now that either AMD are idiots or they have nothing great to say about this family of processors and they try to hide this fact in meaningless blurbs. In both cases I'd hesitate to buy AMD processors.

In the last years adding new hard drives to desktop computers running GNU/Linux used to be very easy. The drive was just connected to the computer, partitioned, formatted and it worked well. It seems it may not be that easy now again.

I've bought a new Western Digital Caviar Green hard drive some time ago. I did some googling for using green hard drives on GNU/Linux and have found two surprising facts.

For first, new Western Digital hard drives use larger sectors and when partitioning the drive it's important to align partitions properly otherwise performance of the drive will be poor. None of the tools I tried (fdisk, cfdisk, parted) was able to do the right thing. Maybe it's because I've got older kernel on the computer and connecting the drive through a USB box to a laptop with recent Linux kernel didn't help either. Should I synchronize installing new hard drives with operating system upgrades next time? Fortunately I could find a tip how to fix partitioning manually using fdisk.

For second, the Caviar Green drives park their heads just after several seconds of inactivity. It's not much problem except for the drive lifetime. Indeed, according to my S.M.A.R.T. reports the expected lifetime of my new hard drive isn't going to exceed the warranty period because of the frequent heads parking. Well, it's only a counter after all and it mostly motivates one to perform backups regularly. The strange thing is that nobody seems to get the reason for such an aggressive parking policy in this kind of drive.

I bought a few new hard drives recently. Before installing them into the computer I decided to test them a bit (good idea!). I noticed that one of the drives was packed in a non-sealed wrapping and its manufacture date was last July. I looked at its S.M.A.R.T. information and it reported 4390 hours on power.

I complained on the seller's hot line. They told me that the drive came directly from their supplier. I don't know whether it's true, they should notice the non-original packing but I didn't notice it either until I've started unpacking the drives. They suggested to return the drive. So I claimed it at the shop and they exchanged the used drive for a new one.

Apparently there is another dirty business practice somewhere. So when buying new hard drives, be more careful than I have been at the shop.

Updates on my driver info pages:

• Updated information about Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Desktop 7000 keyboard, especially a link to a guideline how to make the zoom key working was added.
• Added information about Genius G-Pen F610 tablet.

In spite my recent rant about such devices I decided to buy an e-ink reader. The primary reason was that it's uncomfortable for me to read long texts on a monitor. My requirements were: Large screen, stylus and a usable SDK. Considering the requirements there was only one acceptable e-ink reader I could find on the market, PocketBook Pro 903, so I bought that one. What is it like?

E-ink reading fulfills my expectations. The "large" screen is rather small, only about A5 size, but a larger device would be impractical. The resolution is poor (compared to prints) but acceptable. The contrast is rather low but sufficient. That all doesn't sound encouraging but don't get mistaken: The reading experience is much better than on an LCD display, my reading problem is gone and I was surprised how much I can read now. It's just that e-ink readers are at their beginning and there is a lot to improve in future.

Another observation is that replacing the pile of periodicals and printed papers by an electronic storage makes things better and allows their more efficient processing. There is less mess on my table, the papers can be read concurrently without loosing bookmarks, it's possible to separate a common reading queue from manuals and other permanent documents, etc.

Now to the less positive things. The very first thing you experience is the software license agreement. It says basically something like that the software is crappy, the vendor is proud of its bugs and you're no way allowed to try fixing them, with the unfortunate exception of some pieces of free software included. Perhaps it's just worded like other proprietary software agreements, but it's sad anyway.

Nevertheless the software is not as bad as you might think after reading Internet forums. It's not very good but it's usable, especially the current beta firmware version (among others adding multitasking and page browsing improvements). I had to use the reset button within the first 24 hours of owning the device when I connected a USB cable during booting but it has never happened to me again since then (I no longer connect a USB cable during booting). Applications don't crash much often and the crashes seem to be related to certain actions rather than being random. Some things work well while other don't. Once you discover what you can do safely with the device and how to utilize it effectively, it's rather stable and it's possible to read various kinds of stuff. Not perfect, but usable.

I can't blame solely the vendor for the quality of the software. They could do more but they are mostly dependent on what is already available and it seems e-reading software is generally immature. It's good that the device is not completely closed. For instance the provided RSS reader is unusable for me and other RSS fetching means don't satisfy me much either. So I decided to create my own custom RSS fetching script using standard Unix (BusyBox) tools on PocketBook and it works well.

The included dictionaries are not very small nor very big and don't include sufficient grammar information about the words. They are useful to occasionally translate words during reading and they may be useful when travelling. Not much more. For some strange reason there is no German-English dictionary included. I'd like to have an easy option to use free dictionaries.

The speech voices I tried are of very good quality. Text to speech processing handles pronunciation well but its interpretation of punctuation and other special text is poor. The speech synthesis is apparently too demanding for the device, it makes long pauses between sentences.

The web browser is not very comfortable but it's usable, even for occasional webmail reading. It would be even more usable if webmasters weren't idiots. There are actually two web browsers, two PDF readers and two e-book readers installed, so you can try the other application when something doesn't work well (very useful!).

Wi-Fi works without problems. It's possible to use Bluetooth headphones, at least with the beta firmware. It's just confusing the corresponding menu entry is missing from Czech menu, I had to switch to another language to access it.

It's fine and useful that the device can be mostly handled without using stylus (with the obvious exceptions such as drawing). The touch screen is not very responsive. It's probably not a problem of my particular device as it can be observed in some review videos on YouTube as well. It looks more like a software rather than hardware problem to me.

Finally, I don't understand what's the purpose of the bookland.net site. It's just a heap of overpriced books. But nothing forces me to use it so I don't care.