Angel: Linux ATI X11 Mach64 Rage RageII XFree86 support , NAD 3020 modification , SL-586VP Motherboard

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Linux Penguin

910 visits as of June 1, 1997
4190 visits as of Dec 15, 1997
5670 visits as of Jan 15, 1998
10,214 visits as of Mar 28, 1998
30,088 visits as of Jan 1, 1999
Site moved/Counters reset May 15, 2004

LINUX flies...Pentium not required

Ergonomics,practical features, and a sharp lens: Fuji MX-1200 and Finepix 1300 ...megapixel not required but optional

^/\^ Site Info

The ^/\^ PeAK /\^/\ Home Pages is orgainized into three main sections. These comments are purely my own and not those of ATI.

Frames

No Frames

^/\^ Mondo Cool Stuff
- Linux XFree86 X11 drivers and configuration files for ATI cards using the CT, VT, GT, Rage, Rage2 / RageII ( Xpression , Pro Turbo ) , Rage Pro ( Xpert@Play Xpert@Work), Rage LT Pro chipsets.
- Computer upgrade logistics
- ATI Video Card/Chip Info and the Rage128/RADEON
- The case of OpenGL vs Direct3D , Intels AGP, 3D Primer, etc...
- Better sound for less...see the link on modifying the NAD 3020 integrated amplifier.
- Digital Camera selection
- Combined biking/touring/ camping in one vacation
/\^/\ Favourite Links
- ATI Rage Pro and Rage 128 links
- Amazing Links on Win95/OpenGL ...thanks Paul
^/\^ Linux....so neat it gets its own section
- Win95 works for most people but more lt; promising Operating systems exists...here are some disturbing viewpoints on bug reporting by MS on Win95. I would face the same problem if I were unhappy with Linux and wanted something else that was the same and better...would I jump to GNU HURD ? Fortunately, I can handle Linux's few faults...

^/\^ What's New ...

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- ...newsarchive
  March 28 , 2014
- I've been editing these pages over the last couple of weeks fixing/marking/removing orphaned links that were first birthe about 15 years ago. My aim was to make the entry page had all the various graphics up and the broken links clearly marked. Generous use of the Wayback Machine was made as many of the sites no longer existed. The last major "edit" happened in 2004 when this site existed on Angelfire.com. The site was bought and the decision to retract email services had me switch over to Yahoo. The old page still exists here. During the manual migration, I had poor tools, and poorer book keeping and certain things got missed: Thise have mostly been recovered and the old archive "news" has since been recovered and can be found here Most of the linked items have been relinked to the "web.archive.org/Wayback" pages by having me manually peruse items all the way back to 2004. We will in the middle of finding what a "miserable failure" George Bush was...and we were yet to see the how the stellar reputation of mortgage back securites was going to pan out in 2008.
  March 22 , 2014
- At his eulogy delivered by his eldest son, Jimmy, relayed the story about Mr Hong's early employment. He told his son that his first job was secured on the pretense of having 5 years experience in fast food business (burgers and fries). He lasted one day. With the experience gained, he claimed to have 10 years experience when he applied for his second fast food employment. He lasted a bit longer. By the time, he was onto his third job, he had "15 years" experience! Within 5 years, he started his own business in 1962. In 1984 after having worked in Espinola and Blind River, Mr Tong retired at the age of 47. For those who do not know the chinese culture, this is extremely progressive...for those in Canada it is only normal (even late) by hockey standards.
  I proudly carried his casket along with two of my brothers. Oddly, though my Mom kept in touch over the years, the children only knew of each others' existence when they were to be married. We had little contact. The traditional meal after the funeral felt like meeting long lost brothers. I think we will keep in touch. Say hi to my Mom, Mr Hong.
  March 10 , 2014
  
  (click for larger image)
- Today is a landmark day for my family and another family with the name Hong. Mr Hong passed away within a short time of being diagnosed for lung cancer. He shared a common circumstance with my father in Canada in the early 50's, where the husbands were separated from their families in China by goverment policy. They eked out livings in Laundrys and menial jobs. Success meant having your own business and a Restaurant was one possible avenue. My father did it in the large city of Toronto and Mr Hong did so in the small town of Kapuskasing (think 635 north of Toronto). My Mom headed out of China for the first time in 1957 on a boat to San Francisco with her seven year old son. She met Mrs Hong for the first time and during the course of the trip started a friendship with Mrs Hong by keeping a watchful eye on her two sons while Mrs suffered from arthritic conditions and sea sickness...not uncommon. My father met my mother when the boat finally docked and they proceeded to Vancouver by train with Mrs Hong in tow. In Vancouver, tickets crossing Canada to Toronto were bought, at the suggestion of my father, Mrs Hong had her tickets changed to a "Sleeper" car and also got re-routed using a more direct route to Kapakasing: Saving money and time but also saving Mr Hong from having to miss work and make the Toronto. This was all explained to him during the course of their first, ever, phone conversation. It marked the beginning of a friend ship that was to endure for 57 years and marked by a hospital visit one day prior to his death.
  Dec 28, 2013
- Picked up the Fujifilm X10. See review here at Luminous Landscape for this poor man's Leica. Back in 1972, I purchased my first DSLR by Fujifilm called the ST-701. It was their entry into the field dominated by Pentax and Nikon. It cost under $300 ...pretty sweet but I think it is all due to that crazy value proposition called the Tablet...it is even affecting the likes of Intel. It gave people the idea that a lot can be done with relatively low power and a different GUI that they had seen in Windows. The bizzare thing is a third GUI called "Surface" just gets stuck on that mantra of how difficult it is to get an old dog to learn a new trick. Don't ask me, I'm running Linux in a totally now populus fashion. Have a look at my Desktop below:
  
  Click for larger image
  
  December 14 , 2013
- I'm making this entry in early 2014 but the date marks my beginning in the area of geneological studies...a.k.a searching Ancestry. This started with a call from a call from an older friend (in his 80s) from Australia about the Mormons in Utah having a really good and searchable resource to trace the ancestry of one's family. Three days later I had uncover a family tree that had already been built by distant cousins on Mundia that had traced the very first Baard that had stepped onto South African soil...some six generations ago in the mid 1700s.
  November 30 , 2013
- My mother's older sister passed away. Over a decade before she suffered a traumatic pedestrian-car collision which left her with both legs broken and a lot of her short/middle term missing. It was a year marked by two other deaths of my older 1st cousin who lost two sisters. Of special note were two friends who kept a eye on her during her days as a young single Mom in Hong Kong: They made a trip from the New York City area. Her son from Hong Kong had difficulty getting a quick visa and the funeral was delayed for about two weeks. My Mom lobbied hard to re-unite her family consisting of and older brother and sister. I remember making visits with her to see the councillor for our area numberous times. Once a year a long distance call would be made over trans-Atlantic cables around the time of Xmas to my Aunt in Hong Kong: After about 10 minutes, the kids would be lined up to say hello to our Aunt. I think we were all sort of shouting into the receiver as my Mom had been doing so for the previous 10 minutes.
  November 20 , 2013
- Today marks the one year anniversary since my Uncle John passed away. I was fortunate to have him as an influence on me during my studies. He is very much missed by his family who have taken over care duties for his wife.
  Dec 2012
- Picked up the Nikon V1 after having read a couple of really good reviews. One is by Steve Huff and the other by Brad Hill.
  May 9 , 2012
- For eight months, the whereabouts of an inexpensive (< $160 ) camera was a mystery. The Fujifilm S1600 was found beside a mounted smallmouth bass at a friend's house on top of a portable closet about 8 feet off the ground. I didn't realize how much I missed this camera until I took a few pictures and was just amazed that it prompted me to snap 64 pictures of random objects within a day of shooting. This prompted me to write a long term review of this camera.
- April 7 , 2011
- If you wonder how you can get the best mileage out of rechargeable batteries you should read this thread with numberous helpful links
- Another election is about to unfold in this land called Canada. The reason is primarily human ambition for "more". In the case of the Conservative Party it is an issue of dominance and in the case of the Liberal Party, one of prestige. I favour a party ruled by the collective of a group and to have responsibilities delegated to the point that real personal growth can occur for those entrusted to those positions. Their should be ceilings on the salaries paid out to those paid through tax payers dollars.
- New page put up on the value oriented bridge camera put out by "Fuji Film" called the SC1600. More fuji reviews here from Walmart ???
- I've been somewhat neglectful of updating this section to point trips taken in 2009/2010. See below for update on a canoe trip on the French River, a kayak trip on Lake Superior, and a cycle trip in 2009. 2010 was year in confined to local trips consisting of volunteer efforts on the Ride for Heart (18th year as a road side mechanic) and Bells on Bloor. There are also various annual local rides that I'll try to document covering the Ride for Rouge and a return canoe trip to Kilarney with a meat dominated trip...ask me later.
  July 2010
- I've been certified by CANBIKE to teach people the art of riding safely in traffic. Of course, in order to teach CANBIKE, you must also be a student of CANBIKE. The bike has been a key means of transport of in my high school years, university education and for my first real job in Ottawa. Living 30 km away from work in T.O. has not made it a practical alternative but it has over the last three years been the "go to" method to get around. The instructors course was taken in Ste. Catherines were the dangers of street car tracks does not exist. The area is really mostly farmland within a kilometer or two of downtown streets....awesome.
- The kick off trip for me this year would have been a volunteer effort along the Waterfront Trail Ride from Niagara-on-the-Lake to Kingston. Unfortunately it coincided without a number of oddities resulting from my annual health examination. The end result being for me to redefine the limits of what activities that I'll be comfortable with. It will be a year of uncertainty and exploration for sure. Looks like the local tripping will be a more viable option...stay tuned.
  Sept 2009
- A year marked by bike activism and building. The old school bike constructed from metal tubes is back. At the height of the economic downtown caused by the housing speculation within the banking industry (shame), you could have told that a recession was in full swing at the North American Handmade Bike Show. The show took place in Indiannapolis, just a stone's throw away from Chicago. From Toronto it amounted to about 10 hours of driving.
- After years of comtemplating a Lake Superior trip, we tackle the majestic lake that is often called an inland sea. It would be too nerve wracking to tackle in an open canoe and we opted for sea kayaks in June.
- My first trip to an area called the French River. Have a look taken in August.
- I've put up these Germany pics of a 1400 km bike trip through Germany for friends but have neglected to update this section. It was a trip that marked by first time to Euroupe and could be said to be one for the ages as a had hit the 5th decade mark a year earlier..
- Old News that is older than the current year is now archived into a concise old news snapshot summary highlighting major news items within each month. Links provide detailed information within each month.
  Current year news items are listed below chronologically in each month's archive below but the items in the pages themselve are listed in reverse chronological order.
  /\^/\ Mondo Cool Stuff ...mostly here...
  - Audio:
    - simple tweaks for better sound
    - NAD 3020 detailed modifications
    - Amazing ribbon based tweeters in the Newform 630 make it one exceptional speaker.
  - Digital Photography
    - What to know about selecting a basic no-nonsense Digital Camera ...cutting through the twice yearly model changes and hype and why you should focussing on portability, quality and the useful "toy/experiment" mode known as 320x240.
    - Come in to my GIMP page and see how the ATI hockey team's yellow sweaters became blue. Manipulating photos to get rid of "red eye", reflections, dust spots is easy once you've begun using photo maipulation packages such as Adobe Photostop and GIMP. GIMP
    - Small digital cameras for about $30 with the most wanted but pared down features are called tincams.
  - Outdoor Recreation
    - Why bike for a vacation ?
    - Camping info on stoves and water filters.
  - Web: Free Angelfire Home Page and Free e-mail
  - Hardware:
    - 3D Graphics/Video Cards
      - Reviews/Links of Graphics Cards by ATI
        
        RADEON hardware reviews/previews
        
        Radeon Forum
        ~~ATI Installation FAQ~~-Wayback
        ~~Radeon User installation FAQ>~~-Wayback
        ~~ATI's latest drivers~~-Wayback
        
        Rage Pro reviews
        
        ~~WHQL Release Drivers~~-Wayback
        
        Rage 128 reviews
        
        ~~128 Releaase Drivers~~
        
        FAQs:
        
        ~~ATI Rage 128 FAQ~~-Wayback
        
        ~~Rage 128 installation FAQ~~-Wayback
        
        Common installation workarounds
        
        End User ATI recommendations/testimonials on the net. Added April 10, 98
        ~~Policy on Register Specs for TV-in/TV-out and chipsets~~
      - An Overview of 3D
        
        OpenGL Primer and ATI's OpenGL Driver running Quake
        ATI 3D ~~White Papers~~-Wayback
        51 in depth articles on the A to Z on 3D . Excellent 3D reference.
        Intel's Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP)...where's the beef?
        Upgrading computers and the logistics along with a summary of my motherboard upgrades upgrade
      - Operating Systems: Linux... nice penguin..
        
        Win3.1, Win95, OS/2 say hello to Linux...OK..I admit...he's cute but ...a Penguin named Linux...
        General information on Linux
        XFree86 with ATI Hardware
        
        Configuring Linux and XFree86 X11 GUI for:
        a) Mach 64 Cards b) Rage 128 Cards
        
        VGA workaround ...when all else fails...a.k.a getting X up for the first time
    ^/\^ Favorite Links ...mostly there...
    - Linux:
      Update 2014: Some of these sites no longer exist. Some of them have new locations that have been updated but it is impressive that most are still around...Linux is for real!
      
      ~~Everything Linux~~...this site speaks from my heart...the name says it all
      Linux Gazette and Linux Focus...two monthly Linux magazine fix of tips and articles
      Linux-Online ...Getting Started...tutorials
      Linux HQ...links to all major Linux sites and latest Kernel Info
      
      SAL...a database of of all applications running under Linux
      
      Slashdot site Industry news site run by Linux centric fans
      
      ~~Linux News~~ Page updated daily
    Hello... "You're amazing, Ray"...an oft the cuff remark made occasionally by friends...never by family :) my thoughts on this are that " I am the product of every person whom I've had the opportunity to meet" . Some of most influential people have been my parents, the gang of relatives they grew us up with, and the Toronto Board of Education. They allowed us to meet and welcome many wonderful people from different backgrounds and cultures. My mom passed away 49 days ago on Oct 17/97 . The absence of her voice is different...sad...quiet ...all at the same time...I do miss her very much.
    
    Some people might wonder why the strange Home Page Title...lets just say I've had an idea for a outfit called Peak for creating work for students during the summer time...sort of like a College Pro Painter operation . If you are looking for a job and are comfortable at wiring telephones and drilling holes through walls ...send me an email.
    
    I've listed four areas that have graced the status of "Mondo Cool", they have managed to earn this position by giving me hours and hours of uninterupted pleasure...that is if hours past the witching hour count.
    
    /\^/\ Linux ...an operating system designed by people for people
    
    For a more detail picture (78K) of a Linux Desktop with 3 separate DOOM sessions, Quake,and Netscape, all running at once, ...click on the image. A even more detailed image (226K) is available at http://web.295.ca/peak/images/top.jpg but I am making it difficult for you so my ISP does not get overloaded.Note: Image is not actual screen dump due to conflicting colormaps. Individual windows dumped and displayed using XV and then screen dumped using shared XV colormap
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    . with Win95 you can run DOOM...with Linux you can play DOOM, type a memo, surf the Web and if you are Thresh....play two more games of DOOM and Quake ....all at the same time :)
    
    In the image to the left, one Quake window is running at the same time as others running DOOM, Netscape. The OpenGL animation had colour maps that clashed. The 3 Doom windows run the Demos at about 18 fps each. With another window of Quake, things bog down to about 9 fps in Quake. All this running on a Cyrix P200MMX chip. No reboots or hangs to speak of. Like I said, run Linux....it flies. I guess I found an application for Pentiums class power. Have I got your attention....Very Good Have you tried Linux ? ...or ever gone over to a friends house who is running Linux ?...I run Windows about 20% of time and am slowly weaning myself off of it as replacements for my typical apps appear under Linux. If you can boot the Linux kernel in text mode via a single floppy form (More info here ), then you are 1/2-way there with your hardware. Being able to run Linux is a very good test of your hardware's intrinsic conformance to the PC Standard. The next stage is to get the graphical Windows/Mac like interface called "X" up and running on a accelerated Video card that is compatible with the X11 (far cleaner and better implemented that Windows...no DLL clutter). In case you mixed the section that explains how to run the graphical interface with ATI cards under Linux, click here. The essential source to installing a "Full" Linux is a CD-ROM drive and a copy of a book called "Running Linux" by Matt Welsh. This book is based upon the basic draft version available at the following link Linux Getting Started Another documentation link is the following: Linux documentation. Can't control yourself ...click here for More Linux?
    
    Ray is author of this column and a analog hardware designer having worked in the IC industry for two decades. I have been treated well in my profession but I yearn for and extended sabbatical that I began in spring of 2008. I will be found either bicycling, modifying and designing electronics, or wondering why people need a Pentium...get a 486 and run Linux on it...it flies
Email: peakrchau[at]yahoo.ca
...as of May 15 2004