"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." (Robert A. Heinlein)

Tuesday 15 May 2012

New toy on the desk: Acer Veriton S661


Apart from the subtle pride of installing latest Linux releases on a six years old computer I have been feeling the need of a new desktop computer since some years. So, at last, I decided to buy a new one. Not so very new to be honest: I got it at a surplus fair, here in Genoa, where I go twice a year, and they told me it has been used only for “exposition purpose”. It must be true because its interior is almost free of any dust and we all know how is difficult to keep dust out of our computers.
The Acer Veriton S661 is a office targeted compact desktop: with a dual core 2600MHz processor, 1GB RAM and a 250GB hard disk. It could be better, especially on the RAM side, but there is time for expansions in the years to come. The compact case saves some space on my crumpled desktop (the Sempron 2400 was a mid-tower) and I needed this more than the improved performances. The case is well organized inside, in spite of its compactness and can even be opened without a screw-driver. Last but not least, it's wonderfully noiseless.

Tuesday 1 May 2012

More Mint 12 tuning on the EEEPC 900


After installing Linux Mint 12 on the EEEPC and fixing some immediate post installation issues my netbook has been working fine in all but one last thing. When running on battery power the EEEPC often warned the battery being near to full discharge. Sometimes the computer went in automatic power off even with the battery almost fully charged.
It's no new that the early EEEPCs battery aren't properly recognized on most of Linux distributions. That's because of the buggy way EEEPC BIOS handles ACPI, I noticed it since I first installed Ubuntu years ago, but it usually never been a problem apart from some meaningless estimation of the battery duration.