Archive for September, 2011

3D graphics on Linux

As I mentioned in my post about free software, one of the problems with my current Ubuntu installation is my use of a non-free graphics driver. I would prefer to find a way to use free software and still have some hardware acceleration support, e.g. for compiz and for video playback. (I found a good tutorial on how to fix video tearing.)

As a side note, I have a free graphics driver with hardware acceleration working on my Eee 900. This is mainly because the eee pc has Intel integrated graphics. On the other hand, its performance is nothing to write home about.

The target system is an HP Compaq dc7900, with an ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT (RV610). I am currently running Ubuntu Linux 10.04 LTS with the fglrx driver.

Testing your existing setup

The old way to check for hardware acceleration was the following:

$ glxinfo | grep rendering
 direct rendering: Yes

where a Yes means you do have rendering. However, I learned that a system can answer yes even if it is not using hardware acceleration. The proper command is:

$ glxinfo | grep OpenGL
 OpenGL vendor string: Tungsten Graphics, Inc
 OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) 915GM
GEM 20100330 DEVELOPMENT x86/MMX/SSE2
 OpenGL version string: 1.4 Mesa 7.10.2
 OpenGL extensions:

The item of interest is the “renderer string.” If it says “Software rasterizer,” then your system is emulating OpenGL instead of using hardware acceleration. Here is some more documentation on how to check your setup using glxinfo.

Some definitions

  • OpenGL is a standard specification for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. Basically, it is an API.
  • Mesa 3D is an open source implementation of OpenGL, providing the library that applications can call into.
  • Direct rendering interface (DRI) are drivers that Mesa uses to translate OpenGL function calls into GPU-instructions.

When the DRI is present, this would constitute hardware acceleration. It has a userspace component and a kernel space component, which is the direct rendering manager (DRM)

The “driver” that is specified in xorg.conf is actually a relatively basic driver that performs the 2D tasks, including compositing and video acceleration. All 3D calls are passed on to Mesa. See the section about DDX (Display Driver for X) in Linux Graphics Driver Stack Explained.

Kernel Mode Setting (KMS) is the notion that the code to set the video card’s mode is moved into the kernel. The mode is the color depth and resolution of a monitor. Previously, the mode setting code resided in the X server. In the new scheme, it resides in the kernel. This provides the following advantages, as given in Debian 6 Release Notes:

  • More reliable suspend and resume
  • Ability to use graphics devices without X
  • Faster VT switch
  • Native mode text console

Tools for syncing

Here’s the situation: I have accounts on multiple computers. Who doesn’t have this problem these days? (If you’re in the top 1% of the world’s richest who own a computer, that is.) I have a netbook running Xubuntu, a desktop triple booting Ubuntu, Debian unstable, and Windows Vista, and several accounts at school. I want to be able to sit at any one of these computers and be as productive as possible.

My solution has several parts to it. For me to be productive, I want to have access to several different kinds of information, including:

  • bookmarks
  • email, including contacts
  • documents

For each kind of information, I have a different way of accessing it, depending on the level of configuration I can perform on the particular computer I am using.

Bookmarks

I store my bookmarks on Google Bookmarks. Google bookmarks has a web interface for accessing and managing bookmarks. Bookmarks are stored by URL, so the URL is not editable except by deleting and creating a new bookmark. Otherwise, I can edit the title of the page, and tag the bookmark to organize it how I please.

The first software tool I used to access Google Bookmarks was GMarks. (GMarks is free software.) GMarks is a Firefox extension, so I can install it on any account where I have access to Firefox. Thankfully my school has the Firefox web browser on their lab computers, and they allow students to add their own extensions. GMarks adds a menu to the toolbar with bookmarks pulled from Google Bookmarks. The bookmark tags or labels are used to generate the menu, with the ‘>’ character used to represent subfolders. I prefer to sort my bookmarks by date, so the most recently added ones appear near the top.

More recently I have been using Google Chrome for my web browsing. The software tool I use in this browser is Yet Another Google Bookmarks Extension (YAGBE). As this tool is not free software, I am in the market for a replacement that behaves similarly. YAGBE adds a star to the toolbar next to the URL bar. (This is to the right of the star that is already in the URL bar, which is for Chrome Bookmarks.) This is handy, and a little more compact than the default GMarks behavior. The star turns yellow when you are on a page which you have already bookmarked. Clicking the star reveals a menu with your bookmarks.

Screenshot of the star that YAGBE puts in the toolbar

Email

The obvious solution to email is to use a provider with IMAP access. I prefer to use a native client to a web client where possible. I use Thunderbird on the machines I administer, and on the school lab computers, I have configured Outlook to interface with my personal email as well as my school email.

The more interesting part is contacts. At some point I got fed up with all my Thunderbird instances pulling their own contacts into the “Collected Addresses” list. I was also fed up with searching my email inbox to confirm a particular email address for one of my friends. I decided to use Google Contacts (part of gmail) to store all the email addresses for my contacts. Similar to tags, Google allows you to add a contact to multiple groups.

There is a Thunderbird extension called (you guessed it) Google Contacts. This extension is free software. If you set up your Gmail account in Thunderbird for email, it will automatically use your username and password to pull in your contacts and add them as another address book. All of the groups from Gmail are created as Thunderbird Mailing Lists, so you can use them to find a contact if you desire. Otherwise, it behaves like the other address books, so you can use autocomplete.

Screenshot of the Google Contacts address book in Thunderbird

Documents

For my documents, I simply use Dropbox. (This is not free software.) On computers where I can install it, I do. When I cannot, I use their web interface to get the files I need.

In some situations, I’ll make an exception, and put a document on Google Documents so other people can edit it. I have also used Zoho Notebook to create a paged log of my computer hacking adventures. This allows me to edit the same notebook from whichever computer is running, which is usually not the same as the one that is being experimented on!

Do what you enjoy

The CEO of Securian Financial Group told me, “If you’re not having fun, you’re not doing it right.” The CIO told me, “Do what you enjoy.” I’ve been spending the past few weeks thinking about what I will do after completing my undergraduate degree here at St. Cloud State University. I’ve found that many different sources of career advice focus on doing what you enjoy.

Scott Belsky has an article entitled “Finding Your Work Sweet Spot.” He describes this sweet spot as an intersection of three different factors: interests, skills, and opportunities. Interests is defined by what you love to do. “A genuine interest is not about what promises the most economic gain. On the contrary, it is a topic that trumps economic concerns because you love it so much.”

I am learning to use my interests and skills to navigate some of the many opportunities that confront me. A quote from Dan Pink on Matt Perman’s blog says that choices should be based on your values, not based on utilitarian reasons.

You can do something for instrumental reasons — because you think it’s going to lead to something else, regardless of whether you enjoy it or it’s worthwhile.

Or you can do something for fundamental reasons — because you think it’s inherently valuable, regardless of what it may or may not lead to.

If I am focusing on doing what I enjoy, I can make every decision based on fundamental reasons. I won’t always know where I am going, but I am enjoying the steps on the way. Belsky agrees, writing: “Define ‘opportunity’ as an action or experience that brings you a step closer to your genuine interest. Opportunity is less about leaps forward and more about the slow advance.”

I don’t know where I’m going, but I know where I am. There is no master plan, other than pursuing what I enjoy. A quote from Peter Drucker supports this:

Successful careers are not planned.

They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values. Knowing where one belongs can transform an ordinary person — hardworking and competent but otherwise mediocre — into an outstanding performer.

(The quote is from a PDF entitled Managing Oneself.)

I think to be prepared for opportunities entails

  • finding opportunities around you (networking)
  • choosing to engage those opportunities or not
  • engaging opportunities for fundamental reasons