The Linux Extremist

My ideas about waste make it nearly impossible for me to throw out an old computer.  I still have an old HP Compaq nx7000 which is still my workhorse - it’s the living room computer, the one I sit down with in the morning and evening to do web surfing, writing emails and word processing.   With its wide screen and reasonable graphics, it’s not bad for the task.

That said, I thought it was really coming to the end of the line.  I had upgraded it from Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon to Hardy Heron via the usual upgrade procedure while Hardy was in Beta.  I lost the Desktop Effects, and the computer seemed to be getting bogged down: the extensive error messages I got during shut off was particularly painful.

I decided to give it one last go with a clean install; if it didn’t work, then I was going to have to accept that the laptop, after 5 punishing years of service, was coming to its end.

But I’m pleased to say it did work, and in fact, it’s better than ever.

I should point out that this is not a standard HP Compaq nx7000: I replaced its original IDE hard drive with a Seagate 7200 80 GB drive.  I also put in an SMC Networks PCMCIA 802.11g card (this is based on the Atheros chipset).  I also put in 1 GB of RAM several years ago.  These have helped in terms of connectivity and speed; otherwise, it is a standard first generation Centrino laptop.  It has a 64 MB ATI Radeon laptop graphics card, and a lovely 1680 x 1050 widescreen aspect.

I wanted to ensure that the transition was as painless as possible; this meant that I wanted to ensure that I’d copied all my Bookmarks and emails. Fortunately, in Firefox 2, there is a facility under Bookmarks > Organise Bookmarks to export Bookmarks as a single file. Firefox 3 has a facility to import these bookmarks.

Thunderbird was less straightforward. I found an excellent add on called Import Export Tools. It’s available here. I was able to export all the messages, whisk them off with the other files and able to wipe the hard drive with confidence.

Installation was painless.  All of the hardware was detected and there were no problems with the sound, graphics, or networking; I still remain convinced that this laptop was more designed for Linux than for Windows.  Where it gets a bit trickier is trying to “smooth the setup”.

First and foremost, with my setup, I have two competing wireless cards.  As I’m not interested in having an 802.11b connection, I went into Applications > Accessories > Terminal and typed:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

Add the following line:

blacklist ipw2100

Save and close.  This will knock out the silly old Intel wireless card upon restart.

I found that the Desktop effects still did not work.  Not to worry though, there is plenty of eye candy to be had at www.gnome-look.org.

In my case, I decided to install the Aurora GTK engine, because I rather liked the Elegant Aurora theme.

The good news is that this old laptop can run it. The bad news is that it does require some further packages in order to make it work.

I first had to go into Terminal again and type:

sudo apt-get install libc6-dev g++ gcc

But this isn’t sufficient, it is looking for specific GTK packages to make it work. One also needs to do this:

sudo aptitude install build-essential libgtk2.0-dev

Then extract the Aurora 1.4 folder from the zipped archive onto the desktop. Go into Terminal again, and navigate to that folder. From this point, the instructions are relatively straightforward. Type:

sudo ./configure –prefix=/usr

Then hit enter. After it goes through the motions, then type:

sudo make install

This will install the Aurora engine. Reboot.

You can then go into System > Preferences > Appearance and install the Elegant Aurora theme. Its curved, elegant appearance, while not as “dynamic” as Desktop Effects, is pleasing to the eye.

However, there are other items I wanted to install. First, fonts. It’s necessary to get the Microsoft core fonts in order to view web pages correctly. I went into System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager and Searched for the following package, “msttcorefonts”. This package contains all the base Microsoft fonts one could require. I also wanted Macintosh fonts, as I rather like Lucida Grande. I found them at “Iceman’s Emulation Page”.

Once downloaded, unzip and put all the .TTF files on the desktop. Go back to terminal and then type:

cd /usr/share/fonts

Then type:

sudo mkdir apple

Navigate back (via “cd”) to the Desktop. Then type:

sudo mv *.ttf /usr/share/fonts/apple

This will move all the fonts to the “apple” folder.

You can then refresh the font cache by typing:

sudo fc-cache -fv

This will clock through your newly installed fonts and make them available for use.

Next, there is the matter of setting up Firefox. Firefox 3 is an improvement on Firefox 2 in terms of speed, though it is still a beta, with the limitations that implies. Some of the tweaks one could do with Firefox 2, still apply to Firefox 3. It’s a question of identifying where changing values is still appropriate.

To start, type “about:config” in the address bar.

You will get a warning; proceed anyway.

The HP Compaq nx7000 now needs to be treated as if it is a slow computer on a fast connection (given the SMC network card). Add / change the following values unless these values have already been changed / exceeded by the Firefox 3 configuration:

user_pref(”network.http.pipelining”, true);
user_pref(”network.http.proxy.pipelining”, true);
user_pref(”network.http.pipelining.maxrequests”, 8);
user_pref(”content.notify.backoffcount”, 5);
user_pref(”plugin.expose_full_path”, true);
user_pref(”ui.submenuDelay”, 0);

And:

user_pref(”content.max.tokenizing.time”, 3000000);
user_pref(”content.notify.interval”, 1000000);
user_pref(”content.notify.ontimer”, true);
user_pref(”content.switch.threshold”, 1000000);
user_pref(”content.maxtextrun”, 4095);
user_pref(”nglayout.initialpaint.delay”, 1000);
user_pref(”network.http.max-connections”, 48);
user_pref(”network.http.max-connections-per-server”, 16);
user_pref(”network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy”, 16);
user_pref(”network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server”, 8);
user_pref(”dom.disable_window_status_change”, true);

This will yield a substantially faster Firefox.

I don’t like the default Firefox theme, so I’ve gotten a hold of Phoenity Modern. I also made sure I hit You Tube to get it to automatically install the Adobe Flash Plugin (I went for the genuine Adobe plugin rather than its open source equivalents).

Next, Opera. Opera 9.27 doesn’t work with Flash on this machine; so it’s time to be daring and go with the beta, known as 9.50b / Kestrel. This can be gotten here. This works with the Flash plugin reasonably well.

Finally, Thunderbird; one does need to install the Import Export Tools again, however, it is relatively easy to import the messages, once you’ve re-set up your accounts. Just ensure you’ve clicked on the right folder - i.e., Inbox, when you’re trying to import Inbox messages.

There were other items to set up: as the FireFTP extension doesn’t work with Firefox 3, I went through setting up gFTP. Pidgin internet messenger setup was simple and painless. As my printer is a Canon, I used the Turboprint drivers, as they seem to lead to less smudging in the output than the standard Ubuntu drivers.

Also, with some wallpaper and icons from Deviant Art, I managed to make the old laptop look like this:

Screenshot One
Screenshot Two

But most of all, it is not left behind by recent developments - with the latest Ubuntu, latest Open Office, latest Firefox and latest Opera - it’s at the forefront of them. Not bad for something which in Windows world, would be pushing up the daisies.

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