Archive for the ‘Hardware’ Category
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
The Nvidia ION powered Intel Atom processor netbooks and nettops are the rage these days.
Affordable, lightweight and powerful graphics processor.
The Nvidia ION is actually an Intel Atom CPU coupled with a Nvidia 9400m graphics chipset.
Most linux distributions install fine on most netbooks and nettops. However, their default video player may not be optimized for the Nvidia ION chipsets. For HD video playback, without tweaking the parameters of the video player application, the end result may be lacklustre and the playback may even be not in sync or skipping frames.
(more…)
Tags: 1080p, acceleration, atom, geforce, hd, intel, ion, movies, mplayer, netbook, Nettop, trailers, vdpau, video
Posted in Applications, Distro, Hardware, Leisure, Netbook, Nettop, Tips & Tricks | No Comments »
Friday, January 15th, 2010
What is lm_sensors?
By Wikipedia’s definition of lm_sensors :
lm_sensors (Linux-monitoring sensors), a free open source software-tool for Linux, provides tools and drivers for monitoring temperatures, voltage, and fans. It also monitors chassis intrusion detection.
lm-sensors is already included in many popular linux distribution repositories.
For Gnome desktop users, values obtained from the lm_sensors can be placed in the “top panel” by installing “sensors-applet”.
Here is a good “lm-sensors” guide for Ubuntu users to add lm-sensors to your customized installation [ for both Gnome and KDE users ]
For those with bleeding edge hardware, the usual repositories lm-sensors package may not yet support all the latest sensors on their mainboards and graphics card.
However, there has been some new developments in the detection of new yet to be supported sensors that can be installed with a simple script.
More on this lm-sensors update here from Phoronix.
Source: Phoronix
via LM_Sensors Gets A New Configuration Utility.
Tags: applet, Distro, gnome, Hardware, kde, lm-sensors, sensors
Posted in Applications, Distro, Hardware, Tips & Tricks | No Comments »
Monday, January 11th, 2010
If only they can pack in a HDMI port… this little baby will be flawless!

2.0 GHz Arm-based processor
Wifi, Bluetooth, Gigabit Ethernet, Mini-USB port and “Ready to download” Linux 2.6 SDK for developers.
Low power, low price, small form factor
Below is an extract from UberGizmo
[CES 2010] Marvell has just launched its Computer 3.0 platform based on the Armada 300 processor. New the system still uses an ultra-low power and thermal envelope, but manages to reach 2Ghz and includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and built-in 1.8″ hard drive. The overall package is also much smaller (and sexier) than previous generations. Once again the semi-conductor mantra “smaller, better, cheaper” is beautifully applied by Marvell to these tiny computers. Developers can already get their hands on the SDK, and we’ve heard that a number of big-name brands are working on products based on Plug Computer 3.0.
Source : Marvell Plug Computer 3.0.
Other links of same product news
Linuxfordevices : Plug-in computer rev’d with WiFi, 2GHz SoC
LoopyGadgets : Marvell Plug Computer 3.0 with Built-in Wifi and Bluetooth
Tags: appliance, ARM, bluetooth, compact, formfactor, gigabit, marvell, mini, plug, usb, wifi
Posted in Hardware, NAS, Network Appliance | No Comments »
Monday, January 11th, 2010
The computing juice required for creating an epic animated hybrid movie, such as the movie Avatar is exceptional.

In fact, the data centre that was in charge of rendering the visual effects of Avatar, uses up to 4000 blade servers and is positioned at 197 of the top 500 supercomputers in the world we live in today!
The operating system used for such a huge array of blades…
LINUX
Because, nothing else comes close..
News Source : Opendotdotdot
Posted in Hardware, Leisure | No Comments »
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
Broadcom has recently released its driver source code for their HD Video Accelerator Mini PCI-E card.
Since the launch of this hardware to accelerate HD video playback on netbooks, only Windows drivers were supported.
Just days ago, they decided to release the source code for linux kernels 2.6.11 and higher.
Read the full article at Liliputing.com: Linux drivers for Broadcom HD Video Accelerator
Tags: accelerator, broadcom, hd, mini, pcie, playback, video, windows
Posted in Hardware | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
The Intel GMA500 is actually capable of hardware acceleration for HD video, but it requires some tweaking of the linux driver environment
At “Linux-Tipps“, there is a guide to enable VAAPI (Video Acceleration API) for netbooks with the Intel GMA500 graphics chipsets.
Once VAAPI is enabled, Full HD videos can be watched and CPU utilization will only be 30%.
Source : Liliputing.com
Tags: atom, chipset, drivers, gma500, graphics, hd, intel, netbooks, tips, tutorial, vaapi, video
Posted in Hardware, Netbook, Nettop, Tips & Tricks | 1 Comment »
Monday, December 28th, 2009
Foxconn’s planning to launch a netbook that is both XP and linux capable.
According to Liliputing, the linux will be a customized distribution called FoxOS

Read the full article here at liliputing.com
Tags: Distro, foxconn, liliputing, netbook, OS, xp
Posted in Distro, Hardware, Netbook | No Comments »
Sunday, December 27th, 2009
If you use any of the Nvidia graphics card of GeForce chipset 8500 and above, you can make use of its VDPAU functions.
VDPAU = Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix
Since most standard linux distributions does not include it in their repositories, users have to download and install it manually, or if using Ubuntu, a new PPA repository can be added..
More on how to install VDPAU in the link below
Nvidia 195.22 Beta Linux Display Driver Available In Nvidia Vdpau Team PPA [Ubuntu]
Thanks for Webupd8.org for the heads up
Tags: display, gfx, nvidia, ppa, ubuntu, vdpau, video
Posted in Distro, Hardware, Tips & Tricks | No Comments »
Monday, December 21st, 2009
Earlier this year, there were many reports that linux operating systems was losing market share of netbooks.
But this is about to change very fast.
Linux Is Regaining Netbook Market Share Quickly – O’Reilly Broadcast.
SGLNX strongly believes that with the upcoming release of Google’s Chrome OS, market share will be recaptured for sure!
Tags: chrome, google, linux, netbook, operating system, OS
Posted in Hardware, Netbook, Nettop | No Comments »