New PC --- avoiding the DPC Latency nightmare?

[Thad E Ginathom]

ok... so I don't know the difference between "preempt" and "realtime" in this context --- or in any context, come to think of it! Does this mean I don't have the realtime kernel installed?

 

[gobble]

ok... so I don't know the difference between "preempt" and "realtime" in this context --- or in any context, come to think of it! Does this mean I don't have the realtime kernel installed?

premptive is not always realtime. but it is needed to enforce realtime and low latency.

Preemption (computing) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and sec 8.3.2 General Architecture and Design


cheers

 

[thevortex]

Thad - I remember you mentioning issues with respect to Linux distros not being able to recognize your old firewire audio card. Did you visit this site?

ffado.org | Free Firewire Audio Drivers

Good luck.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Thanks, but yes, I did.

Actually, the firewire card is not old: I bought it this year --- but it is not branded either, although Linux recognises it as a Via chip.

More specifically, it was the Audiofire Unit that I was having problems with. although I did get some sound out of it in the end.

This PC is just useless for audio. The new PC is still on hold, not helped by the fact that the car is currently being repaired from the accident I had on Saturday, and cries from my poor wife that the laptop that she does the serious work on is increasingly snail like.

 

[thevortex]

Thanks, but yes, I did.

Actually, the firewire card is not old: I bought it this year --- but it is not branded either, although Linux recognises it as a Via chip.

More specifically, it was the Audiofire Unit that I was having problems with. although I did get some sound out of it in the end.

This PC is just useless for audio. The new PC is still on hold, not helped by the fact that the car is currently being repaired from the accident I had on Saturday, and cries from my poor wife that the laptop that she does the serious work on is increasingly snail like.

I hope yourself and family are alright, Thad. And I hope the accident was not too serious.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Thank you... it was a very mild accident. I had two non-family passengers at the time, but there was no damage to the seven people; just to the two cars.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Perhaps I should start a Linux thread!

I think I noticed something that suggested one of you guys uses KDE. I'm perfectly comfortable with the default gnome desktop that I have, but any advantages to KDE? I did notice, yesterday, a photo-handling/camera-interface program for KDE that looked much better than any that I have found for gnome.

Also shells. I "grew up" on sh, the Borne Shell, and graduated to ksh. The default provided shell in Ubuntu is bash, the bourne-again shell, but, yesterday I also installed ksh and zsh. I guess zsh out-features all the others --- I'm not interested in the c-shell family of shells, and anyway, the later bourne-shell derivatives have adopted invaluable stuff like command history. I have, though, retrieved my copy of "Unix Power Tools". It is now a book again, instead of being part of one of my PC monitor speaker "stands"

Obviously, I no longer have a job of work, and so there is not going to be any great opportunity for shell scripting, but even so, there is usually a Terminal open on my desktop.

 

[gobble]

KDE has some slicker apps and the overall look and feel can be customized to look like a professional product with some pain. I migrated to KDE this year, this month.

I think the default shell is dash now Debian Almquist shell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yep I too keep a console open in another workspace at all times even though I rarely script

Cheers

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I hadn't heard of dash. Yes; I see that /bin/sh is a link to /bin/dash.

Bash, however, is independent and probably much closer to ksh in functionality.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

It looks as if I have two choices:

If I want to install eg Digikam, I can, and synaptic Package Manager will install the kde libraries and stuff.

If I want, I can install the full kde desktop and then choose between the two.

Plenty of experimenting ahead

It begins with a full backup of my system to an external drive

 

[alcy]

Avoid using the KDE metapackage or programs that need KDE libs on Gnome. It can break things or report missing dependencies (even though Synaptic will make you feel otherwise) and the integration definitely doesn't appeal visually.

But anything goes... for fun.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Too Late! (but thanks, anyway)

I've installed Digicam, and used it already.

But hey, I have full backups of root and home filesystems

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Hmmm... yes... Digikam is excellent.

But it has already crashed on me a couple of times!

Maybe the desk-top choice installation is the better way to go.

Also having fun with trying to set up vi the way I used to like it (but have mostly forgotten the details) although vim is vastly more complex than the vi I knew and loved

 

[thevortex]

Thad - the thing is if you want to try KDE apps, it is best to choose a native KDE distro. KDE is even available for Windows and I have played around with it. Nowhere near finished is the status it is in (in Windows).

However, if you are interested, I have had far more luck getting KDE apps to work in GNOME than the other way round.

 

[gobble]

Hmmm... yes... Digikam is excellent.

But it has already crashed on me a couple of times!

Maybe the desk-top choice installation is the better way to go.

Also having fun with trying to set up vi the way I used to like it (but have mostly forgotten the details) although vim is vastly more complex than the vi I knew and loved

I love Vim - what with syntax colouring etc.

BTW does anyone know how to copy paste selected text between two files in vi like it was possible with Norton editor in DOS days?

I learnt this rare trick a while back and its quite an enabler. Ask and I will tell

Cheers

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

he he... I spent some time finding out how to turn off the colours yesterday! If I was programming, though, I might well turn it on again.

I am surprised that cut and paste between vi in two terminals doesn't work --- but it doesn't seem to.

I went from a manual typewriter to vi, and was dragged, kicking and screaming, from vi to Wordperfect. There were two vi lovers in the department, and we were formally told that, as WP support was part of our jobs, we had to use it! I was dropped in the deap end too, as my first computer experience, which was the implementation of an invoicing and accounts system, soon required some major surgery on the data, and I did it all with search and replace patterns. Later, I would have used sed or awk for that same job. I even had different rc files in different directories, eg mapping different keys for different kinds of work. Once upon a time I was pretty good at vi --- but was is the word, I've forgotten nearly all of it!

Back to your question. Copy&Paste in the windows sense does not, as you say, seem to work. This does surprise me, as the window integration seems pretty good. I'm really impressed, for instance, that one can drag an icon from the file manager onto a command line in terminal!

However, vi itself allows to do it. One can yank from one file and put into another almost as easily as yanking from one place and putting in a another.

<power cut UPS empty: to be continued!>

...

while editing one file, :e filename opens another. # means "the other file", so :e# switches between files. anything that you yank in one file you can put in the other. eg yy yanks a line; 3yy yanks 3 lines; yw yanks a word; y3w yanks 3 words.

You can keep more than one set of text in your "clipboard" by yanking to named buffers. I forget how!

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

It's nice: for the past several years, except on odd days of MS problem solving, which is never welcome, the PC has been almost like TV to me: turn on, sit back, numb brain.

It is, currently, apart from the usual browsing, a source of interest and intellectual stimulation again

 

[gobble]

Good to hear I'm not alone! I intend to go back to programming or scripting once again to reverse the mind numbing game it has become over the last many years!!

In vim thare is the :split cmd. CTRL-W switches windows, yank and put works across the spilt screen

Cheers

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

In vim thare is the :split cmd.

That's neat.

(Oh my god, I just tried to end this comment by typing ZZ !!! )

By the way... I now have the command line editing a bit more vi like .

Can't find anything that will interface with my phone (N82). It looks like the version of Symbian is not popular with the developers. It is not popular with me, either: I don't think I'll ever buy another Nokia phone. It's like going back to the early days of Windows.

(yes... I can access it as a USB device for photos. music, etc.)

(I wonder if the Mods would please chop the Linux discussion to a new thread?)

 

[alcy]

You guys are getting nostalgic, and it gives me immense pleasure to let you folks know that I now work with a completely free/open-source based company (more than a company, a bunch of passionate hackers and programmers). Its been four days at work...and I couldn't be happier. And this is my first job. Hopefully I will stick with them.

Command line is so much fun. Not that I didn't know this before, but Ubuntu made me a hell lot lazier. Now I actually love browsing using Lynx (the command line web browser-try it if haven't already ! ).