XGI has made the news recently for open-sourcing parts of their graphics chip drivers. As a newcomer to the graphics card world, this is a good way to grab the attention of open source operating system users. In this review I’ll show you what you can expect in terms of compatibility and performance from one of XGI’s top-end video cards, the Volari V5.

The Volari series of video cards were borne of the remnants of once-popular video chip maker Trident Microsystems and the former graphics division of Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS). While neither company ever offered any significantly advanced graphics hardware, XGI’s eventual goal is to produce high-end graphics chips for professional use. On their way toward that goal, they’ve brought to market the Volari desktop video card.

The entire Volari series, from the V3 up to the V8, are amazingly inexpensive — none are over U.S. $100. They also provide Linux drivers, and have open-sourced the code that performs 2D hardware acceleration. 3D hardware acceleration is provided as a proprietary binary for now. As of this writing, the current X.org release does not include a specific driver for XGI graphics chips; neither does Linux 2.6.11 include any XGI driver modules. XGI developer Jong Lin did provide some patches for XFree86 and X.org, however, so it is reasonable to assume that they will be included with the next releases. Considering both the X.org and the commercial GNU/Linux distribution release cycles, it could be several months before mainstream distros can fully support XGI video cards without manually applying patches.

Open source 2D: nothing new

According to Red Hat employee and X.org hacker Mike Harris, Nvidia and ATI regularly contribute to the 2D X.org drivers for their video cards, and VIA and Intel contribute to and/or fund both 2D and 3D drivers for X.org and the Linux kernel. XGI is not necessarily doing something revolutionary with the release of their 2D drivers — rather they are keeping up with the competition.

The catch to the kernel driver is that it will only work with 2.4 series kernels as of the time of this writing. The Volari video drivers are only validated for Red Hat 9, which has been unsupported by its vendor for quite some time.

The real boon to the GNU/Linux community will be if or when XGI releases the full 3D driver source code so that it can be integrated into the kernel. This could eliminate the usual obstacles to providing flawless graphics hardware acceleration in GNU/Linux distributions — downloading proprietary binaries and agreeing to restrictive licenses.

So where are the open source 3D drivers? “XGI is working hard to meet the fast-growing market of the Linux community. The release of Linux driver allows us to take baby steps to address the Linux community needs.” When I asked if there was a plan for the release of the 3D code, XGI representative Danny Lee told me, “There is no real timetable for the actual 3D release because we want to see the Linux community’s reaction — and so far it’s been good.”

Features

The XGI Volari V5 has 128MB of DDR video RAM; and DVI, S-Video, and 15-pin VGA outputs. There’s nothing to get upset or excited about in terms of physical design. The card is smaller than most Nvidia and ATI video cards, and the aluminum heatsink and fan unit is slim, unobtrusive, firmly attached, and quiet. The connection standard is AGP 8X, and the graphics processor is optimized for OpenGL 1.5.

Performance

Since the requirements for the kernel driver specify a 2.4 series kernel, I felt it was best to wait until the 2.6 kernel is supported before testing 3D rendering performance. The driver will not install on a computer that uses Linux 2.6, and I did not have a test computer that had an AGP slot and would work with Red Hat Linux 9.

The X11 drivers expect you to use XFree86 version 4.2. If you’re using X.org, you’ll have to copy your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to /etc/X11/XF86Config and let the install script modify it. Then copy XF86Config to xorg.conf and start X11 as you normally do. I did not encounter any problems with the 2D X11 driver — it installed and worked well in X.org 6.8.2.

The test system was an MSI K8T Neo2-FIR motherboard, Athlon 64 4000+, 1GB RAM, using Gentoo Linux 2005.0 for x86, fully updated at the time of testing.

2D performance was measured with the standard x11perf program, which is included with both X.org and XFree86. Since the default mode runs a large number of tests that don’t sufficiently stress the hardware, I chose the more heavy-hitting test modes and created a script to run them automatically:

x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -bigsrect500
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -bigtilerect500
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -eschertilerect500
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -seg500
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -line500
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -orect500
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -circle500
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -fellipse500
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -bigstrap300
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -f9text
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -polytext16
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -rgb24text
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -scroll500
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -copywinwin500
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -copypixwin500
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -copyplane500
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -putimagexy500
x11perf -sync -repeat 1 -time 1 -getimagexy500

If you’d like to run this test yourself, just copy the above commands into a text file, save it as test.sh (or whatever you prefer), and make it executable. x11perf will run a variety of 2D rendering tests in a window on your screen and output the results to the command line.

For the purpose of comparison, I also ran these tests with an Albatron GeForce FX5700 Ultra3 with 128MB video RAM. It’s on the lower end of the mid-range Nvidia 3D cards, suitable for most games at a reasonable resolution and detail level. You can usually find it for around $100, or comparable models — such as the FX5750 with 256MB RAM — for a bit less.

The standard X.org nv driver was used for testing the Nvidia card, and the xorg.conf files for both cards were generated using the xorgconfig command.

XGI Volari V5	Albatron GeForce FX5700U3
300 reps @ 4.9622 msec ( 202.0/sec): 500×500 stippled rectangle (161×145 stipple)	3000 reps @ 0.4698 msec ( 2130.0/sec): 500×500 stippled rectangle (161×145 stipple)
2000 reps @ 0.9062 msec ( 1100.0/sec): 500×500 tiled rectangle (161×145 tile)	3000 reps @ 0.4307 msec ( 2320.0/sec): 500×500 tiled rectangle (161×145 tile)
2000 reps @ 0.8324 msec ( 1200.0/sec): 500×500 tiled rectangle (216×208 tile)	3000 reps @ 0.4103 msec ( 2440.0/sec): 500×500 tiled rectangle (216×208 tile)
30000 reps @ 0.0475 msec ( 21000.0/sec): 500-pixel line segment	300000 reps @ 0.0041 msec (245000.0/sec): 500-pixel line segment
30000 reps @ 0.0476 msec ( 21000.0/sec): 500-pixel line	300000 reps @ 0.0041 msec (245000.0/sec): 500-pixel line
40000 reps @ 0.0273 msec ( 36700.0/sec): 500×500 rectangle outline	70000 reps @ 0.0154 msec ( 65000.0/sec): 500×500 rectangle outline
10000 reps @ 0.1509 msec ( 6630.0/sec): 500-pixel circle	10000 reps @ 0.1294 msec ( 7730.0/sec): 500-pixel circle
3000 reps @ 0.3903 msec ( 2560.0/sec): 500-pixel filled ellipse	8000 reps @ 0.1289 msec ( 7760.0/sec): 500-pixel filled ellipse
600 reps @ 1.8014 msec ( 555.0/sec): Fill 300×300 stippled trapezoid (161×145 stipple)	1600 reps @ 0.6714 msec ( 1490.0/sec): Fill 300×300 stippled trapezoid (161×145 stipple)
480000 reps @ 0.0021 msec (476000.0/sec): Char in 60-char line (9×15)	2400000 reps @ 0.0005 msec (1930000.0/sec): Char in 60-char line (9×15)
Could not load font ‘-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal–14-130-75-75-c-140-jisx0208.1983-*’, benchmark omitted	Could not load font ‘-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal–14-130-75-75-c-140-jisx0208.1983-*’, benchmark omitted
160000 reps @ 0.0064 msec (156000.0/sec): Char in 30-char rgb line (Charter 24)	960000 reps @ 0.0013 msec (753000.0/sec): Char in 30-char rgb line (Charter 24)
2000 reps @ 0.7883 msec ( 1270.0/sec): Scroll 500×500 pixels	3000 reps @ 0.4023 msec ( 2490.0/sec): Scroll 500×500 pixels
1600 reps @ 0.8103 msec ( 1230.0/sec): Copy 500×500 from window to window	2800 reps @ 0.3978 msec ( 2510.0/sec): Copy 500×500 from window to window
1600 reps @ 0.8277 msec ( 1210.0/sec): Copy 500×500 from pixmap to window	2800 reps @ 0.3984 msec ( 2510.0/sec): Copy 500×500 from pixmap to window
80 reps @ 15.1707 msec ( 65.9/sec): Copy 500×500 1-bit deep plane	2400 reps @ 0.4921 msec ( 2030.0/sec): Copy 500×500 1-bit deep plane
4 reps @ 2752.8096 msec ( 0.4/sec): PutImage XY 500×500 square	80 reps @ 12.9997 msec ( 76.9/sec): PutImage XY 500×500 square
4 reps @ 1933.8253 msec ( 0.5/sec): GetImage XY 500×500 square	4 reps @ 3730.2001 msec ( 0.3/sec): GetImage XY 500×500 square

As you can see in the results table, the Nvidia card buries the Volari V5 in every test except for the GetImage test at the end, and even then it is by a narrow margin. It’s hard to tell if the huge difference in results is due to the immaturity of XGI’s 2D driver, or a vastly inferior rendering engine. Nvidia has had a lot more time to get their X.org driver in order. The reason doesn’t matter to end-users — the results are the same no matter the cause.

Conclusions

XGI claims that the Volari V5 is comparable to the performance of the ATI Radeon 9550 and the Nvidia FX5700LE (that’s a heavily reduced version of the 5700U3 that I used in this review). The tests they used to arrive at that conclusion were run in Windows XP using DirectX 8 and 9, which have no relation to OpenGL tests in GNU/Linux.

My conclusion is a bit different than XGI’s. At this time, XGI does not have mature enough drivers for the Linux kernel or for X.org. When their software supports Linux kernel 2.6 and X.org natively includes some updated and improved 2D drivers, the XGI Volari V5 will be a very good low-cost desktop graphics card. Until that time, I can’t say that the Volari V5 is anything other than a seemingly reliable low-end video card. If you need a video card for a low-end system, the technology and price of the Volari V5 make it a much better choice than older Nvidia cards like the TNT2, older ATI cards like the Radeon 7000, and old Matrox standbys like the G450. If you’re looking for good 3D rendering support in GNU/Linux, look elsewhere for now.

Device	Video card
Manufacturer	XGI, Inc.
OS Support	GNU/Linux, Windows 9X/2K/XP. Will work with *BSD, but kernel-level drivers are not yet available for any BSD-based OSes
Market	Budget gamers, desktop users
Price (retail)	From U.S. $57
Previous version	N/A
Product Web site	Click here

The Sun Fire V40z is Sun Microsystems’ “entry-level” server, but that classification doesn’t fit the performance level and feature set included in this system — it’s far more powerful. I spent two weeks testing this machine in a production environment, trying different operating systems and measuring the performance of database calculations, and I was pretty impressed with its performance.

The system, which according to the vendor retails for about $17,500 in this configuration, came configured with 4 AMD Opteron 850 processors, 8GB of registered ECC DDR333 (there is an option to upgrade to DDR400, which could significantly increase performance of memory-intensive applications), two 73GB SCSI drives, and a large number of 80mm fans.

This is one of the more attractive rackmount systems I’ve played with. The front panel LCD display shows the machine’s IP address and its status with the operating system. I didn’t see it say much except that it was booting the OS; to get it to do anything more, the proprietary nps driver from Sun (available for Solaris, RedHat, SuSE, and Windows2000/2003) must be loaded. This allows the LCD to provide OS status, and to remotely shut down the server from the onboard service processor. Finally it also allows the service processor to capture and log events from the OS and to be aware of device driver versions.

After unpacking the machine, the first thing I did was pull the cover off and see what was inside. The top panel comes off with one thumb screw and a release level, making it easy to access the internal components. Anyone who has had to work on a rack of servers will appreciate the system’s modularity and ease of disassembly.

Once the cover was off I found a large plastic duct for the 80mm fans. After I removed it, I could see two copper heatsinks. Two of the four CPUs were underneath, with four memory slots positioned equidistant from each CPU. The second pair of chips was not immediately visible with only the top cover and fan ducts removed. After some searching, I found them on an easily removable board under the drive cages. The mainboard covers almost the entire bottom of the chassis. I was quite impressed with what I found inside, and all of its major components were industry standard, so drivers shouldn’t be much of a problem.

After connecting the dual power supplies to independent UPSes, I turned the system on and was greeted by perhaps the loudest system I’d heard in a long time. To my surprise it got much louder when I turned it on. That’s no joke — the 80mm fans operate even when the system is powered off, and when you turn it on, you get four large Opteron fans joining them. Once the service processor is finished with its initialization, it reads the CPU temperatures and adjusts the fans down to a more acceptable level. The system took ages to go through the power-on self test, but that’s characteristic of all servers of this kind.

Operating systems

The Sun Fire V40z can come preinstalled with either the 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 8. I opted for SUSE, but the software was a little too out-of-date to be useful to me, both in testing for this review and in my production environment. After some consideration, I switched to 64-bit Gentoo Linux — specifically, the 2.6.11-gentoo-r5 kernel for i686 and SMP.

I didn’t experience many issues with the install; thankfully, everything went well. I did have a problem with the onboard Trident video chip in the V40z. GNU/Linux doesn’t support a wide range of features with this graphics processor. It would have been nice to be able to use the frame buffer, and X11 didn’t support any decent video modes. For the cost of the machine, I would have expected Sun to use something a little more compatible, like the ATI Rage or SiS graphics chips.

Software installed

To test database performance, I installed Progress OpenEdge version 10.B — this is what we use in production. One of Progress’s requirements is a Java Virtual Machine (JVM), so I installed the sun-jre-bin package from Gentoo’s Portage software distribution system, which consisted of Sun’s binary Java package (version 1.4.2_07) compiled for 32-bit.

In addition to Java, I needed a few more packages to complete the software stack required for production:

• Samba
• MySQL
• Apache 2
• Java Runtime Environment 1.4.2_07
• Progress OpenEdge 10.0B for Linux
• WebSpeed

I spent about three hours installing software and preparing the server for production. Normally I expect to spend a lot more time compiling and configuring everything.

Processing speed on this system strikes me as above entry-level. I’m not sure why Sun chose to market this machine as an entry-level server except for the fact that it doesn’t use the more expensive UltraSPARC CPUs. With 8GB of system RAM, I found the system to be more than adequate for anything I could think about using it for at my company. The only performance bottleneck I found was the disk drives — they weren’t fast enough to keep up with the rest of the system. As shipped, this system came with two 73GB SCSI Ultra-320 10,000RPM drives. Sun offers an optional 15,000 RPM drive, which probably would have improved disk I/O performance for my database.

Our current database server is a Dell PowerEdge 1600SC, which has two Intel Xeon 2.4GHz processors, 2GB of RAM, and six Ultra-160 10,000RPM drives in three mirrored containers, running Microsoft Windows Server 2003. With Progress version 9.1D running on this system, we get at best 145,000 logical reads per second, and can service no more than four local connections before the processors are completely used. This is an acceptable speed, but the system still requires several hours to run some reports. With the Sun Fire V40z server running Gentoo Linux (x86) on a 2.6.11-gentoo-r5 kernel, I saw considerably higher throughput with less load on the system. The system was able to achieve 300,000 logical reads per second while supporting 11 clients.

Next, I ran an accounting report on the V40z that deals heavily with reads from the database, with a number of calculations performed on each record in the database. I ran the report as a single user, as well as four simultaneous users. Progress is not threaded, and I wanted to see if I would see any slowdown using all four chips at the same time. The report takes between 1,000 and 1,200 seconds on the Dell system; it took only 330 to 350 seconds on the Sun machine. Running the reports four at a time took an average of about 4,300 seconds on the Dell, and 1,500 to 1,600 on the Sun. In both tests, the V40z took only about a third as much time as the Dell.

Conclusions

There’s a lot to like about the Sun Fire V40z. It is fast and well-engineered, with good expansion capabilities and nearly all redundant components; the power supplies are hot-swappable, for instance, as are the disk drives. The chassis is well-designed and attractive, and the handles on the side of the case make it easy to move. An onboard remote management subsystem gives an administrator the power to work with the system even when it is powered off.

There were some things I didn’t like about it, but none of them were deal-breakers. The system is louder than the rest of my rack combined, and produces a great deal of heat. It’s also heavy, and required two people to place it on a workbench. It’s a bit light on drive bays — five, or six if you remove the CD-ROM — which prevents the Sun Fire V40z from being used effectively as a high-volume file server. That is characteristic of servers of this size, so I don’t see that as being a failure. The most disturbing drawback was the graphics chip. Granted, servers generally don’t need good graphics, but frame buffer and X11 support are nice to have, especially if you’re managing the server locally.

Before this review I had never worked with a system with this high a level of processor performance. I was impressed by the speed of the four Opteron 850 processors (Sun now offers the new Opteron 852 in this machine, which is dual-core ready), and by the quality of the components in the system. In any server, quality and reliability translate directly to uptime, which is important to any business.

Overall I enjoyed working with this system. It exceeded my expectations, even though they were high from the beginning. I think this system would do well as a high-volume Web, database, or email server, or almost anything else you might want to use it for.

Discuss this article or get technical support on our forum.

Device	Server
Manufacturer	Sun Microsystems
OS Support	Solaris 10 AMD64, Solaris 9 x86 HW 4/04, GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows 2000 and Server 2003 (WHCL-certified)
Market	Processing / managing databases, computing farms, modeling and simulation
Price (retail)	$17,500 as configured; price varies depending on options
Previous version	N/A
Product Web site	Click here

Copyright 2005 Jem Matzan. Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire article are permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.

The Balance CN4949 notebook computer made a big splash just before the new year as the first laptop to sell for under U.S. $500. As such, it garnered a lot of press around the Internet. I purchased one in January with the intention of using it as a development platform for a research OS called AROS. With that in mind, I needed to be able to run Linux on it, given that AROS is compiled using GCC in Linux. In this review I’ll take a look at the hardware, what it can do, and how well it works with Linux.

Hardware specs

• Processor: VIA C3 processor (Nehemiah) 1.0GHz, FSB133MHz, 64KB L2 cache
• Memory: 128MB system memory, one SODIMM slot supports DDR 266 module
• Display: 14.1″ XGA (1024 x 768) TFT LCD display
• Graphics Processor: CLE 266 with Castle Rock GFX, Sharing Memory Architecture up to 64MB, AGP 4X
• Audio: AC’97 2.1 compliant
• Networking: 10/100 Base-T LAN on board, Internal 56Kbps FAX/Modem
• USB Ports: Four USB2.0 ports
• Hard Drive: 30GB, 2.5″ 9.5mm height, ATA 66/100
• Optical Drive: 12.7mm 24X CD-ROM
• Pointing Device: Synaptic touchpad
• Keyboard: 3.0mm travel, inverted-T, 88 keys with Windows keys
• Other Ports: headphone jack, microphone jack, PS/2 mouse port, serial port, parallel port, external monitor port

The VIA C3 Nehemiah processor isn’t a powerhouse. It is better than its predecessors, though. The floating-point unit (FPU) is now clocked at the same speed as the CPU core, as opposed to half the core clock in previous models. It also now implements more media instructions, ala Intel’s Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) in addition to MMX. The small L2 cache means that code runs better when optimized for size rather than speed. While not up to serious number crunching, the CPU is fast enough for just about anything you might wish to do on the laptop.

The first serious limitation is the amount of memory. One of the first upgrades one might make is to increase the memory to its maximum of 512MB. At the stock 128MB, you have to be careful about running out of memory. This memory is shared with the video processor; the default configuration is to allocate 96MB for the system and 32MB for graphics.

The DirectX 8.1-compatible video processor, called Castle Rock, is a variation of the VIA Unichrome GPU. The main difference between Castle Rock and Unichrome is extra support for multimedia. It won’t wow your friends, but it’s sufficient for most gaming, and plenty powerful enough for multimedia. The display is a vibrant, clear 14″ LCD. My unit arrived with no dead pixels and only one stuck pixel. While not very large, I have no complaints about its performance in text processing, games, or playing videos.

The audio is the standard VIA AC’97 output. The built-in speakers are rather bad — I recommend using the headphone port when you can. There is a built-in microphone next to the touchpad, but I’m not sure exactly how much use one would get from it. I guess if you have VoIP, it might come in handy. I just tend to ignore it.

The laptop has no floppy drive and the standard optical drive is a 24X CD-ROM. For reading DVDs, I hooked up an external USB2 combo drive. You’ll find the four onboard USB2 ports very useful. It’s a major plus that they included four ports instead of the more common two ports you tend to see on laptops. The hard drive is a decent 30GB in size.

Included software

As shipped, the system comes with the Linspire 4.5 operating system preinstalled. It is set up to boot into an environment designed to make Windows users feel at ease. Three things turned me off: first, I don’t exactly care for the Windows layout. I prefer more of a Mac-style interface. Second, Linspire 4.5 is old, using the outdated 2.4 Linux kernel. Many of the modern Linux amenities are missing, such as support for newer peripheral hardware. Finally, Linspire is preconfigured to run as the root user. This is rather bad for security while not really making anything easier for the user. After playing around with Linspire for a few minutes, I decided it wasn’t for me.

Adios, Linspire

The first thing I did was to restart and enter the BIOS setup. I highly recommend turning off the splash display and setting the computer to boot from the CD-ROM first. Given the small amount of memory, you should also set the display to use 16MB of memory, leaving 112MB for the system — every little bit helps. Change the AGP aperature to 32MB.

At this point, I inserted the Fedora Core 3 rescue CD and booted it. There is a minor issue with the LCD display, so to avoid garbled screens in rescue mode, type this in at the command prompt after you boot the rescue CD:

linux nofb rescue

I then formatted the hard drive and ran fdisk to prepare the partitions I would be using later. I created a 7GB partition for Windows, a 6GB partition for AROS, a 10GB partition for Fedora, a 1GB swap partition for Fedora, and a 4GB partition for SkyOS, another alternative OS I enjoy working with.

Installing the “good stuff” in Linux

Once you’ve completed the basic installation described in the article, you’ll want to install a few drivers and programs to get the most from the CN4949 under Fedora Core 3. These include drivers for hardware accelerated OpenGL and video decoding, and applications to play video and audio media files of all sorts. You can find precompiled packages with the drivers needed at the Unichrome RPM Packages for Fedora Core 3 web page. You want to download the following packages: kernel-module-via-drm xorg-x11-via_drv xorg-x11-libviaXvMC libXvMCW xorg-x11-via_3ddrv Get the latest version that matches your kernel. What if you went straight from the stock FC3 kernel to the very latest, which happens to be newer than what is on this Web page? Good question — the stock kernel is 2.6.9-1.667, and the latest when I updated was 2.6.10-1.770, while the latest set of packages on the Web page are for 2.6.10-1.766. Rather than recompile the packages, I installed an older kernel that matches the packages available. You can find all the various kernels for Fedora Core 3 in the updates repository. For example, check the updates repository at FreshRPMS and you’ll find 2.6.10-1.766 In order to install an older kernel, you need use a special option. In a shell at superuser level, enter the following to install the above kernel: rpm -ihv --oldpackage kernel-2.6.10-1.766_FC3.i686.rpm This will install the kernel and add it to the GRUB boot menu. Restart to activate the kernel. You can then use RPM to install the packages you downloaded above. You will also need to download the text file XvMCConfig. Copy this using the following command (again, at superuser level): cp XvMCConfig /etc/X11/ It will ask if you wish to overwrite the file that is already there. Answer “yes.” At this point, it’s time to edit the X.org configuration file to tell the system to use the VIA drivers you just installed. You can edit this file using your favorite text editor while running at superuser level. Nano and Gedit are two easy-to-use text editors available to you. I’ll use Gedit for the example: gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf Scroll down to Section “Device” and change the Driver line from “vesa” back to “via”. You are not done yet. If you change only the driver, you will just get a blank display until you change the monitor timing settings. Scroll up to Section “Monitor” and change the HorizSync setting to be 28.0 – 48.5, and the VertRefresh setting to 60.0 – 60.0. This will allow the VIA driver to generate a signal the LCD panel can handle. Now save the file. Restarting X.org (or the computer) should bring up the display using the VIA drivers. If you don’t get a display, boot the Fedora Core rescue CD and double-check the settings. Once you have GNOME back up, open a shell and type glxinfo to check that you are actually using the new drivers. Running glxgears from a terminal window should show an increase from about 88 FPS under the VESA drivers to about 630 FPS with the VIA drivers. You will now find that OpenGL games and screen savers run much better. Now it’s time to add a decent repository to the repository list so that you can get some multimedia applications and plug-ins. First, save the following as a file called “freshrpms.repo” to “/etc/yum.repos.d/”: # $Id$ [main] cachedir=/var/cache/yum debuglevel=2 logfile=/var/log/yum.log pkgpolicy=newest distroverpkg=fedora-release tolerant=1 exactarch=1 [core] name=Fedora Linux $releasever - $basearch - core baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/core gpgcheck=1 [extras] name=Fedora Linux $releasever - $basearch - core baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/extras gpgcheck=0 [updates] name=Fedora Linux $releasever - $basearch - updates baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/updates gpgcheck=1 [freshrpms] name=Fedora Linux $releasever - $basearch - freshrpms baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/freshrpms gpgcheck=1 [dag] name=Fedora Linux $releasever - $basearch - dag baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/fedora/$releasever/en/$basearch/dag/ This will add the Dag Wieers and FreshRPMS repositories to the list of repositories the system will use. You then need to inform the system of the GPG keys for the repositories. Enter the following lines: rpm --import http://freshrpms.net/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.txt rpm --import http://dag.wieers.com/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt You can now add MP3 playing by running yum install xmms-mp3 from a shell at superuser level. Then run XMMS and disable the MP3 placeholder plug-in in the preferences. If you will be playing AAC or WMA files, you will wish to run yum install xmms-aac and yum install xmms-wma as well. You can do all three at the same time by running yum install xmms-mp3 xmms-aac xmms-wma For video, you have a choice of Mplayer or Xine. I prefer Xine as it handles DVDs and (S)VCDs better than Mplayer, and has support for hardware-accelerated video decoding, which we just installed. Run yum install xine to install Xine. Run yum install xine-skins for extra skins for the xine GUI. In the Xine preferences, set the video driver to use to xxmc for hardware acceleration. This sometimes might not work depending on the video format being played, so if you have trouble, set the video driver to use to xv instead. Sometimes xv is actually faster than xxmc. Try it both ways to get an idea of what works best for you.

Windows compatibility

I put in my Windows XP Pro SP1 CD and restarted the laptop. Windows XP Pro installed perfectly in just under an hour. It ran surprisingly well for how little memory there was. Windows did not install drivers for all the hardware on the laptop, so I had to get video and audio drivers from VIA’s web site. The USB was particularly vexing as VIA doesn’t make the drivers themselves, but leave it to Microsoft. Until you go to Windows Update and update the system, you only get USB 1.1 functionality from the USB2 ports. Even worse, Service Pack 2 from Microsoft has broken drivers for this system, so the USB won’t work at all if you use the drivers from SP2. You need the drivers from SP 1.1a to get properly functioning USB2 from the laptop. I wasn’t about to go through all that trouble, so I googled around until I found someone who had posted the drivers on their Web page. I didn’t bother with the modem drivers, as I use broadband.

Finally having all the drivers installed, I was able to check things out. As expected, the hardware 3D rendering capabilities were not Earth-shattering. 3DMark 2001SE showed 563 3D Marks in 1024×768 millions of colors mode, 822 3D Marks in 640×480 millions of colors mode, and 895 3D Marks in 640×480 thousands of colors mode. Don’t expect to run DOOM3 on this system, even if you boost the memory to 512MB. It’s unrealistic to expect that kind of performance from a $500 laptop. However, it can run your older 3D games nicely.

With USB2 operating, I connected an external USB2 combo drive (CDRW with DVD-ROM) to try out multimedia. I installed PowerDVD XP and inserted my Incredibles DVD. All I can say is wow. The display is crisp and vivid. The system is easily capable of playing DVDs, even without hardware acceleration. In fact, the version of PowerDVD I have doesn’t work with the Castle Rock hardware acceleration properly. With hardware acceleration turned on, PowerDVD just gave a blank display.

I installed my favorite video player, BSPlayer, along with a slew of codecs. I then tried playing a high-bitrate MPEG4 version of Akira I made some time back for multimedia testing. BSPlayer was set to use yv12 layers and played the video without a problem. As I said earlier, this laptop has plenty of power for multimedia. You will probably only run into trouble trying to play back high-definition video streams.

A better distribution

With Windows XP Pro installed and running well, I then booted the Fedora Core 3 install disc. When installing multiple operating systems on a computer, always install Windows first; that way when Fedora Core sets up its bootloader, it can set it to allow you to choose between Fedora and Windows when you start the laptop. The Windows bootloader is not designed to allow booting for any other OS than Microsoft’s. At the first command prompt, type this to begin installation:

linux nofb resolution=1024x768 reiserfs

The “nofb” is to prevent any garbled screens as mentioned earlier; the “resolution=1024×768″ is to give you a nice-looking install screen instead of the ugly 640×480 install screen you normally get on LCDs. Finally, “reiserfs” is vital for installing on a laptop. ReiserFS is a transactional filesystem; until a write finishes, it doesn’t show up at all. If a write is interrupted for some reason (dead battery or loss of power), it’s as if the write never occurred at all. You never wind up with corruption in ReiserFS. I highly recommend that fragile systems like laptops use ReiserFS when it’s available. If you don’t include that on the command line at the start, you’ll only be able to chose between ext2 and ext3 for your filesystem when you set up the Linux partitions. If you wish to use another filesystem, you can use “jfs” or “xfs” instead of “reiserfs” to allow the selection of JFS and XFS respectively when you set up the Linux partition.

At this point, install as usual, being sure to select Disk Druid to manually set up the partitions for the install instead of the automatic partition set up. Once it finishes installing (about an hour and a half for almost 3GB) and it asks you to remove all disks and reboot, press Ctrl-Alt-F2 to switch to a shell. In the shell, type “nano -w /mnt/sysimage/etc/X11/xorg.conf” and change the video driver from “via” to “vesa”. This is because the stock X.org VIA driver cannot generate sync rates the LCD can handle, resulting in a blank display. The current X.org version fixes this problem, but you must go with VESA until you update the X.org package.

After saving the change, press Ctrl-Alt-F7 to get back to the installer screen, then click on Reboot. Finish the installation normally after the system reboots. Once you are on the GNOME desktop, immediately update the kernel. The stock kernel which comes with Fedora Core 3 has a tendency to lock up on occasion when accessing the hard drive on systems that use the VIA CLE266 chipset. The updated kernel doesn’t have this problem. After updating the kernel, reboot so that you are running on it. You can then update the other software if you so wish. Please be aware that updating everything (about 300 packages) can take all day.

Other than the problem with X.org and the LCD display, all the other hardware works with Fedora. Sound and USB2 function properly without needing extra drivers. If you wish, you can also get proprietary Linux video drivers from VIA. I’d recommend staying with the latest X.org drivers. I normally install Xine as my DVD and video player of choice. I use XMMS for playing audio files. You can get both from the FreshRPMS or Dag Wieers’ repositories.

AROS and SkyOS support

I originally got the laptop so that I could experiment with AROS. Fedora Core 3 installs a complete set of developer tools when you select a Developer install or select the developer packages as part of a Custom install. These work fine in compiling AROS. AROS can run in a window in Linux, or natively on the computer. AROS works fine on the laptop, but currently doesn’t have a driver for the sound or network, and uses VESA for the video. These are things I planned to work on once I had Linux installed and set up the way I like. I was also able to install and run SkyOS on the laptop. SkyOS has both a sound and network driver for this system, but uses VESA for the graphics.

Conclusions

All in all, this laptop has proved to be a decent value. Even the way it comes, you can still get a lot of useful work out of it. Add an external DVD-ROM and you’ve got a good multimedia system. For more taxing tasks, you will more than likely need to get more memory. 256MB and 512MB SODIMMs are not very expensive, so I recommend getting one when you can. Installing a new memory chip is not very difficult on this computer.

If you are looking to use the CN4949 on the road, you might also look into getting an 8-cell battery to replace the stock 4-cell battery. You can get them from ECS. Although the machine is called the Balance CN4949, it’s really just a rebadged ECS G320. How do I know? When you turn it over to get the serial number to write on the registration card, it says right on the bottom of the laptop “ECS Model GREEN320.” Can’t get any more definitive than that.

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Device	Laptop computer
Manufacturer	Elite Computer Systems (ECS)
OS Support	Linspire 4.5 preinstalled. Will work with Windows XP, other recent editions of GNU/Linux, SkyOS
Market	Low-cost portable computing, Linux-compatible laptop computing
Price (retail)	U.S. $500 as configured
Previous version	N/A
Product Web site	Wal-Mart’s site, Balance’s site, and ECS’ site

Copyright 2005 Joe Fenton. Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire article are permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.

With last summer’s introduction of AMD’s 939-pin Athlon 64 processor came a demand for motherboards that will support it. There are only a handful of boards on the market designed for the socket 939 Athlon 64 CPU that are equipped with an AGP 8X interface; the new trend is to use PCI Express instead of AGP, in spite of the anemic video card selection. MicroStar International’s K8T Neo2-FIR offers the best of both worlds, accommodating new technology while continuing to support the old — and it works great with GNU/Linux.

The more capable socket 939 design is meant to eventually replace the first-generation Athlon 64 in the 754-pin package, adding more on-die cache memory, more HyperTransport links, and a more spacious upgrade path. If you’re considering building or buying a single-CPU AMD64 system, the socket 939 design is the best choice for performance and upgradability.

The Athlon 64 processor is able to run both 32-bit x86 and 64-bit AMD64 (or x86_64, as it is sometimes called in the Linux realm) binaries natively, so computers based on the MSI K8T Neo2-FIR are not limited to just 64-bit operating systems. GNU/Linux, in the form of Gentoo, SUSE, Mandrake, and Red Hat, has matured to the point that you can use a 64-bit OS without sacrificing functionality or — with the exception of ATI video cards — device support.

The K8T Neo2-FIR comprises parts that have open source hardware drivers that compile and work perfectly in either 32-bit or 64-bit mode. The sound chip is the Realtek ALC850, and the gigabit LAN processor is a Realtek 8110S, both of which have native open source Linux drivers included in recent versions of the 2.6 kernel. The disk controller is the VIA VT8237, which supports up to four parallel ATA drives (ATA133) and two serial ATA drives, and can accommodate RAID modes 0 or 1. Also onboard is the Promise 20579 SATA RAID controller, which supports up to two parallel ATA and two SATA drives either standalone, or in 1, 0, or 0+1 RAID arrays as well as JBOD. The RAM limit is effectively just over 3GB using four 1GB sticks (the difference in size has to do with a southbridge chip problem), but you’d only be able to use that much memory with a 64-bit kernel.

At the heart of the K8T Neo2-FIR is the VIA K8T800 Pro, an improved version of the vendor’s original K8T800 chipset for the Athlon 64 and Opteron processors. The Pro edition ups the HyperTransport link frequency to 1GHz from 800MHz; the bus architecture is asynchronous instead of synchronous; and the HyperTransport link between the northbridge and southbridge chips is double the speed (1066MHz).

On the I/O backplane, this motherboard has four USB 2.0 connectors with headers on the motherboard for up to four more through a rear-mounted bracket or front panel. Two FireWire connectors — one of each size — are hardwired to the backplane. The audio connectors are pretty fancy — five standard jacks for microphone and surround sound (this is a much better solution than one employed by some other motherboards that re-use the mic and line jacks for surround functions, meaning you can have either surround sound or a microphone, but not both), and one S/PDIF out jack. There’s also an infrared port for supported IrDA devices, as well as the standard PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors, and single 9-pin serial and 25-pin parallel ports.

For those who like to overclock, the BIOS has options for manually fine-tuning the memory voltage and CPU frequency. Alternatively you can let the BIOS overclock itself with the Dynamic Overclocking function. This has four levels of performance, ranging from a 1% to a 7% overclock.

Models

MSI’s nomenclature describes the options that each model includes. In addition to the fully-featured FIR model, there is also an F model that is essentially the same motherboard minus the RAID controllers and IEEE 1394 (FireWire) support. This of course makes the F model cheaper than the FIR, which is an advantage for those who have their own PCI hardware for FireWire and/or RAID, and those who do not need these functions.

Everything on this motherboard works excellently in GNU/Linux, using either a 64-bit or 32-bit kernel. It’s kind of a shame to use this motherboard with a 32-bit operating system, but if you’re looking to make the jump, its high degree of compatibility, performance, device support, and the general reliability of MSI’s manufacturing process make the K8T Neo2-FIR an excellent choice for high-powered desktop users looking to explore the world of 64-bit computing.

Discuss this article or get technical support on our forum.

Device	Motherboard
Manufacturer	MicroStar International
OS Support	GNU/Linux, Windows 9.x/2K/XP. Will work with *BSD, but device driver problems are possible with some BSD OSes.
Market	Gamers, high-powered desktop enthusiasts
Price (retail)	$89 to $113
Product Web site	Click here

Copyright 2005 Jem Matzan. Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire article are permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.

Many computer gamers weren’t even born yet when the original Tron hit movie theaters in 1982, followed a short time later by a hit video game that offered a glimpse of an oddly prophetic computer-dominated future. On the other hand, maybe you’re old enough to remember but at the time couldn’t understand the high tech concepts used in the movie to fully appreciate the imagination of the creators.Now, twenty-two years later, Tron 2.0 gives us a second opportunity to immerse ourselves in a brand new adventure in a world that exists inside of a computer.

The Story

Your character’s name is Jet Bradley, a talented but rebellious young programmer and son of the creator of the original Tron program, Alan Bradley.

One day you receive a call that your father has disappeared, and while investigating his disappearance you get digitized and sucked inside of your computer, and that’s where the real fun starts.

Once inside you are greeted by Byte, a small tri-dimensional star shaped helper that will guide you through the first steps inside the computer, thanks to him and some email you find lying around, you learn that your father was able to reproduce the original Tron code and the Correction algorithms necessary to restore a User to the real world.

Screenshot: “Ma3a what did you do…?” welcome to your PC.

The emails you find at different stages during the game help you understand the problems that the company faces as well as the estrangement between Jet and his father.

Other than Byte you have some other allies inside the computer, the most important being an AI program named Ma3a (who is voiced by the actress who played Lora/Yori in the original Tron movie, Cindy Morgan). Essential for the Tron project, Ma3a is able to hold the complete genetic makeup of a digitized user, and in this case she has all of Jet’s information. Without her, Jet is not able to go back to the real world.

Screenshot: The great Ma3a floating around.

The plot unfolds in two worlds; outside, the Fcon company is trying to take over your fathers company as well as the Tron code, with evil intentions. Inside of the computer you are aware of all of these problems thanks to email and video captures from the security cameras, but you have your hands full with the ICPs (Intrusion Countermeasure Programs) and a virus spreading through the system.

The ICP Kernel (which the game refers to in a Colonel-like way) believes that you are the reason for the spreading virus, and thus attempts to eliminate you. The real virus is a bunch of slimy programs that are determined to destroy everything in their path.

Ma3a guides you through each level — and this is where the game really shines — taking you to complex worlds with spectacular graphics where you must escape a complete system format due to the virus and get a transport to other devices like a laptop, an Internet hub, and an old computer with old but friendly software.

The guys at Buena Vista Entertainment (a Disney division) really combined their computer knowledge with a high degree of imagination to make this story work. Tron 2.0’s game engine is excellent, the action is intense, the graphics are stunning and the dialogue between the programs is a lot of fun.

Game play

This is primarily a first person shooter, so you use the normal WASD keyboard controls in combination with your mouse. The in-game menu seems strange at first, but is really easy to use after a little practice.

Screenshot: In-game Menu.

You have the capabilities of doing three functions that will help you during the game:

• Defrag Procedural
• Disinfect Procedural
• Port Procedural

The defrag will prepare spaces for you to place weapons, armor or functions that you acquire during the game. If the function you get is not compatible with your system you will need to place it in your Port Procedural to make it work. The Disinfect Procedural is needed after fighting against the virus, and if you don’t use it you will become infected as well.

On the other hand, there are certain levels that you must choose to improve on, according to what is important to you, they are:

• Health: Increases your Max health level, so you can download even more from the globes (see the section below on globes for more information).
• Energy: Increases your Max Energy level, also allows you to download more from the globes.
• Weapon efficiency: Makes the weapons you use draw less energy and become more efficient.
• Transfer rate: You need to download everything in this game, from Health to email to permissions; with this option you will do it faster.
• Processor: All three basic functions (Defrag, Disinfect and Port) get done faster.

You will need to collect build notes in order to improve your level, and you must choose wisely how you want to spend it, because you don’t get enough to improve on everything at the same time.

Screenshot: Health and Energy globes

There are two main factors that you’ll need to take care of during the game: your health (the red status bar), which you can download using the beautifully designed red globes; and your energy level (the green status bar). You can acquire energy by downloading it from blue globes.

The functions or weapons you choose to use will consume energy. Some weapons are more powerful and they will, of course, require more energy which sometimes is not easy to come by.

All of the functions, weapons and armor you collect can be found at one of three build state levels: Alpha, Beta and Gold. The differences between each level are the energy efficiency, space occupied in your inventory (Alpha requires 3 spaces, Beta 2 and Gold only 1 space) and the amount of protection that your armor provides. Because they need less space you can carry more Gold functions, weapons, armor and it will give you a lot more options during combat. Some programs can help you upgrade from one build state to the next.

Your main weapon is the disc, but with the correct functions you can have different flavors of it and make it faster or more powerful. You will need to aim it correctly before you let it go, and sometimes it takes a while to come back and you’ll need to start running.

Screenshot: ICP in Action trying to destroy me.

The ICPs also use the disc as their main weapon. You can block an attack with your own disc by right clicking the mouse, but it’s quite tricky and you have to be fast to block properly.

Some of the funniest dialogs come from the ICPs, specially when they come after you. I found it particularly funny when one asked me to “stop executing the escape command.”

It’s all of the details and oddities that make Tron 2.0 enjoyable, and the game designers took great care in adding a wealth of little things that add up to a lot of fun.

After you destroy one of the ICPs they normally leave behind energy you can use. In some instances a small pyramid appears, representing a weapon or a permission you have to download. Permissions are needed at all levels; they allow you to open doors, remove or activate force fields and other things of that nature.

Highlights

Stunning, beautiful graphics: You’ll wish you had more time to stop and admire the graphics; some scenes are so well done that you just want to get close to them and admire the work. It’s hard to compare Tron 2.0 with other FPS games like Deus Ex : Invisible War or even Max Payne 2 because Tron is not trying to show you the real world. The neon colors against the black background is different from any other game I’ve seen, and the strange tones of color and “data rivers” with geometric figures flowing in them are truly an amazing sight.

In-game menu: The fact that you have to defrag or disinfect your inventory helps the gameplay experience and immerses you in the plot. When you are in combat against the virus you have to already be trying to disinfect your weapons to have everything clean for the next battle.

For the nostalgic ones: In case you do remember the original Tron, you will be happy to know that the light cycles are back, and part of the plot of the game. The red square tanks are also in the combat arena in a way that makes them part of the game rather than just scenery.

Great fun: But the real factor in this game is that you have fun playing it and simply being amused by the imagination of the creators stretching the computer concepts that we all now are familiar with.

Good music: Disney went out and got Wendy Carlos (the original composer for the Tron movie score) to create all of the music for this game. It really sets the tone of the game to have Tron-like music in the background while you play.

Great bargain: Tron 2.0 is only US$19.99 — a very reasonable price for an FPS these days.

Negative Points

Linear story: I had to look hard at this game to find something I didn’t like, but in this day and age of open-ended games, Tron 2.0 seems a little to linear. There is only one way of doing things and I felt I needed a little more freedom to find other more creative solutions.

Conclusion

Overall Tron 2.0 delivered, it was clear why Gamespy voted it one of the Top 10 Games of 2003. I really hope you have an opportunity to play it and enjoy it as much as I did.

Copyright 2005 Sergio Magdeleno. Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire article are permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.

This mouse is portable, compatible with everything, and small but not intolerably uncomfortable. It’s not as innovative, expensive, or convenient as Logitech’s wireless USB laptop mouse, but at least it works with a wide variety of operating systems and won’t hurt your checkbook too much.

Manufacturer A4Tech Interface USB only Buttons Two plus the clickable scroll wheel Price (MSRP) $11 Product Website Click here

Design

The Easy Go Optical Mouse is small and lightweight, and the cord is easily wrapped around it so that you can stow it when travelling. The USB connector fits into the bottom of the mouse, leaving the entire device as a tightly wound package that is easily transported. The mouse requires no batteries; it gets its power from the USB port instead.

The Easy Go Optical Mouse is small, but not too terribly uncomfortable. Obviously this is not meant to be used in place of a standard desktop mouse; it’s a laptop mouse meant to be used on occasion. Given that purpose, it fills its niche perfectly.

Installation

I had no trouble using this mouse in Windows, GNU/Linux, or FreeBSD — just plug it in and go.

Packages

The Easy Go mouse only comes in one package, as listed.

A4Tech NB-30 ratings:

Physical Design:	8/10
Electrical Design:	9/10
Gaming Suitability:	4/10
Compatibility:	10/10
Value:	10/10

SCORING: Each category has a maximum of 10 points, so a rating of 10 is perfect and a rating of 1 is abhorrent. It is entirely possible for several mice to have a 10 rating in some categories. There is no “overall” number because it isn’t accurate to judge a product by an overall rating; rather you should evaluate each mouse according to your needs and budget. “Physical Design” refers to the appropriateness of the size and shape of the mouse, ergonomics and comfort. “Electrical Design” is an evaluation of the resolution, accuracy, power consumption (if applicable) and response time. “Gaming Suitability” is a measure of how useful a mouse is for gaming based on its design and features. “Compatibility” refers to how well the mouse works in both its USB and PS/2 modes (if applicable) in Windows, GNU/Linux and FreeBSD. “Value” refers to the quality of the mouse in proportion to what you’re paying for it.

Copyright 2004 Jem Matzan. Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire article are permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.

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