I’ve noticed for ages that my thinkpad x61 with 4 gigs of ram has been sluggish on the desktop with redraws. Now that I have a bit more time, I looked into this, oh, and because I’ve been shamed into getting all the funky compiz-fusion graphics looking hot on my desktop by Freddie B and Mr. Adams.

After some gentoo forum spelunking into the issue across distros, I found out that at least with Intel 965 (x3100) and kernel 2.6.25-26, there are some major issues with mtrr not being set properly.

I took the plunge at trying to understand the issue and wrote a basic script to fix-up my mtrr settings from the commandline:

#!/bin/bash
#
# fixmtrr
#
# fixes /proc/mtrr
# based upon termites script from gentoo forums

# disable pre-existing ones and order does matter!
echo "disable=0" >| /proc/mtrr
echo "disable=1" >| /proc/mtrr
echo "disable=3" >| /proc/mtrr
echo "disable=4" >| /proc/mtrr
echo "disable=5" >| /proc/mtrr
echo "disable=2" >| /proc/mtrr

# Now create the right ones...

# These are powers of two, they get progressively smaller
# so we can get right up to the system device page below.
echo "base=0x00000000 size=0x80000000 type=write-back" >| /proc/mtrr
echo "base=0x80000000 size=0x40000000 type=write-back" >| /proc/mtrr
echo "base=0xC0000000 size=0x10000000 type=write-back" >| /proc/mtrr

# Video Card:
# 0x10000000 was the value for size trying for
echo "base=0xE0000000 size=0x10000000 type=write-combining" >| /proc/mtrr

# High memory area
echo "base=0x100000000 size=0x40000000 type=write-back" >| /proc/mtrr

This helped to set my mtrr up right so that X can find the dynamic shared memory to do all the fun compiz effects and more. If there is a better fix for the above, I’d love to hear about it! More than just bling bling, my overall computer is much much better. I can’t believe I put up with this!

Then, I started running powertop to test out my system, and noticed that there are many features that can be set after a computer is setup, so I created an init script to set all this at boot:

!/sbin/runscript
#
# This starts the thinkpad post-boot settings
#

TITLE="Thinkpad Specific Options"
LINKPOWER=/sys/class/scsi_host/host0/link_power_management_policy
FIXMTRR=/usr/local/bin/fixmtrr
WRITEBACK=/proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs

checkconfig() {
    if [ ! -e $LINKPOWER ] &&
       [ ! -e $FIXMTRR ] &&
       [ ! -e $WRITEBACK ] ; then
        eerror "You cannot set $TITLE. Check settings."
        return 1
    fi
}

start()
{
    checkconfig || return 1

    ebegin "Starting $TITLE"
    $FIXMTRR
    echo min_power > $LINKPOWER
    echo 1500 > $WRITEBACK
}

stop()
{
    checkconfig || return 1

    ebegin "Stopping $TITLE"
    echo 500 > $WRITEBACK
}

Make sure to put the fixmtrr script in /usr/local/bin or change the path to fixmtrr in your script. Then, set thinkpad script to run at boot before xdm kicks in:

rc-update add thinkpad boot

These are pretty basic scripts, but I wanted to dump them out for other users of this system. Its beyond just Gentoo-based distros, and will take a while to get into main kernel especially for slow distros like Ubuntu, Fedora, etc

I had to put that one in there for those who try to convert or chide me off Gentoo.

@mlinksva just put out a great slide show, albeit the over-use of bullet points ;), that is an overview of CC as well as a general look at the historical trajectories of Free Software and how Free Culture Movement is approximately 10 years behind. This is a great beginning at the more intimate look at where WE are heading collectively, because of course, Free Software and Free Culture’s paths are intermingled. It would be quite interesting actually to write a book about these paths with major highlights and where WE are heading.

Yes, I know there are many books analyzing Free Software and then some coming out like David Bollier’s Viral Spiral that looks at Commons production overall including rise of Creative Commons, but actually one looking at the larger scope of Free Culture would be quite interesting.

Check out the slides and throw em up if you have any comments:

BTW, I wonder if we should collectively be working on a more finite conference about the Free Culture Movement for next year. This would be one targeted towards production of content, assessing failed projects, live events, and no eunuchs to assist in cultural production. The idea is that this conference would directly fit into the trajectory of Free Software. This conference would be in the optimal location globally for most people to attend for the least amount of expenditure, such as Amsterdam, Vancouver, Singapore, or a better optimized location. I think we can learn from Wikimania in Cairo and conferences in Sapporo as absurd for more the usual suspects on the conference circuit (of which I am a part).

Free Culture Conference (”Get your FreeCon”) would be a meeting of specific projects to hash out interrelationships and collective trajectories for the coming year. We have had great success with the Libre Graphics Meeting which is not about people hand waving and armchair philosophizing about every single person’s movement, but specific projects coming together to their roadmap, challenges for interoperability, and real hacking on projects more than just declarations.

What would it take to put on a proper Free Culture Conference and who would need to be present. I would say:

Free Software Foundation
Creative Commons
Wikimedia Properties
Gnome Foundation
Open Courseware Consortium
Internet Archive

And the list keeps going on…please add to, as this is just off the head…the number of companies that would be interested in this intermixing would be quite high IMO. I’m particularly interested in this being a place for companies interested in Open Hardware and Specifications to intermingle (aka, Openmoko, VIA, Intel)

The idea is that this is a place where project roadmaps are compared, integrations resolved (like Wikipedia BY-SA compatibility), and real hacking would take place. Also, this conference would be 2-3 days max and marked with conversions of projects to more liberalized licensing as affirmations each day to pump up participants [0]. The goal of the event would be to produce actual statements showing resolutions with implementation to back them up, and to announce the next 5-10 free culture priorities for the year.

Is anyone interested in this?

[0] I’ve called this Freedom Day before, but it needs a better name without the negative associations with Freedom in many asian countries - aka, freedom means free as in destroy the government, which this is NOT. Rather, the idea of Freedom Day would be for projects to announce using free licenses and/or moving from more restrictive licenses to more free licenses. What would a better name for this annual day be? What about SHARING DAY, or Global Day of Sharing

steve.wilde posted a photo:

Heavy Weather

steve.wilde posted a photo:

Golden Sun Rise

An article on New York Times talks about the current terrorist threat in China as days getting closer to the Olympic opening in Beijing. The main factors for the threat are: Turkestan Islamic Party, Falun Gong, Al Qaeda and unstable individuals (although I am not clear what does “unstable individual” refer to).

It is also said in the article that Chinese official had missiles take aims at the sky above the Olympic stadium. There was some talk show on TV when we were having lunch yesterday. The host commented on the missiles that if there was attack, we can shoot it down with the missiles; and if it rained, we can also stop the rain with the missiles.

Last night, my friend were telling me some political jokes that were circulating through cell text messaging. The joke involves current Chinese president and Mao. He showed me story on his phone and tried to forward it to my phone. Strange thing happened. My phone received the message but in blank saying “Missing Text”. We realize these kind of text messages might be censored now in China because of certain keywords. The one my firend received were back in May. We tried to send the joke a few more times and also tried someone else’ phone, but never succeeded.

• Hitotoki
  A Narrative Map of London

I didn’t have chance to post up Cantocore home concert pictures till now. And I landed in Guangzhou two days ago. Hot here!

2 hours before the concert, Chris Willits and Ma Jie was setting up equipments and checking sound. They each were about to have a solo section and an improve collaborative performance.

Dorthy and Katie were preparing for the reception.

Justin talked about art works from San Francisco artists.

I presented on Ping Pong Art Space in Guangzhou and artists from Guangzhou and it’s nearby areas.

Ma Jie performed with Pi Pa.

Chris Willits performed with self-modified electronic guitar, which also triggered video.

Jon and I.

• Delia Derbyshire Dance Track

steve.wilde posted a photo:

Pefkos being on the Eastern side of the island means the sunsets are brief and probably not as impressive as from the other side. The smoke from the fire augmented quite a few of these with very dramatic effects though. I took loads more than this but I've whittled it down to 9 to put up here.

steve.wilde posted a photo:

Pefkos being on the Eastern side of the island means the sunsets are brief and probably not as impressive as from the other side. The smoke from the fire augmented quite a few of these with very dramatic effects though. I took loads more than this but I've whittled it down to 9 to put up here.

steve.wilde posted a photo:

Pefkos being on the Eastern side of the island means the sunsets are brief and probably not as impressive as from the other side. The smoke from the fire augmented quite a few of these with very dramatic effects though. I took loads more than this but I've whittled it down to 9 to put up here.

steve.wilde posted a photo:

Pefkos being on the Eastern side of the island means the sunsets are brief and probably not as impressive as from the other side. The smoke from the fire augmented quite a few of these with very dramatic effects though. I took loads more than this but I've whittled it down to 9 to put up here.

steve.wilde posted a photo:

Pefkos being on the Eastern side of the island means the sunsets are brief and probably not as impressive as from the other side. The smoke from the fire augmented quite a few of these with very dramatic effects though. I took loads more than this but I've whittled it down to 9 to put up here.