Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

I added an NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT card to my system.  I missed having the dual head action (huh huh, head) since I'm slowly retiring my current Dell laptop (well, retiring in the sense of converting my main current desktop over and then eventually re-installing some version of Linux on my laptop).  The NVIDIA addition wasn't as transparent as I had hoped (and as the support piece of ubuntu's documentation had said).  Upon starting up my desktop with the new card, I received a message in how the xorg.conf was misconfigured.  Fortunately, the system had OpenSSH server loaded, so I could login through my Windows desktop (while reading the proper upgrade procedure), used apt-get to install the correct drivers, then finally ran a command to reconfigure the nvidia driver.  Upon rebooting the system, I had a working display.  But I still wasn't out of the fryer.

The system had left the resolution in a 1024x768.  Not so great considering that my monitor can easily handle a good step above that.  I ran another utility (after some searching) to configure the resolution.  Now, it's much nicer at 1280x1024.  I almost got into a trap of running a slightly lower level (and much more confusing!) utility to configure the card.  But I managed to sneak out and find the proper utility to configure my card.  Now, it looks quite decent!

The last step is to attempt to get the dual head part working.  I can try with my old emachine 14".  It's not a bad monitor, just SMALL.  I really like working at 1280x1024, so I plan to examine a few more 19"+ type of monitors when I hit Akihabara again sometime. 

As an added bonus, I moved things around in my apartment.  Funny how switching two tables and moving my laptop somehow has increased my workspace.

Ultimately, after I finish the last few migrations and install a new OS on my laptop, I hope to completely turn my (k)ubuntu desktop into an NFS server.  I have a "smaller" 250 GB external drive that I plan to externalize all my main data.  Then I'll mount my home directory to either my local home directory, or to a mirrored directory.  Sadly, my main goal in all of this is to work under the covers on my couch on my laptop.  But also, if I get this type of "home architecture" going, I'd like to take one of my home systems in America and install ubuntu or some other form of linux on it as well.  Then every time I cross the Pacific, all I have to do is bring my external hard drive home.  The beauty of that situation is that I'd avoid having to lug around a heavy laptop (unless I go overseas for business trips) and would need to simply mount the mirrored external drive up.