Natrium

Natrium (dutch/german for Sodium) was intended to be my backup machine (in case there would be trouble with Fluor) with a reasonably fast processor. I bought it used at Now That's IT. It is equipped with

Intel Core i5 3230M CPU (2 cores, 4 threads total) CPU score 2900
4 GB DDR4 RAM
14 inch, 1600x900 VGA screen
2.4 GHz WLAN
Wired gigabit ethernet
3 USB ports
320 GB Western Digital Black HDD
DVD writer
slots for PCMCIA, SD card, HDMI interface, eSATA

and it is housed in a very classy metal finished case.

Property	Value	Unit
Brand	Dell Latitude E5430
Processor	Intel Core i5 3230
Frequency	2.6	Gigahertz
Linux	Slackware 15
RAM	4	Gigabytes
Drives	/dev/hda = 320 GB HDD /dev/hdb = DVD RW
Ethernet	Gigabit ethernet, WLAN
IP address	192.168.56.20

Natrium has always been a fine machine. It is 14 inches at 1600x900 and has more pixels than Fluor (15.6" at 1366x768) resulting in a screen with the details of a 1920x1080 screen of 15.6" across. Pictures definitely look more crisp, which is also caused by the pixels of the E5430 having higher brightness than the E5570 (fluor).

Now, natrium could have been speeded up when I could have replaced the CPU but on a laptop with an Intel processor, that is not easy, IF possible at all. Adding memory works with Windows and Linux Mint. But not with Slackware. So the only easy solution is to make the disk faster. The question is: will a cheap SSD outperform a WD black? Or is the gain only in battery life?

I already had a 120 GB Intenso drive but for this machine I wanted to have something bigger, so I got myself a PNY CS900 240 GB SS drive. But the label on the back read '5V 1A nominal' which gave me the wrong impression: my WD black drives are 5V 0.8A at most. So I was in doubt: is the cheap PNY a power hungry technology? So (these drives are dirt cheap) I got myself a 'Western Digital Green' SSD and was surprised to see on it's back '5V 1.6A nominal' Apparently the PNY isn't so power hungry at all.

The lesson learned is: just get yourself a cheap one. You cannot trust the published numbers.

Opening the E5430 is very easy: just remove the two screws in the bottomplate and slide the lid down. The HDD is in the center of the chassis. Remove the four screws with a small Phillips head screwdriver, take out the disk caddy, remove the four small screws that keep the HDD in the caddy and take the HDD out. Now mount the SSD and put the screws in the reverse order.

The WD black HDD booted in 45 seconds flat. The new WD green SSD starts up in 25 seconds. Not very spectacular. Not even twice as fast. A bit of a disappointment. Fluor will not get an SSD; it will keep it's WD black. Black drives matter.

The first time you want to load a Linux on that disk you get an error message that the disk lacks a partition table. You get the option to choose from 4 versions of partition table to install (gpt, dos, bsd, irix). When you pick GPT, the disk will refuse to boot after the Linux is installed. Pick 'DOS' here.

Should you happen to choose 'gpt' and end up with the non bootable machine, then

start the bootdisk/usb stick
log on as root
start the fdisk program
change the disk label to 'DOS'
write

Now you have an empty DOS style Solid State Disk which is easy to fill with a 32 bit Slackware. If I remembr well, the commandline was something like

fdisk /dev/sda --wipe auto

after which you can redo the installation. But it can also be one using gdisk:

gdisk /dev/sda
x
z
y

to re-birth your used disk. And in another case

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=8M count=1024

erased a lot of data and settings by steamrolling 8 billion zeroes over the disk.

When done installing, the machine will not carry out the 'dd' command (I wanted to wipe out the MBR). Also the machine refused to execute 'startx'. Something fishy with Slackware Current of october 2022.

I installed two slackware currents. The one compiled on 20 september 2022 and the one compiled on 4 october. Neither one wanted to execute the dd and startx commands.

Since the two Slackware current's refused to produce decent systems I decided to 'go back' to the official Slackware 15.0 LIVE version and that worked great. So I installed Slackware 32 version 15.0 without problems. I prefer to take the 32 bit version since my beloved Mocka modula-2 compiler is 32 bit only. And there is no speed penalty compared to 64 bit software.

After intallation kit is time to change /etc/lilo.conf and change some parameters:

Add 'lba32' just below the 'append' line
Change the timeout counter from 1200 to 50
Change the 'label' in the 'Linux bootable partition config' section
Change the 'vga=' line to fit your screen

The 'vga=' line can be tricky, since most modern screen resolutions are not in the example list. The 1600x900 resolution is not listed. I have good results with

vga=894

on this machine. But on Fluor, with a 1366x768 screen, the line reads 'vga=895'. In case of doubt:

edit lilo.conf
change 'vga=891' to 'vga=ask'
run 'lilo'
reboot

You now get a list with the options supported by your computer. Pick the hexcode of your choice and convert the hex value to decimal. Suppose pqr is hexadecimal. To convert to decimal: 256 * p + 16 * q + r. Insert that value in the new lilo.conf, rerun lilo and you're done. You now have 4 (or 64) penguins as bootscreen.

#! /bin/sh

if (! rm *~ 2> /dev/null 1> /dev/null)  then
   echo No 'jed' backup files found.
fi
# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
append=" "
lba32

boot = /dev/sda
compact

  bitmap = /boot/slack.bmp
  bmp-colors = 255,0,255,0,255,0
  bmp-timer = 65,27,0,255

prompt
timeout = 50
change-rules
  reset

vga = 894

# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
  root = /dev/sda1
  label = Slack_15.0
  read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends

1600x900 on a 14 inch screen produces very small letters, so I changed the console font to a slightly bigger one. As 'root' issue the command

setconsolefont

and choose the font (shape and sizes) you want.

Select a font and press 'enter'
Type some text
Press '1' on an empty line to select this font
Press '2' on an empty line to go back to the selector

When done, the font takes effect immediately for the current user, and systemwide after the first restart. The font you chose is put in /etc/rc.d/rc.font. When in X11, and opening a terminal, the new font is activated too.

I chose the 'ter-918b' font, as mentioned in /etc/rc.d/rc.font:

#!/bin/sh
#
# This selects your default screen font from among the ones in
# /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts.
#
setfont -v ter-918b.psf.gz

Seamonkey and Firefox need frequent updating. In order to prevent from having to go too deep in the filesystem tree, I set up a 'Done' directory in /usr/local. Each time I have a fresh browser I copy it to /usr/local and then unpack it

tar jxf seamonkey-version.tar.bz2

When done I move the tar file to the Done directory so I can see which version I have installed.

I needed to update the symlinks for the browsers.

cd /usr/bin
rm seamonkey
ln -s /usr/local/seamonkey/seamonkey .

and something similar for firefox. Don't forget to install 'privacy badger' when using firefox.

It comes in handy to have a .local/bin directory in your home folder. Just put (symlinks to) all your own software in that directory and change the path such that ~/.local/bin is the first entry. Now you can have your preferred applications started without having to change the system defaults. Or use modified versions of standard unix commands. Or use scripts that are named after standard programs.

Now is also a good time to change the command prompt to a better value. Store it all in .bashrc :

PS1='\u@\h:\w\$ '

PATH=~/.local/bin:$PATH

export PATH PS1

My TP-Link router has a builtin FTP server, that uses an external USB stick. This makes it easy to share files between machines. The ncftp dialog is:

open -u FTplee 192.168.56.91
[enter password]
cd sda1
bookmark archer
[save password?] YES
exit

I now can simply 'open archer' in an ncftp session and I have acces to the FTP server inside my LAN. TAKE CARE however. The TP Link router keeps track of all files that ever were on that server in a file in a hidden directory and the file is regularly checked by some unknown parties. Which is not a real problem in my case. Most of the movies would have been forbidden in that country anyways.

Open the file /etc/inetd.conf in a text editor like 'jed'. Find the line that specifies the FTP server to use and remove the '#' in front of the line that refers to the vftp server. Sve with Ctrl-X Ctrl-S and exit with Ctrl-X Ctrl-C.