Debian Etch (4.0) on Pentium III

I just installed Debian Etch on my research project's machine which have specs as follows:

• Pentium III (Coppermine)
• 128 RAM (suppose)

As I didn't play around with Debian (instead with its variant-Ubuntu on my laptop), several steps I did forgot:

• Howto configure X
• Howto choose nearest apt-get mirror

Anyway, for the X issue, my machine is currently using SiS video card. By default Etch unable to adapt with the settings so I opt to use VESA as the video config choice.

Another thing that I faced was the problem with "xlockmore" package which I usually use to let my machine locked while unattended. So I went to package section at Debian's website and downloaded it manually.

Annoying Beeps

After having a new installation of Debian on my laptop, an annoying beep comes out of my laptop speakers every time i pressed the tab button on the X console, or whenever i do some kind of shell error. It's annoying, it keeps on beeping....
I tried to ignore the problem, hoping that selective hearing will prevail, but after making a scene in the meeting room with beeping havoc coming from my laptop during the last meeting, which I got a little too much attention from my boss. That's it, I decided to find ways to get rid of this problem once and for all.

So I googled to find an easy and minimal work around solution. One way was to edit /etc/inputrc and comment out....

set bell-style none

There was also an alternatives to this, which is to rmmod pcspkr, add it into the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist to make sure it doesn't get loaded again.

Now i can slowly and quietly steal precious time and not waste my time listening to the boss rambling during my department meetings.

Meetup at Starbucks

Debian group have not been active recently. But that does not mean that we are now less passionate about debian and linux. So to revive our small group of geeks, we decided to have a debian meetup, at Starbucks, near Jusco, One Utama.

The following people came, Irwan, MNajem, Syirman, Fadli, Shakir and myself (joey). Hence by default, we are now the first few writers of debianMalaysia.blogspot.com. We intend to find more writers, who can help mydebian to contribute about anything and nothing about debian. Please express your interest to be a writer, and we will add you in our respectable writers.

There are many exciting plans for mydebian, and we are thinking to pulling more group of friends and geeks alike. Also in the pipeline, install fest across Universities in Malaysia--tell me what do you think--and also beef up documentation on debian laptops and etc.

Keep an eye on our progress, join us to ultimate geekdom....
If knowledge turns you on....being a geek is ain't that bad...