More fun with Linux…

Spent a number of hours this weekend configuring and re-compiling the operating system kernel for my Linux server box. For the most trivial and inane of reasons, on top of that. My main workstation and Linux server are both connected to my flat-panel (LCD) monitor. The monitor will only go into powersaving mode when both connected computers have gone into powersave mode; otherwise, if one of the system’s display is active, the monitor will automatically switch to that display. The trouble was that now that I have Linux booting to text mode (rather than to the X/Window desktop), it would no longer power down the monitor. Consequently whenever my workstation would try to power down the monitor, the display would just switch to the Linux box—not at all what I wanted.

I found a way to enable monitor power-saving in Linux’s text mode, but it turned out that to enable that functionality, I had compile the Linux kernel with that option selected. That turned out to be something of an adventure as I tried to “opt out” of options that I didn’t think were needed for my system (e.g. drivers for devices that I don’t have installed). That didn’t turn out so well, leaving me with a Linux kernel with broken networking. In the end I got a working kernel by using the same configuration as had been used for the pre-built (Mandrake 8.2) kernel, plus the power-saving option.

I never cease to be amazed how easy it is to fall off the “beaten path” with Linux—i.e. how wanting to do the simplest things ends up requiring doing something hugely involved and/or complicated.