[Speakers] Apple PowerBook WAS: Shorts

[Bruce Smith]

> > Mine goes to sleeps when I close the lid.  Do I need to modify that
> > setting, or does it know enough not to sleep with USB keyboard/mouse?
> 
> nope. You can't really change that setting anyways without firmware 
> hacks, anyways. You can make it so the machine will stay awake, but the 
> PMU will force the machine to sleep eventually (like after 4 minutes).

OK, thanks!  I was getting tired of looking at the 15" screen.
My 19" CRT is much nicer!  :-)

> > I've also downloaded/installed OpenOffice and NeoOffice/J both.
> > (it says you can install them both side by side! :)
> 
> last time I installed both, they were two separate things. 

They still are.  Since I'm just learning this MacOS X thing,
I wanted to try both.

> > These don't work under Linux yet:  Airport extreme, builtin modem, and
> > the f'n _trackpad_ of all things!  And probably more things that I
> > haven't tested yet ...
> 
> There's a driver for the trackpad in the latest Darwin sources, if

For the _new_ USB based trackpad?  My [limited] understand is Apple just
changed something in the hardware on the powerbooks in the last month or
so, switching the builtin trackpad interface from PS2 to USB, and there
is a bug in the Linux kernel code that prevents it from working.

Some people on the YDL mailing list have powerbooks as new as one-month
old where the trackpads work fine.  The very latest (like mine) are
different and don't work in Linux.

> that'll help... In fact, that driver will allow non-2005 PowerBooks to 
> use the two-finger scrolling method. If you want to try it out, google 
> for "iScroll2"

I'll take a look.

Speaking of scrolling (with the trackpad or a wheel mouse) in OS X,
any idea why the scrolling is really difficult to control in Thunderbird
and Firefox (jumps around, scroll way too fast), but works fine in
native OS X applications?  Or better yet, any idea how to fix it?  :-)
(I've already adjusted down the Scrolling Speed in System Preferences)

> > I've already triple booted it with Ubuntu (two different versions), and
> > Mandrake 10.1.  I have two other empty partitions.  I plan on trying
> > Yellowdog and a fourth yet-to-be-decided distro.
> 
> Gentoo should have the trackpad drivers already, as they seem to be 
> pretty up to date on such things.

I'm not sure a kernel patch exists for the latest [USB] trackpads.

I might try gentoo, but I tried it on x86 awhile ago and it left a bad
taste in my mouth, which is why I've avoided it since.

 - BS