Dual-Booting XP and Kubuntu

The Kubuntu install went pretty well. Then I noticed that the new Kubuntu partition has 25GB, while my original XP partition now has only 15GB. Fired up KDE Partition Manager, but obviously, it can't do move/resize on the running Linux partition. Switched to Windows and installed the free MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition. For some reason, it can see the ext4 partition, but the move/resize option doesn't work. Time to pull out the big guns.

Downloaded, burned, and ran Parted Magic and fixed the parititions up. More for XP, less for Kubuntu. Next, I worked on the no-audio issue. After an hour of research and trial-and-error, turns out the speaker is actually muted. N00b. Managed to map some Windows shares, but looks like Amarok and Dragon Player can only play local files (after installing more libraries and codecs).

CPU clock frequency seems to be locked to 600MHz, even though it's a 1.6GHz processor. Second opinion via cpufreq-info disputes this. 600MHz is only when the CPU is idle.

Precise Pangolin Install

Precise Pangolin came out this week, so it's time to try it out. I have a spare ThinkPad T41 running Windows XP, so I decided to dual-boot it with Kubuntu. I've looked at Lubuntu, Xubuntu, and Linux Mint, but thought Kubuntu to be more appropriate for my needs.

Booted up the Kubuntu installer CD-ROM and immediately got an error message - "This kernel requires the following features not present on the CPU: pae. Unable to boot - please use a kernel appropriate for your CPU." Turns out that starting with 12.04 LTS, the default kernel requires the CPU to support pae. My options now are:

• install a previous release, then upgrade from there or
• use the Minimal CD. Once the base system is installed, then do "sudo tasksel" to install the Kubuntu Desktop.

Android Overclocking

Finally found time to overclock the Optus MyTab (ZTE V9). First you need the tablet to be rooted. Install SetCPU and choose what max. frequency you want. My suggestion is to try out a speed setting and make sure the tablet is still stable. Then slowly bump up the speed until such point that the tablet hangs.

In my case, I was able to OC the 600MHZ to 825MHz. Those soft-decode DVDRips now play back much smoother now. I was able to underclock the device to 122MHz for even more battery capacity. Did the same thing for the wife's Huawei U8300 - from 528MHz to 710Mhz.