Saturday, June 23, 2012

Switching graphic cards on the Thinkpad T400

I just realised that a lot has changed since I looked for support of Hybrid Graphics under Ubuntu/Debian a few years ago. Now, there is a project for switching between the integrated and discrete graphic card called vgaswitcheroo!

In the BIOS settings you have to select "Switchable Graphics" and the computer will boot up with the internal graphics card (in my case Intel 4500) turned on.
With one simple command, you can then switch to the discrete graphics (ATI Radeon HD 3400). The only expense at the moment is, that you have to log out and in again to restart the x-server.

To switch to the discrete graphic card open the Terminal and type:
sudo echo DDIS > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
Then log out and in again. You can then check your running graphics card under "Details" in the "System Settings" (running Gnome 3.2 or higher).

To switch to the internal graphics type:
sudo echo DIGD > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
Thanks for this awesome tool!
Source: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HybridGraphics

Do you want to automate things?

I created a shell script, which detects the running graphics card and asks you whether to switch or not!
Download it, make it executable and run it as superuser! I commented every piece of code to make it readable for you.
Download: https://github.com/j-4/scripts/blob/master/switch_graphics.sh

Have fun!

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Most perfectly fitting Raspberry Pi Paper Case

Previously I downloaded the famous Punnet paper case (http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1310), but unfortunately it was not really fitting. The base area was too broad and the holes for audio out, HDMI and micro USB not properly placed.

Therefore I measured the whole Raspberry Pi in detail and quickly drew a case based on the Punnet, but without the annoying bugs.



You can choose which file to DOWNLOAD:

I think you are smart enough to figure out where to cutfold and glue ;-)
The case has to be folded in a way that the lines are inside!
Keep in mind that you uncheck "Fit to printable area", and that you do not use scaling for printing.

Further, if you glue paper edges above the HDMI and the micro-USB plug, the board is even more stable in the case! There is no wobbling or squeezing (See photos for details).

Here some photos of the resulting paper case:




This case, as well as the all blog-entries, images,... are published under the Creative Commons License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

So, if you still find a bug, just download the *.svg and fix it (or comment here)!