Mega Hurts

After multiple attempts to install Fedora Core 3 on the thinclient, including upgrading from a 1gb card(Transcend) to a 2gb card (riData), frying a cdrom trying to use the onboard molex, and an install bug that would send me in a loop if I was just a bit over the space limit, I finally got it installed(Yay!).

Then I found that there really is no margin to the processor requirements for skype and SkypeMate. Even though fc3 on the 266mhz Pentium Netvista with 256mb of ram is actually quite usable, Skypemate seems to take most of the cycles. Skype alone seems to do ok when up and running. I imagine that the overhead to use the B2k adapter as an audio device is just too much. It is also possible that if WikiPedia is correct about Skype doing constant writes to the hard drive, which in my case is a CompactFlash card, that could be slowing it down as well. I managed to call my cell phone and roughly get connected, but the sound was more than choppy. Either way, the results kept me quite bummed.

I still like the idea, and if nothing else, it satisfies my curiosity temporarily. I had never used Fedora or RedHat before, and it's a simple, if not too simple, setup (minus recurring bugs). I would like next to see if it is possible to bump up the systems processor, using an AMD K6. I just happened to find someone who has already done this and recorded it. Back to eBay!

Cheap Peeps

It's been a while since I posted but wanted to write a bit about most recent forray into Internet Telephony. I bought a usb to rj11 adapter a few months ago to try fax or data over Skype with my Dish Network receiver. I figured it would be a fun experiment, and there seems to be so much debate about whether or not data over voip is possible. Some Google searches say so using VOIP providers, but Skype is a bit different as I understand. Regardless, it did take up an afternoon of fiddling, and satisfied my curiosity. I put the adapter back on the shelf thinking it might come in handy sometime (even though we didn't own a regular phone). Sure enough, Eva found a use for it. After a couple of $200+ cell phone bills calling friends back in the midwest, I rigged up an inexpensive 900mhz phone with one of our workstations and taught her to dial out. With Skypes free skypeOut for the US and Canada until the end of the year, she should be able to save at least minutes, if not money (I hardly use my cell phone at all). I expect to try some international dialing to keep her connected to Paraguay as well. Don't expect the same quality using phone>adapter>wi-fi>internet. It appears to be too latent for good quality. So it hangs off of my wired desktop for the time being.

That got me thinking: wouldn't an always on thin client be the perfect application for this? My Netvista 8364 NUS has been gathering dust waiting for a nice touchscreen monitor to mate with it, so it might serve a better purpose serving Skype calls than just looking cool. There is some question as to if it has enough horsepower to not only run Fedora, but to keep skype going, but tinkering is what has got me this far. So, soon I will purchase a 1gb compact flash card and reference this guide to install Fedora Core 3, which apparently is the only linux that skypemate will install and work on.