Linux

Research Links

• Download Ubuntu Desktop
• https://itsfoss.com/install-ubuntu/ – Has a method where you install from a Live USB
• Boot From a USB Drive Even if your BIOS Won’t Let You
• How to Create Ubuntu Live USB in Windows
• PenDriveLinux: Universal USB Installer – Easy as 1 2 3
• google: cmos setup boot from usb
• Boot From a USB Drive Even if your BIOS Won’t Let You

Ftrace is an internal tracer designed to help out developers and designers of systems to find what is going on inside the kernel. It can be used for debugging or analyzing latencies and performance issues that take place outside of user-space. Although ftrace is typically considered the function tracer, it is really a frame work of several assorted tracing utilities. There's latency tracing to examine what occurs between interrupts disabled and enabled, as well as for preemption and from a time a task is woken to the task is actually scheduled in. One of the most common uses of ftrace is the event tracing. Through out the kernel is hundreds of static event points that can be enabled via the tracefs file system to see what is going on in certain parts of the kernel.

Research Links

• Google: which debian desktop look and feel like windows
• Do You Like Windows Look And Feel But Prefer Linux? Then Install `Mindows Transformation Pack
• Make Your Linux Desktop Look-Like Windows 7 Using Transformation Packs

Linux Book List

Links

• Linux Drivers
• GNU Linux Application Programming 
• GNU Linux Application Programming – the CD
• Example code from Linux Application Development – about the code
• Archive.org: Linux Collection Pdf Ebooks All You Need
• Linux Kernel Module Programming – USB Device Driver

Research Links

• Download Version 13.2
• Installation Quick Start – shows option to update installation in these instructions however it does not match what I saw with V13.2.  With 13.2 I had to select "UPDATE" from a differnent screen that almost looked like a cmos setup screen. I got to this screen after I backed out of the original new install screen.  

I found it quite inconvenient that later releases of Linux do not fit on a CD.  Thus I went searching for the latest release that would fit.  I found the following page with the releases:

Research links

• Ubuntu Releases
• Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS (Precise Pangolin)  – this relatively young release fit on a CD

I connected my Ubuntu laptop to an external 24 inch monitor.  I then tried to set the resolution to a level appropriate for a 24 inch monitor: 1920×1200.  However when I looked in the settings the highest resolution was quite low.  I had to add additional resolution levels manually. 

Research Links

• External Monitor Resolution doesn't go above 1024×768
• How to set the monitor to its native resolution which is not listed in the resolutions list?
• How can I make xrandr customization permanent?
• Setting xrandr changes persistently
• NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M in the Dell Latitude E6500  – this will update the drivers I think.  Rebooting to find out! The correct resolutions did not show up in the config list
• NVIDIA 310.19 Drivers Released How To Install It In Ubuntu 12.10/12.04  Tried this. 
• Ubuntu Screen Resolution everything page

I followed the procedures detailed in the linked articles.  When I tried 1920×1200 resolution with 60Hz frequency it did not show up in the configuration gui list.  It must have been illegal.  When I changed to 70Hz it did work.   Note that it is important to generate the mode line individually for each resolution/frequency combination.  I did a bonehead thing and reused the line for the 1280×1024 for the 1920×1200 mode and of course that did not work. 

The changes made are not permanent and upon reboot will be lost.