Continuing in configuring the Dell Inspiron 640m (notice that no matter what you use, even Windows or OS X, you’ll never end up configuring these things on the first day), I needed to enable DMA. Running hdparm /dev/hdc I could verify this, so just adding options libata atapi_enabled=1 to /etc/modprobe.conf was all that was needed to be done. Making sure GRUB had the combined_mode=libata option was also required.
This speeds burns up – no waiting several hours for that DVD to write, it writes pretty quickly. And I got to say, the Places -> CD/DVD Creator in the GNOME Menu is really clever. Kudos.
GNOME’s Keyboard Shortcuts actually pick up all the hardware control buttons, save for the MediaDirect button (which I’m sure can be enabled, I just have to play with xmodmap soon I think). However, with 2.6.19 the sound buttons do not work (they do in 2.6.18). More oddness to poke around.
Anyways, this is a quick entry to mainly test BloGTK (boy, do I miss ecto) and see if it has advanced/sensible tagging (I was hoping to get Technorati styled tags, ala ecto.)