With 14.04 this procedure has become really easy. Nevertheless some of the steps mentioned at http://hacksr.blogspot.de/2012/05/ssh-unlock-with-fully-encrypted-ubuntu.html are still necessary. Given you have set up your fully encrypted Ubuntu 14.04 server and your OpenSSH infrastructure with public keys and all running, there’s just a little more: Install dropbear, a tiny ssh server that runs before the … [Read more...]
mpv Video Player
Yesterday I accidentally stumbled over the successor of MPlayer and mplayer2. mpv Video Player that is. One has to be aware of the differences between the projects but all in all I was very impressed with how it handled some of the video files I threw at it. It includes most of the improvements that … [Read more...]
XBMC 12.0 Beta 1 is out – and great!
Read more about what’s new here. The new audio engine finally solves problems I was having with S/PDIF passthrough audio and enhances my overall user experience quite a bit. The following information is taken from http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW-TO:Compile_XBMC_for_Linux https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master/docs/README.ubuntu Here’s in a nutshell how to compile it for Ubuntu 12.10! First remove a possible conflicting version of … [Read more...]
Save power with PowerTOP 2.0
In order to optimize power consumption PowerTOP can be utilized in its recent version 2.0. Ubuntu 12.04 ships with 1.97 so if you want to benefit from the latest and greatest you’ll have to compile for yourself. However this is not a big deal. download PowerTOP extract file and enter dir sudo apt-get install build-essential … [Read more...]
Samsung P580 backlight brightness on Ubuntu 12.04
After everything else works out of the box with a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.04 I realized that brightness control via FN key doesn’t. The problem seems to be somewhere located in the Nvidia driver for GT330M and can easily be solved by adding one line to the “Device” section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Hit ALT-F2 gksu … [Read more...]
wicd – iwlwifi problems solved
Last week I posted about my connection problems with iwlwifi and network manager. For the duration of a week I have tested wicd as an alternative connection tool on two Intel machines and must say: no disconnections or any problems whatsoever so far! iwlwifi options can be set to N speed and no modifications other … [Read more...]
Gnome 3.4 window buttons on left side
First install dconf-tools with sudo apt-get install dconf-tools start dconf-editor dconf-editor and change org > gnome > shell > overrides > button-layout to close,minimize,maximize: Done!
Ubuntu 12.04 and ath9k
Wireless is traditionally troublesome on Linux. The other day I transferred a lot of data over my wifi. After iwlwifi is finally stable for Intel devices using wicd, ath9k for Atheros wasn’t. It nearly passed out a couple of times leaving me with unusable connection speed. I’m still testing if the culprit is hardware encryption … [Read more...]
Ubuntu 12.04 and VDPAU on Nvidia
Although the new Unity experience is a smooth and snappy one desktop wise, video playback is a little choppy and sluggish. Even when using GPU powered VDPAU compiz is using a lot more CPU than it should and playback all in all is not enjoyable for me. Unlike earlier releases tearing is not a problem … [Read more...]
Ubuntu 12.04 iwlwifi connection troubles
I have one laptop running over night sometimes. That requires a stable wifi connection which I found out Ubuntu 12.04 with iwlwifi could not offer. Often I returned to the desktop in the morning and network-manager disconnected hours ago without establishing a new connection. So no down and uploads since then. Manually trying to reconnect … [Read more...]