Having failed the 3rd repair attempt at the Thinkpad E540 [1] I gave up and bought the next best laptop from the nearby store that somehow is usable for programming. Behold: the Acter Inspire E15. 8GB RAM, i5, matte screen (1920x1080). It worked out of the box with the SSD transplant from the old Lenovo, … Continue reading Linux on the Acer Aspire E15 (E5-571G-51TH)
Category: linux
Collection of linux scripts online
Linux scripts from this blog are now available in gitub https://github.com/ggeorgovassilis/linuxscripts
Smaller brightness steps with the Asus N56VB and Ubuntu
Ubuntu on the laptop is definitely maturing. We're way past "at least it boots" and now that survival is ensured, it is time for luxury illnesses. One of those on the Asus N56VB is handling of screen brightness which, for my taste, comes in too steep steps. Especially the minimum brightness is still too bright … Continue reading Smaller brightness steps with the Asus N56VB and Ubuntu
Running windows games with steam on a hybrid graphics card
I don't play much, but when I do, it's Sid Meier's Civilization on a Windows installation boxed into a VM. Earlier this year I got tricked by a Humble-Bundle offer into buying Civilization V, which came with the "trojan horse" of a steam account. Had I known the prerequisite of a Steam account before hand, … Continue reading Running windows games with steam on a hybrid graphics card
Ubuntu 12.04 (64bit) on the Asus N56VB
With quite some regret I had to decommission the trusty HP 4720s - readers of this blog will remember the love-hate relationship that grew to come between Ubuntu, it and I. Now it's time to try Ubuntu on the new laptop: Asus N56VB. Because I'm not much for experiments (those come to find me on … Continue reading Ubuntu 12.04 (64bit) on the Asus N56VB
Ubuntu: physical power button not working
At some point the physical power button on my file server (ubuntu 12.04) stopped working and I had to do a software shutdown everytime. The solution is to (re) install acpi: sudo apt-get install acpi sudo apt-get install --reinstall acpi-support
mdadm woes
After migrating a software RAID 5 to Ubuntu LTS 12.04, the system wouldn't come up again after rebooting. I believe Chris Siebenmann to splendidly have analysed [1] the problem: a race condition with udev losing the race. His solution is to: Change /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/mdadm-functionsas follows: degraded_arrays() { + udevadm settle mdadm --misc --scan --detail --test >/dev/null … Continue reading mdadm woes
Ubuntu 12.10 64bit on the HP ProBook 4720s
With the trusty HP ProBook 4720s refusing to give up it's time to give the new Ubuntu 12.10 a spin. After having tried out the 11 and the 12 series with mixed feelings [1], [2]. Installation Installation of the live CD image on a USB stick was easy and without any problems. The system booted … Continue reading Ubuntu 12.10 64bit on the HP ProBook 4720s
Automatically starting an SSH tunnel in Ubuntu
As I am a frequent guest in public WLANs I spent some time looking into ways to connect safely to both the corporate network and the rest of the internet while enjoying the amenities of a cafés' or hotel's wifi.Because of its simplicity and universal availability I like SSH tunnels which are easily set up … Continue reading Automatically starting an SSH tunnel in Ubuntu
Reducing HP 4720s power consumption under Ubuntu Linux 11.10
Mainly annoyed by the loud fan I looked into ways of reducing power consumption of the HP Probook 4720s and came up with this script:#!/bin/sh -e# Increase filesystem write cache timeoutecho 1500 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs # Enable power management on all PCI devicesfind /sys/devices/pci* -path "*power/control" -exec bash -c "echo auto > '{}'" \;# Enable power … Continue reading Reducing HP 4720s power consumption under Ubuntu Linux 11.10
