Thias - computers

Linksys WAG160N vs. D-Link DSL-2740R

nospam@example.com (Matthias Saou) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:08:10 +0100

I was having problems with my home DSL gateway device a few months ago. It was an old-ish Netgear device which had been running fine for years. Since it supported only wireless A/B/G, I decided it was a good time to replace it for a wireless (draft) N compatible device as my latest laptop supported it.

After quickly looking at supported features of different brands on the market, I decided to go for one of those snazzy-looking "Linksys by Cisco" devices, the WAG160N : Four 100Mbps ports, ADSL2+ and Wifi N. Oh, what a huge mistake!

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FreeNX headache

nospam@example.com (Matthias Saou) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:36:38 +0200

I've just wasted a couple of hours trying to get a FreeNX server working, but just kept getting this error :
Cannot establish any listening sockets - Make sure an X server isn't already running
Not very explicit, not very useful, and searching returns many results about people having the same problem. The solution is simple, though nearly impossible to find :
mkdir /tmp/.X11-unix chmod 1777 /tmp/.X11-unix

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GNOME menu entry for Xine DVD playback

nospam@example.com (Matthias Saou) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 23:24:09 +0200

Most GNU/Linux distributions include the proper mime types to be handled by Xine when it is installed, but not for DVD Video ISO images on disk. But it's really easy to add.

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Fedora to display automated image or video slideshows

nospam@example.com (Matthias Saou) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:42:14 +0200

Here are some instructions on how to configure a computer using Fedora for image or video slideshows. The idea is to have the computer automatically run some fullscreen application on boot, which is typically what is wanted on public displays in fairs, hallways, stores etc, all this without running any window manager.

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Creating a restricted bzr+ssh smart server

nospam@example.com (Matthias Saou) — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:39:12 +0200

The bazaar documentation is quite extensive, but not when it comes to setting up an ssh server. The solution for allowing bzr+ssh access to a server without a full shell access is nowhere to be found. But it's actually quite simple...

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Dell OptiPlex FX160 and GNU/Linux

nospam@example.com (Matthias Saou) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:19:05 +0100

I needed some SFF (Small Form Factor) computers for a project, and Dell recently released the FX160 which looked exactly like what I was after. But let me give you some quick advice before you read any further : If you want to run GNU/Linux, you're in for some ugly surprises.

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Playing Blu-Ray Video Discs with (Fedora) GNU/Linux

nospam@example.com (Matthias Saou) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:15:10 +0100

I did it. I bought a Blu-Ray and HD-DVD player yesterday... then I bought a couple of Blu-Ray video discs earlier today (Superbad and Stranger Than Fiction, two movies I absolutely love).

My problem is that I want to watch them using exclusively free software. On Fedora 10 x86_64 to be more precise...

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Upgrading a Cisco 3750 IOS from a .bin image file

nospam@example.com (Matthias Saou) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:34:46 +0100

I just wasted hours trying to figure out how to upgrade a Cisco Catalyst 3750 using the .bin image instead of the .tar archive, since I don't want any fancy web interface on any of my core network devices. All of the current documentation explains only how to use the archive command, which can't be used in this case, and I've tried /imageonly option to download-sw which still needs the .tar archive. And the only bits of documentation I found which referenced the .bin method were actually misleading.

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Using bonding with Xen bridging on RHEL5

nospam@example.com (Matthias Saou) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:32:13 +0100

I ran into a chicken and egg problem recently, while trying to configure Xen's bridging interfaces on top of bonding interfaces.

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Encrypting the data on your USB key to use with GNOME

nospam@example.com (Matthias Saou) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:17:24 +0100

I just got a brand new Sony Micro Vault Tiny USB key. As you can see on the picture, it's about half the size of an SD card, although slightly thicker. The trick it uses to be so small is to slide directly inside the USB port. The size makes it very handy to keep in a wallet, and it can be used with any USB port without requiring any adapter, cable or card reader.

Just like with the previous USB keys and SD cards I've owned, it will be used to backup important data which I want to carry with me at all times. But just like any other important work and personal data, I don't want anyone to be able to read it, so most of the key will be encrypted.

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Serendipity (this blog runs it)

nospam@example.com (Matthias Saou) — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 02:32:23 +0100

I have to admit that I've been impressed by Serendipity. It just works. I really like PHP, but very often things are implemented pretty badly with it, and code gets rapidly hard to improve, modularize and so on... but here, it really looks like the developers have done a great job, congrats to them!

Dell PERC5/E and MD1000 performance tweaks

nospam@example.com (Matthias Saou) — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 01:39:33 +0100

I fought for days, literally, to get an external SAS enclosure, the Dell MD1000, working with decent performance on RHEL5 x86_64 (PowerEdge 1950 III w/ two quad cores and 16GB RAM) . It's a 15 disk enclosure, and this one is stuffed with 15 Hitachi 1TB SATAII drives which deliver a raw linear read speed of 80MB/s each. The SAS connection to the Dell PERC5/E PCIe card is made through a 4x SAS cable, which has a theoretical maximum throughput of 4x3Gbps = 12Gbps.

Nice, huh? Well, a default RAID5 array would drop to 60MB/s for 3 parallel linear reads. Ouch!

It took me some time, but it's now performing much better. Up to 600MB/s for the exact same test.

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