I’ve been using Linux for years and haven’t had any issues with sound/audio working until recently. Audio had worked on this machine before, then it stopped working. Below is a fix that I found to work for my hardware....
Maintaining a computer with all the patching and updating required these days is tough. It is almost impossible to keep everything patched on the most popular OS out there, even for nerds like us. For non-computer people, it is impossible. Often, software updates have costs to get the new version too...
Over the years, I’ve been using this blog to help myself remember how to do things and to share some great tools and techniques with you. I figure it is time to recap some of those articles whether they are computer, financial/retirement, or just interesting things....
Today I was migrating a few core services from one server to another as part of the new server build project. Basically, I need to wipe the 1st physical server and reload it with a new, different OS as part of this project. Before that can be accomplished, there are a number of services that I need t...
Last week, my main laptop died taking my main xUbuntu installation with it. Ok, it really didn’t take it, since I have backups and the hard disk was fine. Further, because I run it in a VirtualBox VM, picking it up and moving it to a different physical machine was fairly simple, once I had a ma...
Today I migrated a RAID5 external array from 1 server to my newly built Core i5 server. I specifically chose to use software RAID when I installed it in 2007 just so this migration would be possible and easy.
Basically, everything went as planned with only one small issue....
Last evening, I noticed that my Dell 1535 Laptop wasn’t responsive. It was recording a TV show with the Hauppauge 950Q USB QAM tuner at the time, among other things that it always does.
Below I’ll discuss symptoms, trouble shooting methods and my resolution...
This is a series of articles around building a new Intel Core i5 server for use in a small business. Please start with New Server Build Part 1
Part 1 – Parts is Parts
Part 2 – Build
Part 3 – Burn In and OS
Part 4 Conclusion
In Part 3, I ran a few tests. They all completed clea...
So with all the equipment here, I began the server build. Refresh your memory for components by reading New Server Build – Part 1.
Part 1 – Parts is Parts
Part 2 – Build
Part 3 – Burn In and OS
Part 4 Conclusion
The Old Machine
Before beginning this build I booted the o...
Update May 2021
dpkg -l 'linux*' | awk '/^rc/{print $2}' | xargs sudo apt purge -y
Original Article
If you run Ubuntu Server LTS releases like I do, you are probably wasting disk space and, because of that, backup storage because old files tied to old kernels aren’t cleaned up automatically.
Af...
I move files around my network alot. Most of the time, these transfers are between wired GigE connected systems and are limited by disk performance, not the network. It is good and fast. Multi-gigabyte files transfer in seconds.
However, there are some tools that only work on Windows and my only Win...
Passwords are boring. Knowing how to choose a good password has been covered here and elsewhere many, many times. Yet, most people still don’t choose good passwords.
Today, we’ll take a different view of passwords. What are bad passwords by looking at results from actual passwords used ...
I saw a headline about stolen laptops here and thought I’d mention my methods before reading the other article.
Before Stolen Laptop
The most important stuff happens before your laptop is stolen, but you need to do it. It isn’t automatic....
Sadly, the answer to which virtualization is best for Linux isn’t an easy one to answer. There are many different factors that go into the answer. While I cannot answer the question, since your needs and mine are different, I can provide a little background on what I chose and why. We wonR...
Many companies don’t really consider the bloating of server operating systems as a real problem to be addressed. This is wrong because as soon as you write any data to disk, you’ve just signed up your company to safeguard that data multiple times (3-90) for the next 3-5 years, if not long...
The script below was created as part of an Alfresco upgrade process and meant to be run manually. This is fairly trivial cold backup script for Alfresco 2.9b, which is a dead release tree from our friends at Alfresco. It hasn’t been tested with any other version and only backs up locally, but...
I attended the Atlanta area OpenSolaris Meetup last night even though we were getting some major rain in the area which made the 30 minute drive challenging. Why would I bother? Swag? Scott D presenting? Being around other nerds that like Solaris? No, although those are all valid reasons too.
Even...
Today I was going through my list of files to backup on my Linux laptop and removing temporary and cache files when I came across a directory that I didn’t recognize. The files were listed as changed with the last 3 days.
changed .purple
changed .purple/accels
changed .purple/accounts.xml
chan...
So, Adito/VPN doesn’t really like Linux. The installation goes better than expected on 32-bit Linux, but if you change any of the configuration settings, then have the admin web page reset the server, the system won’t come back up. This happens on both 64-bit and 32-bit Ubuntu 8.04.x in ...
Last week, I setup and configured a special desktop for the accounting system for the company. Basically, it is a Windows7 Pro desktop running under ESXi 4 that the folks responsible for accounting remote (RDP) into after connecting via VPN to the special network for it. We’re small and only a ...
Last year, the owner of CodeWeavers, a commercial Windows Interface Layer for Linux called CrossOver-Office, was forced to backup his President Bush hate speak with a fairly large software giveaway. I don’t recall the exact bet he made, but something like I’ll give my products away if an...
You’ve heard it over and over. Backup, Backup, Backup. You are magically supposed to know how to do it and make it happen. This time, I’ll show exactly how I backup my HOME directory and manage those backups with rdiff-backup.
I’ve gone into why rdiff-backup was selected previous...
32-bit DVD – ouch.
So I opened the Windows7 Ultimate DVD and uncovered that it only contains the 32-bit version. After swapping the old/Vista drive with the new/Empty drive in the laptop, I elected to install Win7 even though I’d end up unable to use about 0.5GB of RAM. I wanted to give ...
I need your help deciding how to use the free Windows7 Ultimate license Microsoft gave away yesterday. I want to use it on my laptop but need some considered feedback on how would be best?
Current Laptop Config
4GB of RAM – may put 8GB in later
320GB disk
Main OS is Vista-64bit Home Premium...
I came across an old article that I wrote on backups that had some clock times for the different VMs. Since that article was written, I’ve changed the backup methodology from rsync to rdiff-backup.
dms44 → 1m:52s Alfresco
crm46 → 3m:36s vTiger
xen41 → 3m:10s Typo
pki...
