linux

Cryptswap and Linux assigning different devices letters to disk

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I had this weird issue recently: I had a simple Ubuntu setup with cryptesetup and swap, and the crypt swap device (say /dev/mapper/mycryptoswap1) keept disappearing.
Caution: fiddling with cryptsetup and disk devices is dangerous for data and OS. I personally made a full backup on a separate disk and then umplugged it to be sure it wouldn’t be involved in any mishap.

Turns out is a little worse that that: Linux is changing the drive devices assignations (eg /dev/sdb /dev/sdg) at every boot under my nose. I did not notice at first because I am using UUIDs, so everything looked fine. Unfortunately my raw partition did not have any UUID.  Probably there’s a way to assign an UUID to a general partition, but I didn’t address this issue.
Having the disk changing its letter any time was the reason why the crypttab device wasn’t created a boot.  I was lucky: would a partition with valuable data be present in the other disk, it would be overwritten with encrypted swap data.

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Linux Kernel 3.6 is here

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I had to upgrade a Pangolin Precise to Linux 3.6 to issue a bug on Linux Vs my Logitech mouse. So far I can say: Nvidia_current 295.40 fails to build module in 3.6.0 amd64 (I suspect it would also on i386) Solution: install nvidia-current 304.51 from ubuntu xedgers. Works out of the Box. Vmplayer VMware … Leggi tutto

A quick and dirty udevadm script

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This script (very dirty) was handful to me to discover some parameters (e.g KERNELS) to differentiate on udev/rules.d rules similar devices on a physical usb port basis. It’s relased under the GNU General Public License and with no guaranties. Please read the Disclaimer. It needs of course udevadm and less. Syntax is: showdevicedetails.sh #!/bin/bash # … Leggi tutto

ALiveXFire-eSATA2 boot issue with memory: a BSOD story

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I recently bought an Asrock ALiveXFire-eSATA2 R3.0 and I must say I am impressed on how much this board s*ck* (at least with Ubuntu 64bit Linux 10.10). and after a while (07/2011) solved some serious problems with this motherboard, mainly thanks to the new 4.00 Bios. 07/2011: I must say things are a little better … Leggi tutto

Meego 1.1 on Toshiba nb 200 rocks

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I recently axed Ubuntu on my netbook. Even if it perfomed correctly, I felt it was a bit overkill with netbook and did not cope well with the small screen. Panning with alt+mouse is ok, but I didn’t feel right.

I decided to go with Meego, a Linux from the Linux foundation. I just love the new interface, but I must say the stock system (speaking of 1.1) is a bit limited. You cannot simply expect to use the package manager to add missing things, it’s gonna be a little more complicated than this.  Please read carefully the Disclaimer before trying anything…messing with partition is dangerous for your data…always do a backup first.

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Quake Wars sound delay on Ubuntu

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I found my fix without changing pulseaudio configuration (which works fine otherwise) try launching etqw as such: > etqw.x86 +set s_driver oss UPDATE(6/11/2010): on Ubuntu 10.10 the kernel is shipped without OSS support. So unless you are going to compile your own kernel, I suggest you to avoid updating. Good work, Ubuntu, we had 2 … Leggi tutto

hylafax with UFW on Ubuntu

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I’m experimenting with Hylafax on my ARM server. I got a seemgly working usb fax (Atlantis Land a01-pu3 v1.2) and I’m playing with it. Hylafax has no problem recognizing the modem, and at first I opened port 4559 on the Hylafax server to permit comunication with the Hylafax client. Unfortuntely I didn’t work. Disabling the … Leggi tutto