Category Archives: linux

SSD alignment on linux with ext4 and LVM

Posted on January 12, 2013 by pof

First make sure to create partitions aligned to your SSD erase block size (in my case 512k): sudo fdisk -H32 -S32 /dev/sdb You can check with fdisk -lu /dev/sdb that the start of each partition is divisible by 512. Then … Continue reading →

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Fortifying a Galaxy Nexus with stock-ish image and root access

Posted on July 30, 2012 by pof

In this post I will describe my recipe to have a Samsung Galaxy Nexus (codename “maguro”) using a rooted factory image, capable of getting OTA updates without loosing root access and with a locked bootloader, keeping the user data safe … Continue reading →

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Ubuntu 12.04 on ONKYO BX407A4

Posted on June 18, 2012 by pof

Two years ago I wrote about installing Ubuntu 10.04 on ONKYO BX407A4, now I have upgraded it to 12.04 LTS, and here’s a reviewed procedure in case anyone still uses this UMPC. Basically everything works so well out of the … Continue reading →

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Why Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA driver sucks, and how to fix it

Posted on May 23, 2012 by pof

TL;DR – the broadcom sta linux driver always fails in the first scan request after the interface is brought up, this produces a long delay when connecting to a wireless network. There’s an open source driver which does not have … Continue reading →

Posted in linux, wireless | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

How to have your patch included in Ubuntu

Posted on May 21, 2012 by pof

Today I submitted a patch to wpa-supplicant package in Ubuntu (LP: #994739) and I learnt the process of pushing your changes to Launchpad and ask for them to be reviewed and merged. Ubuntu has a great documentation on how to … Continue reading →

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Mount Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwitch on Linux

Posted on December 20, 2011 by pof

I recently got a Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwitch, which by default does not support USB Mass Storage. When connected to the computer via USB cable, we can choose to connect it as a Media device (MTP), … Continue reading →

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mini-howto: add google authenticator to a new device

Posted on December 8, 2011 by pof

Note: For this to work you need to have google authenticator working on a rooted device. Google authenticator stores user data in a sqlite database, so we can just get the key from there and move it on a different … Continue reading →

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lightum: auto adjust keyboard brightness on Linux MacBook

Posted on December 4, 2011 by pof

If you are running Linux on your MacBookAir and want the keyboard light brightness changed automatically depending on the ambient light (just as OS X does), continue reading. I’ve written a small daemon named lightum, source is on github and … Continue reading →

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Change workspace configuration on Ubuntu 11.10

Posted on October 3, 2011 by pof

By default Ubuntu 11.10 with unity interface has a 2×2 workspace, however I am used to have a single row horizontal 4×1 workspace with 4 desktops. I haven’t found any option under settings to change this, but here’s a workaround: … Continue reading →

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Disable Apache2 weak and medium ciphers for PCI compliance

Posted on June 7, 2011 by pof

A few days ago we had an external vulnerability scan by an Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV) to pass PCI DSS, in the report we saw these two vulnerabilities also reported by our Nessus scan: The remote service supports the use … Continue reading →

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