Linux

As someone who only runs Linux, I occasionally need to run DOS for updating the BIOS on various machines.

Floppy disks are no more an option, since it has been nearly two decades with machines not shipping with them. Therefore, the only realistic option is using USB flash drives.

One excellent alternative to Microsoft MS-DOS, is FreeDOS, a free clone that needs very little resources to run. It can be used to run legacy applications, and one of them is flashing a new BIOS.

When I was running Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS on my home server, I had installed minidlna as a media server that is accessible to DLNA capable clients, including a Smart TV where one can view photos on a large screen.

However, when the server was upgraded to 14.04 LTS, minidlna stopped working. Searching Google turned up forum posts from 2014 with instructions that no longer work.

Yesterday, I gave a talk at the KWLUG.

It covered the following:

Recently I got a Raspberry Pi 2, which is said to be 6 times faster than the original Raspberry Pi B. This makes it more suitable for tasks like being a media player.

Getting a full CanaKit Raspberry Pi 2 Ultimate Starter Kit adds many components for experimentation (LEDs, resistors, breadboard, 40-pin ribbon cable, ...etc.). The price was attractive since with Amazon you get free shipping, and therefore it will be cheaper than getting it directly from CanaKit.

Today, I gave a KWLUG Talk on how I replaced the disk of my laptop under Linux, while preserving all the information on it and making hibernate work.

The PDF of the presentation is attached below.

In mid June, my laptop hard disk died. Suddenly, there was a flurry of disk I/O wait, then applications started to report errors trying to write anything.

With a 500GB 2.5" laptop disk lying around that was used for backup, I replaced the dead disk with this one.

I had an Ubuntu Server 14.04 CD lying around, and therefore did not bother to download Kubuntu 14.04.

My laptop's home directory is backed up daily via ssh to the server. So my data was safe.

Recently my laptop hard disk died suddenly, and I had an unused 2.5" laptop disk lying around, so I just put that in, and installed Ubuntu Linux LTS 14.04, then added the packages I needed.

However, using smartmontools, I found out that the not so new disk has unhealthy statistics, and did not want to risk down time on my main computer.

Attached are the slides from my presentation tonight at the KWLUG on how to flash a custom Android ROM (in this case OmniROM) on the Acer Iconia A500 tablet. The podcast is here.

The whole process was done without any Windows software. All was done from Linux.

• Getting a CPU ID using APX mode, then getting an SBK (Secure Boot Key) from that.
• Installing Timmy Dean's V4 Rollback.

Since I moved from cable TV to free HDTV over-the-air (OTA) ATSC TV, I have been using the Homeworx HW-150PVR as a PVR (personal video recorder) for HD TV.