Operating Systems

Fix for Unity-based games crashing on Linux (tested on Ubuntu, Debian and openSUSE)

For the longest time, I have had issues with Unity-based games refusing to start and run properly when using the open-source radeonsi driver (Mesa).

Fortunately, a developer from Parabola (using the alias max_sraw on the Steam forums), offered a fix which solved my issue with their game Kona refusing to start. In the mean time, it has proven to become one of the most reliable ways for me to ensure that all my Unity-based games start on all the Linux distributions that I have tested so far (Ubuntu, Debian and openSUSE).

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My Nvidia nightmare with Ubuntu 14.04 on a MacBookPro6,2

My fondness of Apple’s software releases has been steadily declining recently, so I decided to switch entirely to a Linux-based operating system. Having recently had very good experiences with Ubuntu’s hardware support on various machines, I decided to try out the latest 14.04 LTS release on my MacBook Pro (Mid 2014) (MacBookPro6,2).

The installation went smoothly – brightness/audio controls, WiFi, Audio and Webcam all seemed to be working without any additional configuration needed. At this point, I was using the pre-selected open-source Nouveau driver for the Nvidia Geforce 330M GPU.

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“Connection failed”, when conneting to Avahi advertised Samba-service from OSX Finder

If you own a Mac and have recently tried advertising a Samba-service/share (most likely from a computer running Linux or a NAS-server), you properly also ran into the same problems that I were having, when trying to connect to it from the OSX Finder.

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Linux 2.6.38 and VIA Chromotion HD 2.0 combination results in blank/black terminal

At work, we use HP Thin Clients with a Debian distribution on top. We sometimes buy new hardware and when faced with discontinued models, we of course have to find new ones. Last time we decided on the HP t5550 Thin Client, which were to prove a bit of a challenge when we had to upgrade our Debian installation with a newer kernel.

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How I Got “lm-sensors” Working on my Via Epia SN1800 Motherboard

I’ve been the owner of a Via Epia SN1800 motherboard for quite some time now, and ever since I got it, I’ve always wanted to be able to monitor the CPU temperature from inside the operating system.

Since I’m using Linux, this means using the “lm-sensors” program, which in my experience never seems to work “out of the box” without a lot of Google searching and configuration tweaking.

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Egen mail-server hos Telenor

The contents of this article is only available/relevant in Danish.

Jeg har netop skiftet fra Stofanet til Telenor Bredbånd.

Jeg har egen mail-server kørende på min Internet forbindelse. Opsætningen på Stofanet’s netværk var lige til at gå til, da de har en fin vejledning på deres hjemmeside, som beskriver hvordan man gør.

Men efter mit nylige skift til Telenor fandt jeg, til min store forbavselse, at Telenor ikke har oplysninger liggende på deres hjemmeside, som beskriver hvorledes du skal konfigurere din mail-server, så den kan sende og modtage mails på deres netværk.

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iPhone Bluetooth Tethering in Ubuntu

Ubuntu is, out of the box, pretty good at handling mobile Internet connections via bluetooth from various mobile devices. It even supports the iPhone to some extent.

I’ve been using Ubuntu’s built in functions to access the Internet from my netbook via my iPhone for quite a while now, but I have never been completely satisfied with the reliability, when connecting/disconnecting to the iPhone.

I take the train to work just about every day, and usually I would have to do some tinkering with both my iPhone and my netbook, every time I wanted to connect to the Internet.

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Ubuntu freezing on Via EPIA 10000 M

I recently tried installing the latest version of Ubuntu on my Via EPIA 10000 M board, to use it as a Media Center. But I experienced some strange behavior.

After about 30 to 60 minutes of use, my system completely locked up.
All I could do to get the system back up, was perform a hard reboot.

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The sleeping Debian console

Here’s a way of altering, or completely disabling, a feature in Debian, causing the console-monitor to black out after 15 minutes with no user inputs.

This is an old feature meant to prevent an image from being frozen solid into CRT monitors, leaving it somewhat obsolete to people using TFT monitors.

The following line completely disables this feature:

setterm -blank 0

How to mount a Samba share in a Linux/UNIX environment

There are certain things I always forget.

This is one of the things that has kept me starring at a blank UNIX terminal, a few times to many. So I decided to finally document the solution I always end up searching for.

Continue reading How to mount a Samba share in a Linux/UNIX environment

How to avoid fsck prompts during the boot sequence

I just found this wonderful word of advice, on a subject that has been bugging me for quite some time now, regarding the system disc on my Debian server.

Write FSCKFIX=yes in /etc/default/rcS. You will not face the fsck problem from the next reboot onwards. However, if the disk is corrupted very badly, your presence may be required. I had done some kernel tweaks also for that. I will write about in subsequent tips.