On Linux32 chrooted environments

I have a chrooted environment in my 64bit Fedora 22 machine that I use every now and then to work on a debian-like 32bit system where I might want to do all sorts of things, such as building software for the target system or creating debian packages. More specifically, today I was trying to build WebKitGTK+ 2.8.3 in there and something weird was happening: The following CMake snippet was not properly recognizing my 32bit chroot: ...

July 3, 2015 · Mario Sánchez Prada

Screen redrawing problems with the "nvidia" driver and Compiz

Just in case you were experiencing, like me, some very annoying problems with your NVIDIA graphic card while using Compiz, here you have a very useful option to put inside the “Device” section in your /etc/X11/xorg.org file: Option "UseCompositeWrapper" "true" After activating this option (available for nvidia drivers >= 169.xx) I found that the problems redrawing windows I was suffering, specially when scrolling (very annoying, for instance, when chatting through pidging), just dissapeared. And it was indeed a very annoying problem, since it used to happen very often and in almost any window (although not in Emacs ;-)) in my system, in a way so any information on it just got screwed up so it was completely unreadable… and the only “manual” workaround I had found so far was just to re-scroll the window or select the text I was trying to read, which seemed not to be a very good idea. ...

February 18, 2009 · Mario Sánchez Prada

My Slug, my PS3 and me

As Juan, I’m one of the proud owners of a Linksys NSLU2 (aka Slug) perfectly (and continuously) running the Debian/NSLU2 distribution for more than 6 months, currently featuring the following configuration (both sw and hw), after some slightly changes: Attached 500Gb 2,5" HD (powered through its USB2.0 connector). MediaTomb uPnP media server, to keep a nice "media center" running always available. Samba filesharing server (to easily share files with any device connected to the LAN) rtorrent bitTorrent client, to use the Slug as a dedicated machine always up and ready to download whatever you want. The 'screen' command line utility (useful to easily keep the rtorrent app always running and "detachable" ;-)). OpenSSH server (ssh port forwarded in the router to access the Slug from the Internet), to easily manage my Slug from anywhere in the world. With the exception of the HD (which used to be a 3,5" 120Gb HD since June to December, when I replaced with the 500Gb one), the rest of the configuration was amazingly working with no problems at all for more than 6 months, as I previously stated. This, along with the fact that this device is quite small, noise-and-heat-free (no fans) and only needs 8W (it's the 266Mhz, 'underclocked' version) to work, makes it one of my favourite devices I ever had :-). But all this was kind of “incomplete” stuff until I got a PS3, as a present from my girlfriend during last Christmas holidays, which gave it a new dimension to the Slug, since the PS3 bundles a nice uPnP client for pictures, audio and video which works perfectly with the MediaTomb server installed in this cute device. ...

January 27, 2009 · Mario Sánchez Prada

Automatically mounting LUKS encrypted partitions with pam_mount

Yesterday I’ve got my new Thinkpad T61 laptop and I had to spend some time installing a GNU/Linux distribution on it, so doing all those related tasks that are a must: partitioning, installing linux, installing emacs… and besides to all those tasks a very important one: encrypting some disk partitions. To do that, I just followed the instructions that Berto had posted some months ago in his blog, either for encrypting full regular partitions with LUKS as for encrypting temporary filesystems, say, /tmp and swap partitions. ...

March 8, 2008 · Mario Sánchez Prada