Catalyst HDMI Black Border

Catalyst video drivers on Linux have always exhibited second-rate quirks compared to the excellence of nVidia. One such quirk encountered recently is the HDMI black border effect.

As shown in the image, any monitor connected to the HDMI output (direct HDMI to HDMI) will shrink to the center of the screen, and a black border will appear around it.

File Immutable Attribute

Do you need to set a file so nobody can delete or edit it? Simple! Set the immutable attribute on the file.

Suppose you have an important info.txt file, a frequently asked questions file, a set of instructions, or even installation scripts that exist on a Samba share. Perhaps these files are accessible via SSH or FTP where write permissions are granted. In any case, they must not be deleted or tampered with, even by root.

Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook and Ubuntu 12.04.1

⌚ December 7, 2012
“Wow, this is slim!”

“Wow, Ubuntu runs well!”

“Wow, this is lightweight!”

…and a list of other praises come to mind when playing with this ultrabook.

Is there a better netbook or portable computer than the Acer Aspire 722 for running Ubuntu? The Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabookis an attractive, ultra-slim notebook barely larger than a netbook. I wanted to see how well Linux–Ubuntu–would run.

The S3 is a delight to use, and in my experience, it runs Linux better and faster than the bundled Windows 8 despite a few minor issues.

What follows is my enjoyable experience with Ubuntu 12.04 on what is probably one of the best-looking portable computers encountered: The Aspire S3.

Update for 2014: The Acer S3 Ultrabook is also compatible with other Linux distributions tested. Here are two other articles with more information:

• Installing Xubuntu 14.04 on the Acer S3 Ultrabook
• Linux Mint 15 and Linux Mint 16
• Xubuntu 14.04