What? The Linux Installer Crashed?

📅 September 23, 2022
“I tried to install Linux from a LiveUSB, but the message Installer crashed appeared and Linux will not install. Fix it!”

This happened to me when installing the latest Linux Mint 21 ISO or Ubuntu Cinnamon 22.04 ISO from a bootable LiveUSB. It always worked in the past, so what went wrong this time?

Here is one possible solution that worked for me.

NFS: How to Automount with autofs

📅 April 18, 2021
NFS (Network File System) is a great way to mount remote drives across a network and treat them like local drives on a local Linux system.

With a 10 gigabit Ethernet connection (10GbE) and remote SSD or NVMe storage, remote drives can be every bit as speedy and zippy as local SSD or NVMe storage. This is an excellent way to create centralized network storage for multiple Linux clients.

One little downside to NFS involves auto-mounting the remote shares using /etc/fstab. If the server is online, everything is good, but if there is no network connection, client boot time increases as Linux times out while attempting to mount a nonexistent remote share.

One way to solve the automounting problem is to use a program called autofs.

Linux Mint 20, Kernel 5.8.0, and NVIDIA Driver 450.57

📅 August 3, 2020
Linux kernel 5.8.0 was released a little while ago, and, like every inquisitive Linux user who needs to run the latest and greatest kernel just because it has a new version number, I installed it in Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon to see how it would perform.

The result? It’s great! Well, it works just as good as any other kernel I have tried. However, I did run into issues with the latest NVIDIA driver 450.57 because, well, that has a new version number too!

Installing kernel 5.8.0 was easy. Getting the NVIDIA driver to play with it was tricky, but I managed to get it working eventually. Here are a few notes from my experience.

Linux Mint 20

📅 July 13, 2020
Linux Mint 20 was released a few weeks ago, and, after installing and exploring its features, I can say that version 20 is another fine release in the series and one of the best Linux distributions available for everyday usage.

Here are a few of my thoughts.

Customize Vivaldi Browser: Custom Speed Dial Thumbnails

📅 February 21, 2020
After writing a bash script that matches the Vivaldi background to the Linux desktop wallpaper for a transparent effect, why not make the speed dial icons/thumbnails match as well?

Using bash and ImageMagick, we can modify speed dial icons to be monochrome, grayscale, color-adjusted to match the wallpaper, add a vignette, or almost any other image processing effect available. It depends most upon personal preference, so we will see how to set up Vivaldi and Linux to achieve this.

Customize Vivaldi Browser: Match Vivaldi Wallpaper with Linux Desktop Wallpaper

📅 February 18, 2020
“How can I make the Speed Dial wallpaper in the Vivaldi Browser match the Linux desktop wallpaper?”

Vivaldi is a great free web browser, and it can customized in many ways for a user-tailored browsing environment. One such customization is the Start Page/Speed Dial wallpaper. One fancy effect is to make the Vivaldi wallpaper match the current desktop wallpaper for a “see-through” effect.

In Windows, this is easily accomplished within the Vivaldi Start Page settings, but in Linux, there is no such option, forcing us to set the Vivaldi wallpaper manually.

Is there a way to make Vivialdi match the current desktop wallpaper in Linux?

Yes, there is! It involves a little preparation and a bash script, but the result produces the same effect.

Linux Mint 19 Running Well

📅 August 6, 2018
Linux Mint 19 was released about a month ago, and for the past few weeks, I have been reveling in the continued delight of yet another great Linux distribution.

Quick installation, a refined user interface, excellent hardware support (for my hardware, at least), and familiarity make this an enjoyable operating system to pick up and use without the desktop environment getting in the way of using the computer.

Other than a few issues, such as cumbersome proprietary video drivers (which is not the fault of Linux Mint) and cryptswap, I have experienced good success and switched to this distribution for my main system. Version 19 is based upon Ubuntu 18.04 LTS released a few months prior, so the support will be valid for another two years.

If you like Linux Mint and are already familiar with its operation, then you will feel at home with this new release. If not, Linux Mint is friendly to new users. It’s a win for both parties.

Well worth checking out either on real hardware or in a virtual machine, so give it a try if you are looking for an easy-to-use Linux distribution to share with your friends or those new to Linux.

 

Create Anonymous Virtual Hosts with ProFTP – Part 2: ProFTP Configuration

📅 February 7, 2018
Part 2

With the virtual environment set up and the default ProFTP server running, let’s configure ProFTP to serve two virtual FTP hosts that allow anonymous logins each.

Create Anonymous Virtual Hosts with ProFTP – Part 1: Platform Setup

📅 February 6, 2018
Part 1

FTP might have been around for a long time, but it remains a superb way to transfer files on a private LAN.

Fast and easy to set up, FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is something worth considering if you host files that must be accessed by nodes on your network. A local Ubuntu repository? Quick storage sharing? Maybe you need a quick and easy way to anonymously upload and download files from within Nemo or Filezilla? FTP can be configured for a variety of uses.

“But, but, but…FTP is not secure! Why would I use that?”

Yes, plain FTP transfers password and data for the viewing of anyone sniffing the network, but we are talking about a private LAN under your control. No Internet access. Of course, FTP traffic can be encrypted using SSL/TLS or SSH in order to make FTP secure.

For this project, we are going to use ProFTP to set up two virtual FTP servers in a Linux Mint virtual machine (VirtualBox) that allow anonymous logins and use SSL certificates for encryption. In addition, the ftp data will be stored on its own virtual hard drive. The practice gleaned here can be applied to real hardware.

Ready? Here is how it’s done.

 

How to Set the Default Monitor Refresh Rate

📅 September 15, 2017
“How can I make Linux Mint default to 100Hz for my fancy ultrawide monitor?”

If you are using a high-end monitor with Linux, such as the Acer Predator X34, that supports refresh rates higher than 60Hz, then you have probably noticed that Linux Mint defaults to a high refresh rate (100Hz if overclocked) at the login screen, but returns to a lower refresh rate (50Hz or 60Hz) after showing the desktop.

Sure, you can change the refresh rate to 100Hz manually using the Nvidia control panel, but this is a minor inconvenience that must be performed upon each boot.

“Is there a way to make the change persistent across reboots so I can always startup with, say, 80Hz?”

Yes. This article shows how to set a default refresh rate in Linux Mint 18.2 with the proprietary Nvidia drivers installed. The change is persistent across reboots. While this article uses the Acer Predator X34 overclocked to 100Hz, the same method should apply to any other monitor if using Nvidia drivers.