Samsung Galaxy S4 i9505 review, root and recovery installation

  By Dunkel85 | May 26, 2013 - 11:16 | ,
Leave a comment

SGS4Yesterday I received my SGS4 – finally. Having skipped the SGS3 but being very satisfied with my SGS2 in the past, I decided to pay the high price of 599 € for the SGS4.

Now before going over to the Pros and Cons of it, some basic but important information first that you should consider before getting the SGS4.

  • Speed: Depending on where you live, you can get either the i9500 or the i9505 – or you import the other version for a little more cash. According to my tests and the scores of AnTuTu-benchmark, the differences are rather small but obvious:
    1. Fastest: i9500 (tweaked)
    2. Fast: i9500 (stock)
    3. Slower: i9505 (tweaked)
    4. Slowest: i9505 (stock)
    I don’t think you’ll notice the speed differences anywhere except in benchmarks; both versions are still much faster than other currently avail. smartphones. Still, basically the i9500 can be considered better than the i9505.
  • Color: watch what color-version you get exactly. When getting the “black-mist” color version, don’t expect it to be black. The phones back rather looks like the front of a microwave, very ugly. Of course you can just buy a cover of your favorite color separately.
  • Battery lifetime: the included battery (2600 mAh) simply sucks. No wonder with all that speed and gimmicks, so I recommend to get either a double-battery with extra back-cover (5500 mAh) or a normal-sized battery with at least 3500 mAh. Otherwise you’ll get annoyed by having to charge the SGS4 1-2 times daily.
  • MicroSIM: the SGS4 is using MicroSIM-cards. So either you get one, or cut your current SIM to a MicroSIM using the helpful image from my other blog post.
  • Moving apps to external SD: Very annoying is the fact that you cannot move apps or app-data to your external SD card with the current stock ROMs, so your internal storage will be full after installing a few apps (e.g. the integrated 16GB are actually only 9.25 GB, the rest is used for the system). The currently best workaround against this problem is using the great app Foldermount, which allows to create symlinks and move folders (like large app-data folders) to the external SD card.

Root and recovery installation

I’ve been using CF-Root and TWRP Recovery, other methods did not work for me.

Download: Odin v3.07 incl. SGS4i9505 CF-Root + TWRP Recovery 2.5.0.2:
http://hmastuff.com/sgs4_rootandtwrprecovery.zip
(Enter download mode by press and holding Volume Down, Home and Power, then flash the .tar.md5 and .tar via PDA in Odin)

Link: XDA thread for TWRP Recovery:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2265588

Link: XDA thread for Chainfire CF-AutoRoot:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2219803

 

Pro SGS4 Contra SGS4
  • Bigger display (5″)
  • Sharper + brighter display
  • Speed
  • Higher resolution (FullHD 1080p)
  • Extras (Adapt sound, OCR, Face control, etc.)
  • Infrared (try SmartRemote app!!)
  • Price
  • Battery lifetime
  • Not many custom ROMs avail. yet
  • Integrated space is actually 6.75 GB less (9.25 instead 16 GB)

 

 

 

Bookmark and Share

Getting OpenVPN on ChromeOS working

  By Dunkel85 | April 21, 2013 - 15:31 |
Leave a comment

Many users of ChromeOS (e.g. on ChromeBooks or on virtual machines) probably noticed that they can’t connect via OpenVPN. This happens because ChromeOS at the moment only supports rather uncommon certificates/keys for it.

That leaves only L2TP as protocol of choice, since PPTP is not supported at all by ChromeOS.

But with a little workaround you can get OpenVPN working. ChromeOS is just another Linux distribution, so you can go into terminal mode and connect manually.

How this can be done is explained in the tutorial I wrote about it, you can find it here:

http://wiki.hidemyass.com/Chrome_OS#OpenVPN_on_ChromeOS

Bookmark and Share

How to put the GoogleAnalytics code on MediaWiki into header instead of body

  By Dunkel85 | April 15, 2013 - 14:11 |
1 Comment

There are to ways to enable GoogleAnalytics for MediaWiki:

One is to use the extension Google Analytics Integration – it’s easy and works fine, but puts the script into the pages body instead of the header. That makes no difference in regards of it working properly, but it’s not the way Google wants us to do it.
The alternative is to just put the code into the skin.
Let’s say you’re using the Vector skin. Open the file /skins/Vector.php and search for this text:

$out->addHeadItem( 'csshover',
'<!--[if lt IE 7]><style type="text/css">body{behavior:url("' .
htmlspecialchars( $wgLocalStylePath ) .
"/{$this->stylename}/csshover{$min}.htc\")}</style><![endif]-->");

Below it, enter the following (while replacing the profile data with yours, of course)

   $out->addHeadItem( 'analytics',
            '<script type="text/javascript">'."

  var _gaq = _gaq || [];
  _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-00000000-1']);
  _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', 'yourdomain.com']);
  _gaq.push(['_setAllowHash', 'false']);
  _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

  (function() {
    var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
    ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
    var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
  })();

</script>"
        );

Lastly, remove any usage of GoogleAnalytics related extensions from your LocalSettings.php to prevent double-use of the script. Now check your real-time stats in GoogleAnalytics to see if the script is active.

Bookmark and Share

Finally a working Linux image for the APC Rock 8950

  By Dunkel85 | April 14, 2013 - 11:10 | ,
3 Comments

Linux on APC Rock 8950

For a long time the APC Rock 8950 was a huge disappointment due to no available Linux image for it.
That’s over now – thanks to the nice forum member Hari, who provided a backup of his image and much help in getting it working for me, I’m able to share the image here.

Related APC forum thread: http://forum.apc.io/discussion/342/apc-rock-8950-non-android-distribution

Hari’s blog post about APC Rock: http://www.agocontrol.com/2013/05/very-bad-experience-with-linux-on-via-apc-rock/

———————————————————

Latest version (v2): Debian Wheezy – incl. auto-boot+ethernet fix (2.5 GB): apcrock-4gb.v2.img.zip

This version should auto-boot into Linux, so that no serial connection or modifications of the boot process are necessary. The ethernet problem (occuring in v1 of the image) has been also fixed in this version.

The system will try to get a network IP from your local DHCP server, you can then connect via SSH to it through port 22. Due to missing graphic drivers from Wondermedia, all you will see when plugging in a screen into the boards HDMI or VGA port is the APC logo.

Root password: apc

Known issues: No HDMI+VGA output, possible problems with repartitioning/resizing filesystem

I’m open for suggestions on how to improve the image, so I can repack and reupload improved versions here.

———————————————————

Previous version (v1): Debian Wheezy (2.5 GB): apcrock-4gb.img.bz2
To get this version booting, you’ll need to put this scriptcmd file on the FAT partition of the SD-Card (watch out – some browsers save the file as .txt file instead without extension, as needed). The alternative is to break the auto-boot process by plugging a USB/RS232 3, 3V TTL adapter cable into the debug pins of the board (bottom right). The order I had to use with my cable was black+empty+white+green. You can then connect via tools like e.g. Putty to this serial connection and break the boot process by pressing a key when prompted and then modify the boot options like this:

setenv bootcmd "mmcinit 0; fatload mmc 0:1 0x01000000 uImage 500000; bootm 0x01000000"
setenv bootargs "mem=416M root=/dev/mmcblk0p3 rw rootfstype=ext3 noinitrd mbtotal=76M console=ttyS0,115200n8 rootwait"
saveenv
reset

Should you get problems with the ethernet (Error: “Cannot find device “eth0″ – Bind socket to interface: No such device – Failed to bring up eth0.”), delete the file /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules and reboot.

Root password: apc

Known issues: No HDMI+VGA output, possible problems with repartitioning/resizing filesystem

Bookmark and Share

Alternatives to Google Play Android Market

  By Dunkel85 | March 31, 2013 - 20:58 | ,
Leave a comment

Most people just download their apps at Google Play and don’t even know that there are alternatives – good ones.

For example:

Found more recommendable Android app markets? Leave a comment :)

Bookmark and Share

9/11 – Inside WTC – Documentary (Naudet)

  By Dunkel85 | March 29, 2013 - 11:58 |
Leave a comment

Although it’s now almost 12 years since the event, and everybody was bombarded with footage, watched videos over and over again – this one is a must-see.
If you haven’t seen this documentary yet which was actually planned by the 2 French Naudet brothers to be just about the daily life of a firefighters squad, and then turned into one of the most important documentaries ever – then it’s time. It’s the only footage existing that shows the collapse of the towers from within them.

I ripped the DVD to get the best quality and removed the black borders, that means this video has a higher quality than all other versions you’ll find online. Best viewed with Firefox or Chrome.

Bookmark and Share

Getting VPN to work on Proxmox OpenVZ container (VPS)

  By Dunkel85 | March 26, 2013 - 17:14 |
Leave a comment

When trying to connect via OpenVPN on my Proxmox-based OpenVZ VPS, I always received this error message:

SIOCSIFADDR: No such device: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
SIOCSIFNETMASK: No such device
SIOCSIFMTU: No such device
SIOCSIFBRDADDR: No such device: 
ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
Linux ifconfig failed: external program exited with error status: 255
Exiting

After googling a while, I found the fix for that. You need to modify the file “/etc/vz/vz.conf” on your host machine.
Look for the line “## IPv4 iptables kernel modules“.
The line below it should begin with “IPTABLES=“. Set it to this:

IPTABLES="ipt_REJECT ipt_tos ipt_TOS ipt_LOG ip_conntrack ipt_limit ipt_multiport iptable_filter iptable_mangle ipt_TCPMSS ipt_tcpmss ipt_ttl ipt_length ipt_state iptable_nat ip_nat_ftp"

Next, run the following commands, while replacing “VEID” with the container ID of the container you want to have access to the hosts modules. (e.g. 100, 101, etc.)

vzctl set VEID --devices c:10:200:rw --save
vzctl set VEID --capability net_admin:on --save
vzctl exec VEID mknod /dev/as0t0 c 10 200
vzctl exec VEID chmod 600 /dev/as0t0

Restart the corresponding container and try to connect to the VPN. Worked fine for me :)

In case the VPN connects fine, but the OpenVPN process tells you
“unable to redirect default gateway — Cannot read current default gateway from system”, just add a default route; like this:

route add default dev tun0

You can easily check your current IP before and after by running this (package “curl” is required though):

curl http://checkip.dyndns.org/
Bookmark and Share

Freetz custom firmware for AVM FritzBox 7270 v3 routers

  By Dunkel85 | March 13, 2013 - 13:47 |
9 Comments

FreetzWith the instructions from freetz.org (alt. newbie version) I’ve built a few firmware images for my AVM! FritzBox 7270 v3. So if you have that router and don’t want to build the firmware by yourself, you can download my version here:

It contains all many features, plugins, modules and everything else that sounded interesting during the selection in the compiling process.

You might also want to check out the image by hehnblog, he included his .config file, so you can use it as template for building your image. Included packages are amongst others: dsld, ip commands from the iproute package, dnsmasq, dropbear, traceroute, tcpdump, and iptables. Based on the German 3.74.05.50 image.

Download: 7270_v3_05.50-freetz-devel.de_20130329-122017.image_config.tar

 

Notes:

  • If the AVM webconfiguration refuses to install freetz, your options are:
    - switch the Annex drivers between A and B and/or remove the branding, then try again. I’ve done that with ruKernel (Download). It’s German but website has English tutorials
    - flash Freetz with ruKernel. I had to start it with parameter “-u2” to make the process work
  • Version 1.0: Due to the size limit for images, the archive contains an .external file that you can flash within the freetz webconfiguration onto an external USB device.
  • Version 2.0: This one is using the integrated Downloader for installation of apps. Plugin an USB stick, set the downloader to use http://hmastuff.com/freetz
  • Version 3.0: Changed some settings and added even more packages.
  • Having login problems? Disable password as explained here.
  • I’ll keep optimizing the image and expanding its functionality and post future updates here. Let me know if you need a custom build with certain options or packages.
 Version 2.0 + 3.0: Downloader usage to install additional apps:

Freetz Downloader

(enlarge)
Questions? Leave a comment!

Don’t know what freetz is? It’s a linux based operating system for Fritzbox routers, which is far more advanced than normal firmwares, allowing the installation of many different applications and server software, e.g. Torrent-client, VPN-clients/servers, Proxyservers/clients, etc.
Bookmark and Share

Cutting SIM to MicroSIM to NanoSIM

  By Dunkel85 | March 10, 2013 - 11:23 |
Leave a comment

Cutting instructions

Many cell service providers don’t send out Nano-SIM cards, which are needed for e.g. the iPad-mini. They expect you to order a normal SIM and once received, call their hotline to get the Nano version. This can take weeks and of course is annoying.

I found this image very useful, which helped me cutting down my SIM first to a MicroSIM and then down to a NanoSIM. Make sure to rather cut less and often than much.

Work on it till you can insert the NanoSIM into the cardholder, so that it’s not falling out by itself.
Worked fine for me :)

Bookmark and Share

PiTool cmd v0.1 – Command-line tool for the Raspberry Pi

  By Dunkel85 | March 9, 2013 - 00:55 | ,
Leave a comment

Following the GUI-based PiTool v0.2, there’s PiTool v0.1 CMDnow a command-line version available.

Features:

  • full system upgrade
  • install/run hexxeh’s firmware update tool
  • show CPU temperature
  • show voltages
  • show clock frequencies
  • clear RAM
  • show internal+external IP
  • show MAC address, sent+received bytes and megabytes

Download: pitoolcmd.zip (142 KB)

Except for showing voltages and clock frequencies, all functions also work on various other ARM-based devices, such as Cubieboard, OLinuXino, Hackberry, ODroidX etc.

As always, I’m open for suggestions on what other things might be useful to add to the app – via comment or email.

Bookmark and Share

Alternate Universe – a MUD taking worth a look at! :)

  By Dunkel85 | March 6, 2013 - 17:32 | ,
Leave a comment

I was never really into MUD games, found ‘em boring without graphics. But this one, “Alternate Universe“, is really taking a look at. You have to solve a puzzle at the beginning (hint: look for a button to push *g*), then you come into the area where other players are. The possibilities are basically endless – and the most interesting part – its server runs on a Raspberry Pi!
To play, just telnet into alternateuniverse.dyndns.org 1063 – or use the applet below:

Bookmark and Share

Using Raspberry Pi as a VPN router alternative

  By Dunkel85 | March 5, 2013 - 15:01 | ,
Leave a comment

I’ve written 2 tutorials on how you can use any Linux device, e.g. the Raspberry Pi, but also similar devices like Linux-on-Android or even a virtual machine as VPN router.

Tutorial No. 1 explains how to use a local proxyserver on your linux device to share an OpenVPN connection along your network. You can even connect from outside of your network; in addition, this allows even devices with no VPN support to use the VPN connection. You will just need a little tool called tinyproxy, allow the client IPs and + needed ports in the tinyproxy.conf and connect to the VPN.

Tutorial No. 2 explains how to use a local PPTP server on your linux device to share an OpenVPN connection along your network. You can even connect from outside of your network; this method has the advantage that certain apps will not fallback to use your real IP, and your complete system is secured by the VPN – instead of only applications that support the use of proxies.

See here:

Bookmark and Share

[UPDATE!!] The Via APC Rock – disappointing!

  By Dunkel85 | March 3, 2013 - 13:27 | , ,
4 Comments

APC Rock 8950

UPDATE: There is a working Linux-image for the APC Rock 8950 available now. Check my post “Finally a working Linux image for the APC Rock 8950” for downloads and info.

—————————————–

I got my APC Rock 8950 and must admit, I’m pretty disappointed so far. Although the hardware is quite good (though no comparison to the genius ODroid-X2!), the support by Via is extremely poor so far.

The main problem is that there is no working Linux image available for the APC Rock 8950 yet, and installing e.g. the Apricot image does not work, because it’s made for the predecessor, APC 8750.

In addition, it’s not possible to root the APC Rock 8950s preinstalled Android system. I’ve tried all avail. rooting tools, no luck. The rooting tutorial from the APC forums also won’t work, guess what? Yea, it’s been made for the APC 8750 and the differences are too big.

I’ll re-review this board once I find a working Linux image or at least a proper way to root the boards Android system, so I can install Linux embedded via the Linux Deploy app.

My advise: Get the APC 8750 if you don’t want to buy an Android-only singleboard-computer.

Specifications of the APC Rock 8950:

Model: Via APC Rock 8950
OS: Android 4.0 (PC System)
CPU: Chip VIA ARM Cortex-A9 @800Mhz Processor
Memory: DDR3 512MB Memory
Integrated storage: 4GB NAND Flash
Graphics: Built-in 2D/3D Graphic
Resolution up to 1080p
Input and Output: HDMI, VGA
Ports: 2x USB 2.0, 1x microUSB (OTG)
Audio out / Mic in
microSD Slot
Network: 10/100 Ethernet
Size: 170 x 85mm (W x H)

Bookmark and Share

Debian image for the ODroid-X2

  By Dunkel85 | February 28, 2013 - 13:25 | , ,
4 Comments

ODroid-X2If you’re in need of a Debian image for the ODroid-X2 – you can just use the one from the X, download here: odroidx-debian-R2.rar (Magnet / Torrent). User/Pass is “odroidx“.

The image contains a 3 GB filesystem. When flashing it on a bigger SDcard using w32diskimager (odroid edition),  you can resize the filesystem later on the X2 by running “resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p3” (not working? Then you need to recreate the 3rd partition. Here’s a log that shows you how I did it)

Don’t know what the ODroid-X2 is? It’s the fastest and best single-board-computer you can get at the moment. Where to get it? Here: hardkernel.com

Specifications:

Processor:     Samsung Exynos4412 Cortex-A9 Quad Core 1.7Ghz with 1MB L2 cache
Memory:     2GB LP-DDR2 880Mega data rate
3D Accelerator:     Mali-400 Quad Core 440MHz
Video:     supports 1080p via HDMI cable(H.264+AAC based MP4 container format)
Video Out:     micro HDMI connector / RGB-24bit LCD interface port
Audio:     Standard 3.5mm headphone jack and microphone jack
LAN:     10/100Mbps Ethernet with RJ-45 Jack ( Auto-MDIX support)
USB2.0 Host:      High speed standard A type connector x 6 ports
USB2.0 Device:      ADB/Mass storage(Micro USB)
Display:     HDMI monitor / LCD panel with RGB or LVDS interface
Storage:     Full size SDHC Card Slot, eMMC module socket
Power:    5V 2A Power
System Software:     u-boot 2010.12, Kernel 3.0.15, Android4.0.x(ICS)
Size:      90 x 94 mm

Bookmark and Share

Bitcoin mining on arm/armhf devices such as the Raspberry Pi

  By Dunkel85 | February 24, 2013 - 13:10 | , ,
Leave a comment

Method 1) Mining via Android via LTCMiner
If you have a single-board-computer that runs Android (such as the Cubieboard, Gooseberry, APC Rock, OLinuXino, Hackberry etc.), you can just use the app LTCMiner. For downloads, see my blog post “Finally a working bitcoin miner for Android”

Method 2) Mining on Linux via UFAMiner

wget http://darkgamex.ch/ufasoft/ufasoft_bitcoin-miner-0.32.tar.lzma
apt-get install -y --force-yes lzma libpcre3-dev
tar --lzma -xvpf ufasoft_bitcoin-miner-0.32.tar.lzma
cd ufasoft_bitcoin-miner-0.32
./configure
make
make install
./bitcoin-miner -o http://Username:Password@pit.deepbit.net:8332

Method 3) Mining on Linux via CPUMiner

wget https://github.com/jgarzik/cpuminer/archive/master.zip
unzip master.zip
cd cpuminer-master
apt-get install -y --force-yes curl libjansson-dev libjansson4 automake autoconf
./autogen.sh CFLAGS="-O3 -Wall -msse2" 
./configure
make
make install
./minerd --url http://pit.deepbit.net:8332 --userpass Username:Password

 

You might want to use StratumProxy rather than mining on a Pool directly, to make sure your miner is using the best mining methods.
Unfortunately devices like the Pi, OLinuXino, Hackberry, Cubieboard etc. only give around 290 khash/sec.

Bookmark and Share

Measuring the maximal network throughput of your network devices

  By Dunkel85 | February 23, 2013 - 01:04 | ,
Leave a comment

Speed checkThere are times when you might want to measure the maximal network throughput / bandwidth of your network devices via LAN or WLAN. This is especially useful if you want to compare the results between e.g. your wired Raspberry Pi, the wireless OLinuxino, Hackberry… or you just want to check if getting expensive network cables was worth it.

A pretty easy tool for doing this is PCATTCP / TTCP, download it here ->

Windows: http://www.pcausa.com/Utilities/pcattcp/PCATTCP-0114.zip
Linux (source): http://www.pcausa.com/Utilities/pcattcp/LinuxTTCP.zip
(to compile the Linux source, just enter “make” and then start it via “./ttcp“)

The how-to can be found @ http://www.pcausa.com/Utilities/pcattcp.htm
But it’s pretty easy. Here’s what you need to enter:

To let a host wait for a TCP test: ./ttcp -r
To let a host wait for a UDP test (faster): ./ttcp -r -u

To do a TCP test with a host: ./ttcp -t 192.168.0.2
To do a UDP test with a host (faster): ./ttcp -t -u 192.168.0.2

A possible output looks like this:

ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001  udp  -> 192.168.0.2
ttcp-t: socket
ttcp-t: 16777216 bytes in 5.59 real seconds = 2928.80 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2054 I/O calls, msec/call = 2.79, calls/sec = 367.17
ttcp-t: 0.0user 1.9sys 0:05real 35% 0i+0d 290maxrss 0+3pf 162+29018csw

For lots of Windows-related speed tweaks, see this Wiki article: Speed

Bookmark and Share

Monitoring your Raspberry Pis as a cluster using Ganglia

  By Dunkel85 | February 21, 2013 - 17:29 | ,
Leave a comment

Ganglia graphsIf you own multiple Raspberry Pis or other single-board-computers, you might want to have a way to view and compare their processor and network usage as well as other system-related data.

A good tool for this is Ganglia, and it’s pretty easy to setup; just run
apt-get install ganglia-monitor gmetad
on every computer that you want monitored. Ganglia is pretty lightweight, uses just around 5% CPU usage every few seconds.

Then you need to select a device that should host the webinterface to display all the data.
Make sure this device has apache2 and php5 installed (by just running “apt-get install apache2 php5“). On this device you extract the content of the “ganglia-web-3.5.7″ folder from this archive (download) into the /var/www folder.

That’s pretty much it – when now accessing the selected device via browser, you should see the Ganglia webinterface. It will automatically pick up all devices in the network that have Ganglia installed, and regularly produce informative graphs and usage data.
See their wiki for a quick-start guide:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/ganglia/wiki/ganglia_quick_start

If you’re looking for a good way to administrate and configure your Pi via webinterface, you should use Webmin; see my post CPanel vs. Webmin

Bookmark and Share

Getting the A13-OLinuXino-WIFI to work

  By Dunkel85 | February 19, 2013 - 18:06 | , ,
Leave a comment

Today I received my A13-OLinuXino-WIFI, mainly to be able to compare it with the Raspberry Pi and Cubieboard. As with the Cubieboard, Android is preinstalled on the NAND integrated storage of the OLinuXino A13. I decided to get the Wifi version (just $10 more) since I liked the idea of having a single-computer-board with WLAN without having to use an external WLAN dongle.

Now to spare you some trouble, I recommend to install the “Video-enabled A13 Debian Image, R10” (mirror / Flashmirrors), otherwise you’ll have no video output. For other images, see:
https://www.olimex.com/wiki/Prebuilt_SD_card_images_running_debian#Images

The user/pass are: root : olinuxino and there’s also a olinuxino : olinuxino user.
Once logged in, you might want to change the password via “passwd”.
Now you need to configure the network for the WLAN to work.
Run “ifconfig -a“. It should show you a loopback, a tun and a wlan device.
Important is here the number behind “wlan“, so “wlan1“, “wlan2” etc.

Next, open /etc/network/interfaces with nano or whatever editor you prefer.
Change the number behind the “wlan” here accordingly as ifconfig has shown you, so if the interfaces file says “wlan1” and ifconfig told you “wlan2“, make it “wlan2” here as well on both places (auto wlan2 + iface wlan2 inet dhcp). Then change the ssid and the psk accordingly as your WLAN is set.

So your interfaces file should look like this:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto wlan2
iface wlan2 inet dhcp
wpa-ssid mywlanssid
wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
wpa-psk mywlanpsk

To make the changes have effect, run “service networking restart“.

That’s all – you should have net access now. If not, check the interfaces file for any mistyping. You might also want to edit your WLANs security settings, for me it worked while using WPA/WPA2 TKIP.

Some info about the A13 OLinuXino-WIFI:

Olinuxino A13 WifiFEATURES

  • A13 Cortex A8 processor at 1GHz, 3D Mali400 GPU
  • 512 MB RAM (2 x 256Mbit x 8)
  • 4GB NAND flash
  • 3 USB + 1 Mini-USB hosts
  • 1 USB OTG which can power the board
  • Android OS preinstalled on the NAND memory
  • SD-card connector for booting optional Linux image
  • VGA video output
  • Audio Output, Microphone Input
  • RTC PCF8536 on board for real time clock and alarms
  • 5 Keys on board for android navigation
  • Dimensions: 120 x 120 mm (4.7×4.7”)

My benchmarks: 192 Whetstones, 2142 Dhrystones (tested with BOINC)

Bookmark and Share

PiTool GUI v0.2 – Useful tool for Raspberry Pis

  By Dunkel85 | February 15, 2013 - 21:10 | ,
Leave a comment

PiToolI made a little tool with Lazarus for Raspberry Pis which might come in handy,
check it out – Current features:

  • Display CPU temperature
  • Display network usage (received+sent traffic)
  • Display MAC address
  • Display all clock frequencies
  • Do full system upgrade
  • Clear memory
  • Console
  • Display voltages
  • Display LAN and external IP

Download: PiTool GUI v 0.2 (855 KB)

Of course there’s also a command-line based version available: pitool-cmd

I’d like suggestions on how to improve the tool, e.g. other useful information to be displayed, more commands, etc. Let me know via comment or email.

The next release will be able to:

  • Display routing tables
  • Catch all possible exception errors
  • Install/run Hexxeh’s update tool
  • Modifying boot.txt and cmdline.txt for tweaking
Bookmark and Share

Getting Seti@home to work on Android devices

  By Dunkel85 | February 14, 2013 - 16:20 | ,
Leave a comment

NativeboincUPDATE (28th March 2013): NativeBoinc now supports Seti@home without needing to use workarounds like the one below!!

Although there is NativeBoinc for Android, Seti@home will not work when being added as a project with it.  There are rumors about an Android client from the Boinc developers which will hopefully include full support for all projects on various Android systems.

Till then, you’ll have to use a workaround to get Seti@home working on your Android device, by compiling and running Boinc on Linux within Android, and using NativeBoinc as manager only. Here is how to:

1. Your device needs to be rooted. Install Linux Deploy and ConnectBot.

2. Install your favorite Linux distribution with Linux Deploy; enable SSH with it and connect to Linux via SSH.

3. Make sure that you’re logged in as root. Now enter:

wget http://hmastuff.com/boinc/installseti.sh && chmod +x installseti.sh && ./installseti.sh

4. This will take a while. When done, make sure you’re in /var/lib/boinc and start boinc in daemon mode:

boinc --daemon --allow_remote_gui_rpc

5. Lookup your account key:

boinccmd --lookup_account http://setiathome.berkeley.edu my@email.com password

6. Add the project to boinc:

boinccmd --project_attach http://setiathome.berkeley.edu the-key-you-just-got

7. Now start NativeBoinc, let it connect to the client running on localhost. Don’t start the integrated boinc client – just connect to the running one on localhost.

This method has the disadvantage that you have to run Boinc via Linux on your Android device, and you have to start it there manually each time you want to use Seti@home. But it works :)

Bookmark and Share

Comparison Raspberry Pi vs. Cubieboard

  By Dunkel85 | February 13, 2013 - 12:17 | ,
4 Comments

After playing around a lot with my 2 Raspberry Pis and being pretty satisfied with it, today I received my Cubieboard. Specification comparison:

Raspberry Pi Model-B
Developer: Raspberry Pi Foundation
Operating system: Linux
Power: 3.5 W (model B) via Micro-USB
CPU: ARM1176JZF-S (armv6k) @ 700 MHz
SoC: Broadcom BCM2835
GPU: VideoCore IV
RAM: 512 MByte (Model B rev 2)
Storage: SD card slot (SD or MicroSDHC card), USB
Graphics: Broadcom VideoCore IV
Video: Composite, HDMI
Audio: 3.5mm jack, HDMI
Network: 10/100 RJ45
Other: 2x USB
Dimensions: 85,60 x 53,98 x 17 mm
My benchmarks: 273 Whetstones / 1108 Dhrystones (tested with BOINC)
 Cubieboard
Manufacturer: CubieTech
Operating system: Android preinstalled, Linux via MicroSDHC or SATA
Power: via Mini-USB or DC
CPU: ARM Cortex-A8 @ 1Ghz
SoC: Allwinner A10
GPU: ARM Mali-400
RAM: DRAM 1GB DDR3 @ 480MHz
Integrated storage: NAND 4GB
Video: HDMI
Audio: 3.5mm jack, HDMI
Network: 10/100 RJ45
Storage: MicroSDHC, SATA (+5v power), USB
Other: Infrared, 2x USB
Dimensions: 10cm x 6cm x 2cm
My benchmarks:  199 Whetstones / 2000 Dhrystones (tested with BOINC)

The advantage of the Pi is that it’s widely being used, so there is much more specialized software for it available, more information on the net, etc.
The advantage of the Cubieboard is clearly its better hardware; I especially like that it comes preinstalled with Android, and you can easily install Linux on a SDHC card or on an attached SATA hard drive – where the SATA slot is another advantage, of course.
If you need to decide – should you be after the faster mini-linux computer, get the Cubieboard. If you’re more after playing around with it and programming, get the Pi :)
BUT: If you’re after max. speed, you have to get the ODroid-X2!

There are other mini computers besides the Pi and Cubieboard, see below for links of all that are worth mentioning:

Pi vs. Cubie

You might also want to check out this site: http://tinyurl.com/sbccomparison – it contains a comparison table of this boards: Arduino, Raspberry Pi, CubieBoard, Gooseberry, APC Rock, OLinuXino, Hackberry A10
Also informative: Wiki articles “List of single-board computers” and “Comparison of single-board computers“.

Bookmark and Share

Raspberry Pi hints, tips and tricks

  By Dunkel85 | February 9, 2013 - 15:52 | ,
Leave a comment

Pi rocks!Below I’ve compiled a list of useful things regarding the Raspberry Pi that I found along the web:

Install hexxeh’s rpi-update tool:
sudo wget http://goo.gl/1BOfJ -O /usr/bin/rpi-update && sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/rpi-update

Get CPU temperature:
vcgencmd measure_temp
(you can also watch the temperature by running “watch -d vcgencmd measure_temp”)

Get CPU temperature in milli-centigrades:
cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp
(same as above, watch it via “watch -d cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp”)

Get amount of network adapters received bytes:
cat /sys/class/net/eth0/statistics/rx_bytes
Get Megabytes:
awk ‘{printf(“%.1f\n”,$1/1024/1024)}’ “/sys/class/net/eth0/statistics/rx_bytes”

Get amount of network adapters sent bytes:
cat /sys/class/net/eth0/statistics/tx_bytes
Get Megabytes:
awk ‘{printf(“%.1f\n”,$1/1024/1024)}’ “/sys/class/net/eth0/statistics/tx_bytes”

Get the Pi’s MAC address:
cat /sys/class/net/eth0/address

Show CPU clock frequency:
vcgencmd measure_clock arm
Show all available clock frequencies:
for src in arm core h264 isp v3d uart pwm emmc pixel vec hdmi dpi ; do echo -e “$src:\t$(vcgencmd measure_clock $src)” ; done

Show core voltage:
vcgencmd measure_volts core
Show all voltages:
for id in core sdram_c sdram_i sdram_p ; do echo -e “$id:\t$(vcgencmd measure_volts $id)” ; done

…
the mentioned folders contain more possible values, but imho none of them are really interesting or useful. Let me know if you found anything else and I’ll add it here. Thanks!

Bookmark and Share

Stop wasting your computers idle time, CPU power and bandwidth!

  By Dunkel85 | February 6, 2013 - 21:25 |
1 Comment

Billions of computers are running without doing anything, or at least without fully using their processing power and bandwidth. What a waste! Why not using your computers idle time for something useful, e.g. to fight diseases, share information and software, or crawl the web? See below for examples what you can let your computer/server do while you’re not using it:

  • apt-p2p: This linux-based package aims to reduce the usage of Linux distribution hosts by sharing packages to other users via DHT. Give it a try!
  • yacy: Yacy is a decentralized search-engine. You can install it on your computer or server and crawl the web, contributing to Yacy or creating your own search engine with it. Check it’s wiki. There’s also a science-related Yacy version called ScienceNet
  • boinc: With boinc you can let your CPU and GPU work for a good cause. It offers many projects for different aims, e.g. finding cures for diseases, predicting earthquakes, search life in outta space, etc. There’s also an Android client!
  • bitcoins: Why not letting your server or computer earn bitcoins for you, that you can even sell for real money? I’m using ufaminer for this on the bitcoin.cz pool (which seems to be better than deepbit.net in my opinion)
  • sharing torrents (e.g. legal torrents, linux distributions, illegal torrents *g*): Just download torrents you’d like to share and make known, e.g.  debian or others and share them as long as you like and can spare bandwidth.
Bookmark and Share

Really good Android apps

  By Dunkel85 | February 6, 2013 - 21:00 | ,
2 Comments

There are tons of android apps, but most of them simply suck. There’s also lots of sites that review apps, but they suck as well. So see below for apps that are REALLY worth installing:
Bookmark and Share

[UPDATE!] Getting Seti@home to work on Raspberry Pi (and other armel/armhf devices)

  By Dunkel85 | February 4, 2013 - 16:56 | ,
2 Comments

As mentioned in an earlier post, you can use NativeBoinc to use BOINC on Android devices. But what about Raspberry Pi and other ARM/ARMHF devices?
When installing BOINC on Raspberry Pi, you might notice that only certain projects support armel/armhf devices. Unfortunately this excludes Seti@home and some other projects, resulting in them not working at all.
There’s a fix for this now, checkout this page:
http://burdeview.blogspot.de/p/raspberry-pi-boinc-project-ive-created.html

It offers a quick-start guide and downloads that you can use to make projects like Seti@home working on armel/armhf devices such as the Raspberry Pi.
Basically you just need to delete the content of the directory /var/lib/boinc/projects/setiathome.berkeley.edu/
and download setiathome_enhanced and app_info.xml into it. Make sure to assign the projects folder to the boinc user via “chown -R boinc:boinc projects/” while in the boinc main folder.
Lastly, attach the Seti@home project to Boinc as explained here.

I’ve compiled the Seti@home binaries on multiple devices, you can find binaries for Raspberry Pi, Cubieboard, OLinuxino A13, Samsung Galaxy S2 and Asus Transformer 101(G) at http://hmastuff.com/boinc

Download the file that fits for your device, rename it into “setiathome_enhanced” and put it together with the app_info.xml into the /var/lib/boinc/projects/setiathome.berkeley.edu folder. Start boinc and use boinccmd to attach the project only while you’re in the /var/lib/boinc folder!

If that won’t do the trick for you, you’ll need to compile boinc+setiathome yourself, reboot, et voila – it works!
Now your Raspberry Pi is finally searching for Aliens out there ;)
The easiest way to compile Seti@home and Boinc is to use my script: installseti.sh

Some notes to spare you stress and wondering while compiling:

  • You should purge all boinc related software before starting (apt-get purge boinc*)
  • If the scripts demand for libtoolize, install it via “apt-get install libtool“
  • If the boinc client gives you authorization errors, you’re in the wrong directory; just change to the boinc data directory (the one that contains the subfolder “projects” – standard should be /var/lib/boinc) and try again
  • If boinc still refuses to get tasks because of incompatible system,
    delete the content of the directory /var/lib/boinc/projects/setiathome.berkeley.edu/
    and download setiathome_enhanced and app_info.xml into it
  • Getting absent file or checksum errors? Copy the compiled executable from /usr/local/src/seti_boinc/client (should be named e.g. “setiathome-6.97.armv6l-unknown-linux-gnu“) to /var/lib/boinc/projects/setiathome.berkeley.edu/ as “setiathome_enhanced“. Make sure the app_info.xml is in the same path.
  • At the end you might want to install the boinc-manager (apt-get install boinc-manager). It asks you if it’s supposed to replace existing parts – make sure to select “n” for no.

 

I’ve put together a script you just need to run for compiling and configuring boinc+setiathome, see below. Of course all credits go to Daniel Carrison, who made the original.
Just download this script: installseti.sh, chmod +x it (chmod +x installseti.sh) and then run it (./installseti.sh).

Now you might want to install boinc-manager via apt-get. Make sure to not replace any existing data!
Next, start BOINC in daemon mode using the daemon parameter; you might also want to add the allow_remote_gui_rpc parameter (uses the password from the file gui_rpc_auth.cfg) to be able to view boincs status on external devices via manager:

boinc --daemon --allow_remote_gui_rpc

Now lookup your account key and add the project to BOINC:

boinccmd --lookup_account http://setiathome.berkeley.edu my@email.com password
boinccmd --project_attach http://setiathome.berkeley.edu thekeyyoujustgot

Again – running boinc or boinccmd must be done in /var/lib/boinc folder!
If you did all correctly, Seti@home will now start to work after a few downloads (e.g. check CPU usage with “top”).
This is the time to start the boinc-manager on your favorite GUI.
If you prefer viewing BOINC in console, kill it (killall boinc) and start it undaemonized (boinc).

Please leave a comment if this isn’t working for you or you’re experiencing any issues.
For possible issues and fixes, please scroll up to my notes.
Of course I’d also be happy about any positive feedback :)

Bookmark and Share

Quake 1, 2 and 3 for Android

  By Dunkel85 | February 3, 2013 - 12:07 | ,
Leave a comment

If you need the game data, download the original games e.g. from piratebay:
http://thepiratebay.se/search/quake/0/7/0

 

Bookmark and Share

Theme Hospital for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android

  By Dunkel85 | February 3, 2013 - 11:49 | ,
Leave a comment

Theme Hospital ScreenshotFinally the opensource remake of Bullfrog’s “Theme Hospital” is available for Android as well, after it was only available for Win, Mac and Linux before:

Download for Win, Mac, Linux:
http://code.google.com/p/corsix-th/downloads/list

Download for Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.armedpineapple.cth&hl=en
http://www.armedpineapple.co.uk/downloads/?category=1&sortby=date

Download for Android incl. Game Data:
http://hmastuff.com/android/topapps/themehospital-full.apk

Bookmark and Share

Why uploading to one hoster when there’s multi-uploading?

  By Dunkel85 | January 29, 2013 - 20:27 |
Leave a comment

Why would you want to upload just to e.g. Rapidshare or uploaded.to, when there’s websites and tools that upload your files simultaneously to multiple, even hundreds of hosters?

You might already know places like multiupload.com, mirrorcreator.com or flashmirrors.com – all pretty good, but limit the amount of used mirrors in some way.
(check this link for more web-based multi-uploaders)

Also take a look at this 2 tools – they allow you to upload your files to hundreds of different file-hosting services automatically:

Bookmark and Share

USB drives mounted on Raspberry Pi via Samba – but why read-only?

  By Dunkel85 | January 10, 2013 - 22:45 | ,
Leave a comment

When plugging in your USB drives (or sticks) into the Raspberry Pi, they get automatically mounted and are accessible. So far, so good. The next step is to make them accessible over the networ, even for Windows PCs. Here are 2 good tutorials on how to do that (I personally had to mix them to get it working):

Unfortunately my drives were mounted read-only, and when I wanted to change that via Webmin, my commands were refused.

Googled a while, the trick was this:

  1. Install ntfs-3g (apt-get install ntfs-3g)
  2. Modify /etc/fstab like this (nano /etc/fstab):

Before:

/dev/sda1       /media/Serien   ntfs user,dev,errors=continue,relatime,mft_zone_multiplier=1,fmask=0177,nosuid,dmask=077,exec,nls=utf8 0       0

After:

/dev/sda1       /media/Serien   ntfs-3g user,dev,errors=continue,relatime,mft_zone_multiplier=1,fmask=0177,nosuid,dmask=077,exec,nls=utf8,uid=pi,gid=pi 0       0

So by changing “ntfs” to “ntfs-3g” and adding “uid=pi,gid=pi” and lastly, rebooting the Raspberry Pi I was finally able to write on my HDs and sticks.

Bookmark and Share

Finally a working Bitcoin-Miner for Android!

  By Dunkel85 | January 10, 2013 - 17:25 | ,
4 Comments

Even when it’s just a few dozen kilohashes you’ll get with this miner, it’s still a nice project.
And with improving hardware and improving of the miners code, I’m sure there will be even more possible.

The code of LTCMiner can be found here -> https://github.com/LTCMiner/LTCMiner

Bookmark and Share

Finally a working BOINC-client on Android

  By Dunkel85 | January 10, 2013 - 17:18 | ,
Leave a comment

Finally there is a working BOINC-client for Android. And not just one of this useless managers that just display your work status from another device. A real BOINC-client!

Even Seti@home is working on it since 28th March 2013!

Bookmark and Share

Total Video Converter + Ultra Video Converter

  By Dunkel85 | January 8, 2013 - 01:57 |
Leave a comment

There are plenty of video converter apps out there, but the best are certainly Ultra Video Converter (Win) and Total Video Converter (Win); simply because they support all video and audio formats on the market, are small and easy to use. I recommend to just install both, in case the converting result of one is not as expected.

Total Video Converter HD 3.71: Magnet + Multiupload + MirrorCreator + FlashMirrors

Ultra Video Converter 5.1.0108: Magnet + Multiupload + MirrorCreator + FlashMirrors

 

Total + Ultra Video Converter

Bookmark and Share

Anonymous email inbox + anonymous email sending

  By Dunkel85 | December 31, 2012 - 10:50 |
Leave a comment

There’s different approaches to fetch and send emails as anonymously as possible, for example trashmail-services and anonymous mailer applications.

Unfortunately trash-mail services usually can’t be used via POP3/IMAP and so are only web-based; but the best anonymous email inbox service is for sure the one from HideMyAss, since it offers the most features (like auto-expiration and notification emails): https://hidemyass.com/anonymous-email/

Emails sent with anonymous mailer apps usually never arrive because they are considered spam somewhere along the way. But I found a working one, which delivered all my test emails properly: the Mixminion Message Sender: mms.zip (Website)

Anonymous Mailer HideMyAss Anonymous Email
Ahya, and for anonymous browsing there’s of course the webproxy: http://proxy.hmastuff.com
Bookmark and Share

IP and system-check

  By Dunkel85 | December 29, 2012 - 12:39 |
Leave a comment

You should be aware that your browser reveals much information about you – see below for some examples (turn off AdBlock if you don’t see anything). For how it’s done, check the sourcecode. You can use browser-addons like Ghostery (Firefox + Chrome) and NoScript (Firefox) / NotScript (Chrome) to stop your browser from giving away this and other information.

Bookmark and Share

New place for HideMyAss-related and general tools + apps

  By Dunkel85 | December 25, 2012 - 13:15 |
Leave a comment
All available general and HideMyAss-related tools and apps are now to be found on the page “HideMyAss Apps & Tools” as displayed here ->

Just in case you were wondering where the tools

  • Quicklink-Traytool
  • Windows PPTP + L2TP Dialer
  • OpenVPN GUI Login-Tool
  • IP and VPN-Check
  • Random Server Connector
  • WebProxy Browser
  • UNrouting Utility
  • HMA-TrayTool

have gone… :)

 
Bookmark and Share

Easily installing Firefox, SeaMonkey and Thunderbird on Debian

  By Dunkel85 | December 23, 2012 - 22:23 |
1 Comment

There are plenty of different ways to install Firefox on Linux – which you should do, since Iceweasel or other standard-browsers keep crashing or just don’t have the same functionality. However, the easiest way is to just run this in terminal:

apt-get remove iceweasel
echo -e "\ndeb http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/ubuntuzilla/mozilla/apt all main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com C1289A29
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install firefox-mozilla-build
sudo apt-get install thunderbird-mozilla-build
sudo apt-get install seamonkey-mozilla-build
apt-get install firefox-mozilla-build

Check the Ubuntuzilla project for a how-to of installing Thunderbird, Seamonkey, etc.

 

Bookmark and Share

How to make sure your visitors see your page, even when it’s offline – with simple JavaScript

  By Dunkel85 | December 22, 2012 - 18:31 |
Leave a comment

Let’s imagine you want to make sure that your webpage is always available, even when your webhost is offline. I always wondered if that can be achieved with simple Frames and Framebreakers. Then I tried it – it works! :)

Example: You have website A on some webhost, while website B is hosted on a server. Now you’re playing around with your server and sometimes it might be offline for a while. How would you automatically forward visitors of website B to website A in these cases?

Create a simple index.html with a frameset and either put it on the webhost, or on a third host – where you could then just let your domain point to:

<html><head>
<title>Online-check</title></head>
<frameset rows="0,0">
  <frame src="http://mywebhost.com/mypage" name="page_a">
  <frame src="http://myserver.com/mypage" name="page_b">
    </body></frameset>
</html>

As you see, the index.html contains a invisible frameset of 2 frames, from which one leads to the webhost, and one to the webserver. Important is now that both pages contain a framebreaker in the body:

<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript" LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> 
  <!-- 
   if(top.frames.length > 0) top.location.href=self.location; 
  // --> 
</SCRIPT>

This will result in showing the visitor only the page which is currently online, since the framebreaker of the offline page will not work.
Of course when both pages are online, the visitor will see the page that loads faster. So you can either use this to show the visitor the fastest of both pages, or the page that is currently online.

Bookmark and Share

Learning MacOS X with Leopard 10.5.5 on VMware Workstation

  By Dunkel85 | December 21, 2012 - 14:05 |
Leave a comment

If you worked all your life on Windows computers, and then suddenly encounter a Mac system – this might be problematic, especially if you’re supposed to know basic Mac stuff; e.g. for Work or when you suddenly find yourself on a Mac via remote desktop. That’s why it’s a good idea to train yourself a bit on a virtual machine. Unfortunately I was unable to get newer MacOSX versions running, only Leopard worked out-of-the-box. Downloads below:

Download MacOSX 10.5.5
Leopard VMWare Image:

 

Download VMware Workstation
v8.0.1.528992 incl. Keygen:

 Mac OSX Leopard VMware
Bookmark and Share

South Park – Censored Episodes S05E03 + 200 + 201 – Share and seed it, because censorship sucks!

  By Dunkel85 | December 20, 2012 - 22:19 |
Leave a comment

Unfortunately 3 South Park episodes are not available on the (international!!) South Park – pages. So you have to download them via torrent, or watch them here :) Mohammed

South Park – S05E04 – “Super Best Friends”: Magnet Link + Torrent + Watch online
Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny discover David Blaine, magician and cult leader, performing in the streets of South Park. Stan finds out early that the Blainiacs are not as nice as everyone thinks. He tries to convince the other boys they’ve been brainwashed, but they have forsaken their friends and families. Teaming up with Jesus, Stan calls upon all the Super Best Friends to destroy the magician and thwart the mass suicide pact he has launched.

South Park – 200: Magnet Link + Alt. Magnet Link + Watch online
This show marked South Park’s 200th episode. Led by Tom Cruise, two hundred celebrities, previously ridiculed by the town of South Park, file a class action lawsuit. They demand immunity from ever being made fun of again. When Stan begs them to accept his apology, they offer impossible terms and the boys ask the Super Best Friends for help.

South Park – 201: Magnet Link + Watch online
In the exciting conclusion to this two-part blockbuster celebrating South Park’s 200th episode, angry celebrities, violent ginger kids, and Mecha Streisand face off against the Super Best Friends and the South Park faithful. It’s a destructive battle on the largest scale, but all everyone wants to know is, “Who is Eric Cartman’s father?”

You can watch them online and download here -> Banned South Park Episodes @ HTML5 MP4 Player

Bookmark and Share

CPanel vs. Webmin

  By Dunkel85 | December 19, 2012 - 14:05 |
Leave a comment

I’m currently considering getting a $15 CPanel license for my server, since installing it as CPanel vs. Webminsome cracked version didn’t work.

Up till now I’ve been using Webmin, which actually offers the same functionality as CPanel – but it’s just not as nice and easy.

For those who don’t know Webmin, check it out: http://www.webmin.com/deb.html

Quick install – just run:
apt-get install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl apt-show-versions python && wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin_1.620_all.deb && dpkg –install webmin_1.620_all.deb

Together with Virtualmin and Usermin you can do any server-related administrative actions that you need.

Bookmark and Share

Switching from Gnome to LXDE? Good idea.

  By Dunkel85 | December 16, 2012 - 11:30 |
2 Comments

When I was using Gnome3 on Debian-Wheezy, I experienced the issue that gnome kept creating new processes of “gdm-simple-slave” – hundreds of them, slowing my server down extremely.
I was unable to find the cause of this issue, however, bugs like that are to be expected when using Wheezy. So I decided to try LXDE again. On my previous attempt this was problematic, because tightvncserver refused to work with it and kept bringing me to my old Gnome desktop – although I followed instructions to reconfigure tightvncserver correctly. Now I gave it another try, with different instructions. It worked – now I’m happily using LXDE on my server, instead of gnome. And that infinite-process problem is gone. Here’s how to:

LXDE DesktopRemove GNOME:
apt-get purge gnome*

Install LXDE and tightvncserver if not done yet:
apt-get install tightvncserver lxde

Edit the vnc config with e.g. nano:
nano /root/.vnc/xstartup

In nano, uncomment the line
/etc/X11/xsession
so it looks like this:
#/etc/X11/xsession

At the end, add this lines:
icewm &
lxsession

Save. When now running
tightvncserver
and connecting to your server,
you should see your LXDE desktop. Have fun!

Bookmark and Share

German crime series: Autopsie – Mysteriöse Todesfälle + Medical Detectives + Quincy

  By Dunkel85 | December 13, 2012 - 18:21 |
Leave a comment

For all German-speaking fans of series like Autopsie, Medical Detectives, Akte Mord, Ungeklärte Morde, etc. and Quincy here some fine downloads and links (all German):

Bookmark and Share

Setting up virtual machines on your dedicated server with Proxmox

  By Dunkel85 | December 13, 2012 - 17:50 |
3 Comments

As you may know, you can easily afford the costs of a dedicated server by just creating virtual machines on it for yourself and your friends. Just rent a few additional IPs (usually around 1€/IP), et voila! Everyone has his own server.

The easiest method to achieve this is using Proxmox – I’d prefer that over VMware, Xen etc.; A tutorial for setting it up on a existing debian installation can be found here:
http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Install_Proxmox_VE_on_Debian_Squeeze

Something you should know: If you don’t want to fight with the network configuration on both host machine and VMs, better create containers (CTs) instead of virtual machines (VMs). Although you then may be restricted to use Linux distributions and have less possible settings, it will surely save you a lot of stress, time and effort.

And – when creating containers, you’ll most likely do this with templates. Note that proxmox by default seems to only offer 32 bit (i386) templates of various Linux distributions, for whatever reason. Download the 64 bit (amd64) templates to /var/lib/vz/template/cache from http://download2.proxmox.com/appliances/system/ before you create your containers, so you can select the desired template in Proxmox.

Bookmark and Share

Fun things to do with your own dedicated (or virtual private) server

  By Dunkel85 | December 13, 2012 - 17:40 |
Leave a comment

Now that servers have become affordable, everybody can get one. There are quite a few fun things to do with an own server, for example:

  • Mining Bitcoins: Why letting your server idle around, doing nothing? Let it mine bitcoins for you! I’m using ufaminer for this on the bitcoin.cz pool (which seems to be better than deepbit.net in my opinion)
  • Sharing your CPU power: Let your server search for extraterrestrial life in space with Seti@home using boinc-manager
  • Seeding torrents: Why not using the great bandwidth of servers to seed torrents?
  • More fun stuff to do: Running servers for games, SMTP, VPN, DNS, FTP – or be a powerful Gnutella or DC hub, TOR relay etc.

I can recommend dedicated servers at Webtropia and Netrouting. You should always prefer a dedicated server, since virtual private servers usually always have limitations regarding what you’re allowed to do with them, how much CPU power you may use etc.

Bookmark and Share

Your own free Cloud with unlimited space

  By Dunkel85 | September 21, 2012 - 11:11 |
Leave a comment

One annoying fact with Cloud services like Dropbox, Asus Webstorage or box.net is their space limit. Usually its a few GB, which you can extend by referring new users, or you have to pay for it. Mostly more than the space is really worth, and still you cannot save your whole HD on it.

Now there is ownCloud: http://owncloud.org/
It works the same way as Dropbox, and has the same functionality.
Just install it on your webspace (easiest via Softaculous) and configure it.
I recommend getting cheap and good webspace e.g. from namecheap.com

You can get the ownCloud clients for Windows, Mac and Linux
here: http://owncloud.org/sync-clients/
And download the Android client from here: http://hmastuff.com/owncloud.apk

Et voila – you have your own cloud, whose space is only limited by your webspace amount; and since webspace is cheaper (or even free from Zymic) than “usual” cloud services, this is the best way to make your data accessible from anywhere.

Bookmark and Share

Problems compiling JediVCL? Quick fix available!

  By Dunkel85 | September 15, 2012 - 15:19 |
Leave a comment

When installing the JediVCL for Borland Delphi, you might get the following error messages:

Error: \jvcl\run\JvPageSetup.pas(1): Illegal character in input file: ‘ï’ ($EF)
Fatal: JvDlgs.dpk(86): Could not compile used unit ‘..\..\run\JvPageSetup.pas

This can easily be fixed by editing the files JvDialogs.pas and JvPageSetup.pas
 (located in folder \jvcl\run) with NotepadPad++.
In the Notepad++ menu, select “ANSI” under “Encoding” and save the files.

Now try to install JVCL again – should work fine :)
You can also download a fixed JCL+JVCL setup version from here:
JVCL345CompleteJCL231-Build4197_fixed.7z

Edit: This problem seems finally to have been fixed in newer JediVCL versions.

Bookmark and Share

How to fix Clockworkmod Recovery boot loop issue

  By Dunkel85 | June 16, 2012 - 15:02 | ,
55 Comments

In case you installed Clockworkmod Recovery onto your Android device, you might encounter a serious bug that results in booting into Recovery each time. The only way to get into your system is a “cold-boot” (keep pressing power+VolDown, then select Android).

A complicated and long way to fix this is explained @ http://goo.gl/RI0sH

But if your device is already rooted, this is much much easier.
Open a terminal window, e.g. with Android Terminal Emulator from
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jackpal.androidterm

Now, enter “su” to get root access. Superuser might ask you for authorization.

Then enter

echo boot | dd of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p3 bs=1 seek=0

(please triple-check for mistyping!!!)

Reboot. Your device should now work normal again.
Hope it worked so easily for you as it did for me on my Transformer TF101G.

ATTENTION:

  • As you can read in the comments to this blog post, using this method works great for some devices, while it seems to have resulted in a soft-brick for other devices (e.g. SGS+) I strongly recommend to first research the web for alternative ways to fix the bootloop issue which are ESPECIALLY MADE FOR YOUR DEVICE. I also recommend to collect links to unbrick tutorials (see xda forums, Google and Youtube), so you immediately have some tools ready to unbrick your device.
  • The “cold-boot” way to get into your system (as described in this blog post) is only available for certain devices, like the ASUS Transformer 101(g). Some custom recovery systems also have a terminal-feature that you could try to run the command on. If your device does not offer a cold-boot or any way to get into terminal-mode, your options are
    a) try all wipe/format/reset options within Clockworkmod Recovery until you’re get into your system again (note that of course all your data will be lost)
    b) download either the original firmware for your device or a custom rom and flash it to your device. You can do this with Clockworkmod Recovery or from your computer via USB, using adb and 3rd party tools. This will also overwrite your bootloader and fix the bootloop issue. For links and downloads, please check all subforums for your device in the xda forums.
Bookmark and Share

Setting up VPN on iOS and Android devices

  By Dunkel85 | April 1, 2012 - 19:41 | ,
2 Comments

Should you experience problems with connecting to a VPN on iOS or Android devices via PPTP protocol, first thing to try would be L2TP protocol. Should you also experience problems here, it’s time to use OpenVPN.

On iOS, you need to have a jailbroken device. On Android devices, there are 2 ways to connect via OpenVPN; one without need of root access using FeatVPN (a tutorial for this will follow) and one where root is needed. Find the instructions here:

Bookmark and Share

Kylix 3.0 Enterprise and Open Edition – Delphi for Linux

  By Dunkel85 | April 1, 2012 - 19:27 |
Leave a comment

Ever tried Kylix 3.0 Enterprise or Open Edition for Linux? If yes, tell me how you managed to install it – it seems to be just incompatible with newer Linux distros… according to my trials and lots of sources on the web.

Download Kylix 3 Enterprise here:

Download Kylix 3 Open Edition here:

Bookmark and Share

iPad? Never-ever again!

  By Dunkel85 | March 30, 2012 - 22:22 | ,
1 Comment

After I bricked 2 Android tablets, I decided to give the “New iPad” (iPad3) a try.
That was the first and last time I bouth an apple product. Here just one of many cons:

  • no built-in file explorer
  • not possible to download free apps without giving out billing info
  • too small (below 10 inch)
  • password must be entered every few clicks
  • iOS is for newbies and children, not for advanced users
  • not really customizable

Good, old, customizable Android. How I miss it! Ergo – never buy an Apple product!

If you need to decide – I can not recommend those cheap tablets like the Viewsonic 10s – they easily get broken and can’t even be reset’ed. Better get the Asus Transformer TF101G – it’s worth the money!

Bookmark and Share