Tag Archives: Linux

Hack of the day: easily configure Linux hosts to reboot once or always without requiring a decryption key

I have LUKS encryption configured on all of my Linux desktops and laptops, which is a pain when I need to reboot one remotely, since it prompts for the decryption key and won’t finish rebooting until the key is entered. To solve, this, I’ve written keyless-entry, which allows the user to easily configure a LUKS-encrypted… Read More »

Hack of the day: using the Google Fi “Messages for Web” app on Linux to open “tel:” links from the browser and elsewhere

Over on Github, I just published some code I wrote to implement support for “tel:” links for Google Fi’s Messages for Web app on Linux. In other words, if you have Google Fi and you use Google’s Messages for Web app on Linux, then once you’ve deployed my solution, if you click on a phone-number… Read More »

How to fix: Google Chrome on Linux always launches in full-screen mode

UPDATE [2020-07-30]: The current version of Chrome has restored the checkbox allowing people to tell Chrome to launch without prompting, so the hack described below is no longer needed. Executive summary If you’re using Google Chrome on Linux and it’s stuck in a state where every time you launch it, it starts in full-screen mode,… Read More »

PenguinDome: new, open-source Linux mobile device management (MDM) solution

Where I work, we have employees who use (in decreasing order of popularity) Mac OS, Windows, and Linux as their desktop computers. We’ve deployed a large, complex remote administration / MDM application for managing the Mac OS and Windows desktops. It’s big and complicated and difficult to maintain. It does much more than we will… Read More »

HOWTO: Converting an unencrypted Ubuntu root disk to encrypted

The best way to configure Ubuntu for an encrypted root filesystem is to tell the installer to do it when you’re installing the operating system. It’s complicated, and smart people have put a lot of effort into making the installer know how to do it properly. Having said that, if you’re an experienced Linux sysadmin… Read More »

Linux: What to do when the oom-killer is being triggered when you have plenty of memory

Does this sound familiar to you? Your Linux box has plenty of memory, but the kernel “oom-killer” keeps getting triggered and killing processes. The stack trace logged by the kernel shows that out_of_memory was triggered inside _do_fork (for me, it was mysqld forks that were triggering the problem; though I’d been running mysqld on my… Read More »

Hack of the day: Pulseaudio / Bluez: Switch headset between A2DP and HSP automatically

If you’ve always wanted the Bluetooth headset you use on Linux to switch from high-fidelity (A2DP) to HSP/HFP Telephony automatically when you start using the microphone, and switch back automatically when you’re done, see this project which I just published on Github. Enjoy!  

Using the Samsung Galaxy S III with Linux

UPDATE [2013/01/08]: As of the recent Galaxy S III update to Jelly Bean (Android 4.1), most of the text below is obsolete. The connect-within-3-seconds limitation appears to no longer exist, and you can connect to and disconnect from the phone multiple times without unplugging and replugging it. I’ve tested mtpfs, go-mtpfs, and simple-mtpfs with my… Read More »