Category Archives: linux

How To Format a Corrupted USB Thumb Drive on Linux

Posted on 2016-05-08 by

There are plenty of how-to pages on formatting a thumb drive on Linux, but most don’t show the fool proof way of doing it. After using a thumb drive in the Nintendo Wii, my son was convinced that it could … Continue reading →

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Decoding Linux File Names in Python

Posted on 2015-02-09 by

One of the many problems I ran into while hacking muse, the music library management program I’ve been writing, is that some bands include non ASCII characters in their names, and these are used inconsistently. For example, Blue Öyster Cult is … Continue reading →

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Linux Mint on the HP G62

Posted on 2015-01-04 by

While I’m waiting for the Goop to dry on my Gateway laptop, I decided to rescue an old HP G62 laptop that had a virus ridden copy of Windows on it. Mint installed without problems. When I repartitioned the hard … Continue reading →

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Goodbye, Ubuntu; Hello, Mint and Debian!

Posted on 2014-08-15 by

Ubuntu 13 on my Gateway laptop was always flakey, so when Canonical announced the 13 had reached its end of life, I decided I’d try the upgrade to 14, which has long term support (LTS). Unfortunately, the upgrade went horribly … Continue reading →

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Mounting the WDTV Live Hub from Linux

Posted on 2014-03-09 by

To mount the drive on my WDTV Live Hub on my Linux box: Ran: sudo apt-get install cifs-utils Ran: sudo mkdir /mnt/wdtvlivehub Looked up the IP address on the hub’s network configuration screen Ran: sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.0.113/wdtvlivehub /mnt/wdtvlivehub -o … Continue reading →

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Goodbye, Unity, Hello Classic Gnome

Posted on 2013-12-27 by

After installing Ubuntu 13.10, replacing the Windows 8 that came preinstalled on my new Gateway laptop, it was time to ditch Unity and get a decent desktop up and running. First step was to install Gnome. After logging out, I … Continue reading →

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New Laptop: Time to Install Linux

Posted on 2013-12-26 by

Got a brand new Gateway laptop for Xmas. It came preinstalled with Windows 8. I haven’t run Windows for years. So step 1 is to install Linux. I decided to stick with Ubuntu, which is what I’ve been running on … Continue reading →

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Fixing Ubuntu 12.04’s UI

Posted on 2013-06-29 by

At home, I run Ubuntu 12.04. I didn’t like the Unity desktop, so I switched back to Gnome. I found there are still a lot of things that had changed for the worse. Here are some of them and how … Continue reading →

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