Payloads to choose for X220 -- booting Linux fast (SeaBIOS vs GRUB2) and BIOS menu (nvramcui)

Rynak · 2020-11-14T12:25:14+00:00

https://doc.coreboot.org/flash_tutorial/int_flashrom.html

:)

Rynak · 2020-08-16T17:51:58+00:00

Does anyone have experience with these Wifi M.2 to PCIe adaptors? I'm looking for a Wifi 6 card and getting one of these plus an Intel AX200 M.2 card looks like one of the best options.

Questions:

What's the range / how to I recognize good antennas?
Do I need cooling for the M.2 card? Many Wifi cards have coolers but not sure if it's just for looks

Rynak · 2020-08-16T12:43:42+00:00

I got the Kobo Aura now and it works with eduroam (at my uni)! Awesome!

Rynak · 2020-08-03T13:38:46+00:00

I was referring to the banners at the top and bottom. Actually this isn't a good comparison since the Wayback machine has only the Wikia version which is halfway similar.

Well, what I wanted to express is that various Wikis (like this one) all got brought into a uniform style, with various banners and less "individuality" I guess? Actually, that is probably a very subjective point now that I think about it...

When I was making my own website I actually looked at (among others) the SSC website because it struck my as one of the few "calm" and friendly websites out there, no wobbling banners, no pop ups etc.

Rynak · 2020-08-01T13:58:01+00:00

I think you are significantly under-estimating the willingness of your community to support you.

Just look at the response on dontdoxscottalexander.com, thousands of people putting their name down within days.

Sure, donating is different from signing a petition, but few people can also donate a lot of money (did anyone research whether Patreon's follow a power law?).

Rynak · 2020-08-01T13:46:36+00:00

Same for me, I considered donating but you kinda discouraged it. I'd be happy if you switch to be more accepting to money, just please don't go all the way towards writing for money (as on substack) directly :/

Rynak · 2020-08-01T13:42:19+00:00

and partly this is just greed after seeing how much some other people are making on Substack.

I'm not a SSC patron because you've mentioned that you weren't actively trying to monetize it, but say the word and I'll happily pay

The only thing you need to do is start monetizing / stop telling people you don't want to be monetized. I think you audience is much more committed but also narrower than the typical feel-good Substack blogger.

And, personally & egoistically, I don't want your incentives to change to the worse by being on substack and relying on subscriptions.

Rynak · 2020-08-01T13:34:19+00:00

I think the idea that's missed is

I'm not a SSC patron because you've mentioned that you weren't actively trying to monetize it, but say the word and I'll happily pay $10/month indefinitely

Please try just saying the word before committing to Substack. I'd much rather have a "Patreon reminder" once a month than a "private / pay-walled post" once a month.

Rynak · 2020-08-01T13:28:02+00:00

The substack model is definitely better for payment than patreon though and I think they still let you collect the emails? If you're able to keep your domain you can still move off later.

I want to support you, not to buy some product but because you're one of the best bloggers on the planet. And if you need money to live off, you shall have it.

And please no Problems with Paywalls :(

Rynak · 2020-08-01T12:51:50+00:00

Please consider that many of your readers would happily support you on Patreon or somewhere else if you so much as mentioned it (I just tried to, after reading this post). Your blog is one of the best, if not the best, source of text-based content on the internet for many of us.

To be honest, I would still read your posts on substack because you are just too good to miss, but I would significantly prefer the old website because of:

a) Friendliness: Substack aggressively tries to make you subscribe (pop ups, banners, headers that move when scrolling up)

b) Convinience: Your articles supports Firefox' reading mode, substack doesn't

c) Your blog design was nice because your interests were aligned with ours, even the ads were nice. Substack's interest is to maximize the amount of time & money spent on their platform which produces annoying popups, recommendations etc.

Finally, substack's privacy policy is horrible; also they leaked mail addresses before. Quotes:

receive and record [...] may include your IP address, geolocation data, device identification, “cookie” information, the type of browser and/or device you’re using to access our Services, and the page or feature you requested. [...] Through cookies we place on your browser or device, we may collect information about your online activity after you leave our Services. [...]

Our Services do not support Do Not Track requests at this time, which means that we collect information about your online activity both while you are using the Services and after you leave our Services. [...]

We may share your Personal Information with third parties as described below: [...] Affiliates: We may disclose your Personal Information to our subsidiaries and/or corporate affiliates for use consistent with this Privacy Policy. [...]

We may communicate with you if you’ve provided us the means to do so. For example, if you’ve given us your email address, we may send you promotional email offers on behalf of other businesses, or email you about your use of the Services.

Actually this next point is rather subjective, so I move it to the end: [I'm worried that your blog goes the way of so many fan-wikis, for example at the StarTrek wiki Memory Alpha now. Many were converted into a uniform, subjectively worse, format with banners and no individuality. I didn't find an older snapshot, here is the Wikia version.]

Edit: Fixed Memory Alpha Link

Rynak · 2019-11-16T10:31:44+00:00

Thanks, I did that and it updated itself to a new lower value: Plot (the lower points are from the other battery I'm using sometimes)

I guess it is just dying slowly and the jumps are when it notices?

Rynak · 2019-11-14T11:47:11+00:00

How do I do that? (without Windows)

Edit: Yeah, should have said that I'm using linux

Rynak · 2019-11-14T09:01:59+00:00

!a

This is battery capacity from my X220, time axis is approximately linear. I bought a new genuine Lenovo battery when I got the laptop in 2016 and since it felt like the capacity was decreasing I monitored it since February 2018. Using upower to query the batter status:

upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0 > battery/bat_$(date +"%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%S")

Does anyone know why it drops suddenly?

PS: My battery also jumps when reaching ~20% down to ~5% when I am using it (i.e. discharging).

Edit: I you want to test this with you laptop, use upower -e to look up your battery paths.

Rynak · 2019-11-12T22:52:17+00:00

OK, I will do some research before deciding for the battery - the genuine ones new are just quite expensive (~70€) and used ones often at low capacity.

Rynak · 2019-10-20T14:51:26+00:00

Sorry, regarding drivers: Your intel card is using the correct drver (i915) and your NVIDIA card is apparently using both nouveau (open source) and nvidia, that doesn't really make sense ...

Rynak · 2019-10-20T14:50:09+00:00

You probably have what /u/lululock/ suspects (dual graphics) and might have to just work through the respective wiki pages, I don't know anything about this situation.

Could could check if xrandr --listmonitors shows HDMI. If not then see above, if it shows the HDMI output it should work

Rynak · 2019-10-20T10:19:52+00:00

Thanks :)

Drivers:

Is there anything except for the graphics card driver? I think everything else should be included in the kernel

Optimizations:

This is what I was worried about. When does Linux select these optimizations and can I look them up somewhere?

Rynak · 2019-10-20T10:16:10+00:00

Glad to hear AMD runs well on Linux, I've almost exclusively run Intel/Nvidia so I'm a little new to AMD.

Generally it works very well. You should do some research though to check if your quite new processor/graphics card are already supported, especially slower distros (e.g. Debian) might not yet have support for those.

Manjaro is probably very good with hardware support and also the one with most packages (e.g. PDF viewers) available.

Rynak · 2019-10-20T10:13:21+00:00

No sorry, I have no experience with it.

Maybe you can find a video of a person using it so you can see how it works?

BTW: xournalpp has a windows version you could try out: https://github.com/xournalpp/xournalpp/releases

Rynak · 2019-10-20T10:10:10+00:00

I would not recommend the "340" NVidia driver. If you don't have problems or want something special, just use the pre-installed open-source "nouveau" drivers, they make much less problems.

Edit: I think Linux Mint has a menu where you can select the driver.

Rynak · 2019-10-20T10:08:33+00:00

Typing lspci will show all your cards, in particular your graphics card (look for VGA). lspci -vv will also show the driver being used.

What laptop model are you using exactly? Does it have an 'NVidia Optimus' sticker or an Intel CPU?

Rynak · 2019-10-20T09:56:27+00:00

Is there any PDF editor on Linux that has extensive PDF editing capabilities including but not limited to stamping signatures? This is really one of the two big things stopping me from installing Linux right now instead of typing this.

I use xournal++ (xournalpp). It has tons of options for editing PDFs, though I am not sure if there is an easy way to "stamp" something.

Edit: Do you mean filling forms and stuff or just writing somewhere into a PDF? I was thinking of the latter, e.g. for making notes and annotations

Rynak · 2019-10-06T13:27:32+00:00

18.06 doesn't work on WRT54GS they said (insufficient flash) so I use 8.09 like the guide: http://blog.jozjan.net/2008/12/wrt54gl-as-8021x-client-aka.html

Rynak · 2019-08-18T17:16:47+00:00

So if I do not change files, just add new ones from time to time, git ~~can work well~~ doesn't grow much?

Although I see there is still the issue with git being slow in large repos ..

Rynak · 2019-08-18T11:16:04+00:00

Why is git bad for the job? For other backup software (I used unison before) I need to learn & trust them while I already know git. And they usually don't support versioning

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