Here is the procedure to boot an Asus x200 (x200ca in my case) from USB (ie. to install Linux on it). While booting, press F2 to enter the bios Go to the “Security” tab and disable “secure boot” In the boot tab, enable CMS and Enable PXE boot In the boot tab, disable fast boot …
Author Archives: Jack
Juno 106 All notes off
The Roland Juno 106 does not have a built-in midi “All notes off” button or function. If you get a stuck or hung note you need to either turn off the synth or use some outside midi tool to send the all notes off command. I did find a work-around though – if you change …
Programming the MFB Tanzbar Lite
Note: If you have not used the Tanzbar Lite for a time, be sure to press the buttons firmly. They seem to not work well when left unused. After a session of use (and firm presses) they should to start working normally again. Like most MFB products, the Tanbar light is a mix of great …
Modifying and rebuilding an RPM from source
This is a topic covered over and over on the internet and yet I can never find the quick guide I need. Here for my notes are how to modify and rebuild an RPM from source. First, download the SRPM and install it: You may see some errors about groups, you can ignore these. You …
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Finding an expired certificate
I had a strange issue today regarding a particular expired certificate on a webserver. The problem was that the server in question was an nginx reverse proxy that proxied many domains and contained many hundreds of certificates. For various, um, “technical reasons”, I could not locate the exact cert that was bad. I only knew …
Creating a simple, quick Borg backup
Here is how to create a simple borg backup. Something more along the lines of a zip file than a careful backup system. I’m using this method for long term storage. The primary benefits are de-duplication and compression. Again, to clarify – these are not backups meant to be updated each day/week/month. These are simply …
Using a private key file with sftp over lftp
I ran into a few issues trying to use a non-default private key file with lftp. Here is how I got it to work: inside ~/.lftprc put The important items are what is passed to the -i option – this should be the private key you want to use. In my example I’m also using …
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Install nc on Ubuntu 16.04
To install nc aka netcat on Ubuntu, type: Simple enough. I added this entry because I noticed many resources reference only netcat and not nc. I thought this might be of help to someone needing “the nc command” without knowing to search for netcat. Enjoy your day.
Slow login and su on Centos 7 (not an ssh or dns problem)
I had a particular Centos 8 box that had very slow logins but over ssh but also using su. The issue was not with dns and ssh. I finally found the problem – or at least the fix (related to systemd, sigh): The server was running inside of openvz so perhaps there were resource issues …
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Reset Centos 8 root password
reboot the server at grub menu, press up/down to pause auto booting select top menu item, press e (to edit) in editing menu, go to end of line starting with “linux” and add “rd.break” press control-x to boot using this edited grub command line when the server starts you should not have to login at …