Creating a hard link to a directory/folder in mac os

Install Piffle: 

   brew install coreutils

The you can just create the link: 

    sudo gln -d existing_dir new_hard_link

Deleting is a different story: if you go about it the usual way to delete directories, you'll delete the contents. So you must "unlink" the directory:

    unlink  new_hard_link

F.lux for Ubuntu 15.x - blocking out blue light to improve sleep and reduce headaches

Getting strained eyes from looking at your screen too long? F.lux adapts your screen display to the time of day by blocking out the blue light. Blocking out blue light supposibly has lots of benefits including improved sleep, reduced adhd symptoms and many more. See this page for more info. Installing f.lux on ubuntu is easy:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:blackmage/f.lux; sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install -y fluxgui

If the gui fails for you, you can get it to work via terminal: xflux You might also want to give Redshift a try.

Dell xps13 (2015) - updates and bios flashing

I got a new Dell xps13 (2015), thinking it would work with linux as well as my beloved old xps13. Unfortunately... that was not the case...

After struggling with OpenSuse installers and lack of touchpad fixes (my favourite distro of all time), I felt defeated and installed Kubuntu.

I must admit a lot of things worked out of the box with ubuntu. Except for:

- flashing screen
- touchpad going crazy
- repeated keys
- battery draining fast
- kernel panics



I struggled for days to find a way to update the firmware (I use grub as a bootloader and had turned UEFI off somehow to be able to boot usb disks). Then, when I had given up, I stumbled upon this extremely easy method: http://askubuntu.com/questions/100945/how-do-i-update-the-bios-of-a-dell-laptop

1. Download the WIndows/DOS BIOS installer for your hardware from dell.com
2. Download the latest SystemRescueCD and burn it to a blank CD or install it to a USB flash drive. http://www.sysresccd.org/Sysresccd-manual-en_How_to_install_SystemRescueCd_on_an_USB-stick
3. Copy the Windows/DOS BIOS installer to a FAT formatted USB stick or the one that you installed the SystemRescueCD on.
4. Boot from the CD or flash drive.
5. Choose to boot from FreeDOS in the floppy images menu.
6. Make sure you do NOT load HIMEM and EMM386 memory managers.
7. Change to the USB stick (typically C: if you do not have any FAT partitions on your HDD). Remember to change, just type: "C:"
8. Run the installer

The touchpad is still abit crazy. Each time I scroll, a right mouse click happens. Why? Sometimes the mouse gets stuck in "clicked" mode. And I see some flashes around my screen... I hope a new update of either ubuntu or dell bios fixes this soon. 

UPDATE

I couldn't take it anymore, so I did a fresh install after the firmware upgrade. All was fine, until I installed chrome and oracle java 8. The computer seems to flip on everything with java... I'll keep you updated what I figure out, installed openjdk 1.8 for now and removed chrome. Will investigate further.  

UPDATE2

The kubuntu updates seem to have fixed the  jumping cursor problem. Finally! 

Remaining issues: the system is unstable, it crashes often when I click on the wifi icon; vlc doesn't work properly due to a qt5 problem (haven't figured that out yet); battery seems to drain when I close the lid; I I close the lid with external monitor connected everything flips and keeps running... 
 

Internet speed test from terminal

wget -O /dev/null http://speedtest.wdc01.softlayer.com/downloads/test10.zip

> to download a 10M file. 

install hp network printer in linux

If you know the network address of your printer it is very to install it through cups. If you don't have the network address try to ping it first or ask your network administrator.

Install hplib on your system, it should be included in the repository and it includes a very useful hp command line tool.

>> hp-makeuri yourip

This will give you a url like such:
 
hp:/net/HP_LaserJet_600_M602?ip=xx.xx.xx.xx

Go to cups and add a printer. Choose any of the protocal types and give in the above url. Voila! It is as simple as that!

Installing OpenSuse 13.1 on Dell XPS13 Ultrabook

Following up on my original OpenSuse 12.3 installation on this fantastic laptop, I decided to perform a new install of the latest OpenSuse (13.1). As usual I kept my home partition and reformatted my /.

Everything works out of the box. Even (and finally) the multitouchpad. Full resolution even when my external screen is added. WiFi worked immediately. Also the screen brightness adjustment keys work (perhaps due to my fix that was still in place, see here).

Only pitfal so far: my webcam is not responding and cheese stays black. Will find a fix for that : ) I could use it in a google hangout yesterday though, don't know where this sudden lag comes from.

Follow fixes for the webcam here.

Installing Picasa 3.9 on OpenSuse Linux through Wine (and fixing google web logon)

I love using picasa from Google, as I miss the multiple select tool in Digicam. Altough facebook upload is still missing (I think at least), I wanted to reinstall picasa. Unfortunately, google discontinued the linux version, so I installed the latest version with wine.

1. Download picasa 3.9 (or latest version) for windows and open it with wine:

  wine picasa39-setup.exe

2. This actually already works quite good, except for the google login features, which is quite essential if you want to share your pictures. To fix that, you need winetricks to install ie6. On OpenSuse, this is already included in Wine. If you have an older wine version, you might want to look for it separately.

3. Download msie60.exe, place it in /root/.cache/winetricks/ie6

4. If you have a 64 bit system, you need this extra tweeking step:  

  env WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/.google/picasa/3.0/ winetricks ie6

Otherwise, on 32 bit systems, just use winetricks ie6