Category Archives: Hardware

Hardware database for Linux

A nice website : http://hardware4linux.info/ Whith the provided script, you can upload your hardware information there and quickly rate your experience with it (for each equipment it detected). I just did it for my laptop and will go on with my other machines. It will probably become an interesting database.

Measure the access time of your Hard Disk…

There is a nice script to measure the access time of your disk.

Is it a good idea to buy a substitute battery ?

I had been long wondering how are these subsitute batteries that you can find all around the web and why there are so cheap compared to the laptop constructor ones.
I was affraid about the quality, the design and even the safety.
I often buy substitute ink for my printer, but that is not exactly the same kind of thing nor the same price.

Final upgrade of my laptop

For Christmas, I got a new hard drive for my laptop. As all accessories for laptops, it is rather expensive. But still less expensive and extravagant than buying a new computer when you don’t really need a big CPU power. My goal was not having a huge capacity, but rather speed and reliability.

OpenVPN and DNS on a linux client

I got a weired issue with Linux clients while it worked fine with Windows machines. For some reason, the /etc/resolv.conf did not get updated.

I found out a workaround thanks to this page.

Of course, your server configuration file must contain (if 192.168.1.1 is your DNS server):

push "dhcp-option DNS 192.168.1.1"

buying a new laptop or upgrading to 1Gb RAM ?

I just upgraded my laptop from 512 Mb of RAM to 1 Gb.

Well, I was expecting quite a lot from this upgrade. I am using an Ubuntu 6.10 OS and having a dozen of applications running at the same time : Firefox, Liferea, Evolution, Open Office, Skype, Gaim, Beagle, plus a dozen of applets (Tomboy, Mail Notification, Deskbar, etc), small programs or other accessories.