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Showing posts from September, 2015

Raspberry Pi2 Serial-to-USB Connection on Linux

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      Raspi2 Serial In order to connect the raspberry pi 2 to a PC running Linux one must first obtain a "USB-to-TTL" Serial Debugging cable; certain precautions need to be made when selecting the appropriate cable: it should use 3.3V logic levels to avoid frying your board Since GPIO headers are not adjacent, it should have separated cables for each pin https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/usage/gpio-plus-and-raspi2/README.md http://elinux.org/RPi_Serial_Connection

Samsung Printer Scanner on Linux

Once again, I've been made to feel as just another outcast in the information age of script-kiddies and spreadsheet warriors; yet another instance of a corporation neglecting Linux users with lacking software support and drivers for their devices.  As in most other cases, the linux community provides their own workaround in this instance as well; namely, the SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) backend and libraries for the Samsung CLX-3185 Multifunction Printer/Scanner device.  The Samsung support website claims to offer a "Universal Linux Driver", but that's just a smokescreen created by the ineffective binaries and poorly constructed installation scripts from Samsung.  Notwithstanding, the SANE backend implementation isn't perfect  either--as there are still issues with certain System setups, USB 3.0, or simply non-supported devices--but it's far better integrated into the Linux ecosystem.  It can be very frustrating not being able to complete an important tas

CPU Fan Control on ThinkPad Laptop

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop that occasionally displays error messages about "Hardware events/THERMAL EVENTS" during times of high CPU usage.  This is a scary set of messages in the journal logs that could prophecy a short life span of the CPU if neglected; at times I've suspected that it may have been the culprit of system crashes, though, I won't go into further details on that here. It's worth noting that the performance improves and error messages subside after one disassembles the laptop and cleans out the heat sink; maybe even properly applies a fresh coat of thermal compound on it.  This improvement, however, never lasts too long as the dust accumulates within the heatsink area again. I can recall reading anecdotal evidence of this problem from other ThinkPad owners on the Lenovo forums and other places when I first came across these scary messages on my system.  Those owners running Linux on their laptops offered explanations a