Linux Mint or Ubuntu on a HP Zbook 15 G2?

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Because Windows 10 is the latest official supported version, I managed a Windows 11 version. But in preparation for my mothers pc with Windows 10 for the occasional bigger screen and printjob I decided to test both on the Zbook. Mostly my mother uses her iPad and sometimes a bigger screen comes in handy. Investing in a new Windows pc would be overkill.

Ubuntu installed flawless on the Zbook, but the surprise was after installing: no automatic booting. The rEFInd Boot Manager by Roderick W. Smith – https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/index.html – came to the rescue; installing rEFInd and setting Ubuntu as first made it automatically boot. Then came shutting down in the docking station de Zbook usually resides: after shutting down the Zbook powered on again!

Time to try Linux Mint and guess what: same issues. Workaround for now is

efibootmgr -n 0004

Being automatically executed by cron after booting, entry 4 is Linux Mint.

Powering on after shutting down is resolved with installing laptop-mode-tools as advised on https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=199810. For now I use the Zbook with Linux Mint with the main reason that Firefox is installed as a system package, not as a snap.

Another difference is the size of the ISO’s:

  • 2,8 GB for the linuxmint-22.1-cinnamon-64bit iso
  • 6 GB for the ubuntu-24.04.2-desktop-amd64 iso

“Great margin” with LTO-4!

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1/8 G2 tape library
The tape library with LTO-4 drive

Again at last! Short version: synchronise files with a qcow2 image on a USB 3 connected drive and write the qcow2 image to tape.

For quite some time I’m making backups to LTO tapes; first LTO-1, then LTO-3 and with my Z800 for about 5 years on LTO-4. With an uncompressed capacity of 800 GB.
To identify the tape in the drive library tape tools – ltt – by HPE is used and recorded to a database. For some time the speed wasn’t what it used to be. To rule individual file issues the backup is put on an intermediate qcow2 image and the qcow2 image is written to tape. Updating the qcow2 image is done with rsync. The qcow 2 image is on a NFS share. The NFS share is hosted by a ProLiant DL380p Gen8 running up to date Debian. Still the backup speed is not optimal and the ltt report shows “insufficient margin”. Remarkable during writing to tape is that the network speed is a period almost the full 1 Gbps alternated by a period about half that speed.

The very first qcow2 image was created on a USB 3 connected drive and then copied to the NFS share. In an attempt to see if the USB 3 connected drive would make a difference copying to tape compared with the NFS share I tried that. First i copied the qcow2 image to the USB 3 connected drive with an average speed of 100 MB/s.

Low and behold! Tar reported: Total bytes written: 386708152320 (361GiB, 81MiB/s). The subsequent tape had about same speed. Yes, I’m happy with the backup! Yes, now and then i do a restore test. Also an advantage of the intermediate qcow2 image is that an individual file can be restored faster.

If someone can explain this network speed behavior, you are very welcome! The network speed is between 2 ProLiant DL380p Gen8’s, but also between the Z800 and a ProLiant DL380p Gen8. Every 44th second there is a network speed drop:

photo of bmon
Import screen copy didn’t catch the 28 MiB TX bps speed

Dutch Jolla

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For a half year I have a Jolla. I use the phone on a daily basis. I like the SailfishOS very much. The 9 latest used apps interactive at the cover:

Thanks to Takahiro HASHIMOTO and localhost the Jolla interface is for a very large part in dutch.

At openrepos I posted 2 comments, first a question about the stability of the translation with an answer of my own. And second a bugreport.

The dutch translation makes the Jolla even more comfortable to use. Not every word shows translated. But it is a very, very good start.

Calendar and settings are very dutch:

Veldmanbrug memorial

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Going through our photo database I came across the original Veldmanbrug memorial plaque:

Original Veldmanbrug memorial plaque

Original Veldmanbrug memorial plaque

Which went missing shortly after the 2012 memorial day. And was replaced with a new one before the 2013 memorial day:

2013 memorial day at the Veldmanbrug

2013 memorial day at the Veldmanbrug

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Veldman bridge is located here:

Location of the Veldman bridge

Location of the Veldman bridge

 

Location in Google maps.

If you ever come across the original memorial plaque; it is stolen property!

Bye bye Nokia E7, hello Samsung Galaxy SII plus

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After more then 2½ years of service my Nokia E7 no longer wanted to charge the battery. After beginning a life on its own; mostly spontanious restarts and lately not wanting to hang up.

Having a Lumia 800 bussiness wise that was not going to be the successor of the E7. Using it on a daily basis as in between the E7 and the Galaxy SII plus made me long back to the E7. For example answering a call take two movements instead of one and it doesn’t have an auto answer function.

A colleague just got a Samsung Galaxy SII plus and was satisfied about it. Most colleageus having a HTC are not very satisfied about there device.

So I am using Linux now mobile as well. First impression of the Galaxy SII plus: good.

Good old Windows XP Freecell, a Windows 8.1 upgrade installation story

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Recently I upgraded my fathers pc with a new motherboard (Gigabyte GA-H77-DS3H), processor (Intel Core i5 3550) and memory. He already had a SSD, housing and power supply are sufficient, being a nice set for Windows 8.1.

The old motherboard was running Windows XP. Updates for Windows XP ends april 8 2014: http://blogs.technet.com/b/security/archive/2013/04/09/the-countdown-begins-support-for-windows-xp-ends-on-april-8-2014.aspx

The Windows 8.1 wouldn’t run on the old motherboard, an upgrade was indeed necessarry. With the new motherboard I run the Windows 8.1 installation twice: I started with internet disconnected so Windows doesn’t ask an online account. Somehow after connection to the internet the password wasn’t accepted… The quickest and cleanest solution was a new installation and that went well.

My parents only use one user account, so I set up an automatic logon with netplwiz, going online apperently affects that. And of course straight to the good old desktop.

My father being a frequent user of Freecell, we were in for a surprise. To get Freecell the “Microsoft Solitaire Collection” app had to be installed and is only useable with a online account. Freecell in the Microsoft Solitaire Collection is slow and enough for my father wanting the old system back.

But low and behold, the good old Windows XP Freecell also runs on Windows 8.1 with the files cards.dll and freecell.exe. They can be found on Windows XP – when installed – in the system32 folder. On a Windows 8.1 32 bit (x86) system that also the place to put the files. On a Windows 8.1 64 bit (x64) system that has to be the SysWOW64 folder.

I have put these 2 files online at http://qatsi.ath.cx/diverse/freecell_xp/
The files can’t saved straight to the system folder, first saved them anywhere Windows allows it and then move the files to the system folder.

Have fun!

Photography

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Coming from the analog photography era, the first payable digital cameras, especially DSLR’s – if there where any, couldn’t compete with analog positive images. And we where very happy with our Olympus and Canon SLR’s.

But analog films wheren’t getting any cheaper, but digital camera’s where. Getting digital photos in a database is also a lot easier.

Reading a good review about the Canon PowerShot S3 IS was the turning point. Not a DSLR but a very nice camera making very nice pictures and quite a zoomrange.

And now we are in the era of DSLR’s; first a Nikon D3000 and later a Nikon D5000.

A telezoom was on my wishlist the moment a had the D3000 and at a certain moment a 200 – 500 Tamron was second hand available and I bought it. It’s quite a big lens, but very nic pictures can be made with it:

Nokia Lumia 800 met Windows Phone 7.8

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Windows Phone 7.8 was installed with Nokia Care Suite, making it a fresh install, no update.

Using it I noticed 3 differences so far:

  • Of course the home screen with smaller / more tiles
  • In WP 7.5 in the locked screen the music buttons where always visible, now only shortly after pressing the power button and the the disappear
  • Nokia maps faces north instead of east

A challenge was making screenshots: http://qatsi.ath.cx/diverse/lumia_2013-01-26.html

All the points mentioned earlier still exist

Nokia Lumia 800 user review

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In this article I’ll write about a Nokia Lumia 800 I have since november 1th. My first impression is that Nokia made a smartphone and what the smartphones can do, it does it well.

A con and pro list very biased by having a Nokia E7:

Cons:

  • no hardware keyboard
  • Internet Explorer behaves peculiar – like since Windows Mobile 6.1; agentstring is “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows Phone OS 7.5; Trident/5.0; IEMobile/9.0; NOKIA; Lumia 800)”
  • OMTP AV connection is incompatible with previous Nokia AV headsets
  • no auto answer, known from the beginning as discussed in Microsoft Community
  • no weeknumbers in the calender
  • can’t pinpoint a location in Nokia drive and “drive to that location”, an address has to be entered to use a location to drive to
  • only contacts can be exchanged via bluetooth, no other data like songs or picture
  • Nokia music and “Music and videos” is confusing they are different ways to access to local stored media
  • no hardwired way or app  to make a screenshot

Pros

  • Complete package: with a cover
  • Without cover the phone is easily held; doesn’t slip through fingers and with cover that is even better
  • earphones with symetrical wires and microphone in wire to right earphone
  • Nokia Drive finds its location fast
  • Voice of Nokia drive talks over bluetooth
  • syncs with Google calendar
  • 8 mp camera is easily accessed when phone is locked: press and hold camera button and camera function becomes active
  • music can be paused or stopped when phone is locked

There are more points and those are the differences between Symbian and Windows phone. For now the Lumia will be used for private use and the E7 for business, or when convenient.