Ubuntu Category - Page 101 of 195 - CNX Software

August 11, 2019November 27, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Reading ID Card Data in Ubuntu with EZ100PU Smart Card Reader (Thai ID Edition)

I was asked help with configuring a smart card reader on a government computer running Windows 7, but this made me wonder what would happen if I connected the card reader to my Ubuntu laptop and whether I’d be able to read content from a Thai ID card. EZ100PU Smart Card Reader Let’s have a look at the card reader itself first. It’s a FAST ID EZ100PU smart card reader compliant with ISO7816 standard. That’s the product page of the specific model, but a search for EZ100PU only reveals the manufacturer may be InfoThink Technology based on Taiwan. The USB smart card reader comes with a CD that includes drivers for Windows, Linux, Mac OS, and Android, as well as an SDK with a demo program and sample code in C++, Visual Basic .NET, and C#. As we’ll see further below, the Linux driver is not needed as it works […]

August 9, 2019August 15, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 56 Comments

How Do You Handle Backups in Linux? Hardware, Software, Configuration, etc…

Linux EXT-4 File System Corruption & Attempted Recovery There’s a file system corruption bug related to EXT-4 in Linux, and it happened to me a few times in Ubuntu 18.04. You are using your computer normally, then suddenly you can’t write anything to the drive, as the root partition has switched to read-only. Why? Here are some error messages:

[15882.773747] EXT4-fs (dm-4): re-mounted. Opts: (null)
[15898.557605] EXT4-fs error (device dm-4): ext4_iget:4831: inode #2113041: comm rm: bad extra_isize 20100 (inode size 256)
[15898.568305] EXT4-fs error (device dm-4): ext4_iget:4831: inode #2113042: comm rm: bad extra_isize 35148 (inode size 256)
[15898.569774] EXT4-fs error (device dm-4): ext4_lookup:1577: inode #2557277: comm rm: deleted inode referenced: 2113043

[15882.773747] EXT4-fs (dm-4): re-mounted. Opts: (null)

[15898.557605] EXT4-fs error (device dm-4): ext4_iget:4831: inode #2113041: comm rm: bad extra_isize 20100 (inode size 256)

[15898.568305] EXT4-fs error (device dm-4): ext4_iget:4831: inode #2113042: comm rm: bad extra_isize 35148 (inode size 256)

[15898.569774] EXT4-fs error (device dm-4): ext4_lookup:1577: inode #2557277: comm rm: deleted inode referenced: 2113043

What then happens is that you restart your PC, and get to the command where you are asked to run:

esfsck /dev/sda2

1	esfsck /dev/sda2

Change /dev/sda2 to whatever your drive is, and manually review errors. You can take note of the file modified, as you’ll likely have to fix your Ubuntu installation later on. Usually the fix consists of various package re-installations:

sudo apt install --resintall <package-name>

1	sudo apt install --resintall <package-name>

It happened to me two or three times in the past, and it’s a pain, but I eventually recovered. But this time, I was not so lucky. The system would […]

July 31, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 24 Comments

Orange Pi Zero LTS SBC Launched for $8.49 and Up

Orange Pi Zero LTS is an update to Orange Pi Zero Allwinner H2+ board with the same specifications, but tweaks to the hardware that Shenzhen Xunlong Software claims lower power consumption and reduce heat. The SBC supports Armbian’s Debian and Ubuntu images, and best suited for headless applications that require network connectivity via Ethernet and/or WiFi such as smart speakers. The board also features one USB port, and two I/O headers for expansion. The good news is that you can now buy Orange Pi Zero LTS for the same price as the original model, namely $8.49 for the 256MB RAM version, and $10.49 for the 512MB model$10.49 for the 512MB model, excluding shipping costs ($4.73 to my location). Here’s a reminder of Orange Pi Zero LTS (v1.5) specifications: SoC – Allwinner H2+ quad-core Cortex A7 processor @ 1.2 GHz with Mali-400MP2 GPU @ 600 MHz System Memory – 256 to […]

July 26, 2019July 26, 2019 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 5 Comments

Intel Mini PCs Linux Performance Comparison

Intel mini PC side-by-side comparison table

Recent vulnerabilities in Intel x86 microprocessors (Meltdown, Spectre, Foreshadow, RIDL, Fallout, ZombieLoad, etc.) are now addressed with mitigation patches for the Linux kernel although have resulted in some performance degradation. As a consequence, my previous comparison benchmarks could be somewhat misleading when compared with new results given the different versions of software at the time of execution. So I’ve repeated running my standard Phoronix Test Suite benchmarks on several of the latest mini PCs each running the latest updated Ubuntu 18.04.2 software with the same Ubuntu 4.15.0-54 kernel. Specifically, the mini PCs I’ve used are as follows: Intel NUC NUC7CJYSAL (Celeron J4005 Gemini Lake) Pepper JobsGLK-UC2X (Celeron N4100 Gemini Lake) Beelink Gemini X X45 (Celeron J4105 Gemini Lake) Beelink Gemini X X55 (Pentium Silver J5005 Gemini Lake) with updated BIOS Intel NUC NUC7PJYH (Pentium Silver J5005 Gemini Lake) Beelink L55 (i3-5005U Broadwell) On each mini PC, I’ve also run sbc-bench which is […]

July 25, 2019July 26, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 28 Comments

PineBook Pro Arm Linux Laptop now up for pre-order for $199.99

Pine64 unveiled a Pinebook Pro laptop prototype at FOSDEM 2019 as an update to the original Allwinner A64 powered Pinebook laptop, but instead of just being a toy to play with, Pinebook Pro aimed to be used as a daily driver thanks to a relatively powerful Rockchip RK3399 processor combined with 4GB RAM, and 64/128GB storage, and equipped with a 14″ Full HD display all for a target price of $200. Last May, we noticed some good progress on the software development side with a demo showcasing Ubuntu & Debian with MATE desktop, 4K video playback, 3D graphics acceleration, and USB-C video output. The good news is that Pinebook Pro has just launched and can be pre-ordered for $199.99 on Pine64 store. [Update: If you are an existing forum member, you may want to redeem your coupon here] Pinebook Pro laptop specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 big.LITTLE hexa-core Arm Cortex […]

July 24, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Waveshare Jetbot AI Kit for NVIDIA Jetson Nano Board Sells for $100 and Up

NVIDIA Jetson Nano developer kit was launched for $99 last March with impressive specifications for the price including one module with four Arm Cortex-A57 cores, a 128-core Maxwell GPU, and 4GB LPDDR4 RAM. The company also introduced Jetbot robot based on the new board, with all instructions available on Github, but until now you had to put some efforts to build it up as the fairly long list of parts had to be purchased or 3D printed separately. It’s now become easier, as Waveshare has started selling their Jetbot AI kit on Amazon for $122.99 without Jetson Nano, and $259.99 with, meaning you may be better off purchasing NVIDIA board separately for around $100, or you may purchase the complete kit directly on Waveshare website for $215.99 plus shipping, or $99.99 without the SBC. Jetbot AI kit content: Optional NVIDIA Jetson Nano SBC 64GB micro SD Card Metal box Camera […]

July 20, 2019July 22, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 47 Comments

Orange Pi Zero LTS Allwinner H2+ SBC Gets More Efficient and Cooler

Orange Pi Zero is a cool little Arm Linux board based on Allwinner H2+ processor for headless applications requiring WiFi and/or Ethernet that was first launched in November 2016 for $7 and up. It was not launched without controversy, as first users had various issues with the Allwinner XR819 WiFi module, but I had no such problem when I made an Orange Pi Zero Google Assistant smart speaker. Nevertheless, Shenzhen Xunlong Software is about to launch a newer version of the board – Orange Pi Zero LTS -, with the same specifications, but improvements in the design in order to reduce power consumption, and lower the board’s temperature. As the name implies, the company will commit to long term support (i.e. long term availability) for the board, but they did not tell me for how many years. Orange Pi Zero LTS v1.5 specifications: SoC – Allwinner H2+ quad-core Cortex A7 […]

July 17, 2019July 17, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 39 Comments

Checking Out Machine Check Exception (MCE) Errors in Linux

I recently reviewed ODROID-H2 with Ubuntu 19.04, and noticed some errors messages in the kernel log of the Intel Celeron J4105 single board computer while running SBC-Bench benchmark:

[180422.405294] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged
[180425.656449] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged
[180483.582825] mce_notify_irq: 17 callbacks suppressed
[180483.582827] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged
[180484.991484] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged
[180594.700684] mce_notify_irq: 13 callbacks suppressed
[180594.700686] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged
[180858.202115] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged
[181178.047031] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged

[180422.405294] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged

[180425.656449] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged

[180483.582825] mce_notify_irq: 17 callbacks suppressed

[180483.582827] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged

[180484.991484] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged

[180594.700684] mce_notify_irq: 13 callbacks suppressed

[180594.700686] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged

[180858.202115] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged

[181178.047031] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged

I did not know what do make of those errors, but I was told I would get more details with mcelog which can be installed as follows:

sudo apt install mcelog

1	sudo apt install mcelog

There’s just one little problem: it’s not in Ubuntu 19.04 repository, and a bug report mentions mcelog is not deprecated, and remove from Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic onwards. Instead, we’re being told the mcelog package functionality has been replaced by rasdaemon. But before looking into the utilities, let’s find out what Machine Check Exception (MCE) is all about from ArchLinux Wiki: A machine check exception (MCE) is an error generated by the CPU when the CPU detects that a hardware error or failure has occurred. Machine check exceptions (MCEs) can occur for a variety […]