linux

While everyone is crazy about the Raspberry Pi, I'm pretty skeptical about it. Why? Well, because it's a closed source hardware based upon a BGA microprocessor using a 6 layers PCBs.

What does that mean? Well, it means that it's really a pain in the ass to create derivative projects from it.. So, although the Pi it's a really awesome device, it's almost impossible to create a product from it.

With this in mind, I started to look around for alternatives and I found the Olinuxino Maxi, a single board Linux compatible computer based upon the i.MX233 microprocessor, designed by Olimex.

Why this is much more interesting for me? Well, first of all, it's a complete Open Hardware project so the schematics and PCB designs are available released under CC-BY-SA so that we can take them and modify as we like.

Second very important aspect is that it is based upon a QFP packaged microprocessor using a 4 layers PCBs. This means that we are perfectly capable to solder it by hand and getting PCBs for it cheaply (through OSH Park for example).

This can very well support the creation of derivative hardware starting from the original Olinuxino designs..

So, I got one of these boards and in the following video I show it running with ArchlinuxARM.. looking pretty awesome so far.

What do you think? Should we all use Raspberry Closeberry Pis or look for more open and easily hackable alternatives?

The Free Software Foundation Europe started a new campaign called I ♥ Free Software - Valentine's Day 2010.

I think this is a pretty cool way to promote free software so, as I do ♥ Free Software and I do hate proprietary software, I'm giving the campaign visibility here on my blog.

Unfortunately the campaign landing page fails to explain what is free software, so if you are interested you might want to read the What is free software page at fsf.org.

If you already support Free Software you might want to get some of the banners available on the campaign page and put them on your blog or personal website.

If you use the GNU/Linux operating system intensely as development environment or as a server you'll probably find yourself in need of running a determinate command or script every X seconds forever.

This could be useful for example to check that a service you run on your server is working correctly (e.g. your Apache httpd server), to clear some cache your system is using or to periodically check for software updates. Personally I needed this to periodically update the DNS entry of my home server with its current IP (my ISP gives dynamic IP, not static ones).

If you are interested in audio/video conversions and general manipulation you should really have a look at ffmpeg.

ffmpeg it's a little command line utility which will let you do some really great things with multimedia files.

During the time, I collected some examples of usages of ffmpeg which I found useful. I posted here some and continue to update this page everytime I find a new ffmpeg trick.

X.org version 7.4 with xorg-server 1.5 introduces a new way of handling input devices (keyboards, mouses, touchpads, trackball, etc..).

Instead of using some configuration rules in xorg.conf like in Xorg 7.3 and previous versions, input devices are now automatically configured and enabled in Xorg once the system found them.

Recently I had to play with serial RS232 connections in order to control a robot we have here in the Robotics course at the ULPGC.

We have some pretty old (1989!!!) applications to control and configure the robots which used to run under DOS. I tried to run them under dosemu: unfortunately it didn't work. Maybe because the code the applications use is not really good (direct access to the hardware, incorrect driver usage etc..).

UPDATE: the following guide is useful if you are using Xorg 7.3 or previous versions. If you are using Xorg 7.4 there is a guide to configure two fingers scrolling on a regular synaptics touchpad if you are using Xorg 7.4 or superior.

One of the features I really love about Apple's notebooks is the two fingers scrolling enabled touchpad they have.

It's easier and faster to use than the regular side scrolling available on normal notebooks.

I usually use Vim for command line text file editing.

Some days ago, probably due to a change in /etc/vimrc after a system update, the behavior of the mouse changed.

Selecting some text with the mouse automatically enter visual mode. I rarely use the visual feature and when I use it I prefer using the v keyboard command.

I found this new setting pretty annoying. So I decided to disable it.

When I installed Arch Linux on my notebook I choose to install LILO as Boot Loader.

Why? Because, as a long time Slackware user, I didn't use GRUB enough and I didn't have the time to learn it.

Unfortunately, maintaining an Arch Linux system with LILO as boot loader is quite tiring because every time the default kernel is changed lilo needs to be reinstalled.

The main ArchLinux ftp server recently had some bandwith problems due to a lot of people using it has their main mirror for their pacman updates.

This issues have been fixed by the archlinux administrators by throttling the bandwith of ftp.archlinux.org. This means that downloading from it will be extremely slow.