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NZ Tekonverse

  • Xubuntu vs Lubuntu

    Well of course after playing with Xubuntu at home it didn’t take much to have it installed on my work computer, a very old Wolfdale with a Celeron CPU and 4 GB of RAM. A very slow computer for its age, and also relatively old. Not sure exactly but I would guess around 6 years.…

  • Xubuntu vs Mint

    Today I decided I needed something other than Mint on one of my systems. I chose to do this because Mint has had security issues that led to their website being hacked and giving out malware, and their forum database passwords stolen. Which brings down the whole reputation of their project, unfortunately. There were only…

  • Linux Kiosk computer with Chrome Browser [3]

    So having built our image and got it going pretty much as we please, the next thing you will want is to be able to clone from one computer to another. The default Linux install can be a single partition for the OS. and a swap partition. Since the OS is all in one partition,…

  • Linux Kiosk computer with Chrome Browser [2]

    So my steps followed are: Install Ubuntu Server 14.04.5 from a bootable pen drive Set my username to user with a password Enabled automatic updates Install OpenSSH server in the tasksel at the end Reboot Log or SSH into the system (latter from another system is preferred since you can copy and paste instructions from…

  • Linux Kiosk computer with Chrome Browser [1]

    Here is an option for making your own “Chromebox” out of some old PC you have lying around. It lends itself well to educational scenarios with old computers that are too slow to run a modern operating system, but which can be perfectly satisfactory for the Chrome browser to run Google Apps etc. I am…

  • Linux RAID-1 [6]: Reinstalling with RAID

    Well today I had to reinstall Mint on one of my computers, both of which have RAID-1 arrays. This time I installed Mint 18 onto the DB75EN. And of course I wanted to pick up my existing RAID array without having to build it from scratch. Initially I was going to build a test system…

  • Minties

    After much thought I decided the “second” computer (which is actually the newest and therefore fastest) will be used for the maps that I draw and the “first” computer (older) is the one I use for my study and some work as well. So the second computer now has the quad head video card and…

  • Today’s Linux Experience: Virtualisation Tools

    One of the great things about the major desktop OSs (Windows, OSX and Linux) is that they all have software based hypervisors available to let you run other operating systems as virtual instances in a window on your desktop. When I was getting into PC computing in a big way, the only option we had…

  • Bits and Pieces

    Old server or desktop chassis make great little tables to put stuff on next to your desk. So that I don’t spill that drink on my keyboard while I am writing my assignments. It is another step along the way in getting everything set up in the house the way it needs to be. The…

  • Dodgy NZ E-Commerce Sites – Your details can be stolen

    Today there is a report in the paper that the NZ Hunting and Fishing shop’s website was hacked and customers’ credit card details were stolen. Customers had noticed unusual activity on their credit cards. I have personally used a number of e-commerce sites operated by bonafide New Zealand businesses. In the rush for these businesses…