Tag Archives: ubuntu

Ubuntu 22.04 – Migrating from Firefox snap to Firefox apt

Using snaps might have its advantages, but the amount of RAM and CPU cycles that Firefox seems to take made me want to switch. The browser certainly feels more responsive. Remove the Firefox snap. You need to change the Firefox apt priority to avoid the snap version being re-installed. And install the Firefox apt. When… Read More: Ubuntu 22.04 – Migrating from Firefox snap to Firefox apt »

Ubuntu: apt upgrades failing with “Cannot initiate the connection to ports.ubuntu.com”

While doing a distro upgrade with I kept getting failures half-way stating The errors showed several IPv6 addresses that couldn’t be reached. My router supports IPv6, but not my ISP. Somehow I was expecting that the router would be doing the translation or DNS resolution between the two but this wasn’t the case. Disabling IPv6… Read More: Ubuntu: apt upgrades failing with “Cannot initiate the connection to… »

Linux: Booting in single-user mode

Sometimes it might be necessary to start in single-user mode to do some administration work, or even reset an existing password. Normally this can be achieved via the GRUB boot loader. CentOS / RedHat (with root account enabled) Switch on your system. Press Esc until the GRUB menu shows up. This will bring up the… Read More: Linux: Booting in single-user mode »

ZFS ‘Failed to start Mark current ZSYS boot as successful’ fix

On Ubuntu 20.04 after installing the NVIDIA driver 510 metapackage the system stopped booting. It will either hang with a black screen and blinking cursor on the top left or show the following error message: Attempting to revert from a snapshot ends up with the same error message. This wasn’t the case on another separate… Read More: ZFS ‘Failed to start Mark current ZSYS boot as successful’… »

Raspberry Pi : Configuring a Time Capsule/Backintime server

In this post, I am setting up a Time Capsule and Backintime server. I am using a Raspberry Pi that has Ubuntu installed, with a USB disk that has been configured into a ZFS pool. Setting up backup users You are going to have to create users for each of the services/users that will be… Read More: Raspberry Pi : Configuring a Time Capsule/Backintime server »

ZFS: Setting up ZFS storage on Ubuntu

If you are new to ZFS, I would advise doing a little bit of research first to understand the fundamentals. Jim Salter’s articles on storage and ZFS are very recommended. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/05/zfs-101-understanding-zfs-storage-and-performance/ The examples below are to create a pool from a single disk, with separate datasets used for network backups. In some examples, I might… Read More: ZFS: Setting up ZFS storage on Ubuntu »

Linux / Ubuntu / hdparm: Identifying drive features and setting sleep patterns

Preparing the storage Install hdparm and smartmontools Install hdparm and the SMART monitoring tools. Identify the right hard drive Make sure you identify the correct drive, as some of the commands will destroy data. If you don’t understand the commands, then check them first. You have been warned. Identify the block size Knowing the block… Read More: Linux / Ubuntu / hdparm: Identifying drive features and setting… »

Raspberry Pi: Installing, hardening and optimising Ubuntu 20.04 Server

I have been trying to document the process of configuring a Raspberry Pi as a Time Machine Capsule, but the article became far too long. It covered far too much information and was really hard to read. I then decided to break the stages into more manageable steps. This has the advantage of allowing the… Read More: Raspberry Pi: Installing, hardening and optimising Ubuntu 20.04 Server »

Ubuntu: Installing/fixing TP-Link AC1200 (T4UH 1.0) drivers in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

I wrote an entry about this adapter and Ubuntu 18.04. This week my 20.04 LTS installation started to freeze randomly. I suspected several things, but through a process of elimination it ended up pointing to the Wi-Fi adapter. I can’t rule out a hardware issue yet, but the new driver has been very stable and… Read More: Ubuntu: Installing/fixing TP-Link AC1200 (T4UH 1.0) drivers in Ubuntu 20.04… »

Ubuntu 20.4: Virtualbox not running after the last upgrade

When launching a VM in Virtualbox I got an error saying that it can’t be started because a required module isn’t loaded. It suggests to manually load it. Re-installing Virtualbox also fails because the virtualbox-dkms package can’t be configured The last system update upgraded the kernel from 5.4 to 5.8, and there is something in… Read More: Ubuntu 20.4: Virtualbox not running after the last upgrade »