Mosh: mobile shell (ssh replacement) with roaming support and supporting intermittent connectivity

27. March 20141 Comment

Recently I was confronted with very low data throughput on my mobile data connection. Because of the high latency you have to wait a long time for the server reply before you can even see you your own typing. That’s really awful. In addition, dropping connections can really be a problem.

The solution is Mosh – the mobile shell. The key features are:

– allows roaming
– supports intermittent connectivity
– provides intelligent local echo and line editing of user keystrokes

The installation is easy. For debian type

 apt-get install mosh

That’s it.

Now you have to open a suitable port (UDP) in your firewall. I chose 63310.

OpenWRT wireless non-spooling printserver

17. March 2014No Comments

With p910nd, a small daemon acting as non-spooling printserver, it’s easy to get non WiFi or non Ethernet Printers in your network. I use this configuration for a Brother (QL-500) labelprinter. You must have installed the regular printer drivers on your PC.

At first you have to install a few packages:

opkg update

opkg install kmod-usb-printer p910nd

 

Then you can connect your printer and turn it on. Run dmesg and look for entries like

[ 10.530000] usb 1-1: new full-speed USB device number 2 using ehci-platform

[ 10.570000] usbcore: registered new interface driver usblp

[ 10.750000] usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 2 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x04F9 pid 0x2015

 

Change the config file /etc/config/p910nd to the following (assuming you connect a usb printer to the OpenWRT device):

Install Debian on MiniX NEO X7

15. March 201421 Comments

notice NOTICE: Your Minix will boot from SD-Card automatically. Internal Flash will not be used and won’t be available.

To install Debian on the MiniX NEO X7 you need:

– a SD Card (minimum 4GB)
– a Linux Machine
– a Windows Machine
– these both zip-files: rootfs.zip (needed on the linux machine) & minix_neo_x7.zip (needed on the windows machine)

minix_neo_x7

At first boot up your Linux Box, and insert your SD Card.

Find the right partition of the SD Card, it should contain only one partition:

cat /proc/partitions

Then format the partition as ext4: