Three Wise Men

Network boot and install of Ubuntu Linux

Image via Wikipedia

You tried everything, booting from CD, DVD, USB, and in your desperate attempts you already started to look if there is a floppy drive laying around the house, just to get the damned thing to boot. The very same thing happened to me today. Computer, simply, would not boot. The only thing left to do is booting your computer from the network. Sounds scary, I know, but in reality this can be a trivial thing to acomplish. I have a Linksys WRT54 router that is running DD-WRT and it serves me as a DHCP server. DD-WRT is using dnsmasq which can provides DNS, DHCP and TFTP services! Great news, since this is all that you need for network boot. Unfortunately TFTP server is disabled and not really usable if you don’t have any extra storage where you could put the tftp files. You will have to use an alternative tftp server, in my case Ubuntu Workstation. Continue reading for the whole recipe …

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Windows 7 login using AuthenTec AES2810 fingerprint scanner on HP notebooks

Recently I wrote about installation of Windows 7 on HP Compaq 2230s. I had a few problems with device drivers which were resolved by downloading Vista drivers from HP site and installing them. My initial idea was to be able to use all devices on the notebook. I was specially interested in notebook fingerprint sensor and its capability to login to Windows account by using my fingerprint scanner.

The notebook has an OEM version of AuthenTec AES2810 fingerprint scanner. After installation of HP device driver fingerprint reader will be recognized and you will see fingerprint sensor¹. Since Windows 7 got a new Biometric Framework it is only prudent that the framework will get its own configuration section in Drivers and Hardware section. But this is where ASE2810 fails. When looking at Start->Control panel->Hardware and Sound->Biometric Devices you can see the AES2810 device but Windows 7 tells you that it is unavailable. If you are interested how this can be solved then read on!

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1. in Windows Device Manager [↩]

Windows 7 installation on HP Compaq 2230s (NN340ES)

There is no better way to start an evening as unpacking new computer and starting to install new and fresh operating system on it.

Since HP declared that 32bit version of the Windows Vista operating system will run on the notebook in question I decided to put that statement to the test. Actually I used bleeding edge technology, because I was not ready to buy Windows Vista and Microsoft is kind enough to provide you with a free license¹ for Windows 7 RC version. HP notebook had FreeDOS installed as an operating system. I really used it to its maximal potential. It brought back some fond memories from 10 years ago but unfortunately I had to say goodbye to it. If you want to know how then read on.

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1. 30 day free trial [↩]

Released To Manufacturing, but unable to install

It was time to finally install Windows 7. Released To Manufacturing version. I must admit, I was quite skeptical about this because it seems that I have been cursed in my youth and Microsoft products simply fail with me. No, seriously, I have had so many issues with Windows that even Chuck Norris can’t count all of them, and he counted to infinity, twice. I do hope that you are not affected by the same curse.

So why Windows 7 if nothing works for me like it should? Windows 7 was, and still is praised by a lot of fans. It is even praised by some people that are not, you know, typical fan-boys. I wanted to see what this praise was all about and what is so great on Windows 7. I already had Release Candidate 1 downloaded but I decided to obtain Ready To Manufacture version, they said that it is the shit.

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Installing your own Mac OS X – on a non Apple

Bite Me!

Trolling and bashing on the internet forums can be fun, but the real fun starts when you have arguments that back you up. Imagine one linux zealot like me engaging in pissing contests with Apple fanboys, Mac users, OS X enthusiasts. The really bad way of losing an argument is due to: “How can you know, you never used it”.

What I did with Vista, I had to do with OS X too. I’ve gone and install OS X on my PC, PC that was not sold by Apple and shouldn’t run OS X anyway. Do you want to know how I did it? My experiences, the nitpicking, the problems and the joys of using OS X? Read on!
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