Disabling Bluetooth on your Thinkpad permanently
Persistently disabling Bluetooth across reboots is not trivial on some Ubuntus (I'm using 16.04 LTS).
Instead of configuring systemd or editing config files, you may also disable Bluetooth in your BIOS:
- Interrupt start-up with a hotkey (
ENTER
on my X260) - Enter BIOS configuration utility
- Go to
Security
- Go to
I/O Port Access
- Set
Bluetooth
toDisabled
- Save changes and reboot
Related cards:
How to change your dm-crypt passphrase
dm-crypt has multiple passphrase slots. The process will be to add a new passphrase to a new slot, check that it works, and then remove the old passphrase.
- Find out which partitions are decrypted by dm-crypt:
$ lsblk --fs
NAME ...
Working around Thinkpad + ThinkVision issues on Ubuntu
The centerpiece of our home office setup usually consists of a docking station which charges the notebook and acts as a proxy to various peripheral devices.
For reference, I am running Ubuntu 18.04 on a Thinkpad T480. You might not run into the s...
Debugging microphone issues in Linux and Zoom
Testing
Since Zoom does some post-processing of your audio input, it's best to hear yourself in a Zoom recording:
- Open a Zoom meeting for yourself.
- Choose "Record to this computer" in the Zoom toolbar.
- Speak some words (quiet and loud) a...
What to do when your Dell U2410 monitor fails to power on
Dell U2410 screens have a stupid firmware bug where when you manually switch off the monitor and then your computer, the screen will no longer power on when the computer is restarted. In such a case the power button is dead and no longer reacts to...
Ensure screen lock on suspend
Ubuntu Mate 18.04 has a bug in which suspending your computer does not lock your screen in every case. If closing your laptop's lid or clicking the suspend menu option in your top right menu already locks the screen, you're not affected and don'...
Snom VOIP phone shows your own name instead of the incoming number
This is because of how Sipgate sends the incoming caller ID. As it is intended, it shows both who the call is for (in case you have multiple numbers configured on your phone) and who it's from, after a line break. Neither SNOM phones nor linph...
Using GPG/PGP with Ubuntu and Thunderbird
Here is how to set up GPG encryption for emails in Thunderbird on Ubuntu.
Creating a key pair
- Before starting, create a new entry in KeePass for your GPG key and create a new password. See the [Security Guidelines](https://makandracards.co...
What to do when your GPG/PGP key expires
Your GPG client notified you that your keypair will soon expire, or has already expired. Here is what to do.
Are you using Thunderbird?
If you're using the built-in GPG encryption in Thunderbird 78+, you can [extend your key from the Thunder...
GPG: Extract private key and import on different machine
After extending the expiry date of a GPG key you might have to copy your key to another machine to use the same key there. Here is how:
-
Identify your private key:
gpg --list-secret-keys user@example.com
Example output:
pub ...
How to avoid 100% CPU load when screen-sharing through zoom
Zoom is a video conference tool that has great screen-sharing support on Linux. [1]
However, Zoom's screen sharing causes immense CPU load, slowing down other applications, and on laptops the CPU fan going at full speed will dr...