bzehm

[bzehm]

RDP for the modern Linux desktop?

I’ve been using VNC to remotely manage my Linux boxes for years, and have been wishing all along that Linux users could use RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) to manage their desktops. RDP offers a much lower latency and nicer overall experience than VNC does. I got excited when I seen a package called `freerdp2-shadow-x11`, but after installing it and attempting to start it all I got were segfaults. It crashed and didn’t give any decent debug output. I started reading forums and, as usual, when I got it working it turns out it was a small set of steps, but I couldn’t find it documented anywhere so I decided to share my steps here. Hopefully it helps you!

My simple guide for “How to use RDP for Desktop Sharing in Ubuntu / Linux Mint”.

1) Install the prerequisite packages:

aptitude install -y freerdp2-shadow-x11 winpr-utils

2) Next, generate an SSL certificate for the RDP server. Follow the OpenSSL instructions here to create the files:    ~/.config/freerdp/shadow/shadow.crt    ~/.config/freerdp/shadow/shadow.key The instructions above will have you create a file called `rdp.crt` and `rdp.key` rather than `shadow.crt` and `shadow.key`. You can either rename the files after being created or modify the sample commands from their tutorial so that you end up with the properly named files. Note that the process above leaves several other shadow.* files in that folder too which won't hurt anything. Note that these instructions could probably be simpler, if you have a simpler way of doing this please let me know so I can update it here :)

3) Generate an SAM authentication file with the username/password you want to use to access RDP server:

sudo mkdir /etc/freerdp winpr-hash -f sam -v 1 -u USERNAME -p PASSWORD >> /etc/freerdp/SAM

4) Write a simple script to start it after login. Paste this into `/usr/local/bin/rdp-server.sh`

#!/bin/sh

## Start it up

while true; do

   freerdp-shadow-cli /sec:nla /sam-file:/etc/freerdp/SAM

   sleep 10;

done

5) Add the new rdp-server.sh script to your list of Startup Applications so it runs after you login. I set mine to start 5 seconds after login. Example:

[bzehm]

Swapping the Internal / External SD cards on my Android Phone

I have a Samsung Blaze t769 phone from T-Mobile, and recently upgraded to the latest nightly Kit-Kat Carbon rom. First impressions are really good, it's fast sleek, has lots of customization options.

However, one major annoyance I have with new Android phones is their built-in sd cards. The Samsung Blaze has an internal 1.4GB "sd card", which is nowhere near large enough for virtually any user, and it's really frustrating that virtually all Android apps look on the "internal" SD card as their default location for storing pictures, downloads, etc. I usually have at least 4-8 GB of just Audible books on my phone, not to mention all the photos and other stuff that accumulates, so my goal was to swap the internal and external SD Cards. In the end it's a very simple fix that took me hours to figure out, so I'm going to post what I did here to save you a little time.

Essentially, I flashed the new rom, and put /system into rw mode, and then added a few lines of bash script to the top of /system/etc/init.qcom.modem_links.sh. Here's the lines I added:

## This file gets run at boot before *anything else*, so swap the sdcards in /fstab.qcom mount -o remount,rw /; cp /fstab.qcom /fstab.qcom.orig; sed -r -e 's|=sdcard0(.+)|=sdcard1\1|' -e 's|=sdcard1(:auto.+)|=sdcard0\1|' /fstab.qcom.orig > /fstab.qcom; mount -o remount,r0 /;

That's it! After adding that script to the top of /system/etc/init.qcom.modem_links.sh and rebooting the phone the internal sdcard will be mounted as sdcard1, and your normal sdcard will be mounted as sdcard0.

[bzehm]

Weekend trip to Pearl Island, home to an endangered species of giant clams found in the Philippines. These clams are so large great care must be taken by swimmers, because if one were to clamp onto your foot, well.... Maybe these clams are Davy Jones' Locker? It was a beautiful and tiny island. We spent the night there in a tent and got rained on at least 20 times :)

[bzehm]

Weekend trip to Sambawan Island in the Philippines. Not your average luxury getaway, but what an amazing peaceful place to relax, soak your feet in the ocean and watch the stars.

[bzehm]

On Sunday I visited the Santo Nino Shrine in Tacloban City. It's quite the tourist attraction. As one of the mansions erected in the Philippines by their late president Ferdinand Marcos, it was filled with almost unimaginable wealth. Family portraits 30 feet tall, a Spanish piano made in 1901, beds the size of a small house ... I could go on, but the photos speak for themselves.