Context The fastboot command line is an android tool that allows to interact with an android device when in fastboot mode. I needed to switch from "fastboot mode" toward "EDL mode" (EDL stands for "Emergency Download"). If this is usually …
Author Archives: vaab
Fixing Windows Python 2.7 unicode issue with subprocess’s Popen.
Posted by vaab
on 2017/03/16
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TL;DR Fixing Windows Python 2.7 unicode issue with subprocess.Popen being unable to properly send command lines to the system. Here is the python code fixing unicode issue Details What Python 2.7 is plagued by bugs that won't be fixed. One …
Keyboard rate and delay
Posted by vaab
on 2016/10/09
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Here's how to change the rate and delay of your linux system, in direct console or in X, thanks to the command line. TL;DR You are using X Set: Command: xset r rate DELAY [RATE] DELAY is in milliseconds, and …
trapping SIGINT, SIGQUIT in asynchronous tasks
Posted by vaab
on 2016/07/30
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Scattered in bash documentation lies the truth about SIGINT and SIGQUIT signals being mysteriously ignored and non-trappable in background processes. This has puzzled many, and will probably continue to do so. Traps Here's my try to unveil the terrible truth. …
ecryptfs made straightforward
Posted by vaab
on 2016/01/30
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Using ecryptfs outside of Ubuntu's very controlled environment can be tedious. I wanted to have a fully automated script that could simply mount an ecryptfs partition given a single key (roughly along these lines): ecryptfs-mount PATH KEY Here are the …
docker update, or how to incrementally build images without Dockerfile.
Posted by vaab
on 2015/01/28
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This handy little script covers an important missing feature in current docker's tool set. I needed to build incrementally my images: From a given image, I want full script control (un-tamed shell scripts) and access to hosts files to do …
bash lore: how to properly parse NUL separated fields
Posted by vaab
on 2015/01/03
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As a lot of other part of bash, this is black magic. Lets suppose a friendly command that spits out NUL separated fields (as find -print0, shyaml get-values-0, ...). Which - may I insist - is the recommended way to …
bash lore: command substitution and final new lines
Posted by vaab
on 2014/05/07
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Be wary that command substitution will remove all final new lines. Command substitution are $(command ..) construct or older `command ..` one that will be substitued by the standard output of the given command. But that's incorrect: a proper definition …
bash lore: NUL character and variables
Posted by vaab
on 2014/05/03
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Bash variables are often thought as being able to store any binary content. Please bear in mind that it can't store NUL character, and only this one. Here you are: $ ascii_table() { echo -en "$(echo '\'0{0..3}{0..7}{0..7} | tr -d …
Fixing empathy in ubuntu 12.10, 13.04, 13.10, and 14.04
Posted by vaab
on 2013/04/04
6 comments
I recently decided I'll upgrade my Ubuntu 12.04 to Quantal 12.10. There wasn't a lot of new feature, and I was really disappointed by the changes in empathy. Empathy was not usable anymore. I installed pidgin and recalled that it …