Microchip LoRaWAN Development Utility on Ubuntu
Having just wasted a few hours on getting this Java software running on Linux I am documenting this for future reference and hopefully saving other LoRa / TTN folks some time.
Prerequisites
Install a Java JDK + JavaFX. This should work with the default OpenJDK 8 or 9 which comes as part of the Ubuntu repositories. I ended up installing Oracle JDK 8 as well as I thought the error might be related to OpenJDK.
Finding Notebook Hardware for Ubuntu - 2015 Edition
Unfortunately it is still much harder than necessary to find notebook hardware to use with Ubuntu (or other Linux variants). This blog is full of past experiences (some of them quite time-consuming) on finding notebook hardware that will work without too much fiddling. This short note is to document my recent research on that front to help others who want to do the same (as there doesn’t seem to be a lot of good current info around).
Installing Ubuntu Phone (Touch) on Nexus 7 LTE
[
](https://www.flickr.com/photos/leogaggl/16898140083 “ubuntu phone by Leo Gaggl, on Flickr”)
Add SDK repository
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-sdk-team/ppa
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install ubuntu-device-flash`
Enable USB Debugging on the device
- Make sure you have developer mode enabled (see http://developer.android.com/tools/device.html if you are unsure).
- Navigate to Settings > Developer options
- Enable USB Debugging. When a device is connected, you will be prompted in Android to authorize it.
Unlock Bootloader
adb reboot bootloader
fastboot oem unlock fastboot reboot`
Install Ubuntu 14.04 on a Chromebook
There are plenty of sites out there that give advise on this topic, unfortunately most of them are highly ad-infested to the point of being unreadable as well as only containing single bit rather that an overall picture. This is a collection of useful links to source materials as well as steps necessary to install.

Creative Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/) by Joe Wilcox
Finding a private location check-in service
Foursquare decided that it was too hard for them to compete with location services like Yelp and split their app into two separate apps. Whilst that might make sense to the 4Square CEO and his VC masters, it makes no sense from a users perspective. Foursquare can be a bit of a battery hog already, and having 2 apps to open and “annoy” you with notifications is not an improvement by any means. And if I wanted Foursquare to be Yelp – I would have used Yelp in the first place. So no – I do not want to install another separate check-in App (called Swarm). One battery hogging location app was enough.
Install FirefoxOS on Nexus S (GT-9023)
I just had one of my old hand-me-down phones returned by my offspring in a great condition (junior is very careful with his equipment – well done young man !). This doesn’t happen all too often shows that the Nexus S is a decently built phone. This is also a good example of breaking the built-in obsolescence of modern phones. This particular unit has served me well for nearly 2 years (my average is one year) and served 2 kids after that.
Paperless Office on a budget
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:rolfbensch/sane-git
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sane sane-utils imagemagick tesseract-ocr pdftk libtiff-tools libsane-extras exactimage wput
Install scanbuttond
Download the “Debian Experimental” package from http://pkgs.org/download/scanbuttond
sudo dpkg -i scanbuttond_0.2.3.cvs20090713-14_i386.deb
This step is only for the Fujitsu ScanSnap support. For other scanners you can probably install from the Ubuntu Repository
Scanner config
vim 40-libsane.rules
#add this line
ATTRS{idVendor}=="04c5", ATTRS{idProduct}=="11a2", ENV{libsane_matched}="yes"
Permissions
sudo adduser saned scanner
Useful command lines for troubleshooting
Since I had a few trouble getting this scanner to work properly I found the following commands highly useful in locating the issue.
Open Source creative tools
Since I am tired to constantly recite this list whenever one of these designer-type people tells me that they need Adobe’s Whatever Suite to do some basic task here is a summary that I can point them to.
Vector Graphics
Inkscape (http://inkscape.org/)
Xara Extreme (http://www.xaraxtreme.org/)
Raster Graphics
Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/)
Desktop Publishing
Scribus (http://www.scribus.net/)
Photo Editing
Gimp (see above)
Darktable (http://www.darktable.org/)
RawTherapee (http://www.rawtherapee.com/)
Luminance HDR (http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net/)
Layout Tools (DTP): Scribus (http://scribus.net/canvas/Scribus)
Installing the latest stable version of LibreCAD on Ubuntu
I have recently been looking at different CAD options on Ubuntu and LibreCAD (http://librecad.org/) is looking like the best option for my needs at current (apart from the wish there would be some DWG support).
Since the main Ubuntu repositories are usually a fair bit behind the lastest stable realeases of LibreCAD you need to add the LibreCAD Dev PPA Repository
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:librecad-dev/librecad-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install librecad
Darktable - Photo Management under Ubuntu
Whilst I am by no means a photographer I do end up taking quite a few photos (these days pretty much exclusively on my phone) and the management of these photos can be a pain. So far I have never found an program worth the pain over plain old file management.
But having stumbled across Darktable (http://darktable.org/) I think I might have found a worthwile package.
Open Governance Index – measuring openness
This is an interesting report and info-graphic by the folks at VisionMobile on a new way of measuring the openness of some mobile open source projects.
The Open Governance Index measures the true openness of eight open source projects – Android, Qt, Symbian, MeeGo, Mozilla, WebKit, Linux and Eclipse – and analyses how governance, and not licenses, tell the full story of a project’s openness, across transparency, influence and control.
Facebook - good riddance !
Finally I made the effort to completely get rid of my Facebook Account. After initially getting a Facebook Account in the very early days (as an ‘occupational hazard’ to investigate the potential of Facebook Applications) I have always been suspicious of the companies motives and decided not to use such a closed system as a base for application development.
Recent developments have only confirmed this suspision:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2011/08/08/facebooks-privacy-issues-are-even-deeper-than-we-knew/
- http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/ln2e0/facebook_patent_to_track_users_even_when_they_are/
Instead I will concentrate all of my content inside this blog (including as a backup for other social services I create). I believe the control over my own content is important enough for me to warrant the extra effort.
