A couple of weeks ago, I published a Pinebook Pro review article on this blog. Similar to the Pinebook Pro, the Raspberry Pi and more recently the Raspberry Pi 4, are also ARM based. I’ve applied some of the optimizations mentioned in that previous article to the Raspberry Pi 4, with good results. I wanted […]
MySQL Database Performance: Avoid this common mistake
One frequent topic of support request emails I receive is MySQL database performance. Clients complain about MySQL using too much server memory, too many MySQL slow queries, the famous Mysql server has gone away error and many other MySQL performance related issues. As such, I wanted to quickly share the solution to a common MySQL configuration […]
Home Lab Beginners guide – Hardware
Until recently, and for well over the past decade, my wife and I have been nomads. Moving from the Caribbean to Miami, New York, Las Vegas, Vancouver, and now back home. This has meant that for many of those years, my home office basically comprised of a few laptops and screens. These days, we are more […]
atop – For Linux server performance analysis
We’re all familiar with top, a real-time system monitor. Some prefer htop and previously I mentioned iotop for use with storage read/write monitoring. Lets looks at another popular tool for Linux server performance analysis: atop. Advantages of atop Atop is an ASCII full-screen performance monitor which can log and report the activity of all server processes. One feature […]
htop: Quick Guide & Customization
htop is an interactive system-monitor, but also a process-viewer, process-manager, strace tool and more. Sysadmins may opt to use htop in cases where Unix top does not provide enough information about system processes. htop uses a cursor-controlled interface for sending signals to processes. One example where this comes in handy is: you don’t have to type […]
Strip Down Apache to Improve Performance & Memory Efficiency
Can you believe that its been five eight years since the release of Apache 2.4?! Still, most Apache based web servers continue to run Apache version 2.2 or even 2.0. This is understandable for the same reasons why Apache web servers are still used more than Nginx… compatibility, official support and features. If you haven’t replaced Apache […]
Using CentOS CR (Continuous Release) Repo
CentOS (Community Enterprise Operating System) is a Linux distribution that attempts to provide free, enterprise-class, community-supported computing platform functionally compatible with its upstream source, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). CentOS is run by volunteers who work directly with Red Hat’s RPM source files and pushing them to CentOS for release. At times the project will fall behind […]
How to direct-install Debian SID rolling release using mini.iso (w/ screenshots)
This post has been updated. Original post: May 20th, 2017. Last updated Feb, 28th 2020. For desktop, I’ve often preferred rolling release distros such as Arch Linux or custom installed Kali Linux. However, currently I’m on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Fedora 31. Ubuntu recently released 16.04 LTS 18.04 LTS which meant performing an in-place upgrade or complete re-install […]
Panopta (exclusive offer) Get Two Free Months
Over the years Panopta has listened to customer feedback; they continue to respond with additional development and improvements to their infrastructure, application and network performance monitoring tools. With Panopta you can easily keep an eye on the most fundamental metrics across complex infrastructure so you can identify the root cause of problems. If you suffer […]
Finding Linux Compatible Printers
Here’s all the info and links needed to find printers or all-in-one printers that currently support Linux. If you don’t want to spend hours comparing printers, have a look at my recommended Linux compatible printers. Last updated Feb 24th 2020, see Epson ET series below. Last updated Oct 23th 2019, replaced a few printers with their newer models. – […]