Quick Tip: Looking for file extensions with locate

All you really need to do is put the intuitive command - as back in the times of Windows - in quotes:

# locate "*.exe"

Linux Tweaks for Samsung 535U3C

The Samsung Notebook already runs pretty well out of the box with Ubuntu 12.04.3. All this information is used at your own risk, you might destroy your device!

uefi

You should be careful about using efi, as you've probably read - or you might brick your notebook. Although the 535 series is usually not explicitly listed as having problems in this regard, better be careful and disable secure boot and boot in CSM mode.

AMD apu/cpu tweaking

After a modprobe msr and modprobe cpuinfo you can use the turionpowercontrol tool to enable frequency boost for your cpu: (this is potentially DANGEROUS!)

sudo ./TurionPowerControl -psienable -boostenable

Fan Tweaking

In Windows, the FN-F11 combination slows down the system's fans to make it pretty quiet for usual use, although the fans already run less in Linux than in Windows. There is a special kernel module for this purpose here: easy_slow_down_manager, the dkms package download is here, after installing it successfully simply echo 1 > /proc/easy_slow_down_manager.

Wifi after Suspend

The rfkill force locks the wifi after suspend to ram (S3) mode in my experience. The problem is fixed in Kernel 3.8, which you can get from the Ubuntu kernel PPA. You will need to install the fglrx-experimental-12 driver package (sudo apt-get install fglrx...), which works with this new kernel. To automatically enable wifi after resume, create a pm file:

echo ''#!bin/sh

rfkill unblock all

rfkill unblock all

rfkill unblock all

exit 0' | sudo tee /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/000-535-rfkill

chmod +x /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/000-535-rfkill

Video Acceleration (VA-API)

You can use xvba with vaapi to get video acceleration with vlc and mplayer-vaapi. For mplayer-vaapi you need a special package from a ppa:

echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/sander-vangrieken/vaapi/ubuntu precise main | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vaapi-mplayer.list

With kernel 3.8 and the new catalyst 12 video driver, you'll need to manually install the xvba-vaapi backend. All you need to do is copy two libraries, though. (For some reasons the package is set to conflict with the newer driver, but really the same library is actually compatible and would still work. Feel free to inform the package maintainers for a workaround.)

Unsolved

Something I'm not sure how to fix yet is that the notebook can become become slow when the AC adapter is *plugged in*. I have no idea why this could be the case, but I've seen several reports about it.

There is no acceleration for the Adobe flash player plugin. However, this seems to be coming up, as AMD has just provided vdpau accelaration for its open source video drivers.

Let me know how this all works for you! Everything at your own risk!

Gmail Backup with German "Google Mail" and Getmail

There is an excellent guide available for backup up your Gmail emails (I've had emails disappear in the past!). http://datalinkcontrol.net/dlc/content/gmail-backup-getmail

But if you're in a different country or use a non-US version, your Gmail folder names are different. In German, the folder name is: "[Google Mail]/Alle Nachrichten", so the correct setting for getmail is:

mailboxes = ("[Google Mail]/Alle Nachrichten",)

Enjoy!

Upgrading Samsung SSD Firmware on Linux with a USB Stick

If you know how, it's pretty easy. You do still need to know someone with Windows, though.

1. Download Samsung Magician v. 4.

2. Install it on some windows machine.

3. In the C:\Programs\Samsung Magician\Samsung DOS Application/CDSolution folder (roughly), you will find two iso files. You need these.

4. Install Unetbootin.

5. Use unetbootin to choose one of the iso files (dsrd for firmware updates) copy the files to your usb stick, including firmware files.

6. Boot using the stick. Done.

Note that - at least for me - the Magician software wouldn't install under Wine. I wish Samsung would just upload these images or a USB image at some point...

I TAKE NO WARRANTY WHATSOEVER. Whatever you do, this might break your computer and your SSD. Firmware updates are always dangerous!

Enjoy!