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Enable Wi-Fi by Default on OpenWrt

7 minutes to read

On routers with an Ethernet port, OpenWrt has Wi-Fi disabled on the first boot “for security reasons.”1 To enable Wi-Fi, users need to first connect a device to the router via Ethernet, so they can access the router in a wired manner and change its configuration to set up Wi-Fi. This is more inconvenient than most routers’ stock firmware. These routers come with a unique default SSID and password printed on a sticker affixed to the router, and for the initial setup, users can connect to the router wirelessly using these credentials; Ethernet is not required. OpenWrt, however, cannot easily make use of default Wi-Fi credentials. Constant initial Wi-Fi password in the default configuration (which would be common for every OpenWrt device on the first boot) is certainly a security risk; randomized passwords are more secure, but there is no means to inform users of the random password before the users have connected to the router, unlike what router manufacturers can do with the sticker. Therefore, disabling Wi-Fi by default on OpenWrt does improve security. …

Create an External-Facing IPv6 Subnet on OpenWrt

20 minutes to read

Some home Internet users have a need to expose some devices on their home network to the Internet and meanwhile block external access to other devices. For example, some users may wish to allow external access to their home server and prevent their smartphones and workstations from being accessible from the Internet. To achieve this goal, these users can create a subnet exposed to the Internet on their router and put the external-facing devices into this subnet; the other devices can thus be kept on the default local area network (LAN) subnet, protected behind a firewall that blocks external access. The external-facing subnet is commonly referred to as a demilitarized zone (DMZ). …

Using MultiOS-USB to Create Multiboot USB Drive

9 minutes to read

A multiboot USB drive allows its user to boot different ISOs without erasing the drive. Before I was aware of it, I had been using traditional bootable USB drive creation tools like Rufus, which would require rerunning the tool and erasing the drive every time I would like to boot a different ISO. A multiboot USB drive does not have this limitation. If I want to boot a GNU/Linux distribution’s installation ISO when I only have a USB drive on which a Windows installation ISO is already loaded, and if the USB drive supports multiboot, then I just need to copy the GNU/Linux distribution’s ISO to the drive, and the drive will allow me to choose the ISO I want to boot. The Windows ISO can still be booted and need not be erased, and an added bonus is that I can do this using just a file explorer or the cp command, instead of rerunning the bootable drive creation tool or running a complicated command. …

Slipstream Windows NT 4.0 SP6a into Installation Media

7 minutes to read

Microsoft has once released official Windows installation media with a service pack integrated, such as Windows Vista with SP1 and Windows XP with SP2. The process of integrating a service pack into the installation media is called slipstreaming. By using such a slipstreamed media, users need not install the slipstreamed service pack separately after they have installed Windows. For Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, the latest slipstreamed official installation media that can be found online only have SP1, whereas the latest service pack for Windows NT 4.0 is SP6a. This is unlike Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or 7, all of which have official installation ISOs with the latest available service pack slipstreamed. …

Trim Linux Kernel Configuration

14 minutes to read

Many Linux users who prefer to compile their own kernels definitely want to reduce kernel compilation time and minimize the on-disk footprint of compiled kernels and modules. Achieving these goals is commonly done by trimming the kernel configuration, which entails disabling kernel configuration options that the user does not need. Users can disable options for software features they do not use and hardware that they do not own; for example, those who do not need to use WireGuard can disable it in their kernel configuration, and those who do not own an AMD graphics card or an AMD CPU with integrated graphics can disable the amdgpu driver at kernel build time. …

SSH-ing into Kobo Clara BW E-book Reader’s System Software

19 minutes to read

I recently bought a Kobo Clara BW e-book reader. While I was copying my e-books to it, I accidentally found that its system software came with an SSH server, which, once enabled, allowed me to explore some internals of the e-book reader’s software as well as hardware. The Purchase Since I just purchased this device, I feel that this post would be incomplete if I did not comment on the reason I got it or my experience with it. I shall make some remarks on these aspects before digressing too much. …

Trying Out the Ptyxis Terminal Emulator

12 minutes to read

In my years of using GNOME, I have been using GNOME Terminal, and it has served me well. There has been a newer GNOME Console; while it has a few nice new features, it lacks a small feature that GNOME Terminal has and I depend on, so I have stayed with GNOME Terminal. Now, a third terminal emulator option for GNOME, Ptyxis (TIK-sis), has appeared. I tried it out recently and quickly found myself liking it, though my declaration that it would be a good-enough replacement of GNOME Terminal for myself came only after I spent a few days tinkering with it. …

Set Up a Custom Gentoo Binary Package Host

Updated: 25 minutes to read

Gentoo is a GNU/Linux distribution where users themselves can easily build software packages for the entire operating system from source code. For a long time, building packages on their own was the only choice Gentoo users had because Gentoo only distributed the scripts (i.e. ebuilds) to build the packages, not the packages’ ready-to-run, pre-built binaries like on other distributions. Compiling software packages for a whole operating system takes a considerable amount of time, and Gentoo users had had to deal with it. This all changed at the end of 2023, when the official Gentoo binary package host was launched. It has been providing users with pre-built binary packages for many software packages available in the Gentoo ebuild repository, and users can install these binary packages to skip the build process, thus saving time. …

Build the Same LaTeX Input File Differently According to Command-Line Options

10 minutes to read

You might have encountered situations where you would like to produce different versions of the same document or create several related documents from a single source, such as: All your document versions have exactly the same content, but each version is formatted differently. Example: In parallel with a standard version of your document, you might also want to create a more accessible version of it that uses a larger font size. …

Framework Laptop 13 with AMD Ryzen 7 7840U

20 minutes to read

Framework Laptops are a series of laptops designed with user repairability, configurability, and upgradability in mind. After two years of launching exclusively models using Intel Core processors, Framework started to ship laptops with AMD Ryzen processors, which are what I looked for since I had heard of Framework. So, I purchased a Framework Laptop 13 with AMD Ryzen 7 7840U, received it in November 2023, and have been using it ever since, but only recently have I found time to write an article about my experience with it. …