You can speedup Java processes that handle a big heap (several gigabytes) by configuring Linux and the JVM to use large memory pages. This minimizes the load on the TLB tables (which can hold only a limited number of entries) of the processor. For applications that don't have localized memory structures you can easily see a speedup of 50-100% because of the trashing of the TLB caches! But the speedup depends on the type of application you are running of course.

I own a US Robotics USR5410 wireless LAN card and wanted to get it running with WPA encryption under Ubuntu Linux.

Here is what I have done to achieve this:

You have to set the default driver for this card (called acx) to the modules blacklist. It has no support for WPA encryption. To achieve this do sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and add the line blacklist acx. Plug the card in and reboot.

I own two Siemens Gigaset WLAN Repeater 108 devices. They run fine but use a proprietary firmware from Siemens. I now started to experiment if I can get OpenWRT running on them.

Some impressions of the device...

Outside:

Inside:

The serial console connector we need to hack the device:

an alternate shot:

As I am running a Linux VDR installation with an old IBM Deskstar 40GB harddisk. The problem with this harddisk is that it is very small when you use VDR's autotimer functionality and it is far too loud for my living room. My new harddisk is a Samsung SP2514N with 250GB. This drive is very silent. When it is switched on you are wondering if it is really running.

I have installed Linux on my old Nokia dbox2. It is now usable at last. The orginal software on that box is a piece of crap.
See dbox2 Linux Wiki for details. Some crazy people have found a way to install a harddisk into that box.

The LCD of the box looks like this while booting...