Category: Debian

Make the Sound Good when using PulseAudio in Linux

Linux uses PulseAudio, which has a poor default configuration, resulting in bad sound.

With some tinkering with the PulseAudio file, reading a lot of websites about the settings, I was able to get PulseAudio to have sound that’s subjectively as good as BSD, Mac, etc. By default, PulseAudio uses a resampler called “speex-float-1” which is horrendous. The reason this is chosen is to maintain compatibility on very small and bad sound cards. This shall be reconfigured to either “speex-float-10” or “soxr-vhq” for best quality. Some other changes also improve the sound.

Make the Sound Good (Reddit | r/linuxmint)
Also see: PulseAudio (Linux Reviews)

Linux users: How to Run Netflix in Kodi (original title: How to Run Netflix on the Raspberry Pi)

This is a case where a blog post is kind of mis-titled, and suggests that the article has more narrow application than it really does. The original title suggests it only applies to Raspberry Pi users, but if you actually read the article you find that the method shown should be equally applicable to any Linux-based distribution running Kodi, or at least to those Linux distros that are based on Debian (Debian, Raspbian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Zorin OS, and many more). The same method would probably work on non-Debian-based distros as well, if you can get the required dependencies using their package managers, and if Kodi will run on them. I understand that it was published in a blog intended for Raspberry Pi users, so that’s probably why they tried to make it seem only relevant to the Raspberry Pi, but if you are running Kodi on some other Linux distro and want to view your Netflix content, you might try giving the method shown in this article a try:

How to Run Netflix on the Raspberry Pi – Pi My Life Up

Send Email from Raspberry Pi Command Line

Send email using SSMTP with the command line on a Raspberry Pi. Step-by-Step Illustrated guide to sending emails through the command line in linux

Source: Send Email from Raspberry Pi Command Line (AlgisSalys.com)

The technique shown in this article, which allows you to send email from the command line or a bash script, uses Gmail to send the mail. It should also work on Debian or Ubuntu based systems.

How to Downgrade Packages on Ubuntu (and possibly other Debian-based distributions?)

This is an older article but I believe the information is still valid. The technique shown may also work on other Debian-based distributions, such as Linux Mint and the various Ubuntu derivatives.

Ubuntu’s Update Manager keeps your packages at the latest version, but occasionally a new package version may not work properly. You can downgrade an installed package and lock it at a specific version to prevent it from being updated.

Source: How to Downgrade Packages on Ubuntu (HowToGeek)