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Recent changes introduced with iOS 10 prevent you from mounting an iPhone on a regular Ubuntu installation.

The PPA by Martin Salbaba used to fix the issue, but it hasn't been updated in a while, and now when I connect my iPhone (running iOS 10.2.1) the pictures are no longer accessible, although the documents are still there.

This solution worked for me (Ubuntu 16.04):

- install libimobiledevice6 + dependencies from this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~martin-salbaba/+archive/ubuntu/ppa+libimobiledevice (follow the instructions there)

- install newer libimobiledevice version according to the "recipe" by A.B. here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/598940/libimobiledevice-1-2-ios-8-support-for-ubuntu-14-04-trusty

- install ifuse according to the same method:

cd ~/src/
git clone https://github.com/libimobiledevice/ifuse.git
cd ifuse/
sudo apt-get install libfuse2 libfuse-dev
./autogen.sh 
make
sudo checkinstall

You can now mount your iPhone like this:

mkdir ~/mnt
ifuse ~/mnt

I assume the same procedure would work for an iPad too.

This website is a really useful resource: https://realfavicongenerator.net/

Wondering what APA106 addressable RGB LED are? Get some from eBay, AliExpress or SparkFun.

In case this is useful to anyone else: here is my APA-106-F8 RGB LED KiCad library, including 3D model for pretty rendering.

You are free to use/change/distribute it in any way for any purpose. Attribution would be nice but is not mandatory.

The 3D model was made with OpenSCAD based on the instructions from Christopher J. Woodall. (The only difference is that I used meshlab to convert the OpenSCAD STL to binary instead of meshconv.)

Update 2020-12-05: the original post with the instructions is no longer online, but you can still find it here.

If you are interested, here is the OpenSCAD source file.

As seen here, 7-Zip can extract the contents:

$ file PGPexch.ole
PGPexch.ole: Composite Document File V2 Document, No summary info
$ 7z x PGPexch.ole

7-Zip [64] 9.20  Copyright (c) 1999-2010 Igor Pavlov  2010-11-18
p7zip Version 9.20 (locale=en_US.UTF-8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,2 CPUs)

Processing archive: PGPexch.ole

Extracting  [1]CompObj
Extracting  [1]Ole
Extracting  CONTENTS
Extracting  [3]ObjInfo
Extracting  [2]OlePres000
Extracting  [3]MailStream

Everything is Ok

Files: 6
Size:       104336
Compressed: 108544
$ file CONTENTS
CONTENTS: PDF document, version 1.5
$ 

(If the OLE data is hidden in a WINMAIL.DAT file, you may have to extract it with tnef first.)

Recently I wanted to install Ubuntu next to a pre-installed Windows on a brand-new HP EliteBook.

The notebook came with four primary partitions, with Windows installed on the biggest one:

- sda1 (1 GB, NTFS, label=SYSTEM)
- sda2 (457 GB, NTFS)
- sda3 (16 GB, NTFS, label=HP_RECOVERY)
- sda4 (2 GB, FAT32)

In order to install Ubuntu it's not enough to resize the Windows partition, as you cannot have more than four primary partitions. Removing one of the other partitions is a bad idea according to several reports, as it might render the system unable to start, or prevent BIOS updates. So the idea is to convert the Windows partition to a logical one in addition to resizing it. Fortunately everything you need to do that is already included on the Ubuntu installation image.

1. Use gparted to resize and move the Windows partition. I resized it to 100 GB and added 10 MB free space before it (to leave some space to create the extended partition later on). This will take a while, depending on the performance of your hard drive.

2. Use fixparts to convert sda2 to a logical partition:

# fixparts /dev/sda

Type l then 2, write the changes to the disk with w.

3. Restart the computer without the Ubuntu install media so that Windows fixes itself. This will take even longer than the partition resize, be patient. Restart once more to make sure the Windows install is fine.

4. Proceed with installing Ubuntu, choose the option to "install Ubuntu alongside Windows".