Tag Archives: Linux/Unix

Restarting the Linux sound subsystem

Sometimes my laptop gets to a state in which sound works through the built-in speakers, but not through the headphone jack. Possibly my solution is too brutal, but it works -  restarting the whole sound subsystem. I guess that it may come handy in other situation: the ability to restart a subsystem instead of rebooting the machine, is always an advantage.

The rationale is simply reloading the kernel module that acts as a driver to our sound hardware. Reloading isn't easy, as:

  1. Kernel modules use this module.
  2. User processes use this module.

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Introducing myip (no more ifconfig eye-grep!)

Complex tools for a simple task

It's common for us, users and admins, to check what is the ip of the host we are logged in to. Currently on Linux, this task is commonly done by the ip and ifconfig tools. However, I find them way too complex for the simple task of checking what's the IP. their output is full of confusing, irrelevant details, and they have tons of command-line arguments.

But you can pipe it all through grep, sed and awk!

Well... I'm not even going to explain why it isn't friendly.

myip for the rescue

So after I failed to find a simple tool for displaying IPs, I started writing it myself. Some command line samples: Continue reading