Raspberry Pi 4 Ubuntu Server 18.04 Installation Guide

Published: March 5, 2019 / Last Modified: March 2, 2023 / 207 Comments / ,
Ubuntu Server logo

Ubuntu Server has been my favorite Linux distribution for years. On everything but the Raspberry Pi I run Ubuntu Server but felt stuck with Raspbian on the Pi. Until now!

The Raspberry Pi 4 is now supported. Previously Ubuntu Server for Pi (like many other distros) had broken or completely missing drivers for core components such as WiFi / Bluetooth. In the 18.04.2 update the firmware for the WiFi and other components is now included out of the box making it a fully functional distribution!

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Raspberry Pi Minecraft Server Setup Script w/ Startup Service

Published: February 11, 2019 / Last Modified: March 2, 2023 / 1,114 Comments / ,
Minecraft 1.17 - Caves and Cliffs Update

Based on the comments and feedback from my older guides I have added many requested features and fixes. It has changed so much since 1.12’s World of Color that my old guide is now obsolete and it’s time for the 1.13 Aquatic era update!

This script and guide are written to help you get a great performing Raspberry Pi Minecraft server up and running in only a few minutes.

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Raspberry Pi Cheap SSD Upgrade Guide

Published: February 4, 2019 / Last Modified: March 2, 2023 / 98 Comments / , ,
SSD now cheaper than Micro SD cards

I’ve covered the benefits of taking your Raspberry Pi to a solid state drive (SSD) before extensively in this article but in a nutshell you get around a 280% increase in raw throughput and a 1000% increase in 4k random read/writes over a MicroSD card.

In this article I will teach you how to upgrade to a SSD on your Raspberry Pi for under $30.

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Raspberry Pi 3B+ MicroSD / SSD Speed Benchmarks

Published: March 28, 2018 / Last Modified: July 22, 2022 / 14 Comments / , ,
The contenders for the RPI storage benchmarks

After publishing my Raspberry Pi Minecraft Server tutorial I got some feedback on Reddit to try using a USB SSD for storage.  I expected some marginal improvement but nothing spectacular due to the USB 2.0 bus data rates.  In fact the results were so spectacular that I’m changing my storage recommendations entirely.  Let the games begin!

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Raspberry Pi Minecraft Server 1.13.2 / 1.14.4 Installation Script / Optimization Guide

Published: March 25, 2018 / Last Modified: September 4, 2022 / 65 Comments / ,
Raspberry Pi Minecraft Server Timings

Many things have changed since I wrote my last Raspberry Pi Minecraft Server guide.  OpenJDK is now the better supported Java for Raspberry Pi and Oracle is discontinuing support for Java 8 in January 2019.  Java 9 is out and Java 10 is soon to follow.  The Raspberry Pi 3B+ has also arrived!  After testing the server on the new 3B+ using Java 9 I was blown away by the performance and decided to write an updated guide and a script that will have you up and running in minutes.

To give you a taste of how smooth the timings are in Java 9 OpenJDK headless using the Paper Spigot Minecraft Server here is a nearly 2 hour session I played with my girlfriend.  This was played in survival mode on a brand new server so no blocks had been pregenerated and no settings were modified from the defaults.  Nothing is overclocked except the SD card.  There was even a village right by the spawn so many entities were in use.  Here’s the timings output report:

Raspberry Pi Minecraft Server Timings

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Turn Old mSATA SSDs To Fast USB Stick Drives

Published: March 10, 2018 / Last Modified: March 2, 2023 / 9 Comments / ,
Looking down the barrel of the mSATA drive

Since the M.2 NVME form factor has won the high performance solid state drive war many of you may be stuck with older micro SATA (mSATA) drives.  These still have a very awesome use that will only cost you $10 to take advantage and have a blistering USB stick instead of throw them away!

These are full blown SSDs and their performance blows a regular USB flash drive out of the water.  They support the trim command and show up as “fixed disks” instead or removable storage.  This means they support cache write optimizations that normal USB removable drives don’t.  This allows you to do all sorts of awesome things on them.  Some examples:  Windows to Go, Fast Portable Linux, Virtual Machine storage, etc.  You can also just use it as a really fast drive to transfer files back and forth with your friends while looking like a total techie badass.
Looking down the barrel of the mSATA drive
View of the top of the drive

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ServiceNow Automation Using Chrome Extension

Published: March 10, 2018 / Last Modified: March 2, 2023 / 2 Comments / ,

I am releasing my Google Chrome extension with tools to automate many ServiceNow ticket tasks. 

It is a easily extendable extension in which you can autopopulate and autoroute tickets, automatically refresh your queues, play a sound when a new chat comes in, present hints and tips to agents, and many other features.

Every ServiceNow implementation is different so don’t expect to be able to drop this extension right in. To use it will require modifications specific to your implementation of ServiceNow.  If you understand basic Javascript you should be able to make use of this.  No APIs are used other than what is available in ServiceNow itself.

This tool was developed using the Chrome Developer Tools (Ctrl+Shift+I) to get fields and ids you will need to make the tool work. I do not recommend even attempting to use this unless you are a fairly experienced web developer.

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UDOO X86 Microboard Breakdown

Published: November 18, 2017 / Last Modified: March 16, 2022 / Leave a Comment / , ,
Front of the board

The UDOO X86 is a single board computer that runs an Intel 64-bit chipset. It also has a separate chipset with a full implementation of Arduino. It runs Windows 10 and any flavor of Linux. The board is touted as as the “new PC that can run everything.” That is quite a bold claim!

In this breakdown we will examine the Udoo X86 and see how it stacks up against other SBCs!

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Old Skool NES Classic Case Fan Mod

Published: July 16, 2017 / Last Modified: March 17, 2022 / Leave a Comment / , ,
Pi Classic Fan Case Open

This is a followup to my awesome Old Skool NES Classic RetroPie build.  When I posted my build on Reddit several users that already had the case noted that the case tends to get very hot.

That’s not good, but since the case is so awesome I was determined to find a solution.  This mod requires no soldering, no drilling, and is dead simple and cheap.  It also does not modify the look of your NES Classic RetroPie setup at all!

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Raspberry Pi 3 NES Classic RetroPie Build

Published: July 9, 2017 / Last Modified: April 28, 2022 / 2 Comments / ,
Our PI Classic case has an opening lid!

I confess I have never been a big fan of emulation.  It never felt like playing the real thing to me.  However this setup really looks, feels and plays like the genuine article.  

We will use a nice case, premium controllers and a Raspberry Pi board with RetroPie to create a truly authentic retro gaming experience.  

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Check If Raspberry Pi is Undervolted Or Throttled

Published: June 26, 2017 / Last Modified: March 2, 2023 / 7 Comments / ,
Raspberry Pi 4

I uploaded a quick gist that will measure your Raspberry Pi’s true clock speeds using the vcgencmd. Don’t believe what other tools like cpufreq tell you that your Raspberry Pi is running at because they are lying to you! The true clock speeds are controlled by the firmware and vcgencmd is the official way to interact with the Raspberry Pi’s firmware and hardware and are the only readings you can really trust! Available at https://gist.github.com/TheRemote/10bda1ac790f959210db5789f5241436 or click read more to view it directly on my site.

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amiibo NFC Backup Guide for Mobility and Safety

Published: June 25, 2017 / Last Modified: October 18, 2022 / 6 Comments / ,
N2 Elite Manager with N2 elite chip loaded

My girlfriend and I are huge fans of the Nintendo Switch and especially The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The Switch is praised for its portability but whenever she comes over she brings the Switch but carrying all the accessory was a big pain.

There are over a dozen amiibo figurines that work with Breath of the Wild and can give you very powerful items and abilities. But bring her whole collection of amiibo figures on top of the switch itself became too big of a load. To solve this she found a very compact and protective carrying case that made it very easy to take the Switch around safely.

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Kali Linux 2017.1 + Raspberry Pi 3 + RPI 7″ Touchscreen = Plug and Play!

Published: June 18, 2017 / Last Modified: April 28, 2022 / 4 Comments / , ,
Kali actually running and connected to local WiFi using built in WiFi

The Kali Linux penetration testing distribution has been available for Raspberry Pi for quite some time. However, it can be quite a chore to set it up, especially with a touchscreen.

Recently I purchased the official Raspberry Pi 7″ touchscreen and was astonished when I put the SD card in and Kali booted up right to the desktop ready for me to log in!

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Overclocking Samsung Pro Plus MicroSD to 99MHz on Raspberry Pi

Published: June 18, 2017 / Last Modified: March 17, 2022 / 2 Comments / ,

In my quest for maximum performing MicroSD cards in the Raspberry Pi I decided to purchase the top performing card in most benchmarks which is the Samsung Pro+. However, the common overclock for the Raspberry PI SD port to 100MHz does not seem to work with these cards and they become unstable. However, through a little bit of tweaking and experimentation, I found that these cards can be clocked to 99MHz and work just fine and provide a substantial performance boost. Read on for the details!

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