Point Element

I started noticing this issue recently when I used Ubuntu to copy large files - anything more than 600-700MB. When the copy started, it would start with good speed of about 25-30 MB/S, but then after about 300MB it would slow down and soon go into single digits. Also System Monitor would show kswapd0 popping up and bogging one core so that system performance would take critical hit. This would happen only when the source/destination was ntfs partition. At first I thought kswapd0 to be the culprit since it was the one hogging the system. But after lots of google searches I found out ntfs.3g driver to be the culprit. What happens is that ntfs.3g driver - whatever version is available in kernel 4.4, allocates huge buffers and does not free them, so if you looked in top, you would see the buff/cache part of memory swelling to ridiculous sizes - in my case when copying 1GB file buff/cache swelled to 3.5GB (WTF!!!) from 500MB. Anyway after trying a number of solutions below one is the one th...

I recently parted ways with my Nubia Z9 Mini. Gave it to my younger sister as her Karbon S1 Titanium ran out of steam. Thing is I can do with an entry level phone. So I was on the lookout for a decent and cheap android. There are some compromises though - screen is going to be small, RAM not much - 512MB to 1GB, and battery life might take a hit depending on the capacity and model. After browsing through multiple times on the roaster, I settled on a Karbon A91 Storm but the unit I received came with a damaged battery - with a dent in it. It did work when I popped it in risking an explosion, haha. The phone was totally meh with a terrible build of android and the hideous champagne-white color scheme (which by the way I mistakenly selected :C) made it a no go.  Further hunt led me to a number of cheap phones - some from companies whose names were totally new to me, didn't even have websites etc, to costly entry level phones from established brands. I also decided that I needed to up ...

It just so happened that AquaFish was the only smartphone I had at hand when my Nubia temporarily died. I used AquaFish for almost a month and these are my findings. It's a good device - screen is good, call quality is above average, Sailfish OS runs well, almost no weird behavior like dropping signals/missing SMS/ call hanging. Telephony was quite good. The handset feels good in hand and I had people asking me which this orange phone is!!! The crown is of course Sailfish's gesture driven UI. It's quite natural and I have never missed android's home/recent/back buttons. The UI is responsive and there were not one native application hangups. Few android applications hanged up in various use cases - e.g. WhatsApp with GIF's etc. Not a huge deal breaker. The SD Card support worked fine, MTP connection to Laptop Windows/Linux was solid. No weird 0 Byte files or anything. Camera worked fine. In fact I captured some good photos. I have attached a snap here. Notifications ...

I was almost ready to give up on the Nubia - already had given up on it. But then today I put it up for charge and lo behold! The notification LED started blinking in an SOS pattern. So I googled the internets, and found similar cases for various brands of mobiles. I let the phone charge on. There was nothing on the display yet. Then on one post someone mentioned that they had more luck with a 2.4A charger. I remembered that I had one microUSB power adapter I had purchased for my Raspberry Pi3. So I plugged in the phone to this 2.4A 5V adapter. And suddenly the charging animation showed up. I cannot explain my joy! Then I let it charge till 20% on it. After I used normal 1A charger to fully top up. And now the Nubia Z9 mini is back!!!

Will write just the conclusion here: Networking is complex! Ciao