{"id":495,"date":"2019-09-19T16:25:16","date_gmt":"2019-09-19T20:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/?p=495"},"modified":"2019-09-19T16:26:27","modified_gmt":"2019-09-19T20:26:27","slug":"homegeek-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/2019\/09\/19\/homegeek-update\/","title":{"rendered":"HomeGEEK Update"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have now completed (or mostly completed) the update and modifications to two new\/refurbished Macintoshes. During the process I made several key decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first is that I’m going to make the 11″ MacBook Air my primary travel computer. Yes, I like it that much! I made it a Mac-Linux dual-boot and added the nifty rEFInd boot manager<\/a> to make the startup choice a piece of cake. The diminutive laptop is capable of running macOS Catalina (10.15) when it ships, so I’m current with the technology. I chose MX Linux<\/a> as the other OS because it’s a clean, well-crafted Linux, based on Debian, and it has a terrific support ecosphere, too. On top of that, I purchased a perfect laptop carry case for it from eBags, an Everki Advance iPad\/Tablet\/Ultrabook 11.6″ Laptop Bag<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The older MacBook has also been converted to a dual Mac-MX Linux machine, with a disk partition available for yet another OS, should I choose to add one. I was first going to keep it running Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6.8) because of the add-ons included by the vendor, Operator Headgap Systems<\/a>, but then I realized I could use it to replace a similarly-aged MacBook Pro whose CD drive and trackpad have gone the way of the Dodo. So, I laboriously labored to upgrade it — through necessary stages — to High Sierra (macOS 10.13). This required purchasing Carbon Copy Cloner<\/a> to create a bootable copy of the Snow Leopard volume — just in case. I bumped up the RAM to 8GB (it will support 16GB — maybe later…) and added rEFInd, and with some tweaking and preference setting, I should be good to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now it was time to look at my home networking. I’m not unhappy with my setup, but I feel I’m not getting the value for my money. I have a number of devices on my network, including security cameras, a smart thermostat, smart TVs, and computers. To make it all work, I’ve added Powerline Adapters (PLA) and a wi-fi extender. But wi-fi is limited to 300Mbps, and I’m paying for gigabit Internet, so I figured going cabled was the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Network DIagram<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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I purchased two additional PLAs (Zyxel PLA5456, to be precise) and added them. They use the electric cabling of the house instead of Ethernet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Supposedly, one can get megabit speeds in the right circumstances. Sadly, that’s not been my experience so far. The best I’ve seen has been just slightly faster than my wi-fi, and the worst is… well, the worst. I still have some tweaking to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s been a fun (for me!) exercise. My next project: Adjust the truss rod on my Taylor acoustic guitar. I’m more nervous about tweaking a guitar’s settings than I am a computer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I have now completed (or mostly completed) the update and modifications to two new\/refurbished Macintoshes. During the process I made several key decisions. The first is that I’m going to make the 11″ MacBook Air my primary travel computer. Yes, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","category-apple"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":498,"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions\/498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfna.org\/rfo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}