Title photo
Think globally, microblog locally
Wed, 10 May 2023

Aubrey Plaza’s Wood Milk ad and the controversy around it - Vox https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/5/5/23709822/milk-dairy-plant-based-meat-soy-almond-fake-processed

Thu, 04 May 2023

This 1986 KCRW-FM performance by the Dream Syndicate is my favorite out of everything they ever did. And I did see them live a BUNCH of times during this period. My self-recorded cassette broke years ago, and I'm glad to have access to it again. https://www.kcrw.com/music/shows/bent-by-nature/dream-syndicate-out-of-the-grey-live-1986

Fri, 28 Apr 2023

How to install Google Chrome on Fedora Linux quick and easy - Linuxiac

(Note: This post recommends the RPM over Flatpak for speed and disk-space reasons. Flatpak browsers do have some issues, but these are not among them for me. I use the Chrome Flatpak and have been very happy with it.) https://linuxiac.com/how-to-install-google-chrome-on-fedora-linux/

Devuan users are at risk, take action to protect your system - Linuxiac https://linuxiac.com/devuan-users-are-at-risk/

Thu, 27 Apr 2023

Debian 12 Bookworm runs so well, it makes it hard for me to think about moving to Fedora or openSUSE

Debian 12 Bookworm release is planned for June 10, 2023 https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2023/04/msg00007.html

Tue, 25 Apr 2023

Debian alert DLA-3398-1 (curl) [LWN.net] https://lwn.net/Articles/930001/

Sat, 22 Apr 2023

GotoSocial recommends Hostwinds for VPNs https://www.hostwinds.com/

You probably know this, but you can't really buy a Raspberry Pi. Here's the availability from Adafruit https://www.adafruit.com/category/176

I love a quiet laptop :: passthejoe https://passthejoe.net/posts/2023_0422_i_love_a_quiet_laptop/

Friction in the Hugo composition process — Part 1 :: passthejoe https://passthejoe.net/posts/2023_0422_hugo_friction-part-1/

The Buffalo News was the crown jewel of Warren Buffett’s news empire. Now it’s just another Lee paper - Poynter https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2023/buffalo-news-owner-lee-enterprises-cuts-layoffs-outsourcing-berkshire-hathaway/

Sun, 16 Apr 2023

End of life dates for CentOS Stream 8 and CentOS Linux 7 are just a few months away | blog.CentOS.org https://blog.centos.org/2023/04/end-dates-are-coming-for-centos-stream-8-and-centos-linux-7/

Fri, 14 Apr 2023

Ernie Ball introduces Slinky Flatwound Guitar Strings at NAMM 2023 https://blog.ernieball.com/events/ernie-ball-new-at-namm-2023/

Thu, 13 Apr 2023

Beekeeper Studio is billed as "The SQL Editor and Database Manager of Your Dreams." I installed the Flatpak. https://www.beekeeperstudio.io/

The DBeaver database tool is available as a Flatpak. You KNOW I installed it. https://flathub.org/apps/details/io.dbeaver.DBeaverCommunity

Posting to Mastodon is easier because there's a 500-character limit

I replaced upstream Distrobox with Debian-packaged Distrobox on my recently upgraded Bookworm (12) laptop. My first new Distrobox used a Debian 11 image and has a custom home directory so my config files don't clash with my non-Distrobox home. https://distrobox.privatedns.org/

I'm getting my Debian 12 (Bookworm) system together. It was an upgrade from Debian 11 and went pretty smoothly. The upgrade probably went a lot faster because I run as many Flatpaks as possible (and they update separately). http://debian.org

Wed, 12 Apr 2023

I just did what looks like a successful upgrade from Debian 11 (Bullseye) to 12 (Bookworm) https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/amd64/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html

Fri, 07 Apr 2023

I just upgraded my Fedora Silverblue 37 VM to 38, and it was very smooth

Thu, 06 Apr 2023

These are the Flatpak apps I'm running:

AbiWord

Boxy SVG

PDF Arranger

Foliate

Flatseal

Chrome

Extension Manager

Bottles

Texmaker

GIMP

GNOME Boxes

Deja Dup

(GNOME) Web

Rhythmbox

Inkscape

LibreOffice

Firefox

RaspberryPi Imager

Zoom

The Foliate e-book reader is in Debian Bookworm https://packages.debian.org/source/bookworm/foliate

Tue, 04 Apr 2023

OpenBSD FAQ: Following -current and using snapshots https://www.openbsd.org/faq/current.html

OpenBSD -current - Frequently Asked Questions - Solene@ https://dataswamp.org/~solene/2020-03-27-openbsd-current.html

Wed, 29 Mar 2023

I had to use a new #Apple #Mac desktop recently, and while the "bones" of #MacOS are pretty much the same as they have been, the screen detail is very nice. Also, I hate the way it uses the squiggly road key for everything. It messes with my keyboard-shortcut memory.

How to show a history of installed, upgraded or removed packages in Debian, Ubuntu or Linux Mint - Linux Uprising Blog https://www.linuxuprising.com/2019/01/how-to-show-history-of-installed.html

Tue, 21 Mar 2023

The gThumb photo editor/viewer is one of my go-to apps in Linux. It allows you to edit JPEG captions, among other photo-editing tasks, and is great for my use case. It's available as a Flatpak and in many distro repos. https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.gnome.gThumb

Tue, 14 Mar 2023

If you find yourself at just about any major university and see the overwhelming number of Mac laptops, you can see how vitally important the Asahi Linux project is to the future of free desktop software https://asahilinux.org/

Mon, 27 Feb 2023

I installed Distrobox on my Debian 11 system by downloading the latest release and running the install script. Then I used apt to add podman, and now I'm ready to run containers in Debian. https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox/releases/tag/1.4.2.1

Wed, 22 Feb 2023

Ubuntu removes Flatpak by default from Kubuntu and other flavors https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-flavor-packaging-defaults/34061/8

Sat, 18 Feb 2023

As a desktop system, I couldn't ask for better performance that I'm getting from Debian Stable

Thu, 16 Feb 2023

Today I couldn't get the Vivaldi browser to work without continually, intermittently freezing. I can't keep waiting to click things.

Mon, 13 Feb 2023

The Debian security patch on libde265 rolled onto my system already. I appreciate Debian's focus on security and LWN's posting of advisories so we know what's happening. https://lwn.net/Articles/923130/

Sun, 12 Feb 2023

I need to learn how to write a script that takes every file in a directory and its subdirectories, does some regex-type changes, and writes the new files to a new directory.

Fri, 10 Feb 2023

Is the Twitter API still alive? (Answer is yes if you see this)

Thu, 09 Feb 2023

Burt Bacharach, legendary composer of pop songs, dies at 94 – Daily News https://www.dailynews.com/2023/02/09/burt-bacharach-legendary-composer-of-pop-songs-dies-at-94/

Did my app survive the Twitter API crisis of early 2023? If you see this, the answer is yes for today.

Mon, 06 Feb 2023

I haven't used LibreOffice Writer in a long time, and I have to say I'm enjoying it. Once I zoomed in to make the text bigger, I was good to go.

Fri, 03 Feb 2023

This post is brought to you by my blogPoster app. It uses the Twitter API, which will no longer be free in a few days. It's a Ruby script coded by and for one person (me). Luckily it still posts to Mastodon and my own microblog. https://github.com/passthejoe/blogPoster

Fri, 27 Jan 2023

I'm back in full-time Vivaldi browser use for work. There are just so many little features here and there that help me get things done. Google should take notes and add all this stuff to regular Chrome.

Sat, 21 Jan 2023

I'm using mail to monitor unattended upgrades in Debian, and this helped me: How do you open mailx (aka mail) to read old mail when you have no new mail and view a list of old emails? - Super User https://superuser.com/questions/441871/how-do-you-open-mailx-to-read-old-mail-when-you-have-no-new-mail-and-view-a-list

Fri, 20 Jan 2023

My unattended upgrades in Debian worked!

Thu, 19 Jan 2023

Jamsync is a open-source version control system that enables software engineers to develop and deploy faster https://jamsync.dev/

Mon, 16 Jan 2023

Jeff Beck, a true original: Cause We've Ended as Lovers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aWd88rs6JE

How to set up automatic updates on Fedora Linux - Bobby Borisov/Linuxiac https://linuxiac.com/how-to-set-up-automatic-updates-on-fedora-linux/

Sat, 14 Jan 2023

Strange title for an article about the popularity of CW in amateur radio:

Looking to Ditch Twitter? Morse Code Is Back - Smithsonian Magazine https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/morse-code-back-looking-ditch-twitter-180981309/

Sun, 08 Jan 2023

I had a pretty good day with the Vivaldi web browser. Looks like some bugs got squashed on Linux.

Sat, 07 Jan 2023

I started using the Vivaldi browser today by mistake -- I pretty much moved to "regular" Google Chrome -- but so far, so good

I needed to replace a couple of plain steel strings on the guitar. I went into my stash of old strings, and everything was a little bit oxidized. Saving guitar strings for a decade = not a great idea. I also had classical wound strings go bad. Old flatwounds seemed OK.

Mon, 02 Jan 2023

I am doing my first ever Déjà Dup backup. Thanks to @brideoflinux for the encouragement.