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

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

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/

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

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

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/

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/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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/

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

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

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

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

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/

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

My unattended upgrades in Debian worked!

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

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/

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/

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

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.

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

I don't know what #Debian is doing to run so quietly on my HP laptop with Intel i7, but I'll take it.

I had to re-generate my Twitter API key, secrets and token after temporarily deactivating my Twitter account https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/authentication/oauth-1-0a

Twitter API test

I don't know if having the same OS (Debian Stable) on both computers makes a difference, or if I'm doing things in a more systematic way, but I have had no Syncthing issues — and I'm syncing 187 GB.

My Debian Stable system wouldn't update from 11.5 to 11.6. I tried apt-get clean, but that didn't work. Instead I removed the package lists with # rm -r /var/lib/apt/lists and then did an apt update. Then I got all the new packages.

With all this talk about The Document Foundation, LibreOffice development and Collabora, I probably should figure out what Collabora even is (and does) https://www.collaboraoffice.com/

The complete CREEM Magazine Archive - /month. This might be worth it. https://archive.creem.com/

I just got started on http://tilde.club. The server runs #Fedora, and it looks like a great community.

Debian is a strange and wonderful project. One of the best things about #Debian is its approach to security. I know that the kernel will always be patched for vulnerabilities.

Every so often, a critical package — like Chromium or Firefox ESR — will not get the patches it needs. I complain, and nobody tries to silence me. I appreciate that. And the ship that is Debian usually rights itself, and a neglected package tends to find new-maintainer life.

While http://centos.passthejoe.net publishes updates for #CentOS Stream 8 and 9, until now http://passthejoe.tilde.institute/centos has only published Stream 8 updates. I am attempting to add Stream 9 to that site. Let's wait and see if it works.

These sites only exists due to the work of @rbowen@mastodon.social — thanks, Rich for your Python script. I hope the sites prove useful. While they were borne out of frustration, the project became a learning experience for me in Hugo, Bash and cross-OS scripting.

I've been posting in the #Fediverse for a couple of years now, and until recent events on #Twitter, there hadn't been quite the critical mass of users to make being here vs. there extremely compelling. Those users are here now, and if these communities (very much plural) survive the growing pains, we will continue to really have something special — and not corporate.

I hate to say it, but I decided to go with the Google Chrome browser from the #Flatpak instead of Chromium from the #Debian repo or #Vivaldi from the project's own repo. I ran #Chromium for YEARS until the project decided to kill sync. I resented being pushed into Google Chrome and ran Vivaldi for awhile. But between bugs, performance issues and lack of a Flatpak, I went from Vivaldi to Chrome. Google's browser is smoother and runs cooler, though I miss the Vivaldi features.

I have been running Debian Stable with as many GUI apps installed as local Flatpaks as possible due to issues with root disk space on my encrypted installation. Instead of a full root, I now have 13 GB free out of 29 GB total. Performance of Debian is always excellent on my 2017 HP Envy laptop, and Flatpaks are quick to start and fast to run. I made this change (to free up the root space) a few weeks ago, and it has been great.

Epson is going to stop selling laser printers. Here's why - Liam Tung/ZDNET https://www.zdnet.com/article/epson-is-going-to-stop-selling-laser-printers-heres-why/

Intentionally making close friends | Hacker News https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33774353

Intentionally making close friends — Neel Nanda https://www.neelnanda.io/blog/43-making-friends

Mastodon isn't just a replacement for Twitter - Nathan Schneider and Amy Hasinoff/Noēma https://www.noemamag.com/mastodon-isnt-just-a-replacement-for-twitter/

How do transistors work, anyway? - lcamtuf’s thing https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/how-do-transistors-work-anyway

Dropbox acquires Boxcryptor assets to bring zero-knowledge encryption to file storage - Paul Sawers/TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/29/dropbox-acquires-boxcryptor-assets-to-bring-zero-knowledge-encryption-to-file-storage/

Goodbye, data science – r y x, r https://ryxcommar.com/2022/11/27/goodbye-data-science/

Where does all the cardboard come from? - Matthew Shaer/The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/magazine/cardboard-international-paper.html

Ruby adds a new core class called Data to represent simple immutable value objects - Swaathi Kakarla/Saeloun Blog https://blog.saeloun.com/2022/11/22/data-immutable-object.html

Rereading: The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder – James Wallace Harris/Auxiliary Memory https://auxiliarymemory.com/2017/01/06/rereading-the-soul-of-a-new-machine-by-tracy-kidder/

Marie Kondo your software stack with open source - Mike Melanson https://github.com/readme/featured/open-source-minimalism

Lemmy - A community of leftist privacy and FOSS enthusiasts (it's like federated Reddit) https://lemmy.ml/

Digital books wear out faster than physical books - Internet Archive http://blog.archive.org/2022/11/15/digital-books-wear-out-faster-than-physical-books/

Fix choppy YouTube video playback in Firefox and firefox-esr in Debian Bullseye - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/723814/how-to-fix-choppy-youtube-video-playback-enable-webrender-debian-bullseye

I hate to say it, but I decided to try Google Chrome in a Flatpak, and it runs a lot better than Vivaldi, which SHOULD be in a Flatpak at this point (but is not).

Raspberry Pi Zero W is mostly frustration if you try to use the GUI. I forgot how crushingly slow it is. I'm getting the no-GUI build of the OS.

I just got an email from the Mozilla Foundation asking for donations. Then I found this article: Mozilla expects to generate more than in revenue this year https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/13/mozilla-expects-to-generate-more-than-500m-in-revenue-this-year/

Some cool Raspberry Pi projects are available from Guysoft https://guysoft.wordpress.com/

I had no idea you can't get Raspberry Pi board anymore. I've had a couple of Pi Zero W boards in a drawer, and I'm starting to put them back into service. The first is going to be a persistent Syncthing desktop that should help my syncing setup. At this point, I'm using 100% Syncthing and 0% Dropbox.

This is a reminder that I have an independent microblog full of short, social-media style posts http://updates.passthejoe.net

The #Debian installer decided to give my fully encrypted 1 TB drive a 30 GB root, and I didn't take the time to make it bigger. Now I'm running out of space, so my workaround (which IS working) is installing Flatpaks with the --user flag so they go in /home, which is HUGE.

I'm having a problem with stuttering YouTube video in #Firefox — the ESR version — in #Debian Stable. Videos from Twitter, Vimeo and Instagram play fine. All problems clear up in the Firefox Flatpak. https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firefox-esr

Does Amazon intentionally slow down your deliveries when you don't have Prime?

Google wore me down. I installed #chrome in #debian from Google's repo.

How to use DALL•E 2 to turn text into AI-generated art - Christina Darby/ZDNet https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-use-dalle-2-to-turn-your-wildest-imaginations-into-tangible-art/

Have you ever heard of Mosh: the mobile shell? I'm installing in #debian https://mosh.org/

How do you install IntelliJ IDEA in Linux? JetBrains Toolbox, Flatpak, individual tarball, or?

Julian Bream took it to a whole other level with 'J.S. Bach: Lute Suites, Nos. 1 & 2' in 1965. The album is on Spotify. https://www.julianbreamguitar.com/j.s.-bach--lute-suites--nos.-1---2.html

Kotlin and Android  |  Android Developers https://developer.android.com/kotlin

Complete Kotlin development masterclass 2022 | Udemy https://www.udemy.com/course/kotlinmasterclass/

Kotlin for Beginners: Learning Programming With Kotlin | Udemy https://www.udemy.com/course/kotlin-course/

The Kotlin Programming Language https://kotlinlang.org/

distrobox-upgrade --all is the key to updating all of your Distrobox instances with one command. Thanks @castrojo for the tip! https://distrobox.privatedns.org/usage/distrobox-upgrade.html

JetBrains/compose-jb: Compose Multiplatform, a modern UI framework for Kotlin that makes building performant and beautiful user interfaces easy and enjoyable https://github.com/JetBrains/compose-jb

I had been having trouble with slow starts of firefox-esr in Debian Bullseye, but it seems to be resolved with the latest update https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firefox-esr

I've been back in Debian 11 for a month and a half, and things have been smooth — as expected. Pretty much everything has been running well, and overall the laptop is staying very cool.

My favourite computer, an old Mac - Connor Oliver/Muezza.ca http://muezza.ca/thoughts/favourite_computer/

At $32,500, this is the holy grail: Ed Bickert's blonde 1965 Fender Telecaster https://www.12fret.com/instruments/ed-bickerts-blonde-fender-telecaster-1965/

3-year-old Bugzilla comment fixes font issues in the Firefox Flatpak. I'm running Debian 11, but I expect this fix will work anywhere. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1621915#c3

I am more than a little obsessed with mdBook — the documentation/book platform written in #rustlang. Typical: I'm looking into Rust and am too distracted by the docs tooling to move forward. https://rust-lang.github.io/mdBook/

‘There’s endless choice, but you’re not listening’: Fans quitting Spotify to save their love of music - Liz Pelly/The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/sep/27/theres-endless-choice-but-youre-not-listening-fans-quitting-spotify-to-save-their-love-of-music

Install the Rust Programming Language https://www.rust-lang.org/tools/install

I am now using Syncthing on 57 GB of data on my way to 200 GB. I also haven't organized or otherwise even looked at most of these files over the past many years. So eventually I will sync less, I hope. https://syncthing.net

I am setting up Syncthing to sync about 300 GB of data between two computers https://syncthing.net/

When it comes to my HP laptop running quickly and cool, Debian Stable is doing an excellent job

I just installed Syncthing on my Debian laptop and started the service automatically with systemd https://docs.syncthing.net/users/autostart.html#

The reason I have so many updates right now is the release of @Debian 11.5 https://www.debian.org/News/2022/2022091002

Falling back from Fedora Silverblue 36 to Debian Stable 11 fixed a couple of bugs:

In LibreOffice Calc, ctrl-; spits out the date

In Vim, no need to hit Enter to clear command line after cd

(But gEdit scrolling issue WAS fixed in Fedora!)

I've been back in Debian on my laptop for about a week, and it's been uneventfully smooth. I'd probably say the same if I were going from Debian to Fedora instead of Fedora to Debian.

I was on TikTok for 30 days: it is manipulative, addictive, and harmful to privacy - Luiza Jarovsky https://scribe.rip/i-was-on-tiktok-for-30-days-it-is-manipulative-addictive-and-harmful-to-privacy-9e25445a9122

Things like the early (and expert) adoption of PulseAudio, Wayland, Pipewire, the latest GNOME and other innovations keeps me coming back to @fedora, even if I have recently moved to the predictable and quiet @debian Stable

I am enjoying setting up and using my new Debian 11 (Stable) system on my HP Envy laptop. It's this laptop's second time running Debian, and things have been smooth and predictable.

One of the reasons I paused on NixOS was the /nix/store size. My VM filled up pretty quickly. Not ruling it out forever but passing for now. https://www.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/x1sfff/nixstore/

Both Debian and Fedora are my home distros. I go back and forth with them. When I got my first SSD, I put Debian on it. When I got my second SSD, I put Fedora Silverblue on it. Now I've gone back to Debian on the newer SSD. My old iMac has run Debian for a long time.

There were a lot of things I liked about Fedora Silverblue, but the difficulty of developing in Flatpaks wasn't one of them. Toolboxes are great, but the Geany Flatpak couldn't compile or run anything. I would need a separate Geany in every Toolbox.

I got really "attached" to EasySSH in Fedora Silverblue. Now I have it as a package in Debian, and it's all set up. https://github.com/muriloventuroso/easyssh

I wasn't prepared for most Ruby gem installs in Debian 11 to fail unless done with sudo. I really need to switch to rbenv.

Something broke the Clipboard History GNOME Shell Extension in Fedora 36 Silverblue, so I deactivated it and reactivated Clipboard Indicator. Yes, I have both at the ready.

I'm still trying to figure out whether or not @nixos is "worth" adopting. Will it add enough to make up for the learning curve?

Looks like I got my social-posting Ruby app working in @nixos

Bridgetown: Next-generation progressive site generator powered by Ruby https://www.bridgetownrb.com

My dystopian fiction longs for a better world - Veronica Roth/Literary Hub https://lithub.com/my-dystopian-fiction-longs-for-a-better-world/

Speculative journeys: Sci-fi for people who don't really like sci-fi - Jon Raymond/Literary Hub https://lithub.com/speculative-journeys-sci-fi-for-people-who-dont-really-like-sci-fi/

Flatpak apps in heavy rotation:

EasySSH (Do all your ssh sessions in one GUI) Foliate (eBook reader with books from https://standardebooks.org)

The Fedora Flatpak of LibreOffice keeps crashing in Silverblue 36. Fix is to replace with the Flathub Flatpak of LO.

Something in the latest @Fedora 36 update took care of the very rough scrolling in Gedit (which I still use instead of the new Gnome Text Editor due to Snippets and External Tools)

Updates today in @fedora (and @teamsilverblue) for Podman, NetworkManager and Vim

Standard Ebooks: Free and liberated ebooks, carefully produced for the true book lover. https://standardebooks.org/

Vim 9 is now in Fedora Silverblue (and, I assume, also Fedora Workstation)

Look at how @Debian does security announcements. Other distributions: Do it this way. https://lwn.net/Articles/899688/

You can get support for Debian beyond 5 years by paying for Extended LTS by Freexian https://deb.freexian.com/extended-lts/

Thanks to the @debian LTS team, all releases get 5 years of support. They are just now ending support for Debian 9 "Stretch" and beginning to support Debian 10 "Buster." https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/

Do you know about Milkman Sound amplifiers? These things look UNREAL. Expensive, but man do they look good. https://milkmansound.com/

I had to re-clone the GitHub repo for this project. I don't clone repos often enough to do it right the first time. I considered doing in on CodeBerg instead of GitHub, and maybe I will move it. Using both at once is too brittle.

2021 was the year of the Ruby desktop - Andy Maleh/dev.to https://dev.to/andyobtiva/2021-was-the-year-of-the-ruby-desktop-2j49

Ruby GUI frameworks - The Ruby Toolbox https://www.ruby-toolbox.com/categories/GUI_Frameworks

I love how Slackware's security alerts make it onto LWN. I find it hard to use a distribution that LWN isn't following in that manner. https://lwn.net/Articles/899363/

Use the power of a JavaScript framework right in your HTML file - Ashish/dev.to https://dev.to/asheeshh/use-the-power-of-a-javascript-framework-right-in-your-html-file-1d88

I don't look at Perl a lot, but I saw these release notes on Perl v5.36.0, and it has me thinking about it. https://metacpan.org/release/RJBS/perl-5.36.0/view/pod/perldelta.pod

Discovering the -c switch for Toolbox is changing the way I do things in Fedora Silverblue

@containertoolbx @teamsilverblue @fedora

It's the time of the week where I say how well @fedora Silverblue 36 is going.

Smooth. Almost another semester of CS in the bag (using the IntelliJ Flatpak), and my daily journalism grind besides that.

Next time I rebase Fedora Silverblue, I'm going to wait until after the release. No beta in production for me. I had no problems with the system, but the upgrade had more glitches than I'm used to. https://fedoramagazine.org/how-to-rebase-to-fedora-linux-36-on-silverblue/

Now that I learned how to run commands from Toolbox containers without entering the Toolbox by using -c, I'm going to start scripting with it.

@containertoolbx @fedora @teamsilverblue

I got the Apache @netbeans 13 Flatpak to build and run a C++ program by following instructions to enable the 8.2 Update Center and install the C/C++ module. I also managed to switch to dark mode (Tools->Options->Appearance->Look and Feel). https://netbeans.apache.org/download/nb120/#_cc

I recently removed a couple of blog entries about my disappointment in CentOS Stream 8, but the About page on my CentOS Stream updates blog tells it pretty well.

tl;dr hoping for better things in Stream 9.

https://centos.passthejoe.net/about/

TIL that you can compile C and C++ programs in the Intellij Flatpak — in Fedora Silverblue, or any other OS presumably — by running gcc (for C) or g++ (for C and C++) in the Intellij terminal or Run Anything dialog (which you get by clicking ctrl twice)

We went to the new Whole Foods where you scan your palm and just walk out with your stuff. Kinda creepy. You can still pay w/o that. A formerly packed store and parking lot was pretty empty.

Toolbx, a developers new best friend! — Christian Fredrik Schaller/Fedora Magazine https://fedoramagazine.org/toolbx-a-developers-new-best-friend/

How to rebase to Fedora Linux 36 on Silverblue — Michal Konečný/Fedora Magazine https://fedoramagazine.org/how-to-rebase-to-fedora-linux-36-on-silverblue/

I'm doing all this messing around with CentOS Stream and Fedora Silverblue on the laptop, while the desktop remains on Debian Stable. I don't remember a "bad" Debian release, but Bullseye is a particularly good one. A sweet spot for GNOME (3.38).

I used rpm-ostree to layer vim-enhanced and vim-X11 in Fedora Silverblue. The Vim Flatpak didn't give me console Vim, and Silverblue Vim wasn't picking up my .vimrc.

I have two Toolbox containers for Ruby in Fedora Silverblue, but they share the same files for gems. It has caused some trouble. Better to use Distrobox with a dedicated home, or rbenv/RVM.

Ruby is having issues with OpenSSL 3.0

Ruby developers: On Linux, do you recommend installing all gems with gem install, or using distro packages when available?

The Ruby gems in my app are ... complicated

It's been a difficult semester in computer science. My class is Intro to Data Structures. I have found it hard to find the time to study. I would have liked a class with more (helpful) materials. I had to learn Java OO programming to do the class, so it's been quite an ordeal.

I have been running OpenBSD in a VM, and yesterday I upgraded from 7.0 to 7.1. Everything works. https://www.openbsd.org/71.html

For Fedora Silverblue and Kinote users: Simplifying updates for RPM Fusion packages (and other packages shipping their own RPM repos) - Fedora Discussion https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/simplifying-updates-for-rpm-fusion-packages-and-other-packages-shipping-their-own-rpm-repos/30364

I recommend EasySSH as an easy way to manage multiple ssh sessions. And there's a Flatpak. https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.github.muriloventuroso.easyssh

You can learn something new about Vim every day. Today I figured out how to use iab to insert the date via strftime https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Insert_current_date_or_time

Gnome Clipboard History extension looks like a worthy successor to Cliboard Indicator for those running Gnome 42 https://github.com/SUPERCILEX/gnome-clipboard-history

WordPress simplifies pricing with $0 (aka free) and $15/month Pro plans https://wordpress.com/pricing/

So far, @fedora @teamsilverblue 36 beta has been fairly smooth sailing

Comparison of Fedora Flatpaks and Flathub remotes - Fedora Magazine https://fedoramagazine.org/comparison-of-fedora-flatpaks-and-flathub-remotes/

Contribute at the Fedora Kernel 5.17, CoreOS, Cloud, IoT, and Audio test days - Fedora Magazine https://fedoramagazine.org/contribute-at-the-fedora-kernel-5-17-coreos-cloud-iot-and-audio-test-days/

I found this to be very helpful:

14 software architecture design patterns to know | Enable Architect/Red Hat https://www.redhat.com/architect/14-software-architecture-patterns

The Google Chrome web browser is now in Flathub. If you want or need exactly what Google is shipping, now you have a Flatpak. https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.google.ChromeDev

Princeton Classics graduate reading lists https://classics.princeton.edu/programs/graduate/reading-lists

Do all the celebrities really know each other? Sounds creepy. And exhausting.

MWC 2022: Lenovo announces ThinkPads, IdeaPads, Chromebooks, ThinkBooks and more | Charles McLellan/ZDNet https://www.zdnet.com/article/mobile-world-congress-lenovo-announces-thinkpads-ideapads-chromebooks-thinkbooks-and-more/

Hustle and hype: the truth about the influencer economy - Symeon Brown/The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2022/feb/24/hustle-and-hype-the-truth-about-the-influencer-economy

I hooked up a new cable for our Spectrum service that goes under the house instead of around the eaves. I did the phone wire (from the modem) months ago. I still have to go under the house and let some slack out ...

Debian has really turned things around with Chromium. The security patches have been timely. For me this turnaround is the Linux distro story of 2022. https://lwn.net/Articles/885277/

How I customize Fedora Silverblue and Fedora Kinoite - Muhammed Yasin Özsaraç/Fedora Magazine https://fedoramagazine.org/how-i-customize-fedora-silverblue-and-fedora-kinoite/

We live in the most distracted time in human history. Can we reclaim our attention spans? An interview with "Stolen Focus" author Johan Hari - Sean Illing/Vox https://www.vox.com/vox-conversations-podcast/2022/2/8/22910773/vox-conversations-johann-hari-stolen-focus

Samsung Galaxy S22: How to preorder and get the best deal | June Wan/ZDNet https://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-galaxy-s22-how-to-buy-prerorder-best-deals/

Debian has been very proactive in updating the Chromium web browser. It's a very positive development. — Debian Security Announce via LWN.net https://lwn.net/Articles/884073/

Tribute to William "Bill" G Leavitt — Alisdair Macrae Birch https://www.alisdair.com/educator/williamgleavitt.html

My Mentor, William G. Leavitt | Karl Aranjo http://www.karlaranjo.com/my-mentor-william-g-leavitt/

One of CentOS Stream's secret weapons is @containertoolbx, which I'm using to set up development environments without mucking up the entire system.

On @fedora @teamsilverblue, I'd like @GNOME Software to ask me if I'd like to update WITHOUT rebooting right away and have the updated system active on the next boot.

TBH, I'm very much OK with Flatpaks automatically updating on @fedora @teamsilverblue -- just like I am on @debian.

Is there a Reload All Tabs Functionality/Shortcut for Vivaldi? (Answer: yes!) https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/9433/is-there-a-reload-all-tabs-functionality-shortcut-for-vivaldi/13?_=1643819833763&lang=en-US

Now that htop is in EPEL 9, I'm a whole lot more comfortable with @CentOS Stream 9 on the desktop. https://mirror.arizona.edu/fedora-epel/9/Everything/x86_64/Packages/h/

Configure Fedora to practice and compose music - Yann Collette/Fedora Magazine https://fedoramagazine.org/configure-fedora-to-practise-and-compose-music/

A @fedora @teamsilverblue observation: It's easier to run rpm-ostree upgrade from the terminal and then shut down for the night than to do the updates from GNOME Software, reboot and then have to shut down after that.

Part of GNOME Shell's 'secret sauce' is mousing to the hot corner to bring up the apps dock on the left. GNOME 40+ moved the dock on the bottom, which is awkward for hot-corner users. The Vertical Overview GNOME Shell Extension fixes that. https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4144/vertical-overview/

Ruby on Rails is the one-person framework - DHH https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-one-person-framework-711e6318

It's been nearly a week and I haven't broken @fedora @teamsilverblue on my laptop. Is there a badge for that?

I set up a Ruby development environment in a @fedora Toolbox. This is a great way to work in Linux. I added > 100 packages to the toolbox, and I can dump it and start over without affecting the main system.

I think the @RedHat people involved in @CentOS Stream know it's a marathon and not a sprint. Stream needs time to prove its value. For one thing, it's great to have such a detailed peek at future RHEL.

If for some reason you haven't migrated your @CentOS Linux 8 system to CentOS Stream 8, @AlmaLinux, @rocky_linux or other, now is the time.

I try to play the guitar every day https://passthejoe.net/posts/2021_1227_practicing/

Debian updates Bullseye/Stable to 11.2. And with a new Firefox ESR, it's patched and ready with a very stable GNOME 3.38. https://www.debian.org/News/2021/20211218

Are you looking for an email provider? I recommend @TutanotaTeam (@Tutanota@mastodon.social)

The problem with podcasts is that I don't commute anymore

I'm not sure how I stumbled upon the @esquire newsletter, but there's some great writing there.

Swapping characters, words and lines in Vim - Vim Tips Wiki https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Swapping_characters,_words_and_lines

In my DSL rewiring project, I successfully crimped CAT5 wire to RJ11 connectors on both ends. I started to crimp the RG6, but I couldn't get it tight. I think my wire-stripping technique is not quite right. I'll try again tomorrow.

My CentOS Stream 8 desktop system is super stable and very low on drama

Just wanted to point out that @RedHat did the right thing with @CentOS Stream 8: Today my update automatically installed kernel-4.18.0-348.2.1.el85.x8664.rpm. That's the SAME kernel as the new RHEL 8.5. Hopefully Stream 8 will track the RHEL 8.x kernel from now on. Great move.

I could pretty much play any @fender guitar. I bought a flattop 15 years ago. I haven't bought another guitar since I was a teenager.

I just put on a new set of @ernieball Slinky Pure Nickel strings. I don't know if the pure nickel makes a difference, but these are my first .010s in DECADES. I'm not used to the lightness (coming from .011s), but they sound GREAT. https://www.ernieball.com/guitar-strings/electric-guitar-strings/slinky-classic-rock-n-roll-pure-nickel-wrap-electric-guitar-strings

Another tilde site that looks really good is the Ubuntu-running tilde.team. I'm thinking of starting up an account over there. https://tilde.team/

Thanks go to the admins/devs at tilde.institute, the public-access OpenBSD system, where a bad rsync command on my part blew out my ssh key. They fixed everything, and I'm back in tilde-land. https://tilde.institute

Setting up https with Let's Encrypt certificates is easy on NearlFreeSpeech.net sites. The NFSN script works just about flawlessly. I had to disable a thorny .htaccess on one site to get the script to work (and I hope it will renew. ... We'll see).

How to contribute to CentOS https://wiki.centos.org/Contribute

I'm adding automatic Mastodon tooting to my CentOS Stream Updates script. Scripting Mastodon posting on the server is much easier than Twitter.

Another successful auto-post!: CentOS Stream 8 Updates: November 10, 2021 :: CentOS Stream of Consciousness http://centos.passthejoe.net/posts/2021_1110_centos_stream_updates/

This blog post on CentOS Stream briefly talks about torrents before it runs clear off the rails. http://centos.passthejoe.net/posts/2021_1107_centos_torrents/

My script that automatically runs CentOS Stream updates is now working ... I think. It's not ready for me to open-source just yet, but I will work on it. http://centos.passthejoe.net

TIL that Linux is OK with date --iso-8601, but only date -I works in FreeBSD.

CentOS Stream 8 Updates: November 5, 2021: This was supposed to be an automatic post, but I'm still shaking bugs out of the script. It's only a little ironic that my host runs FreeBSD. Maybe more than a little. http://centos.passthejoe.net/posts/2021_1105_centos_stream_updates/

I am writing a server-side blog-generating script, and since it's meant for a Linux/Unix server, I'm writing it in Bash, not Ruby.

Now that the CentOS Stream updates blog is on its own subdomain, the next steps are to decide if I'll put other CentOS content there (likely) and to automate the package-update posts. http://centos.passthejoe.net

The CentOS Stream updates site is now on its own subdirectory. It looks just like my other site b/c I'm lazy that way, but it is its own Hugo-generated blog. http://passthejoe.net/centos/

Very enlightening post on Async Ruby https://brunosutic.com/blog/async-ruby

The latest CentOS Stream 8 Updates: Oct. 29, 2021 http://passthejoe.net/posts/centos/2021_1029_centos_stream_updates/

A whole lot of @CentOS Stream 8 updates are waiting for you today

In an ideal world, my Twitter-style posts appear here. But the interactivity of Twitter means that this site is more "me." In many cases, that's OK.

The excellent bootable-USB-creator @fedora Media Writer is available for all Linuxes via Flathub https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.fedoraproject.MediaWriter

Karanbir Singh: Stepping down from the CentOS Board https://www.karan.org/posts/stepping-down/

I filed a new bug in Fedora EPEL: 2015259 – Neofetch now requires catimg, which isn't packaged for EPEL

@RedHat @fedora @CentOS @AlmaLinux @rocky_linux https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2015259

This @RedHat documentation is extremely helpful for @CentOS, @rocky_linux and @AlmaLinux users: Installing, managing, and removing user-space components Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html/installing_managing_and_removing_user-space_components/index

Fedora Documentation — so good! @fedora https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/docs/

gThumb, the best image viewer and editor on any platform, is now available in a Flatpak for Linux users. https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.gnome.gThumb

Debian and RHEL/CentOS are very different animals. While Debian is behind several MONTHS on Chromium, more due to dysfunction than anything else, Debian Stable is holding back on the new Firefox ESR, which has been in CentOS Stream for at least a week. That part is probably intentional.

What AlmaLinux Foundation Membership Means for You - AlmaLinux OS Blog https://almalinux.org/blog/what-almalinux-foundation-membership-means-for-you/

CERN looks at @AlmaLinux, @rocky_linux, @CentOS Stream and @RedHat Enterprise Linux and decides to go with Stream 8 https://indico.cern.ch/event/1070475/contributions/4511844/attachments/2309304/3929738/lfc03-20210915-NoNDA.pdf

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates include a notable upgrade: The Firefox ESR browser goes to 91.2.0.

Not a review of CentOS Stream 8 - Steven Rosenberg/passthejoe.net http://passthejoe.net/posts/2021_1006_not_a_centos_stream_review/

I installed the @vivaldibrowser on two systems — one @fedora, the other @Windows. I already had it on my @CentOS Stream 8 system. For me, sync is table stakes, and Chromium's removal of that integral feature closed the door on both it and Chrome. https://vivaldi.com

There are a whole lot of @CentOS Stream 8 updates waiting for you today or tomorrow

Chromium 93 migrated to @debian Testing today. It hit Unstable on Sept. 19. Still waiting for it to appear in Stable. FYI, last Stable update was 90.0.4430.212 on May 21. For those keeping track, Chromium 94 just came out (and is already in the Flatpak). https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/chromium

I am starting to look at @ubuntu with new (and very favorable) eyes. The relative stability, lack of drama and overall polish are starting to look very, very good.

How to intervene when a manager is gaslighting their employees - Mita Mallick/Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2021/09/how-to-intervene-when-a-manager-is-gaslighting-their-employees

It's Windows 10 test week, and I am here to report that the Edge browser has made many performance improvements. If I were running Windows regularly, I would probably dump Chrome for it.

I upgraded my Windows laptop to Ruby 3.0.2. No drama. It works.

Jim Hall's Gibson ES-175 up close - Jazz Guitar Online https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/guitar-amps-gizmos/62192-jim-halls-gibson-es-175-up-close.html

I didn't know that Jekyll was dead, but Bridgetown's Jared White says his project is next step for Ruby static-site generators https://www.bridgetownrb.com/

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates on my system:

• gdm
• gnome-shell
• llvm-libs
• strace

(plus I installed the updated mutter from a downloaded RPM a week or so ago)

All in all, a light updates day (for me anyway)

There are a lot of CentOS Stream 8 updates available today — including the Mutter fix for the recent regression that was crashing GNOME in Wayland.

Good-bye AdoptOpenJDK. Hello Adoptium! | AdoptOpenJDK Blog https://blog.adoptopenjdk.net/2021/08/goodbye-adoptopenjdk-hello-adoptium/

GitHub kisses passwords goodbye – Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols/The New Stack https://thenewstack.io/github-kisses-passwords-goodbye/

Today's updates on my @CentOS Stream 8 system:

• device-mapper-persistent-data
• glusterfs
• libcap
• osinfo-db
• selinux-policy

RHEL surprises me. Somehow, some way, Java 17, Ruby 3.0.2, MySQL 8 and Node 16.7 are now available in @CentOS Stream 8. All but Java are implemented as modules, so you need to tap into it that way. http://mirror.keystealth.org/centos/8-stream/AppStream/x86_64/os/Packages/?C=M;O=D

This is how CentOS Stream 8 works for packages that aren't the Linux kernel:

The version of mutter in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 (and CentOS Linux 8.4) is 3.32.2-57.

The now-old version of mutter (which works) in Stream 8 is 3.32.2-58.

The new version of mutter (which crashes GNOME) in Stream 8 is 3.32.2-59.

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates on my system:

• kernel 4.18.0-338.el8
• NetworkManager
• accountsservice
• bind-utils
• blivet-data
• bpftool
• cockpit
• curl
• dnf
• dracut
• ethtool
• exiv2
• fontconfig
• fstrm
• gdm
• glibc
• gnome-shell
• grilo
• grubby
• hwdata
• iproute
• iptables
• krb5-libs
• libX11
• lua
• mutter
• nmap
• nspr
• os-prober
• plymouth
• rpm
• selinux-policy
• systemd
• vdo
• yum

How do I get notification for new mail in all folders in Evolution? - Ask Ubuntu https://askubuntu.com/a/46583

I don't know if it's @CentOS Stream 8 or @vivaldibrowser, but things are running exceptionally well — and cool — today.

I kid, but @CentOS Stream 8 is SOLID AS A MF ROCK

Gthumb is my go-to photo-editing (yes, I said EDITING) app. I use it ALL THE TIME. It's available on most Linux systems. Thanks to @carlwgeorge for creating the EPEL package. https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Gthumb

I don't think using Vim is like playing a musical instrument, but it is like operating a complex machine, or maybe playing an instrument at a lower level.

Tonight's CentOS Stream 8 updates for my system

• kernel 4.18.0-331.el8
• ModemManager
• NetworkManager
• bpftool
• curl
• device-mapper
• kmod-kvdo
• lvm2
• selinux-policy
• shadow-utils
• sos

I just saw Fedora Hyperkitty — where the project archives its mailing lists — for the first time. It's a VERY impressive interface. https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/

.@AlmaLinux offers live media for GNOME, Xfce and KDE. It's a stunning (and needed) achievement for RHEL-based distros. https://www.reddit.com/r/AlmaLinux/comments/p3um25/almalinux_8_live_media_beta_now_with_kde_and_xfce/

So far, @debian Bullseye is strong on my mid-2011 iMac. In-place upgrade went off without a hitch.

And I thought CentOS 8 Stream confusion wasn't discussed on the CentOS Forum https://forums.centos.org/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=77952

In some ways, @CentOS Stream 8 is ahead of RHEL when it comes to security updates. Notable in this bunch from 8/12/21 are exiv2 and firefox-esr, which were just announced today -- 8/16 -- for RHEL. http://updates.passthejoe.net/2021_0812_061005_today_s_centos_stream_8_updates_on_my_system

Tweeting with blogPoster from Debian 11 running Ruby 2.7.4

I am upgrading the 2011 iMac 27-inch from @debian Buster to Bullseye. So far, so good.

The official @Debian 11 Bullseye release announcement https://www.debian.org/News/2021/20210814

There's something very exciting about a new @debian release, even though I tested it months ago. The two-ish-year cadence seems to really work. https://micronews.debian.org/2021/1628980288.html

I got a bunch of very timely updates today in @CentOS Stream 8, including Firefox, so that's a plus. The murkiness of kernel updates is annoying, but I have to trust the @RedHat/CentOS developers to keep these systems secure.

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates on my system

• NetworkManager
• anaconda
• blivet-data
• cockpit
• device-mapper
• dnf
• dnsmasq
• dracut
• dyninst
• exiv2
• firefox
• firewalld
• gdb
• gnome-session
• gnome-shell
• iproute
• iscsi-initiator-utils
• A lot of iwl firmware
• kexec-tools
• lvm2
• lz4
• mcelog
• mdadm
• mobile-broadband-provider-info
• openldap
• poppler
• rsyslog
• sssd
• subscription-manager
• systemtap
• tpm2-tools
• yum

I did some significant work on the blogPoster microblog/Twitter/Mastodon posting app today. And all of that work is now in the Main branch. https://github.com/passthejoe/blogPoster

Atwater Village amp repairer and maker Colleen Fazio https://www.fazioelectric.com/about

Testing new code for Mastodon posting with the http Ruby gem

How L.A.'s indie bookstores survived the COVID pandemic - Dorany Pineda/Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-06-16/indie-bookstores-in-la-say-theyre-out-of-the-red

How A Good Used Book's L.A. pop-ups survived COVID-19 - Max Bell/Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-08-05/how-l-a-s-most-innovative-pop-up-bookstore-barely-survived-the-pandemic

The firefox-esr package is in MUCH better shape than chromium on Debian systems. It is up to date. https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firefox-esr

There hasn't been a new Chromium package in any Debian version (stable, testing or unstable) since May 21. Not great. It's a security mess. https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/chromium

I will be returning Mastodon support to blogPoster. I will not be using the mastodon-api Ruby gem. Instead I will do the posting to Mastodon via the http gem. https://github.com/passthejoe/blogPoster/

git rm - How can I delete a file from a Git repository? - Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/a/2047477

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates on my system

• alsa-sof-firmware
• flatpak
• kmod-kvdo
• nfs-utils
• nvme-cli
• policycoreutils
• selinux-policy

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates on my system

• alsa-sof-firmware
• flatpak
• kmod-kvdo
• nfs-utils
• nvme-cli
• policycoreutils
• selinux-policy

Universities often omit any mention of the private companies that help run their online degrees, but these companies typically take a 60 percent cut of tuition, sometimes more. - HuffPost https://www.huffpost.com/highline/article/capitalist-takeover-college/

I tried Fedora's Toolbox utility today in CentOS Stream 8. I wasn't impressed, and it also isn't what I'm looking for. Maybe GNOME Boxes will be better.

While Revue is owned by Twitter, there's no integration of comments (even a Twitter feed) in their newsletters. Substack has comments baked in, and I've seen writers use them to solicit discussion.

The mastodon-api Ruby gem has had trouble for some time. It hasn't worked since Ruby 2.7.1 — at least a year. https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon-api/issues/49

I'm now developing blogPoster in Ruby 3.0.2 via rbenv. I upgraded the Twitter gem from 6.2.0 to 7.0.0, which means no Mastodon support. If the mastodon-api gem is ever updated, or I find another solution, I'll bring it back. https://github.com/passthejoe/blogPoster

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates on my system

• kernel 4.18.0-326.el8
• NetworkManager
• anaconda
• bpftool
• chkconfig
• device-mapper-multipath
• firefox
• gnome-calculator
• gtk3
• sos
• vdo

I am experimenting with rbenv. Right now I'm using Ruby 3.0.2 https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv

Could I use my iMac running Debian to get video off of a digital-tape camcorder? https://www.arsouyes.org/en/blog/2021/2021-07-05_Numerisation_DV

Updates to my CentOS Stream 8 system today (that notably don't include a new kernel EIGHT days after a major vulnerability was patched in RHEL):

• NetworkManager
• bash
• cockpit
• cups-filters
• dhcp-client
• glibc
• gnome-shell
• gsettings-desktop-schemas
• kexec-tools
• mdadm
• microcode_ctl
• sssd
• systemd
• tuned
• webkit2gtk3

Planning the CentOS 8 endgame - Jake Edge/LWN.net https://lwn.net/Articles/862832/

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates on my system

• anaconda
• authselect
• gcc
• gnome-shell
• java-11
• man-pages-overrides
• mutter
• openssl
• ostree
• rpm
• samba
• selinux-policy
• subscription-manager
• tigervnc
• util-linux
• xfsprogs

Chromium hasn't been updated for Debian Stable since May https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/chromium

I'm not sure exactly what @vivaldibrowser has done in the past couple of months or so, but I can tell you that it is DEFINITELY ready for prime-time on Linux.

Wanted: More scientists of color for better science - Axios https://www.axios.com/hard-truths-deep-dive-science-race-underrepresentation-scientists-083e0441-a58c-4c47-bf9b-4045aa7589d7.html

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates on my system

• NetworkManager
• autoconf
• binutils
• blivet-data
• cockpit
• coreutils
• device-mapper-multipath
• firefox
• glib2
• gnome-shell
• gnome-software
• ibus
• java 1.8.0
• java 11
• kpartx
• man-pages-overrides
• nettle
• nss
• openjpeg2
• parted
• rsyslog
• tuned
• valgrind
• vulcan-loader
• webkit2gtk3

My current setup remains CentOS Stream 8 on the HP Envy laptop. My work browser is Vivaldi, my not-work browser is Firefox. http://centos.org

blogPoster now has a Twitter-only branch in GitHub. Unfortunately that seems to be the direction in which things are heading. https://github.com/passthejoe/blogPoster

blogPoster update: Ruby 3.0 is working for Twitter in Windows, but in Linux it'sno-go for the entire app in Ruby 3.0. I thought I could disable Mastodon posting and have it work, but no. Another problem: My Fedora laptop's keyboard is dying again, making testing difficult. https://github.com/passthejoe/blogPoster

USA Today is getting a paywall. Who’s the audience for it? - Joshua Benton/Nieman Journalism Lab https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/07/usa-today-is-getting-a-paywall-whos-the-audience-for-it/

How does the twitter 7.0.0 Ruby gem play with Ruby 3.0? I'm about to find out.

This is my blogPoster app with an updated Twitter gem and NO mastodon-api gem. Let's see how it works.

Twitter sends me a LOT of ads for video games. Do they know I have zero interest?

I need to set up my blogPoster app with the newer version of the Twitter gem and no mastodon-api gem. If that solves the issues with Ruby >= 2.7, I might leave the unmaintained mastodon-api on the side of the road and make the app Twitter only. https://github.com/passthejoe/blogPoster

I read a book. It was "The Big Sleep," by Raymond Chandler. I had never read it before, though I have seen the movie.

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates on my system

NetworkManager anaconda centos-backgrounds centos-logos glib2 glibc java 1.8.0 nettle nss selinux-policy sssd vino xorg-x11-server-Xwayland

This site has an archive page. Every post appears via one giant HTML file that I generate on the server. There's a little Javascript that tells you it's the archive page in the right rail. http://updates.passthejoe.net/archive.html

I wasn't in CentOS Stream 8 for a week, and I had quite a few updates waiting for me. RHEL/CentOS is a LOT more dynamic that you'd think. I've seen little bugs get fixed here and there. It's a lot more active than Debian Stable.

I need to run curl with NO output, and I used the --silent switch to do it. You can also use -s, but I like --silent because it tells me what it does.

The mastodon-api Ruby gem has had issues since Ruby 2.7.1 https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon-api/issues/49

Now that I'm running Windows 10 without performance-crushing updates looming, it's a fairly pleasant experience. Solve the update problems, @microsoft.

Leo Garcia's Six String Journal is a very strong and informative classical guitar site https://sixstringjournal.com

I read two interviews in one day with musicians who said learning a piece by playing it 100 times all the way through isn't as good as perfecting one section, then another.

You can learn by doing and do by learning

Once you get past the updates and let things "settle" for a day or so, Windows 10 can be a pleasant, productive environment.

Windows 10 works a whole lot better when the mass of backed-up updates is 10 or 20 hours BEHIND you. It takes the OS a lot of time to stop doing whatever it does in the background and offer decent performance. When I reboot, how long before it 'settles' again?

My ruby app lives (and now dies) by its aging gems

It took me days to get my Windows 10 system updated and usable. This shouldn't have to happen. I had an endless loop of failed updates, finally got them started, and it took MANY DAYS to get them all through. The system is half-usable at best when this is happening.

Guitarist Andrea González Caballero plays Isaac Albéniz's "Sevilla" from Suite Española Op. 47. Great playing. - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13WsK1xuCWA

Ricardo Viñes plays Albéniz's "Granada" (Serenata) Op. 47 No. 1. The pianist is said to have been the composer's favorite interpreter - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nSMCT8DkZ0

I figured out my cron issue on NearlyFreeSpeech.net. It was the classic "don't forget to CD to your working directory" issue.

We ran out of things to watch and started @nbcthegoodplace on @netflix. Would recommend. I avoided it for years, thinking it was like "Touched By An Angel" (no offense). It is not. First season is GOLDEN.

When the local paper shrank, these journalists started an alternative - Katharine Q. Seeyle/The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/20/business/media/when-the-local-paper-shrank-these-journalists-started-an-alternative.html

I'm still trying to figure out the cron jobs, aka "scheduled tasks" on NearlyFreeSpeech.net. I keep changing directories, and they won't run. Looking at the support forum, I am now adding a line to CD into the proper directory. That's a good tip. Will report back.

I did write a script to make an HTML archive of this entire microblog once a day, but I'm still messing around with NearlyFreeSpeech cron

The script that creates the microblogging archive should be a cron job running daily so it's set it and forget it.

I need to write a small script that offers a static HTML page that contains this entire microblogging site. It's very much doable. It's possible to render it in Perl in a few seconds, but it'll be much faster as a static file.

I need to work on migrating this microblog to a static site generator. Probably Hugo.

Thank you, @redhat developers, for fixing this bug in CentOS Stream: 1967125 – SELinux is preventing libcap-ng from 'getattr' accesses on the filesystem /proc. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1967125

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates for my system

• NetworkManager
• alsa-utils
• anaconda
• binutils
• bluez
• ca-certificates
• cldr-emoji-annotation
• cockpit
• coreutils
• gcc
• cpp
• cups-filters
• dnf-plugin-subscription-manager
• firewalld
• gnome-session
• gnome-shell-extension
• graphviz
• gupnp
• iscsi-initiator-utils
• java-11
• kmod-kvdo
• krb5-libs
• openjpeg2
• openldap
• pango
• samba
• selinux-policy
• selinux-policy-targeted
• sssd
• subscription-manager
• systemd
• valgrind
• xorg

I am hoping that Flatseal will solve all my Flatpak permissions issues https://github.com/tchx84/flatseal

Company I've never heard of acquires Stack Overflow for $1.8 billion https://stackoverflow.blog/2021/06/02/prosus-acquires-stack-overflow/

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates on my system

• kernel 4.18.0-310.el8
• alsa-utils
• autoconf
• bluez
• bpftool
• device-mapper
• dwz
• elfutils
• filesystem
• firefox
• hostname
• kmod
• lvm2
• openssh
• pango
• pcre
• qemu-kvm
• virt-what
• xorg

CentOS/RHEL never had the number of desktop packages that Debian and Fedora have. There are so many gaps. I will either figure out packaging and make what I want, or go back to where I came from. http://centos.org

How Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project | Radon/Intuitive Explanations https://intuitiveexplanations.com/tech/replit/

My Windows system would NOT update, so I turned to this thing called Windows 10 Update Assistant. It worked, but the whole thing emphasizes how Windows is NOT easier to maintain than other OSes. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/windows-10-update-assistant-3550dfb2-a015-7765-12ea-fba2ac36fb3f

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates on my system

• kernel 4.18.0.305.3.1.el8
• bpftool
• ethtool
• glib2
• microcode_ctl
• ncurses
• openssl
• polkit
• realmd
• rpm
• sssd
• tuned

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates to my system

• Kernel 4.18.0-305.0.1
• NetworkManager
• Bash
• Bind
• Bluez
• bpftool
• CentOS backgrounds
• CentOS logos
• cockpit
• gcc
• GNOME Software
• Google noto emoji fonts
• lz4
• open-vm-tools
• Ruby 2.5.9
• Systemtap

I have been running CentOS Stream 8 for maybe a couple of months on the desktop at this point, and it is a solid OS. Once you figure out where/how to get your apps (for me it's Copr, EPEL and Flatpak), the whole experience is smooth and uneventful. I did most of a semester's C++ homework (with Geany) and a whole lot of news writing/editing/production.

I'm using the following Flatpaks in CentOS Stream 8

• Dropbox
• PDF Arranger
• Foliate
• PDF Slicer
• Spotify
• Chromium
• GIMP
• Gnote
• GNOME Clocks
• Adwaita
• Zoom

I'm at that point in my final CS program for the semester where I don't quite understand what's happening, but it's compiling, so I'm going with it.

This is that time of the semester when I finally solve the big mystery in my final CS assignment for Intermediate Programming in C++. This time it's manipulating data in structs via pointers. Once I figured out that I needed to make the data types match up, it all came together. I left myself PLENTY of time for this one. It took me about a week and a half to do the main() and four functions. I have three more functions — and a week and a half — to go.

The anxiety of influencers - Barrett Swanson/Harper's Magazine https://harpers.org/archive/2021/06/tiktok-house-collab-house-the-anxiety-of-influencers/

Huge CentOS Stream 8 update today

• Linux kernel
• NetworkManager
• bpftool
• centos-backgrounds
• centos-logos
• coreutils
• cups
• dbus
• device-mapper-multipath
• evolution
• file
• gdm
• glib2
• hdparm
• hostname
• json-c
• mdadm
• ostree
• pam
• python 2 and 3
• selinux-policy
• shadow-utils
• sos
• sqlite
• tigervnc
• unzip
• vdo
• which
• Other libraries and utilities (104 total packages on my system)

Influencer burnout is real - Rebecca Jennings/Vox https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2021/5/25/22451987/influencer-burnout-tiktok-clubhouse

I just discovered @ecoustics, and so far it is awesome https://www.ecoustics.com/

Dreaming of Jazz Kissa in a post-COVID world: Exit to Vintage Street - Eric Pye/ecoustics.com https://www.ecoustics.com/articles/jazz-kissa-post-covid/

How to set up a new Windows 10 PC perfectly in one hour or less | Ed Bott/ZDNet https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-set-up-a-new-windows-10-pc-perfectly-in-one-hour-or-less/

Due to issues with the ownership of Freenode, developers have quit and formed their own project and network https://libera.chat/

Quiet continues for CentOS Stream 8. No updates again today.

Why podcasting is free with Anchor https://blog.anchor.fm/updates/why-podcasting-is-free-with-anchor

I know it's a Spotify podcast content farm, but does Anchor make sense for poscasters? https://anchor.fm/

Spotify's Anchor makes podcasting free and (ostensibly) easy. Is it worth it to go this route? https://anchor.fm/

Another few days with no updates in the quiet CentOS Stream 8 Linux distribution. As I always say, this is how it is supposed to be. We'll see what this week brings. http://centos.org

Donald Trump has a blog that's also a micro blog. It's not a 60-million-follower Twitter feed, but it does the same thing, and he owns and controls the whole damn thing. https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk

The @CentOS community is as friendly and knowledgeable as the @Fedora community, and that is a huge plus for picking up either Linux distro. Everybody wants to help.

Every time I have a CS assignment, I think it's impossible and will take me 100s of hours to figure out. I think I'll never be able to do it. Eventually I do "crack the code," you might say. On this last one, I didn't do everything, but everything I did do is done well.

Now is also the time when I mention that I've been running CentOS Stream 8 for maybe a month, and I'm doing all my day-job editing (news stories, photos) and CS homework (C++) with it.

Now is the time in the semester where I say that my CS teachers tell us to use MS Visual Studio, but I do everything with Geany in Linux. A .cpp file tells no tales.

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates

• qt5
• cups
• dracut
• exiv2
• fwupd
• gcc
• glib2
• iproute
• python2
• quota
• sos
• subscription-manager

It's been a quiet few days for CentOS Stream 8 updates. I still need to do my review. http://centos.org

One of the best things so far about CentOS Stream is that I am not a RHEL customer, but I was able to file a bug in Red Hat Bugzilla and then see it resolved. It's like what happens in Fedora, but in CentOS (and near-future RHEL). http://centos.org

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates:

• LibRaw
• NetworkManager
• evolution-data-server
• exiv2
• file
• glib2
• gnome-online-accounts
• java-11
• openssh
• python36
• udisks2

plus a few more

BIG CentOS Stream 8 update today:

• anaconda
• cockpit
• exiv2
• file-roller
• firefox
• glibc
• java
• openssh
• qt5

It has been many days since the last CentOS Stream 8 update. This is how it is supposed to be.

Java for everything - Lawrence Kesteloot https://www.teamten.com/lawrence/writings/java-for-everything.html

Slackware, which hasn't had a release for nearly a decade, is making a big comeback - Mayank Sharma/TechRadar https://www.techradar.com/news/this-long-lost-linux-distro-is-making-a-big-comeback

This is now the Internet Archive digitizes 78 RPM records https://twitter.com/internetarchive/status/1386423512810721284

Farming robot kills 100,000 weeds per hour with lasers - Kristin Houser/Freethink https://www.freethink.com/articles/farming-robot

It's been a quiet couple of days for CentOS Stream 8 updates. That's how it's supposed to be.

Why the new Macs are so short of memory - Barry Collins/Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2020/11/11/why-the-new-macs-are-so-short-of-memory/

The CentOS Stream 8 Boot ISO installer is kind of broken. This should be a four-alarm emergency, am I right? https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1946347

I wanted to switch Java versions from 8 to 11 in CentOS Stream 8, and this Red Hat tutorial showed how easy it is. https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2018/12/10/install-java-rhel8/

Today's CentOS Stream 8 update: Java

Today's CentOS Stream 8 updates are binutils, file, libxcrypt and pcre

My Mahavishnu Orchestra obsession continues https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD36-Zn2bA4

I'm in a heavy Mahavishnu Orchestra phase

Moog, a History in Recordings: In Celebration of the Minimoog - The Bob Moog Foundation https://moogfoundation.org/thom-holmes/

The CentOS Stream 8 installer is kind of broken, and I started a bug on it https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1946347

Today's CentOS Stream 8 update: glibc

A 'big' CentOS Stream 8 update came through tonight: new kernel, Java and a smattering of other packages.

Free RHEL is also RHEL - Rich Lucente and Micael Epley/Breaking Defense https://breakingdefense.com/2021/04/free-rhel-is-also-rhel/

COSMIC desktop to arrive in June release of Pop!_OS 21.04 - System76 Blog https://blog.system76.com/post/648371526931038208/cosmic-to-arrive-in-june-release-of-popos-2104

I am starting a new blog entry: The 2021 Linux laptop rebuild. It is a work in progress. http://passthejoe.net/posts/2021_0411_linux_laptop_rebuild/

With my move to CentOS Stream 8, I reinstalled Hugo and needed to update my old theme. Instead I just tried a new one. http://passthejoe.net/

It's not like I have issues with any Linux distribution on my 2017 HP laptop, but CentOS Stream 8 is exceptionally solid. Sound, suspend/resume, printing (with HPLIP), display, power management. It all works. The update pace is Debian Stable-slow.

It's ok to take a walk without headphones | RadReads https://radreads.co/telic/

After a week with CentOS Stream 8 as my laptop's OS, I can say that it is very solid. To install at this point, get a big USB flash drive and download the huge 10 GB DVD image.

The worst thing about Twitter is you can't go back in your feed. It only collects what has been posted since you began visiting the web site. If I wait 12 hours between visits, I can't see tweets 2, 6 or 10 hours old. Only 0 hours and 12 hours.

Free software's No. 1 mission should be increasing the number of women and under-represented groups (i.e. non-whites) using and developing software and otherwise contributing to projects.

So you want to be a writer? Essential tips for aspiring novelists - Colum McCann/The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/13/so-you-want-to-be-a-writer-colum-mccanns-tips-for-young-novelists

Review of 'Those Who Can, Teach' by Andria Zafirakou – a lesson in education - Lamorna Ash/The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/apr/02/those-who-can-teach-by-andria-zafirakou-review-a-lesson-in-education

'It was her story': Riad Sattouf on the real girl behind his Esther comics - Kim Willsher/The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/apr/01/riad-sattouf-the-real-girl-who-narrates-his-esther-comics-esthers-notebooks

An ActivityPub WordPress plugin – Larry Sanger https://larrysanger.org/2021/01/an-activitypub-wordpress-plugin/

Why communities use Slack better than companies 💬 - Luca Rossi/Refactoring https://refactoring.fm/p/why-communities-use-slack-better

I filed my first CentOS bug: 0018142: CentOS Stream 8 Boot ISO doesn't provide or otherwise offer mirrors for installation - CentOS Bug Tracker https://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=18142

I am loving the ability to customize @vivaldibrowser by jiggling so many handles in the settings.

I'm sure that @vivaldibrowser has many arrangements that involve advertising and product placement with @Microsoft, @Amazon and even @Google, but the extent of the Google spying HAS to be much less. The fact that I'd rather be spied on by Microsoft should tell you something.

I am leaning hard into @vivaldibrowser for a Chrome base that doesn't phone home to the Google mothership. I don't know if the Chromium ban on using Google sync services ever really happened, but now I don't have to care.

The digital news industry was built on lies - Josh Marshall/The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/digital-news-industry-was-built-lies/618490/

Why does Discord not use ads? The questions we asked Discord's CEO - Bobby Allyn/NPR https://www.npr.org/2021/04/01/983159051/why-does-discord-not-use-ads-and-why-is-microsoft-interested-we-asked-discords-c

April Fool's online pranks just make me tired and aren't terribly witty either

This is how I got the day of the week to appear in the GNOME top panel in CentOS Stream 8. (Also, this will be in Tweak Tool in the next release) - Tip from Vivek/Technastic https://technastic.com/show-complete-date-time-in-ubuntu-gnome-top-panel/

This is my third day working in @CentOSProject Stream 8, and it is like @debian in that it is very stable and very boring — in a good way.

I generated an ed25519 ssh key for this new CentOS Stream 8 system, and I just found out that I needed two Ruby gems — ed25519 and bcrypt_pbkdf — to make it work with net-ssh.

Interview with Marko Saric of website analytics company Plausible Analytics | In the Good https://inthegood.co/taking-on-google/

Plausible Analytics: Simple, privacy-friendly alternative to Google Analytics https://plausible.io/

If you're running @debian Bullseye (Testing), the login manager now displays "Debian 11."

Google Maps' moat is evaporating - A Closer Look with Joe Morrison https://joemorrison.substack.com/p/google-maps-moat-is-evaporating

If you need to copy/paste pieces of URLs in @vivaldibrowser (and I seemingly need to do this all the time), go to Settings -- Address Bar and click "Show Full Address" to keep your cursor from jumping around when trying to grab out of the bar.

Kevin Roose's 'Futureproof' offers rules to thrive in the age of automation - Dave Davies/NPR (The answer isn't to learn computer science or make your life super efficient). https://www.npr.org/2021/03/16/977769873/the-age-of-automation-is-now-heres-how-to-futureproof-yourself

The fact that I was able to do work with @vivaldibrowser pretty much immediately says a lot. The browser offered to import my @firefox bookmarks but not Chromium's. That's OK. I got my company's Chrome extension to work, and that was key.

I installed the Vivaldi Browser https://vivaldi.com

Nyxt: A keyboard-based web browser fully configurable in Lisp. https://nyxt.atlas.engineer/

The world is stuck with decades of new plastic it can't recycle - Zoë Schlanger https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-world-is-stuck-with-decades-of-new-plastic-it-can-t-recycle

Growing up with Steve Miller - Max Marshall/Texas Monthly https://getpocket.com/explore/item/growing-up-with-steve-miller

How Fanta was created for Nazi Germany - Matthew Blitz/Atlas Obscura https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-fanta-was-created-for-nazi-germany

I finished my C++ assignment.

I learned how to:

• Reference arrays and variables in functions
• Compare and manipulate array elements in loops (This was the purpose of the assignment)
• Get user input of a date with with getline
• Convert strings to ints with stoi

When your parents die - Dave Winer/Scripting News: A very poignant look at what's important in life. Dave is very good at telling these kinds of stories. I appreciate him doing it. http://scripting.com/2021/03/17/155004.html?title=whenYourParentsDie

Here's why Substack's scam worked so well - Annalee Newitz/The Hypothesis https://thehypothesis.substack.com/p/heres-why-substacks-scam-worked-so

Charles Ives loved music ... and life insurance. Really. It means you can do two things in life and have it really work out. - Arthur C. Brooks/The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/03/having-dual-career-can-make-you-happier/618311/

I enjoy writing the programs in my computer science classes at @LAValleyCollege. I say that now while I'm maybe a third of the way through.

Samsung 970 EVO vs EVO Plus vs PRO: Which is best for you? https://premiumbuilds.com/storage/ssd/samsung-970-evo-vs-970-evo-plus-vs-970-pro/

Interesting take on AWS Lightsail vs. Digital Ocean Droplets: Should I pick DigitalOcean or AWS for my next project? - Corey Quinn/Last Week in AWS https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/should-i-pick-digitalocean-or-aws-for-my-next-project/

How Trader Joe's Two Buck Chuck revolutionized the wine industry - Zachary Crockett/The Hustle https://thehustle.co/how-two-buck-chuck-changed-the-wine-industry

The story of Willie Nelson's guitar, Trigger - Michael Hall/Texas Monthly https://getpocket.com/explore/item/trigger

As of March 16, 2021, @google sync is still working on the Chromium browser in @debian

Debian's apt full-upgrade removes old kernels I no longer need. It's a nice feature. https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_basic_package_management_operations_with_the_commandline

How to have Your Own Website for a Year https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/raspberry-pi-website.html

I am fascinated by this website. It's great to find these hidden gems. https://cheapskatesguide.org/

The Cheapskate's Guide to Computers and the Internet https://cheapskatesguide.org/

What to Expect from Old Windows PC's https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/end-of-life.html

BabbleWeb : A Free Website Visitors Comment Script https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/babbleweb.html/

The Photoshop from Adobe CS2 installs in Linux via Wine. It ran OK once but wouldn't run after that despite reinstalls and reboots. It's not a tragedy because my Linux photo workflow is totally worked out. It's in Windows where I have a problem.

The Photoshop from this Adobe Creative Suite 2 ESR download from Archive.org works on Windows 10 https://archive.org/details/Adobe-CS2

From Vim to Emacs in fourteen days - Aaron Bieber https://blog.aaronbieber.com/2015/05/24/from-vim-to-emacs-in-fourteen-days.html

How I earn a living selling my open source software - Nemiah https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-i-earn-a-living-selling-my-open-source-software-476f6bb07e

What is the U.S. Senate filibuster and why is everyone talking about it? - Susan Cornwell/Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-filibuster-explainer-idUSKBN2B22HK

The HEY email service allows paid users to blog by sending emails. That's a very compelling feature. https://hey.com/world/

Today's updates to @debian Bullseye/Testing solved my sound issue. New kernel and firmware. Now when I unplug headphones, sound automatically switches to laptop speakers. As Bullseye inches toward its Stable release, things keep getting better.

I did a @Fedora 33 test today. I could definitely see myself returning. All the positives of community that might come to @centosproject are already there in Fedora, and the projects will be close no matter what. https://getfedora.org/