It's been a while since I did a little roundup of cool #Linux apps and utilities, so here is a selection of 16 tools I either use, or plan on using, or can just recommend:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqvkpkhv3_8

the always-on bright-as-fuck LED on the Xbox One controller has always bothered the hell out of me, so yesterday I set out on a mission to make my first ever #linux kernel patch and went on a wild goose chase to hopefully flip a 1 to a 0 and disable that LED.

after like 3 hours of figuring out how to compile the xpad module, swap in my patched driver, and a bunch of printk(KERNEL_INFO "I'M HERE!!!!!"); + sudo dmesg -c back and forth, I fucking figured it out! If interested in details, reply

EDIT - Thanks for all the excellent suggestions so far, all of which I'm considering as part of a possible solution:

Just go to Linux already!

Why not strip back to a plain text editor?

Syncthing can handle the cloud-like mirroring without the cloud copy.

Borg and KBackup both handle the version management flexibly (as can Powershell scripts).

A file system with snapshots could do the heavy lifting.

Papyrus is a (paid) solution suiting authors.

------------------------

Looking for solutions for automated file backup and versioning for less technical person on Windows or Linux.

My wife writes novels. She's has been using #Word on #Windows with autosave and #OneDrive for backup.

But Word is bloated and getting worse, she keeps hitting conflicted-version issues on ~100K word documents, and Microsoft is Microsoft.

So, she's ready to move to #LibreOffice and probably #Linux, but she needs a near-bulletproof way to keep having her documents backed up as she writes.

I’m inclined to set her up as follows, but would like any better suggestions:

* All documents autosaved by LibreOffice #Writer to a folder without any cloud backup

* Python program runs every 10 minutes and copies any changed files to timestamped versions in a history folder that is synced automatically to #pCloud (or similar privacy-oriented backup)

* Program also prunes previous versions, keeping last few and some increasingly diffuse ones from earlier times and dates

* Program also maintains a copy of the history folder on a compact USB drive

This should address the main risk of file corruption, work even when offline, maintain a cloud copy and have a belt-and-braces local backup too. It should avoid the conflicted-version issue when saving the master copy. If some versioned copies are invalid, it’s not a big deal.

Does this make sense? Is it stupid? Is there a better well-written archival/versioning tool that does all this?

Looking for stats? Pete Metcalfe shows you how to quickly analyze and plot your data with just one line of Bash and tools like AWK and gnuplot
https://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2025/294/Bash-Stats?utm_source=mlm
#Bash #tools #AWK #gnuplot #Linux #stats #data #SQL

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Screenshot: Create complex AWK/gnuplot statements that are equivalent to SQL, but that can also plot data in graphs.

Nice collection of Bash one-liners for stats!
#Linux @linuxmagazine https://www.linux-magazine.com/index.php/Issues/2025/294/Bash-Stats?utm_source=LU#

Debian looking for testers with Apple M1/M2 machines https://lwn.net/Articles/1028224/ #tech #linux

👨‍💻 New post! I wrote up my experience daily driving Chimera Linux during a recent two-week trip to Central Queensland. I needed to work as usual on the weekdays, so I had to set up my work environment including: #Mercury, #Rust, and #Zed.

https://www.wezm.net/v2/posts/2025/daily-driving-chimera-for-work/

#ChimeraLinux #Linux

@nina_kali_nina I've been using #XMPP for the last year or so, wondering if the halcyon ICQ days of yore are still to be had.

After testing it with several friends connecting to my own self-hosted #Prosody server, here's what I found:

- Yes it all works, on all XMPP clients. But MacOS/iPadOS/iOS clients are not all that mature at this time. The #Linux (#Gajim, despite no video or audio calls) and #Android (#Conversations) XMPP clients are the best, IMHO. Always favor those, I say, and they are confidently installable and reliable today.
- Yes, use OMEMO encryption on personal chats. But when it comes to group chats, OMEMO is not necessarily the right move.
- If you don't need privacy in an XMPP group, then don't create a private group, but rather a _public_ group (the safer choice for reliability of message delivery). No OMEMO is possible in a public group, and the messages propagating around will be reliable, even to clients who vanish and re-appear after prolonged absences.
- If you really need OMEMO encryption in a group chat, create a _private_ group, not a public group. **Clients who vanish from the group for prolonged periods may miss out on some of the messages when they return (say, a few weeks later)**.
- I kept a wiki with several more quirks noted, which came up, and felt confusing and frustrating to my (non-geek) friends using XMPP.

As to your Apple-ecosystem-confined friends, at this moment in time, maybe talk to them 1:1 in #Fluffychat/#Matrix, which affords encryption, and is all #OpenSource, like everything above. (Groups in Matrix have a track record of failing for everybody in them very badly every 2 or 3 years or so.)

NEW VIDEO - Here's my thoughts on the XLibre vs. X11 thing!

#opensource #unix #linux #XLibre #x11 #garyhtech

https://youtu.be/sAjtQMVjqpw?si=SqTvu5TIB4rlnPCe via @YouTube

Tomorrow is the last day to submit an entry for #SeaGL2025 !! This is already the extended due date, don't delay!

https://pretalx.seagl.org/2025/cfp

#linux #floss #FOSS #opensource #cfp #openhardware #opensourceAI #programming #open #protocol #system #dev #devops #hackerspace #diy #art

Does anyone know where are the #blind #linux users gathering these days? Irc seems to be dead and I met some great people there.

Preparing for #endOf10 with hardware compatibility tests on a relative's laptop.

#windows fails, #debian #testing (#trixie) excels!

#FOSS #FLOSS #linux #repair #rightToRepair #fix #reuse #environment

Alt...

Screenshot from Windows 10 displaying a CPU compatibility issue with upgrading to Windows 11.

Alt...

Picture of the laptop in question effortlessly running Debian testing, Trixie, Live with full hardware support.

A nice post about switching from a Linux distribution to freeBSD.

Quote
>>
The interesting thing here is that both are similar and yet very different, mainly owing to their very different histories, with freeBSD being a direct derivative of the original UNIX and its BSD derivative. One of the most significant differences is probably that Linux is just a kernel, with (usually) the GNU/Hurd userland glued on top of it to create GNU/Linux. GNU and BSD userland are similar, and yet different, with varying levels of POSIX support. This effectively means that freeBSD is a singular OS with rather nice documentation (the FreeBSD handbook).

The basic summary here is that freeBSD is rather impressive and easy to set up for a desktop, especially if you use a customized version like GhostBSD.
>>

https://hackaday.com/2025/06/29/switching-from-desktop-linux-to-freebsd/

#BSD #GNU #GPL #Linux #kernel #freeBSD #ghostBSD

^Z

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟲/𝟯𝟬 (Valuable News - 2025/06/30) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/06/30/valuable-news-2025-06-30/

Past releases: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/news/

#verblog #vernews #news #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #zfs #opnsense #ghostbsd #solaris #vermadenday

#AskFedi #BoostsAreAppreciated #Linux #BSD #Networking #PCAP

I am looking for some kind of VM or system I can run to create a network that I can put an untrusted device on to and allow/deny all its connections one by one - think auditioning a new TV or IOT device rather than out-and-out hostile malware. Assume I will also dump packets for investigation.

Security Onion looks like overkill but I'd like to avoid writing my own firewall rules if possible.

I can't use #Wayland with my #Linux system. Performance is terrible.

I have a 2021 Lenovo P17Gen1.
It has both an Intel P630 and NVIDIA RTX3000 Mobile GPU, running as a Prime pair.
It has a 4K eDP display, and two LG 4K displays, one connected via USB-C, and one via DP, via a TB3 Dock, all running at 60Hz.
It has 128GB of RAM, and 4TB of striped BTRFS SSD.
I am running the latest #Hyprland.

I tried running on #Arch, which cut the frame rate worse than half ANY time I connected an external 4K display ANYWHERE on either the laptop, or dock, DP, or USB-C. It refused to work via HDMI.

Switched to #Ubuntu and use Koolit's #Ubuntu installer for Hyprland. Performance is close to 60fps, but not quite. Stutters, and OBS runs at an average of 10fps, regardless of whether #PipeWire is in use, or not. Unusable.

I have been a #Linux user since September of 1991, and I can't even begin to know where the F**K to go to even diagnose this problem, due to the sheer number of variables.

Is it the NVIDIA drivers?
Is it Wayland?
Is it Hyprland?
Is it Pipewire?
Why is the performance better on #Ubuntu than on #Arch?
If I were to use Wayland, what COMPARABLE GPU would I use instead?
Do I just completely jettison using a laptop and build a workstation instead?
Why in the flying F**K can I not get stable vsync?!

I am posting this, because I am genuinely looking for knowledgable answers from knowlegable people, and I am _VERY_ concerned, that given the mass exodus from Xorg to Wayland, that I need to figure out something before I end up with a system configuration that is unusable.

-Thom

Any #network engineers out there looking for a job? I'm looking for one or two good engineers to help me build a global network to make our company #selfhosted. Currently have PoPs in 7 countries with plans to expand.

Need to know #bgp, #mpls, #ospf and #vxlan. #linux and #automation skills are useful too.

The position is #fullyremote with occasional travel for hardware installs and maintenance.

#getfedihired #fedihire #fedijobs

I tried tuning various parameters but after some reading came to the conclusion that lots of small files with very little RAM is about the worst case scenario for XFS.

#linux #snac #btrfs

#Debian is going down the snake-oil road to #AI.

They are going to bundle in AI with #RHEL. It's just a matter of time before this garbage finds it's way downstream into every Debian-derived distro.

Self developing and self updating code? Seriously? FUCK NO. Not today, not ever. Burn that shit with fire.

Hate to see this filth seeping into the #Linux distro world.

@stefano I had no problem with 24.10 as a starting point. Switched to Kubuntu and upgraded to 25.04. Repeatedly (using VirtualBox for most tests).

I recently tested, repeatedly, the ability to recover after aggressively resetting the VM during an offline system update. A simple command successfully repaired things (online).

What's pictured is recommended on Linux, should not be set on FreeBSD.

#Linux #Ubuntu #Kubuntu #FreeBSD #updates #upgrades

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KDE settings for software update, recommending application of system updates after rebooting – to maximise stability.

I decided to try Ubuntu 24.04 with root on ZFS - supported by the installer.
It installed and ran fine.
I decided to upgrade ro 24.10 - it worked, but lost my display settings as it switched from XOrg to Wayland. But it was ok.
I decided to upgrade to 25.04 - I don't know what happened, but a white screen with an alarming text appeared. It says the system is broken and should be restarted.
As soon as I restart it, it reappears.
zfs rollback could help - but I gave up.

Luckily, my daily driver on that PC is openSUSE Tumbleweed

#Linux #Ubuntu #openSUSE

Comment 😀

#linux

Alt...

Wayland or X11: What are you using, and how's it treating you?

Phanpy: Eine minimalistische Alternative zur Mastodon-Weboberfläche

Phanpy bietet eine minimalistische Weboberfläche für Mastodon. Mit reduziertem Design, klarer Thread-Darstellung und praktischen Funktionen richtet sich der Client an alle, die beim Lesen und Schreiben Wert auf Übersicht legen.

#phanpy #mastodon #Mastodon_Client #Fediverse #Linux

https://gnulinux.ch/phanpy-minimalistische-mastodon-weboberflaeche

Are you in the Dandenong Ranges or surrounds?

Interested in helping to run a Linux InstallFest helping people whose machines would otherwise go to eWaste with the end of Windows 10?

#DandenongRanges #Linux #Windows10 #InstallFest

Any computer-touchers looking for a job? The Cambridge Computer Lab is looking for a mostly Linux sysadmin. Great place to work, I still pop in sometimes, but don’t let that put you off!

EDIT: I believe this requires the ability to be physically in Cambridge (UK) at least some of the time. I am not sure if they can sponsor visas for this job, but they often can.

#Linux #Jobs #GetFediHired #sysadmin

Generally speaking, I’m really quite rah-rah for #linux, except today a subtle change to systemd just pissed me the fuck right off. So, I've been keeping my #LinuxMint work laptop up-to-date, and recently I've noticed that on bootup the system dumps out of the standard GUI start and heads to an "emergency recovery command-line” with a lame grunt to journalctl to find out why. I know why. !@#$ systemd! (1/3)

Primarily a C Developer ( but not just that, I haz skillz ) looking for full time job or long contract; know #NetBSD, #FreeBSD, even #OpenBSD, some #Linux when I have to.

Indeed & Monster job sites have been a huge failure over 18 months.

Can anyone help?

http://www.snert.com/resume/

@imp3tuz I have accidentally turned it on several times, but I have no idea how. This seems to be a piece of it:

https://manpages.debian.org/bullseye/ibus/ibus-emoji.7.en.html

My #KDE uses it, so I guess that's it for me. Unluckily, as may things on #Linux, it will depend on you system. Can you tell us what are you using?

Last week at work I used #pikchr for the first time. It's a diagram generator that uses a text file as a source. This means that you can now easily keep track of your diagrams in a VCS (git, bah). It took me a couple of days to get used to the way it wors.

Unluckily right now the site seems down to me, but here's the link:

https://pikchr.org/

They have an online version, which is the one I used, but there's also a CLI you can install locally... at least on #Linux.

Alt...

Diagram generated with Pikchr.

It's nice that they're at least moving to LibreOffice, but it's still disappointing that they're sticking to Windows for now.

#windows #linux #libreoffice #opensource #technology

https://www.systemberg.com/2025/06/23/denmark-will-stick-with-windows-government-still-plans-to-ditch-microsoft-office/

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟲/𝟮𝟯 (Valuable News - 2025/06/23) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/06/23/valuable-news-2025-06-23/

Past releases: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/news/

#verblog #vernews #news #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #zfs #opnsense #ghostbsd #solaris #vermadenday

#BSD #Unix #UseBSD #RUNBSD #FOSS

Please read the screen cap closely and also read the Alt text & realize how much boxyBSD has blown up

600 plus VMS!!!

#BoxyBSD #programming #Coding #Debian #GNU #Linux #FediVerse #freeBSD #HowTos #KVM #Module #Development #OpenSource #OS #ProxLB #LoadBalancer #Proxmox #Ansible #Virtualization #Xen #Bash #csh #zsh #ksh #tksh

Alt...

The image shows a mobile device screen displaying a profile page for a user named "gyptazy" with the title "DevOps." The profile features a cartoon character resembling a red bird with a brown coat and a yellow beak. The top of the screen includes a status bar with the time "15:17," a star icon, a refresh icon, a notification bell, and a battery icon showing 84% charge. Below the profile picture, there are navigation tabs labeled "ABOUT," "BLOG," "TALKS," "PROJECTS," and "SKILLS." The main content area of the screen contains a text post. The text begins with "From there, things started moving fast. Way faster than I expected. Today, BoxyBSD has provisioned over 600 VPS instances across more than 7 physical nodes in 7+ locations around the globe. It's surreal to think about how far it came." The text continues, mentioning that BoxyBSD is heavily IPv6-focused and provides additional services such as NAT64 and DN64 gateways, shared IPv6 load balancing for websites, and a beta IPv6 tunnel broker. It concludes with a reflection on the project's growth and the importance of continuing its development. Ovis2-8B 🌱 Energy used: 0.293 Wh

An insightful article was written by @gyptazy
If this is of your interest, and you take the time to read, analyze between the lines what has been said, you will learn a lot from this

If you are passionate about Proxmox like I am, you will love to read these kind of posts, because they've been systematically, logically and relatively simply formulated, so that it's digestible for the end user of proxmox all the way up to the diehard programmer who hacks in Proxmox code

#BoxyBSD #programming #Coding #Debian #GNU #Linux #FediVerse #freeBSD #HowTos #KVM #Module #Development #OpenSource #OS #ProxLB #LoadBalancer #Proxmox #Ansible #Virtualization #Xen #Bash #csh #zsh #ksh #tksh

Alt...

The image shows a mobile device screen displaying a blog post titled "How My BoxyBSD Project Boosted the Proxmox Ecosystem" by gyptazy, a DevOps professional. The post is dated 2025-06-06 and covers topics such as Ansible, BoxyBSD, coding, Debian GNU/Linux, and Proxmox. The post's content is about building a free VPS hosting platform with full IPv6 support, aimed at beginners and small open-source projects. The post's author, gyptazy, is represented by a cartoon penguin avatar. The blog post is part of a website with navigation options for About, Blog, Talks, Projects, and Skills. The image also includes a logo for BoxyBSD with the text "ProxLB BoxyBSD" and a brief excerpt from the post discussing the initial goal of the BoxyBSD project. Ovis2-8B 🌱 Energy used: 0.233 Wh

#shortwavefediverist's favorite movie

#unix_surrealism #poster #comic #fediart #mastoart #linux

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Mom penguin and baby penguin walk by a massive THEY FLIP movie poster. A picture featuring three alien penguins in earthly clothes. The subtitle says: THIS DISTROHOP MAY BE YOUR LAST! DO NOT INSTALL. From the director of RED IS DEAD baby penguin: "Mom! I want to see it!" Mom penguin: "Absolutely not."

@justine @ottobackwards
Have you installed devel/libcjson via ports (or official pkg)? Or built without using ports?

https://www.freshports.org/devel/libcjson

Usually using ports/pkgs whenever available is the way to go on #FreeBSD.
And creating #ports at the first place is usually the way to go when porting #Linux apps to #FreeBSD to get massive benefits from ports framework.

https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/porters-handbook/

An example of help by ports framework:

https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/porters-handbook/uses/#uses-pathfix

Convert Shotwell Photo Metadata to Digikam Metadata

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/06/convert-shotwell-photo-metadata-to-digikam-metadata/

Mostly notes to myself.

Shotwell stores most of its information in a database. Which I lost. Because I'm an idiot.

But a bunch of metadata is also stored in the image's EXIF metadata!

Most importantly is the "Original File Name" which should become the "Description" in DigiKam. Unfortunately, there's no way to copy those values automatically on import.

So here's a one-liner which will read the "Original File Name" and store it in the "Title" EXIF - ready for DigiKam to parse!

 Bashexiftool "-XMP-dc:Title<XMP-getty:OriginalFileName" whatever.jpg

If you want to make sure any existing Title isn't overwritten, use:

 Bashexiftool "-XMP-dc:Title<${XMP-getty:OriginalFileName}" -if "not defined $XMP-dc:Title" whatever.jpg

Finally, to do it recursively, across all files:

 Bashexiftool -r "-XMP-dc:Title<${XMP-getty:OriginalFileName}" -if "not defined $XMP-dc:Title" /path/to/images

#cli #HowTo #linux

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Linux bash terminal icon.

France quietly deployed 100,000+ Linux machines in their police force - GendBuntu is a silent EU tech success story

https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyFromEU/comments/1lfxdsd/france_quietly_deployed_100000_linux_machines_in/

Well done. Let us get free from Microsoft spyware OS. They are not trustworthy vendors, and all taxpayers' money should go to fund open-source apps/software and not to Bill Gates' fortune.

#linux #OpenSource

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From Reddit post: France quietly deployed 100,000+ Linux machines in their police force - GendBuntu is a silent EU tech success story I wanted to spotlight a quietly massive success story in European digital sovereignty: GendBuntu — France’s custom Ubuntu distribution used by the National Gendarmerie. The GendBuntu project derives from Microsoft's decision to end the development of Windows XP Back in 2005, France’s Gendarmerie began switching from Microsoft products to open-source software — starting with OpenOffice. Fast forward to 2024, and GendBuntu(Linux) is now running on 97% of their workstations (over 103,000 computers!). France has shown what’s possible when a government actually backs open-source, in-house, and EU-grown solutions. More countries should follow suit. Source - Reddit post https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyFromEU/comments/1lfxdsd/france_quietly_deployed_100000_linux_machines_in/

@nixCraft Sorry to destroy you the pseudo-sensation, but the gendarmerie in France works with GendBuntu since 2014! (The police just migrated to Win 11!)
https://www.lemagit.fr/actualites/2240206478/La-Gendarmerie-devrait-avoir-migre-72-000-postes-vers-Ubuntu-a-lete-2014
They adopted OpenOffice already in 2004, changed more software to open systems in these years, and began the migration to GendBuntu in 2013.
Greetings from France!

#Linux #France

https://cablespaghetti.dev/hosting-a-fediverse-instance-on-an-original-raspberry-pi.html

#snac #snac2 #alpinelinux #linux #raspberrypi

Codeberg - We stay strong against hate and hatred

https://blog.codeberg.org/we-stay-strong-against-hate-and-hatred.html

Discussions: https://discu.eu/q/https://blog.codeberg.org/we-stay-strong-against-hate-and-hatred.html

#linux #opensource #unix

UPDATE: I haven't seen Recall in action there. I was just asking the doctor how they'll deal with it.

This morning, I went to the doctor for a scheduled appointment. While she was looking at the results of blood tests from two years ago on the screen (and suggested repeating them for a follow-up), I realized she was using Windows 11. A detail came to mind. The doctor is extremely polite and friendly, so I asked her, "How do you handle the feature called Recall?" The doctor was taken aback and had no idea what I was talking about. I was about to drop the conversation, but she, being a serious professional, immediately called the technicians who manage their PCs to ask for clarification. They downplayed it, saying it's not an issue and that it's a feature "on all PCs, so we can't do anything about it." She started to express that she didn’t like it and wanted it deactivated. No luck: they won’t proceed because, according to them, even deactivating it is "a hack that could compromise future updates." She’s furious and will talk to her colleagues and the decision-makers. She wants secure systems because "there’s patient data involved."

In reality, patient data is stored on servers (which I haven't investigated), but everything that appears on the screen is, in my opinion, at risk.

I’ve offered to help them find a solution—because, if I'm right, all they need is LibreOffice and a browser. In that case, I’ll suggest one of the *BSD or Linux systems and do it for free.

I don’t want to make money off my doctor. I just want patient data to be (sufficiently) secure.

#IT #Recall #Windows #OwnYourData #Security #Privacy #RunBSD #Linux

If you are thinking of moving from Windows to Linux and are not sure where to start, here's the software that I am using day to day:

https://decoded.legal/blog/2024/09/running-a-law-firm-on-free-software-2024-edition/

(Work-focus, as that is where I spend most of my (computing) time, but I am Linux-only for personal computing too.)

And don't forget that many Free software programs have Windows versions too, so you can test before you leap.

Good luck!

#Linux #FOSS

https://wddashboarddownloads.wdc.com/wdDashboard/config/devices/lista_devices.xml

So open up your drive model like this:
https://wddashboarddownloads.wdc.com/wdDashboard/firmware/WD_BLACK_SN770_2TB/731130WD/device_properties.xml

And change the "device_properties.xml" in the URL to the ".fluf" file given in the XML, like this:

https://wddashboarddownloads.wdc.com/wdDashboard/firmware/WD_BLACK_SN770_2TB/731130WD/731130WD.fluf

then, for FreeBSD follow the commands given in the manual:
https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=nvmecontrol&sektion=8&format=html

ie.

nvmecontrol identify nvme0 | grep -i 'firmware'
nvmecontrol firmware -s 1 -f 731130WD.fluf nvme0
nvmecontrol firmware -s 1 -a nvme0
nvmecontrol reset nvme0