Activity for matthewsnyderâ€
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Question | — |
Is libostree practical for user files? Is it practical to use libostree for user files? Or is it too specialized for tracking an entire OS? I am not familiar with libostree, but sounds like it's "Git for filesystem trees". Seems like this is originally intended for versioning entire `/`, I'm guessing so that you can just checkout files... (more) |
— | 24 days ago |
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Does Fedora have cutting edge features, and what makes it so? I saw another post recommend using Fedora if you want cutting edge features. Is Fedora really a "cutting edge" distro? I am not very familiar with Fedora, I know it's a community counterpart to RHEL and sometimes less tested new stuff goes into Fedora before going into RHEL, since they don't ha... (more) |
— | 24 days ago |
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Systemd unit needs to start at boot but wait for network I have a systemd unit that does some stuff on the internet. Sometimes this gets fired at startup. I want to make sure it's delayed until the computer is connected to the internet. In my notes I found: ``` Wants=network-online.target After=network-online.target nss-lookup.target ``` Is this ... (more) |
— | about 1 month ago |
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A: How do I migrate my main filesystem to a new drive? I'll add a specific, simple way that worked for me: 1. Create some kind of Linux Live USB 2. Boot into Live OS 3. Use `lsblk` and `blkid` to figure out which drive exactly is the old and new one. Stay in the same Live session (don't reboot) in case the drives move around between boots. 4. Doubl... (more) |
— | about 1 month ago |
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A: How do I migrate my main filesystem to a new drive? Gnome disks can create a disk image, and then restore it to the new one. The new drive has to be same size or larger, although this is obvious. If it is larger, the partition will still be small, but I find it easier to resize it after the fact. It's better if the sector size also matches: http... (more) |
— | about 1 month ago |
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How do I migrate my main filesystem to a new drive? I want to switch hard drives. How do I migrate my root FS from the drive it's on, to the new one, so that everything is exactly as it is? (more) |
— | about 1 month ago |
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Get notifications to dunst when systemd units fail How can I get notifications to dunst when systemd units fail? (more) |
— | about 1 month ago |
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Manually trigger cron jobs Do any of the cron implementations allow you to manually trigger cron jobs (stuff in your crontab) right now, in the exact same manner as they would have when triggered on their usual schedule, except for timing? (more) |
— | about 1 month ago |
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A: Why/how can distro support lifetimes exceed the lifetime of their dependencies (such as Python)? When PSF says Python 3.8 is not supported, they are simply saying they will no longer bother fixing bugs in or adding stuff to that version. It's not like Python 3.8 will start automatically exploding your computer the moment they drop support. They just don't want you to come complain to them if you... (more) |
— | about 2 months ago |
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==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: 'foo' When I create the initramfs, I sometimes see messages like: ``` ==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: 'xhcipci' ``` I get many for different modules. 1. What do they mean? 2. Should I install the missing firmware? My computer seems to be working fine. 3. If I don't want to ins... (more) |
— | about 2 months ago |
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A: What are non-POSIX shells and what's the point of them? From the average user's perspective: Back in the day when people were figuring out how to do shells, there were as many shell syntaxes as shells. Everyone made up their own little language to go with their shell. Most of them sucked big time. One sucked a bit less, that became bash. The others die... (more) |
— | about 2 months ago |
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What are non-POSIX shells and what's the point of them? I've been learning some Linux and I finally feel like I can find my way around the command line. But now I hear people say there are other, "non-POSIX" kinds of shell, with different semantics. What are these for? (more) |
— | about 2 months ago |
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How do you generate arbitrary random numbers from /dev/random? Suppose I want to get random numbers from `/dev/random` with basic CLI tools. Is there a way to do it, that's easier to type and read than `python -c 'import random; print(100 + 200random.random())'`? I know how to generate random strings and I could generate a string of digits. But that's not ver... (more) |
— | about 2 months ago |
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A: What is cat abuse/useless use of cat? UUOC is an ancient Unix yarn. I can't find the original essay (I believe from Usenet, where else...) but if memory serves it's either from early 90s or before. `cat` is actually a program for concatenating files. `cat file1 file2 ...` will give you `file1+file2+file3`. Together with `split`, this ... (more) |
— | about 2 months ago |
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What is cat abuse/useless use of cat? Sometimes I share Unix commands online, and people chastise me for "useless use of cat" (UUOC) or "cat abuse". My cat is quite comfy and doing very well, thank you. What are they talking about? (more) |
— | about 2 months ago |
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A: How do you generate random strings from /dev/random? `/dev/random` is a stream of every possible value. You're supposed to filter it to take the ones you want. This is efficient, although if the values you want are such that only, say, 1% of what comes out of `/dev/random` is acceptable, then it will obviously take 100x longer to generate them. But luc... (more) |
— | about 2 months ago |
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How do you generate random strings from /dev/random? Of course every language has some kind of `random` library... But can you generate custom random strings with just basic CLI tools? For example, we have `/dev/random` which provides a stream of random values... But they're random bytes, so a lot of them are non-printable or special characters. If ... (more) |
— | about 2 months ago |
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A: Which Linux system to use? Most Linuxes are small, and I would consider them for experts by default. This is because you won't be able to just Google problems and copy the solution from some blog. You'll have to actually troubleshoot yourself, read manuals, understand the system and discover the fix yourself. Most Linux softwa... (more) |
— | about 2 months ago |
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A: How do you remap mouse buttons? No wonder it's hard to find good programs - it's no longer necessary! At some point this became a built in part of Xorg via xinput. The process is something like this: `xinput list` and find the ID of your mouse `xinput get-button-map $MOUSEID` and see the current map `xev -event button | gr... (more) |
— | about 2 months ago |
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Is there a way to automatically normalize paths when extracting RARs? I use `unrar` to extract rar archives sometimes: ``` UNRAR 6.24 freeware Copyright (c) 1993-2023 Alexander Roshal ``` Sometimes the archive root has several files, so if I do `unrar x foo.rar` it will create a bunch of junk in my working directory. Therefore I must do `unrar x foo.rar foo/... (more) |
— | 2 months ago |
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How do I diagnose TLS errors? For reasons of my own, I have services on my LAN which use HTTPS and I create my own certificates for these. Over the years, the usage of TLS has evolved considerably. Many features that were once supported are no longer considered secure, and there are many things that were once "optional" but no... (more) |
— | 3 months ago |
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What's the point of faillock? On a default Arch install, `faillock` makes it so that if you enter the sudo password wrong too many times, even the correct password will be rejected until the timer is up. At the same time, you can type `faillock --reset` without sudo and reset the timer. What is the point of this? I can s... (more) |
— | 3 months ago |
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A: What is synchronization in Wine? I'm not an expert on this at all, but so far there are no answers, so I'll try one. "Synchronization" is in the context of multithreading. For those who don't know how multithreading works: Multithreading is like having multiple CPUs run parts of the program in parallel. This runs into a proble... (more) |
— | 3 months ago |
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A: Why does Linux use the sudo command? In Unix systems like Linux, some commands are considered dangerous and only the `root` user can run them. Normally, you don't login as `root`. So when you want to run dangerous commands, you must first become `root`. Then you run your dangerous stuff, and go back to your own user. This switching b... (more) |
— | 3 months ago |
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What is Kmail running in the background? When I run Kmail on i3, and then close it, it appears to continue running some stuff in the background. For example, I periodically get notifications about new mail from dunst, even though I have closed Kmail. What does Kmail do in the background? (more) |
— | 3 months ago |
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What is synchronization in Wine? Wine has options for "Synchronization", like "Esync" or "Fsync". What do these actually do? What is the purpose of such an option? What is the impact to normal usage of a Windows program in Wine? (more) |
— | 4 months ago |
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A: How do you remap mouse buttons? Piper can be used for this. All mice supported by Piper (actually libratbag) are a result of the community reverse engineering the mouse protocol. It will not support all mice, but only selected ones. Corsair mice are not supported by Piper, but they are supported by ckb-next which is analogous to... (more) |
— | 4 months ago |
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How do you remap mouse buttons? How can I remap buttons on my mouse, especially for more exotic ones like MMO mice? (more) |
— | 4 months ago |
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An alternative to pacman sudo nag? Some pacman functions require sudo. When I forget the sudo, you get: ``` error: you cannot perform this operation unless you are root. ``` I then have to press the keys: `up, home, s, u, d, o, space, enter` to rerun with sudo. I find this irritating and it breaks my flow. Is there a better... (more) |
— | 4 months ago |
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A: How do I safely replace brew on Big Sur? You can try to search your shell's history for `brew install`. Every shell has its own history command, but for example on fish I can do `history | rg brew install`. (`rg` is https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep) This should make it easy to figure out most things you explicitly installed, but it ... (more) |
— | 4 months ago |
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How to check spam headers of EML file from command line? If I have an email in EML format, how can I determine its spam status from the terminal? My mail provider appears to insert a `X-Acme-Spam-Status` header. It looks like ``` X-Acme-Spam-Status: v=1; e=base64; a=aes-256-gcm; d=...` ``` The part in `d` is a 400 char string that looks like base... (more) |
— | 4 months ago |
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A: How to find your public IP address from command-line? In case Ipify stops being free: https://dnsleaktest.com/ will show you your IP. I don't know if they have an API, but it's easy to parse the HTML: ``` https dnsleaktest.com | rg '\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+' --only-matching ``` (the commands are https://httpie.io/ and https://github.com/BurntSushi/rip... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
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Albert with compositor surrounded by ghost of other windows On Arch Linux, I installed albert (from AUR) and picom as the compositor. I am using i3 as the window manager. When I bring up the albert window, it is surrounded by the ghost of a window in the background. So for example if I open a browser and terminal in the tabbed layout, with the browser focu... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
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A: How to RTFM well to get a CLI command The existing answer is good, but I'll add a short version. 1. `man FOO` is the most reliable way. A large majority of programs have a man page, and a large majority of man pages cover all aspects of the program (assuming you have the patience to read it). By default, most Linuxes will open t... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
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A: Looking for a way to sync dotfile content between different machines without introducing security issues Git is a very good way to sync dotfiles. There are other sync methods, but git also gives you version control, which is the other crucial part of the dotfile approach. Dealing with secrets in git is not unique to dotfiles. All sorts of projects encounter this issue. For example, a webapp may need ... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
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Is it safe to completely take over ~/.config/systemd/user? `/.config/systemd/user` intended purely for units created and managed by the user manually, or are there any automated processes that expect to control it? For example, do packages or programs ever create or manage their own files in this path, without the user explicitly requesting it? Is it s... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
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Can you put systemd units under a custom path? The systemd manual gives a list of path where systemd looks for unit files. However, I want to isolate my units in a path of my own choosing. Is it possible to configure systemd to add some path to that list of search locations? (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
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A: Modern and practical way to schedule tasks on a Linux machine that is not always on Airflow is a distributed workflow manager intended for complex cloud computing use. However, it can be used to run tasks locally. You can run Airflow in single-node mode, with `LocalExecutor`, and wrap the whole thing in a single Docker container. The Docker container can be configured to start au... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
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A: Modern and practical way to schedule tasks on a Linux machine that is not always on Historically, cron was the main way to schedule tasks on Linux. Briefly, there will be some file like `/etc/crontab` which will contain one line for each task. The line starts with a schedule string and a shell style command. The schedule string specifies on which minutes, hours, days and months ... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
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A: Modern and practical way to schedule tasks on a Linux machine that is not always on The standard way to schedule tasks in most Linux systems nowadays is to use systemd timers. This requires writing a systemd timer config file, which has syntax similar to INI. This is summarized in https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Systemd/Timers and covered in detail in systemd docs. The timers... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
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Modern and practical way to schedule tasks on a Linux machine that is not always on What is a modern and practical way to handle scheduling tasks on a Linux desktop? Modern means basic features should not rely on obscure or convoluted commands and standards Practical means you shouldn't jump through too many hoops to do basic things, it should be usable for 10-100 tasks I sp... (more) |
— | 5 months ago |
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In i3wm, how do I move a workspace with its windows to another screen? In i3, is there a way to move an entire workspace to another monitor, including all windows it contains? (more) |
— | 6 months ago |
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In i3wm, how to create affinity between screens and workspaces? I have multiple screens and I often connect and disconnect monitors while the system is running. i3 assigns a workspace to each monitor, but does so unpredictably. Sometimes my main monitor is workspace 1, sometimes 2. Is there a way to say that workspace 1 should only be assigned to a specific ph... (more) |
— | 6 months ago |
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In i3wm when moving windows, how do I also switch to the workspace if it's active? Let's say I have workspaces 1, 2, 3 on screen A and 4, 5 on screen B. Currently workspaces 1 and 4 are active. With my current config, moving a window to another workspace never activates it. How can I make it activate the workspace if it's active (from 1 to 4) but not otherwise (from 1 to 5)? (more) |
— | 6 months ago |
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In i3wm, how do I tell which screen is which workspace? I have multiple screens and I often connect and disconnect monitors while the system is running. i3 assigns a workspace to each monitor, but does so unpredictably. Both workspaces are highlighted as active in the bottom left, but I can't tell which is active on which screen. The same goes for inactiv... (more) |
— | 6 months ago |
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How to see VRAM with inxi? What switches do I need to add to see my video RAM (VRAM) with inxi? `inxi -G` shows my video card model and other info, but not video RAM. (more) |
— | 7 months ago |
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A: shell and shell-scripting tags: duplicates? My assumption has been that `shell-scripting` is for scripts only, not interactive usage. Whereas `shell` is everything else, like interactive usage. I wish we could edit these descriptions to clarify, but I don't think that issue has been solved yet. (more) |
— | 7 months ago |
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How can I restrict filename characters? Suppose I want to limit what characters are allowed in filenames. For example, I want file creation to fail if there is a `\n` in the name. Is there a way to enforce this? If it matters, I prefer an answer for Arch Linux. (more) |
— | 7 months ago |
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A: Run command with Key Combination in Gnome Gnome should have a Settings app with a Keyboard shortcut section. Here you can click Add Custom Shortcut which will let you bind any key to any shell-style command. source Unless you are very sure of your command, I would recommend wrapping it in a script that also emits logs somewhere. If the co... (more) |
— | 7 months ago |
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How to tile multiple small page PDFs on a single standard size PDF? Suppose I have a PDF which is 2x3 in. I want to create a PDF with a single page, which has multiple copies of this. For example, if the small pieces are in landscape, and the large page is in portrait, I could tile 2x5 (6x10 in total area vs 8.5x11 letter paper) and fit a total of 10 copies on a sing... (more) |
— | 7 months ago |