Linux

Finally, TIL, what can all be the reason for systemd services to hang indefinitely. The internet is flooded with numerous reports on this topic but no clear answers. So no more uselessly marked workarounds like: systemctl daemon-reload and systemctl-daemon-reexec for this scenario. The scene would be something along the lines of: rrs 6467 0.0 0.0 23088 15852 pts/1 Ss 12:53 0:00 | | \_ /bin/bash rrs 11512 0.0 0.0 14876 4608 pts/1 S+ 13:18 0:00 | | | \_ systemctl restart snapper-timeline. [Read More]

There surely is need for better tooling on the BTRFS File System side. While migrating my setup from one machine to another, this is one issue I came to be aware of, only today, when my backup tool (btrbk) complained about it. Following the pointers, I see the below snippet in btrfs-subvolume manual page. A snapshot that was created by send/receive will be read-only, with different last change generation, read-only and with set received_uuid which identifies the subvolume on the filesystem that produced the stream. [Read More]

apt-offline 1.8.4 apt-offline version 1.8.4 has been released. This release includes many bug fixes but the important ones are: Better GPG signature handling Support for verifying InRelease files Changelog apt-offline (1.8.4-1) unstable; urgency=medium [ Debian Janitor ] * Update standards version to 4.5.0, no changes needed. [ Paul Wise ] * Clarify file type in unknown file message * Fix typos * Remove trailing whitespace * Update LICENSE file to match official GNU version * Complain when there are no valid keyrings instead of missing keyrings * Make all syncrhronised files world readable * Fix usage of indefinite articles * Only show the APT Offline GUI once in the menu * Update out of date URLs * Fix date and whitespace issues in the manual page * Replace stereotyping with an appropriate word * Switch more Python shebangs to Python 3 * Correct usage of the /tmp/ directory * Fix YAML files * Fix usage of the log API * Make the copying of changelog lines less brittle * Do not split keyring paths on whitespace [ Ritesh Raj Sarraf ] * Drop the redundant import of the apt module. [Read More]

After a hiatus of 6 years, it was nice to be back with the ThinkPad. This blog post briefly touches upon my impressions with the current generation ThinkPad T14 Gen2 AMD variant. ThinkPad T14 Gen2 AMD Lenovo It took 8 weeks to get my hands on the machine. Given the pandemic, restrictions and uncertainities, not sure if I should call it an ontime delivery. This was a CTO - Customise-to-order; so was nice to get rid of things I really didn’t care/use much. [Read More]

As a person who prefers full access to data in the simplest format, while at the same time having it useful with latest technologies, my quest for trying things out is an ongoing activity. Earlier, I blogged about my needs of collating news feeds in a simple format, readily accessible offline, while still being useful and aligned with the modern paradigm. In today’s age, the other common aspect of our life, is digitization of moments. [Read More]

KDE Impressions These days, I often hear a lot about Wayland. And how much of effort is being put into it; not just by the Embedded world but also the usual Desktop systems, namely KDE and GNOME. In recent past, I switched back to KDE and have been (very) happy about the switch. Even though the KDE 4 (and initial KDE 5) debacle had burnt many, coming back to a usable KDE desktop is always a delight. [Read More]

As we grow old, so do our computing machines. And just like we don’t decommission ourselves, so should be the case of the machines. They should be semi-retired, delegating major tasks to newer machines while they can still serve some less demaning work: File Servers, UPNP Servers et cetera. It is common on a Debian installer based derivative, and otherwise too, to use block encryption on Linux. With machines from this decade, I think we’ve always had CPU extension for encryption. [Read More]

Laptop Mode Tools 1.74 Laptop Mode Tools version 1.74 has been released. This release includes important bug fixes, some defaults settings updated to current driver support in Linux and support for devices with nouveau based nVIDIA cards. A filtered list of changes is mentioned below. For the full log, please refer to the git repository 1.74 - Sat Jul 18 19:10:40 IST 2020 * With 4.15+ kernels, Linux Intel SATA has a better link power saving policy, med_power_with_dipm, which should be the recommended one to use * Disable defaults for syslog logging * Initialize LM_VERBOSE with default to disabled * Merge pull request #157 from rickysarraf/nouveau * Add power saving module for nouveau cards * Disable ethernet module by default * Add board-specific folder and documentation * Add execute bit on module radeon-dpm * Drop unlock because there is no lock acquired Resources Source tarball, Feodra/SUSE RPM Packages available at project’s release page Debian packages will be available soon in Unstable. [Read More]

Setting up a Sony PS3 Blu-Ray Disc Remote Controller with Kodi TLDR; Since most of the articles on the internet were either obsolete or broken, I’ve chosen to write these notes down in the form of a blog post so that it helps me now and in future, and hopefully others too. Raspberry Pi All this time, I have been using the Raspberry Pi for my HTPC needs. The first RPi I acquired was in 2014 and I have been very very happy with the amount of support in the community and quality of the HTPC offering it has. [Read More]

apt-offline 1.8.2 I am pleased to announce the release of apt-offline version 1.8.2 This release has many bug fixes along with a long standing issue of signature validation 2017 - The year of realization and change Back in 2017, the bug was reported that apt-offline did not validate apt meta Packages files. apt-offline was only doing a signature validation for the Release files but did no validation of the apt meta Packages files, which had their checksums listed in the Release files. [Read More]