Category: Computers

So a few nights ago I updated my Thinkpad to Fedora 23.  It went pretty well.  I might still do a clean reinstall when I have some time, but that’s really only because I’m a little bit neurotic about clean installs…not because of performance.  I followed the instructions here, and they are pretty easy.

I’ll try to sum them up here, along with an explanation of the (few) problems I had. Continue reading Upgrading to Fedora 23 – It’s Easier Than Ever

So I wanted to get a backup situation going for my two main Linux machines (my Thinkpad and my home-built rig).  I’ve been looking at a lot of options.  I’ve settled on deja-dup (more below).  The first thing that came to mind is a system that I can install a plugin for on my FreeNAS box called “bacula.”  You can find additional information about it here.

I started putzing around with it, but it’s really a little overblown for what I need it for.  It’s pretty complicated.  And most of the instructions I found online either didn’t relate to the FreeNAS plugin (web GUI based) or were incredibly, incredibly old.  So that one is out the window.

Continue reading Been a While…Let’s Look at Deja-Dup

(Image source: xkcd)

Linux folks have been clamoring for a long time – sometimes for good reason, sometimes not – about the “year of the Linux Desktop.”  While this sentiment isn’t clearly defined, from what I have read it could be loosely interpreted as “the year in which Linux use as an every day operating system really started to take off.”  I’m not sure really how you would measure that.  After all, even if Linux as a desktop OS grew 300% in a year, I would imagine it would still fall well behind the number of Windows systems in use.

But, still, I think it’s an interesting statement.  After reading a few threads on Reddit (especially in r/Linux), I have a few thoughts on the issues surrounding this.

Continue reading Windows 10, Steam, and the Year of the Linux Desktop

What does it mean?

Found an interesting thread on reddit where one person described sudo as Super User Do and was corrected by someone else, saying it was Substitute User Do – in the sense that the substitute user is one whom has permission to do root-ish activities.  I know that the sudoers file determines what rights (in most cases, all) the sudo user has available to them, but I honestly never thought about it being “substitute” instead of “super.”  I also thought that “su” simply elevated you to “super user.”

In case you’re new to this, the difference between “su” and “sudo” is that “su” elevates you to root, and stays in that setting until you type “exit” at the bash prompt:

turngren@linux$ su
password: *************
root@linux# command <as root
root@linux# another command <as root
root@linux# exit
turngren@linux$

Sudo, on the other hand, only works for the following command:

turngren@linux$ dnf update
(message that root needs to perform this)
turngren@linux$ sudo dnf update <performs as root
password: ***************
turngren@linux$ lsblk <performed as regular user

So I did some quick googling, and I’m finding plenty of sources that go both ways.  I wonder which is technically correct?

The Fedora 22 Update Process

This process was a lot easier than I was anticipating.  On my Thinkpad, I just chose to reinstall a few weeks ago.  But last night, I actually used Fedora’s “fedup” utility on my main machine, and it worked excellently.  I just had to reinstall Chrome and I was good to go.  Oh, and when I started up Steam it asked me where my local data was…I panicked briefly, but simply pointed it to the sata drive I have in the PC and it went back to normal immediately. Continue reading Fedora 22 Update

I finally decided to break the bank at $10/month to get a Linode with 1GiB of RAM and a Xeon core.  Now I don’t have to hide behind obscurity.  Installed a LAMP stack, got ssh working with rsa keys…now I just have to work on installing an SSL certificate and I’m good to go!

I don’t know if my current SSL cert is tied to just the domain name or the server itself…I guess we will have to find out.  I really don’t want to pay for a new cert, it wasn’t spectacularly cheap.  But, for now this will work.  I have my site up on a remote host, it isn’t violating the terms of my ISP, and it can handle a ton more traffic. More to follow later…

UPDATE AS OF 6/21/16:

Linode continues to impress.  I have had practically zero downtime as the result of maintenance on their part.  I have broken a few things myself…but that’s on me.  I added daily backup snapshots for another $2.50 per month.  If you don’t mind taking the time to install a LAMP stack or something similar, I can’t recommend Linode enough.  It is also easy to access your virtual machine remotely.  Even without SSH – just through the Linode login portal.

Goodbye to Windows

Made the move to put Fedora on the desktop machine too.  Seeing how many games were available for Linux on Steam made it a pretty easy switch.  Goodbye to Windows!

Installing the proprietary NVidia drivers were a little tricky at first, but I got it up and running smoothly.  Other than that, no problems to speak of.

Still having intermittent wireless connectivity issues with the X1C3, but everything I read says that there are just some bugs in the iwlwifi firmware for the Intel 7265 card.  I’m hoping that when Fedora 22 comes out in May that the 4.0 kernel will have that fixed.  We will see.  Excited about trying the plasma 5 desktop in KDE.

Lastly I got Tor up and running and thought I would check out the dark web.  Went to the dark web wiki and it’s pretty scary.  You can hire contract killers, buy drugs, and there were a surpringly high number of sites where you could buy things like compromised PayPal and prepaid debit accounts.  It’s actually pretty scary.  I’m guessing that if you get your identity stolen, that’s where it ends up.  Got off the website and I’m really hoping it never happens to me!

It works! It really does.

So after several days, I finally have this all set up and running optimally.  Well, about 98% optimally.  There is only one nagging issue I’m having, but it’s really not a big deal…certainly not enough for me to really care about.  But when I turn the keyboard backlighting on, it turns off after reboot or suspend.  It would really be nice if I could make it persistent.  But that’s small potatoes.

But if you’re interested in how to get this all set up, read on.

One note: this notebook features a “fn-lock.”  If the lock is not on, the F keys are mapped to their intended uses, i.e. volume changing, brightness, etc.  Press fn + esc to lock them to regular F-keys.  In Linux you will likely use them much more than their other purpose.  This means you have to now press fn along with the key to do something like change the volume, whereas before you would have to press fn just to get the regular use of the f-key.

Backing Up the Pre-Installed Image

I didn’t want to mess with having to be on the phone with Microsoft or Lenovo in the event that I wanted to put Windows back on this machine, trying to get a product key or God forbid having to pay for installation media.  Luckily, Windows 8 has a nice feature that allows you to build your own USB restore media.  All you need is a USB drive that is 16GB or larger.  Move your mouse to the top or bottom of the right side of the screen, and “charms” will appear.  Go to settings, and type “restore” in the search box.  You’ll find an option to create bootable recovery media.  It takes about 8-10 minutes.  Now you have a backup if you want to go back to Windows.

Continue reading Getting Fedora 21 Running Well on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2015)