Updated 03-Aug-2025 I've been having trouble with the sleep cycle of a new monitor, such that causes problems with the LXDE lxpanel app. Basically the panel unloads when the monitor sleeps (or awakes). Since lxpanel is more or less frozen, I've looked to other desktop distributions to remedy this. Though I am generally satisfied with ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 To change the volume name of a removable disk (USB / SD), in Debian (or other Linux): Open up > Accessories > Disks Click on device Click on gears icon (Additional partition options) Edit Filesystem Enter partition name
Updated 03-Aug-2025 PPAs are personal package archives that allow people to distribute application packages to Ubuntu distributions. Since Ubuntu is based on Debian, and PPA packages are in the .deb format, they can theoretically be used in Debian. However, there are several complications that need to be understood: Why PPAs are not recommended for use ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 adduser is a more friendly interactive tool that asks to create a password, while useradd simply adds a user with or without a password.
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Note: to be honest I'm a bit lost with my configuration. I've had a bit of trouble but it looks like it is ultimately due to the USB interface I'm using to connect HDDs and sharing them. In any case, Samba is working, but I'm not too sure about what kind of mapping ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 The Linux Mark The Linux Mark is a protected (reserved) mark and beyond fair use, requires a sublicense for its use. The Debian Logo and Trademark The Debian Logo and Debian trademark are protected (reserved) and require licenses (or may not be used) in certain ways.
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Beneath every window-based Desktop Environment (DE) there is a windows manager. And beneath the windows manager, is a display server protocol such as X.org, Mir, and Wayland. When choosing a Desktop Environment, one can simply choose a windows manager and then add various other utilities such as menus, panels, search interfaces, configuration interfaces, ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Previously named Gimp Print, Gutenprint is a high quality package of printer drivers for CUPS on Linux, Macintosh OS X, and other POSIX-compliant operating systems. This project also maintains an enhanced Print plug-in for GIMP 2.x from the same code base. Gutenprint includes a large number of printer drivers for Canon, Epson, Lexmark, ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 In Linux, a standard shortcut is to use Alt + F7 and then drag the window back onscreen. Obviously some small bit of the window needs to be visible, but that is almost always the case. This works with Openbox and LXDE.
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Update April 2025 To be honest, I no longer use Nemo as the dependencies became super-annoying. Thunar is more than adequate and actually has a lot of extensibility. It is also the default file manager in XFCE, my current desktop of choice. Nemo File Manager Nemo file manager is made for Cinnamon by ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Update May 2025 Most of the below is crap. I hate Jack. Pipewire isn't any better. But I did find a bit of a fix for my PulseAudio settings (a bit more control) from this page: sudo apt purge pulseaudio-equalizer # removes the old EQ # the order in which the services are ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Debian 11 Bullseye Alpha 1 / 3 These are notes from an initial installation of Debian 11 (Bullseye) Alpha 1 from 2019-11-30, and A new reinstall using Alpha 3 from 2020-12-20. This is meant as the daily driver on an Intel NUC6CAYH, which is a four core celeron with 8gb of ram and ... Read more
Updated 24-Nov-2025 APT -- Advanced Package Tool -- is all that is needed for most application installations when there are repositories which are regularly updated for packages of interest. Note that apt essentially makes irrelevant apt-get so there is no reason for that redundancy any longer. Note: Use aptitude when dealing with packages that have ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 How to manage fonts in Debian (installing/removing/refreshing). See also Fonts, Typefaces, Typography Microsoft Core Fonts Installer Check to see if this is installed via apt-cache sudo apt-cache search ttf-mscorefonts-installer Emoji fonts Yeh, I don't like them but people use them so need to see them. sudo apt install fonts-noto-color-emoji Debian and application fonts ... Read more
Updated 24-Aug-2025 **Note - This article needs a revamp as it references Amazon Linux and should simply be straightforward for any Debian. On a new Amazon Linux AMI installation, there is a useful ec2-user account configured. However, in order to make it more useful, there is a need to edit some .bashrc files, as well ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 ufw is known as a Debian (and Ubuntu) firewall, which is disabled by default but easy to use. There are some GUI front-ends which make it popular for Linux on the desktop. Coming from a CentOS background (RHEL/Amazon Linux AMI), ufw is not as common (as, say firewalld, or simply iptables, to which ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 This is a terse collection of commands and utilities I find useful for shells. There is little distinction between programs and commands as commands are programs (and are installed or come pre-installed) and programs have commands. Also included is a shell (Fish Shell) and some other shell applications/utilities (Mosh, Nano). bc - basic ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 scp, the secure version of cp, aka copy, is pretty great, since it is straightforward to copy one or more files or directories from any one machine to any other machine (and the command could be running on a third machine). SCP Syntax Note: it is best to use sudo, and full paths ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Note: This started out as a page about MOSH, but I've moved on to AutoSSH, which is way easier without much configuration, and better at what it does. I had not been aware of Mosh (mobile shell), though clearly its own level of awesome is not a reason for that. Basically it replaces ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Update May 2024 - I can't recommend Scribus due to their model of very long time between releases, the fact that only two programmers work on it in their spare time, and the advances to Inkscape (mainly supporting multi-page SVG / PDF). Yes, I'm sure the programmers are working hard, but they've got ... Read more