Update: Screw it, go with AMD. This driver hell is ridiculous. Yeah, Nvidia is a mess to deal with. That is, regarding Linux video drivers, and getting things working. Graphics on Linux can be nearly as frustrating as audio on Linux (well, not that near but still, frustrating). For Nvidia video cards, there are several ... Read more
Updated 19-Apr-2026 See also: Android devices Over the years I have been a fan and consumer of Xiaomi products including several phones, electronics of all types, backpacks, etc. Since they tend to enshittify, that is get crappier over time, I've scaled back and have found better substitutes. The following are not yet out of our ... Read more
Updated 02-Sep-2026 These are the apps that I currently (or more recently) run in various Linux distributions (mainly Debian), for desktop and server. Linux destop apps By desktop I mean those apps I run only on the desktop (not console-based apps that can run on a headless remote server). I'm a fan of XFCE which ... Read more
Updated 21-May-2026 Kontact is a bit complex, and so it needs its own page for configuration information. Workflow My workflow currently is to use Gmail as the main calendar provider, and connect with it via Kontact and also Etar, the Android calendar. Gmail calendar also has a few different Holiday calendars available (Thailand, Japan, United ... Read more
See also: Ungoogled Chromium, Vivaldi, and Chromium in general. Firefox woes Firefox has dramatically disintegrated under the so-called leadership of Mitchell Baker, enriching herself to the tune of millions while the market share (and revenue) of Firefox plummeted and 250 employees were laid off. This alone is reason enough to avoid such a toxic software ... Read more
Updated 27-Aug-2026 Note 03-July-2026: I've now tried inbox.eu, mailbox.org, and runbox, and all three fall short in important ways. I'm now with Migadu which is a breath of fresh air. I've looked at them before, but they didn't seem to have a sweet spot regarding pricing, but it turns out I fit exactly into the ... Read more
Updated 15-Aug-2026 For XMPP clients, see XMPP Clients: Conversations, Dino. See also the Prosody IM chatroom itself. Preamble Note that after a year of using Snikket, I've installed Prosody (on which it is based) and find it to be more flexible, and more-or-less straightforward. Prosody is also super-easy to integrate with coturn for audio and ... Read more
While there is something to be said for actual self-hosting a server (at home or mobile), having a low-cost spot on the Internet is good for not having to worry about one's own personal connectivity at any given time, for services to work. By services, this could include: Web server (Caddy) Email server (Mox) File ... Read more
Updated 15-Sep-2026 Update 15 Sep 2026 Well, I'm back on normal chromium because the ungoogled thing is hard to keep up-to-date without using flatpak, and flatpak won't allow passkeys through my keepassdx app, and Amazon is requiring passkeys, soonish. So, here we are. In any case, to get Chromium to login properly into Google, you ... Read more
I've avoided Flatpaks and Snaps for a long time, but now see three uses for Flatpaks (though none yet for Snaps). The main issues have to do with the size of files, security stuff, and simply being not as convenient as using apt repositories. But when some folks can't keep those things stable (or offer ... Read more
Updated 02-Mar-2026 For XMPP server, see Prosody, which works lovely and is super-easy to integrate with coturn for audio and video calls. Note that Movim and Jitsi Meet are two additional items that can be integrated as well. Preamble I've used Signal for the past number of years as a chat / videocall app, having ... Read more
Updated 22-Jul-2026 Uses Golang and can play nicely with caddy web server. Installation and Configuration Unfortunately apt and standard sources will not provide a recent update of Hugo, so best to download the .deb file from Github (sigh). Markdown in Hugo Hugo uses Goldmark which supports some GFM and Markdown Extra syntax (including footnotes). Getting ... Read more
Updated 31-Aug-2026 See also Samsung buds core bluetooth Android devices Android apps Disable One UI 7/8 battery indicator Android Debloater Android hardware At this point, I feel that Chromebooks are non-starters. Either Android or Linux (Debian) are the proper OSes of choice, and decent hardware that can support these platforms. We have moved to Samsung ... Read more
Updated 18-Jun-2026 Reaper is the DAW I've decided on based on a combination of functionality and affordability. Reaper is not open source, but it does have a reasonable and affordable license. I'm fine with supporting them, up until enshittification (which isn't 100% guaranteed in any case). See also Generative AI in Music The main thing ... Read more
Updated 20-Jun-2026 I have several different thoughts on AI music. Note: Over the past 4 months November 2025 - February 2026) I have created over 6 hours of songs in a variety of genres, and this music has and is enjoyed by my friends and family. Overall a positive experience. Copyright and infringement Generative A.I. ... Read more
Updated 20-Sep-2026 Turns out there are a large number of games that can be played on Linux, without crap like WINE (though some still use it). Various platforms include: Steam Tons ... of ... games ... Including: Garry's Mod Kerbal Space Program Orion Trail Native linux games 0ad Minecraft Super Tux Cart Sober (flatpak) Roblox ... Read more
Roblox is the only reason my children run Windows on their computers. What an annoying operating system, which regularly tries to sneakily install and configure more bloatware and suveillance. Well, the wait is over to axe these operating systems and install Linux (namely, Debian Trixie 13). Roblox can be installed and used by emulating Android ... Read more
Good morning judges and audience members. My name is Benjamin McNeill. I am a representative 4th grade student from Tessabaan Hangdong Prachkomsangsan. Today I am honored to present briefly on the subject: My learning journey with AI. What is a journey When first informed of this topic, it took a bit of time to understand ... Read more
Updated 26-Sep-2025 A regular expression (shortened as regex or regexp), sometimes referred to as a rational expression, is a sequence of characters that specifies a match pattern in text. Usually such patterns are used by string-searching algorithms for "find" or "find and replace" operations on strings, or for input validation. See also regex101 for helpful ... Read more