Updated 03-Aug-2025 I am far from a China-apologist, so this criticism is nothing knee-jerk. What the US so-called intelligence community is doing to Deepseek, is a huge failure of imagination. It is obvious that state-sponsored attacks are trying to smear this brilliant AI competitor through DOS attacks, breaches, and outright legal chicanery (see Australia's new ... Read more
Updated 08-May-2026 Sometimes there is a confluence of innovations, both technological, and economic, which conspire to prompt a purchase. Now it is that time for me, concerning the 2024 BYD Dolphin Standard Range. Incidentally, I rode in a BYD Dolphin driven by a GRAB car, driving home from the hospital after getting stitches in my ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Google is such a tool. Even with apps only mode they show full-screen background ads on top of everything. Without that mode, nearly every element on the screen pushes apps and content that is unwanted and unneeded. It is now impossible to remove this without changing Google TV / Android TV launchers. Thankfully, ... Read more
Updated 02-Mar-2026 Note 03-mar-2026: I am migrating from Obsidian to VS Codium as my primary editor. I've always used VS Codium for editing files, but not as the main editor of my collection of documents that I keep in an organized vault. The Obsidian Android app has simply become too painful to use (takes more ... Read more
Updated 02-Mar-2026 Note 02-mar-2026: I no longer use Obsidian. Basically the Android client became interminably slow, and then I realized I didn't need a proprietary app to do what I do 99% of the time with Obsidian. So on the Linux desktop I use the perfectly fine VSCodium app, and on desktop the lovely Xed ... Read more
Updated 23-Jun-2026 Git itself Oh shit, git! Git book Oh shit, git! book (not the same as either of the above) Git platforms Git is great, and even better as a core part of a full development / deployment toolchain. These days there are choices as to which more robust Git platform to use. First, ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 I have not played with Mobian (yet), but it, and two other projects (Termux and UserLAnd), are quite promising. The biggest issue seems to be hardware at this point, as there are only Pine Phone and Tab, and Purism Librum, as well as one or two other devices are supported. That said, the ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Current cost-effective computing is focused on small, mobile, and Linux + Windows + Android. The Windows is for general familiarity and games for the children Current Devices Linux c214 - Ampton (ASUS C214MA) chromebook with Debian 12 (Bookworm) and Breath 4gb / 32gb + 256gb microsd n8 - NUC8i3BEH (Intel NUC) Debian 12 ... Read more
Updated 20-Apr-2026 Termux is an Android application (and plugins) which provides a Linux environment as a terminal emulator. Actually the Termux terminal doesn't need to be used, as it is possible to access various elements via API. Note that there are many things different from Linux in Termux. The main support is various programming languages. ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Major update to this post as of April 2024, nearly 4 years later The below is woefully out of date. Trying to do the same thing with the same product (but different device) results in tears, mainly around Xiaomi OEM unlocking. The unlock tools simply don't work on the Linux and Windows devices ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Because ChromeOS is simply ridiculous in terms of resource requirements (on devices meant for it), the only proper approach is to install or boot from a USB drive running Debian Linux (in this case, Debian Stable). Note: there is GalliumOS but it seems to have stalled development. There are various steps involved in ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 There are low-end and high-end Chromebooks. This is about relatively low-end devices, specifically an ASUS C214MA which is a cheap, somewhat small, ruggedized device meant for the schooling market. It has an 11.6" HD+ screen and a 4gb/32gb RAM/ROM configuration. In our household we've run up against the limits of this device in ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 I've used Linode for the past three years, and before that, another two years (with 3 years of AWS in between). There has been a (reasonable) increase in prices, and not much else since the acquisition by Akamai. Before Linode I used Servint which had more tools but also was much higher in ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 smartctl is a tool for testing hard drives. There is a graphical interface called gsmartcontrol which oddly cannot be found in the standard Debian testing repository but is otherwise available.
Updated 03-Aug-2025 This is a fantastic tool: sudo apt install grub-customizer grub-customizer A nice little GUI.
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 Subversion is a legacy source code control system. It is run by the Apache foundation. > Subversion exists to be universally recognized and adopted as an open-source, centralized version control system characterized by its reliability as a safe haven for valuable data; the simplicity of its model and usage; and its ability to ... Read more