2023
October
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Count Selected Lines in Kate
Despite many features, one that seems missing from KDE Kate . . .
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Keeping Virtual Machine Disks Small
The office desktop, also the house network file server, hosts . . .
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Sparse File Backups
Some backups were needed after deciding to retain Windows 10 . . .
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Wiping Windows
The journey continues with the house network Thinkpad T580. Slackware . . .
September
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KDE Taskbar Drag-and-Drop
A distracting KDE bug is clicking on a taskbar icon . . .
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KDE Configuration Files
The K Desktop Environment (KDE) long has been known for . . .
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A New Computer Monitor
For many years a 19 inch Acer X193w+ computer monitor . . .
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Managing Conky in KDE
Conky is a handy tool but configuring can be cantankerous. . . .
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KDE Activity Manager
Adjusting to the new T580 laptop continues. One oddball event . . .
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Nano Keybindings
Linux console text editors mostly remain obtuse for many users. . . .
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Tweaking the Thinkpad T580
Like all laptops, the newly acquired Thinkpad T580 came with . . .
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GRUB Screen Size in a Thinkpad T580
Not quite the curious incident of the dog in the . . .
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Slackware 15.0 in a Thinkpad T580
After toying with Windows 10 for some hours the time . . .
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The House Network
The house network is quite different from decades ago using . . .
August
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A New Laptop
The house network welcomed a new member, a Thinkpad T580 . . .
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The More Things Change
Browsing online computer discussions often finds questions about transferring large . . .
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Migration Reflections
Despite the original journey taking much time, the migration away . . .
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KDE Bookmarks
One of the helpful features of KDE is bookmarks. System . . .
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Wake-on-LAN with Windows
The office desktop is the house network file server . . .
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Logging When a Printer is Powered On
Some months after resolving a desire to log when computer . . .
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No Kernel Modules Found
In the house network the Lenovo T400 laptop has a . . .
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Monthly and Weekly Cron Jobs
In the house network monthly and weekly cron jobs are . . .
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Syntax Highlighting
Syntax highlighting is a useful tool and nowadays a common . . .
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DD-WRT Inconsistency
A normal morning of powering on the office computer equipment . . .
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KDE and TDE Window Rules
One of the long standing features of the original KDE, . . .
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Computer Rest Breaks
Having been a steady reader for decades means often forgetting . . .
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Obtaining RTC Information From a 486
Many people tinker with vintage computers with much the same . . .
July
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Laptop Battery Management
For some years the house Lenovo T400 laptop has gone . . .
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Cron Jobs on the First Saturday of the Month
Configuring cron jobs to run on the first day of . . .
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Nano Text Editor and $TERM
The nano text editor is installed in the house network . . .
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Dictionary Translations
The offline Goldendict dictionary has been a staple in the . . .
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Thirty Years of Slackware
Slackware often is tagged as the oldest surviving Linux distro. . . .
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Smoking Rope
Out of the blue one day the following error message . . .
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The at Scheduler
The at command is a helpful scheduling utility for one-time . . .
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The Downhill Slide of DuckDuckGo
For several years many people have supported the idea of . . .
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Gracefully Closing Programs Redux
Chasing little paper cuts and quirks is ongoing since adopting . . .
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Lightning Calendar Data — 2
Exporting Lightning calendar data into TDE KAlarm turned out not . . .
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Lightning Calendar Data — 1
One of the long shot goals with migrating to KDE . . .
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Globally Installing LibreOffice Extensions
After having settled on the Oxygen icon theme in KDE . . .
June
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KDE Kate Find Tool
One frustrating feature of KDE Kate is the Find tool . . .
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KDE Kate Indentation
For the most part since adopting KDE 5 as the . . .
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Loss of KDE Panel
Several times since starting to daily use KDE 5 the . . .
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KDE Panel Icon Spacing
Despite overall satisfaction with KDE 5 there remain some paper . . .
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KDE Dolphin Keyboard Navigation
For the most part since adopting KDE 5 as the . . .
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KDE Notifications
One minor annoyance with KDE notifications is popups can be . . .
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KDE Countdown Timer
Since breaking away from GTK, one of the features of . . .
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KDE Kate Bracket Auto Completion
Kate is a decent advanced text editor but definitely is . . .
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KDE Konsole Color Popups
Recently while using Konsole an obtrusive and annoying black square . . .
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KDE Failed Keyboard Shortcut
KDE 5 has become the primary desktop environment in the . . .
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KDE VNC Termination
One tool used in the house network that was not . . .
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Exploring Desktop Environments — 8
Migrating to a new desktop environment (DE) is complete. The . . .
May
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Warning: iconv failed to convert degree sign
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0, a system . . .
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Conky CPU Frequency Display
Since updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0, the Conky . . .
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BUG: unable to handle page fault for address
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0, several times . . .
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High CPU Temperature
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0, an oddball . . .
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Intel CPU Frequency Governors
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0, an annoying . . .
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Bitten Again
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0, indexes on . . .
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SSH and Embedded Devices Yet Again
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0, attempting to . . .
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No Xauth Data
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0, using SSH . . .
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QuiteRSS Quirk
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0 and when . . .
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Sendmail Log Spew
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0 and resolving . . .
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Samba and Vintage Computers
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0, the vintage . . .
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Mouse Pointer Speed
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0, the mouse . . .
April
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Strange HFS Behavior
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0, the system . . .
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Core Utilities uname Quirk
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0, several shell . . .
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Local Intranet Mail
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0, despite several . . .
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Network Controller WoL Failure
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0, the system . . .
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Slackware 15 — 10
Preparing to update computer systems is always a challenge. There . . .
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Desktop Lockdown
The projects to break away from GTK and update Slackware . . .
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LibreOffice Help
One of the modern trends is software developers presuming everybody . . .
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Exploring Desktop Environments — 7
In the quest to fine tune KDE and TDE, trying . . .
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Editing System Files
The anti-root crusade is kind of silly. Having been around . . .
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Exploring Desktop Environments — 6
Attempting to mix-and-match components of LXQt, KDE, and TDE has . . .
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Customizing Kate and KWrite Toolbars
For several years Geany has been the daily text editor . . .
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Updating an Old Virtual Machine
Recently observed in the house network is the local Slackware . . .
March
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Strange Caja Behavior
In the house network the Caja file manager started launching . . .
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Icon theme not found
When launching GUI software from a terminal window there might . . .
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Exploring Desktop Environments — 5
There is a pecking order, or perhaps mild madness, with . . .
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Falkon Web Browser
The Falkon web browser shows promise although development might be . . .
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Discoverability
A interface design element that often is embraced by developers . . .
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Removing KDE Menu Items
A familiar recommendation is not to run X as root. . . .
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Disruptive Features
Personal pet peeves that impede usability are mouse wheel cycling, . . .
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Exploring Desktop Environments — 4
As anticipated, evaluating desktop environment (DE) options to break away . . .
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KDE Plasma — 4
Testing KDE has been going well, but real-world reality checks . . .
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KDE Plasma — 3
Learning to configure the KDE panel initially was a tad . . .
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KDE Plasma — 2
The Dolphin file manager is above average but seems to . . .
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KDE Plasma — 1
For many years KDE has seen little action in the . . .
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LXQt
Exploring desktop environments (DE) continues with LXQt. Interestingly, LXQt, using . . .
February
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Trinity Desktop Environment — 2
Some Slackware Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) build scripts are available . . .
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Trinity Desktop Environment — 1
Some time was spent reminiscing about KDE 3 and the . . .
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Absolute Linux
On the check list to break away from GTK is . . .
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Salix 15 — 2
After poking around the Core install there did not seem . . .
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Salix 15 — 1
GTK has become a proverbial thorn in the side. The . . .
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Exploring Desktop Environments — 3
While breaking away from GTK includes the basic desktop environment, . . .
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Exploring Desktop Environments — 2
Reasonable choices to break away from GTK seem limited to . . .
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Exploring Desktop Environments — 1
From the beginning more than 21 years ago of using . . .
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Little Things
Little things usually are what many people detest about updating . . .
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Xfce Desktop Background Color
A curious configuration quirk appeared in Xfce while testing Slackware . . .
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Slackware 15 — 9
Walking away from updating to Slackware 15.0 was a healthy . . .
January
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Frozen Desktops
Troubleshooting a frozen desktop is frustrating and requires much patience. . . .
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Bash Startup Files
On many Linux systems, Bourne-related shell environments start getting populated . . .
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No Network Interface
Once upon a time the vintage 486 had Slackware 11.0 . . .
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Monitoring CMOS Batteries
A depleted CMOS battery can be a tad irritating because . . .
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Converting a Virtual Disk to Physical
Converting physical systems to virtual (P2V) is a common way . . .
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Cron Jobs On the Last Day of a Month
Some computer tasks needed to be performed on the first . . .
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Updating a Testing Partition Without Rebooting
Some of the computers in the house network have testing . . .
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Compacting VirtualBox Disks
Virtual machines (VMs) long have been a useful tool in . . .
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Booting a 486 from a CD
Tinkering with the 486 in the vintage computer collection presents . . .
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Accessing a Disk Image File
A handy computer tool is the loop device. The loop . . .
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Setting a System Wakeup Time
For many years the computers in the house network have . . .
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Detecting the First Boot of the Year
With the arrival of a new calendar year an interesting . . .
2022
December
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LPT1 Pass-Through
Some time ago a parallel port flat bed scanner connected . . .
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Old CMOS Batteries
An odd observation surfaced while adventuring with vintage computers. The . . .
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A Simple Intrusion Detection Trick
On all house network systems there is a way to . . .
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Bandwidth Hogging
Popular copying and downloading commands such as wget and rsync . . .
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Slackware Minimal Install
Slackware is designed to be a Unix like operating system . . .
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A Handy SSH Feature
One method to limit SSH access is generating a key . . .
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VBoxManage Error
I ran into an obscure problem with VirtualBox. For weeks . . .
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Two-Factor Authentication
Recently I found myself forced to use two-factor authentication (2FA). . . .
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Broken rsync
I continue investigating rsync failures during certain backups. The reported . . .
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Long Arguments With rsnapshot
Since the unexplained loss of disk space I have been . . .
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Accessing VirtualBox Disks Redux
After resolving the retbleed boot message in VirtualBox virtual machines . . .
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SSH and Embedded Devices Redux
While tinkering with Slackware 15.0, I discovered I could not . . .
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Spectre Warnings
A while ago on the office desktop running Slackware 14.2, . . .
November
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Monitoring Disk Usage
Hard disk capacities these days are large compared to the . . .
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Boot Penguins
The Linux kernel is designed to display penguins when booting. . . .
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Sylpheed Keybindings
Despite quirks I continue using Sylpheed as a second GUI . . .
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Building a File Server
A common question found in online computer forums is how . . .
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Starlink Redux
Living in a rural area has advantages, but internet access . . .
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Interviewing Subject Matter Experts
A common ritual for tech writers is interviewing other people . . .
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Long Term Support
The development of free/libre software moves at a relentless, some . . .
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Some Simple Usability Experiments
Enthusiasts often tout that the Linux Desktop is ready for . . .
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SSH With Embedded Devices
With normal Linux systems using $HOME/.ssh/config eliminates the need for . . .
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LibreOffice Launch Speed
I am like many people and do not use all . . .
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First Computer Program
My memory is fuzzy but I think my first meaningful . . .
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No Router Redux
One item left incomplete after manually restoring the router was . . .
October
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Logging When a Computer is Powered On
I want to know when each computer in the house . . .
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Ping by Name — Unknown Host
Some time after manually restoring the local router, I realized . . .
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Scanning a Network
Sometimes I want to know what systems are online. A . . .
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Googer Teller
I ran across an interesting little tool that emits an . . .
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No Such Thing as a Stupid Question
Many people have heard the proverb, “There is no such . . .
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Dramatic Wireless Improvement
For some years I have monitored and logged connection speeds . . .
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Useful IT Documentation
The goal of any documentation is to help people. “Good” . . .
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The shuf Command
The shuf command is a nice little utility. The command . . .
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Deprecated Commands
I sigh every time I read an author jump on . . .
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Time Zones
I never much appreciated the complexities of dealing with time . . .
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Man Man
A common question in Linux forums is the meaning of . . .
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SSH and Embedded Devices
For the past several years several options in SSH have . . .
September
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No Router
My not-favorite firmware befuddled me once again . . .
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GRUB and LILO
The two common boot loaders for Linux systems are GRUB . . .
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lddlibc4 command not found
The ldd command is useful for checking broken links to . . .
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Updating Multiple Systems
In a previous role as Linux Admin for a mom-and-pop . . .
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New Network Switch
For many years in the house network I have used . . .
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Common Commands for Beginners
A common article found online is a recommendation for commands . . .
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Computer Security — 2
There is almost no way a single person can keep . . .
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Computer Security — 1
I am not a security guru and do not play . . .
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Living with a Smart Phone
I ran across a comment from a person looking for . . .
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Opportunity Knocking
I have been looking for a nice standalone GUI reminder . . .
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Give Linux a Try
I ran across an online article where the author encouraged . . .
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Machine ID
In one of my virtual machines (VMs) I was frustrated . . .
August
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Shell Script Basics
Many people new to Linux systems are stumped by shell . . .
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Ransomware Victims Should Suffer
Humans live in a complex world. Computers have become horribly . . .
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Failed to Send Host Log Message
Some time ago I was annoyed with a Linux boot . . .
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My Short List for Avoiding Windows
I had a Windows 7 system that I updated to . . .
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Running Windows in Linux
A common question from people who dual boot Linux and . . .
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Disk Imaging
A common complaint is how slow the dd command is . . .
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Cleaning Linux Systems
Outside the enterprise, virus and malware scanning tools usually are . . .
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Living with Laptops
I much prefer desktop systems over laptops . . .
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Technical Editing
While the two titles often are the same role in . . .
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SSH Basics
SSH questions are common in Linux forums. Some important points . . .
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Copying and Moving Files
I tend to avoid using desktop file managers for bulk . . .
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Linux is not Windows
Attracting attention months ago was an effort from two people . . .
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The Linux Desktop Experience
After using computers for more than 40 years, using Linux . . .
July
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Slackware 15 — 8
Through the years I notice that updating each new Slackware . . .
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Slackware 15 — 7
I continue to test updating to Slackware 15.0 . . .
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Slackware 15 — 6
I continue to test updating to Slackware 15.0 . . .
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Slackware 15 — 5
On the office computer the ethtool command does not display . . .
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Slackware 15 — 4
One of the irregularities while testing 15.0 were error messages . . .
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Slackware 15 — 3
I have not been restless or eager about updating my . . .
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Slackware 15 — 2
For me the next step with updating Slackware is compiling . . .
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Slackware 15 — 1
Slackware 15.0 was released February 2, 2022 22:22 UTC — more . . .
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Newer is Not Always Better
One of the never-ending challenges of computer software are regressions. . . .
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Measure Twice Cut Once
Sometimes the root cause of a problem is easily found — . . .
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MP-BIOS Bug 8254
After having configured a system hard disk for the not-well-admired . . .
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No POST No Display No Boot
I thought I would tinker more after configuring one of . . .
June
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Repurposing a Cranky Computer
One of the bumps encountered while traveling memory lane was . . .
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Vintage Computers — 17
Maintaining vintage computers might seem like a waste of time, . . .
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Vintage Computers — 16
While not related to the previous DOS escapades, I continued . . .
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Vintage Computers — 15
After configuring the 486 system I created a dd image . . .
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Vintage Computers — 14
After renovating the 486 computer I received an interesting dialog . . .
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Vintage Computers — 13
During my initial steps of traveling memory lane I pondered . . .
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Vintage Computers — 12
Although the special floppy disk drive cable remained inside the . . .
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Vintage Computers — 11
One reason I began this vintage computer journey was to . . .
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Vintage Computers — 10
With the K6-III+ system in the office, I wanted to . . .
May
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Vintage Computers — 9
This enchanting vintage computer journey began with wanting to image . . .
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Vintage Computers — 8
Some years go on the 486 system the CMOS battery . . .
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Vintage Computers — 7
Using the vboxmanage command I converted the new virtual disk . . .
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Vintage Computers — 6
I chose a different tactic to brush away the cobwebs . . .
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Vintage Computers — 5
I have a tendency to tinker with multiple projects. In . . .
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Vintage Computers — 4
The next computer was a throwaway. The system had an . . .
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Vintage Computers — 3
In late 1997 the next office system was an ASUS . . .
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Vintage Computers — 2
My first personal computer was a Commodore 64 in 1982. . . .
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Vintage Computers — 1
About 15 years ago I archived my collection of floppy . . .