This article details how to customize the user interface on Debian using IceWM and picom, and includes a useful font. This applies to Debian 12 at present and applies to any installation of IceWM and Picom as of this date. The version of IceWM used is 3.31, which is copyright 1992-2012 Markko Macke, and 2001 [...]

What is the reason for a document on backing up one’s data?  The reason is that this is a critical thing that one must get handled, out of the way, and automated in order to possess peace of mind while undertaking a comprehensive work involving data.  For years I have searched for a great piece [...]

This is my first attempt at weekly posts. I created an organizational schema and setup the files to begin the work. One of the things this week that I accomplished was the use of Aider to create a rapid prototype of a paired comparison analysis tool that works on the console in any operating system [...]

I love Joplin, but Joplin seems more like an incredible file cabinet and set of bookshelves. It is possible to link from one note to another, but a Joplin icon appears by that link in the text. It can also be cumbersome to navigate between multiple documents while working on one. Joplin recently added the [...]

Joplin is the beautiful open source replacement for Evernote. Once upon a time, Evernote was a dream app, but then they sent out an atrocious terms of service change after turning their user interface into drab garbage compared to the old colorful beauty that existed in version 4 and before. Joplin is fully functional and [...]

LibreWolf is a fork of Firefox that removes many of Mozilla’s bad decisions.1 A mirror of LibreWolf 145.0.1-2.x86_64 appimage is available here. Debian stable requires one to use a format other than the LibreWolf repo because as of 23 November, 2025 their site says the following: sudo apt update && sudo apt install extrepo -y [...]

One source for the Java 8 (1.8) runtime is the Oracle Archives page.  Another helpful one is the standard Java download page for the desktop Java Runtime Environment, JRE. I downloaded the Linux x86 (32-bit) version even though the host is a 64bit Linux.  The reason for that is that at some point in the [...]

The ~/.ssh/config file works for OpenSSH on Windows and for SSH on Linux. To prevent disconnects, add the keepalive messages for all hosts. For specific hosts that use a specific key type, such as RSA on CentOS 6, add the specific algorithm via the HostkeyAlgorithms + functionality. To add a private key for SSH key [...]

How to move /var/www/html/mydata/ to a new disk: 1. fdisk /dev/nvme4n1      1.i. create a new DOS partition and write it to disk 2. mkfs -t ext4 /dev/nvme4n1p1 3. lsblk -f (and copy the UUID for use in FSTAB)     3.i. a0e2e1e7-4034-4876-a005-ae5fcca39751 4. mount /dev/nvme4n1p1 /mnt 5. shopt -s dotglob 6. rsync -aulvXpogtr /var/www/html/mydata/* /mnt 7. edit [...]

This is a listing of Debian sources for future reference.  Debian maintains  an archive of older versions on the Distribution Archives website.  It may be necessary at some point in the future to change the bullseye information below so that it points to the distribution archives. /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vivaldi.list ### THIS FILE IS AUTOMATICALLY CONFIGURED ### # [...]

Here is a great TCP/UDP Port finder tool.   This was useful for finding out which port “cbt” was in my Iftop listing.  It was 7777, which was in use for the Unreal Engine on an Ark: Survival Evolved game server. Iftop is the best real time network monitoring tool for Linux that has graced my [...]

dnf install cronie systemctl enable crond.service systemctl start crond.service

When I first obtained a CompTIA A+ certification some time ago, the concept of bit rot related to what happens to software reliability as the number of updates to the system increases. Over time, software that worked in years past ceases to work as new system updates block system calls or change permissions and files [...]

Create file /usr/lib/systemd/system/yacy.service and add this content: [Unit] Description=YaCy search server After=network.target Restart=always [Service] Type=forking User=yacy ExecStart=/opt/yacy/startYACY.sh ExecStop=/opt/yacy/stopYACY.sh Restart=on-failure RestartSec=1s [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target Then use systemctl enable yacy.service.

To convert a dynamic VirtualBox disk to a Fixed disk, run the following command: vboxmanage clonemedium disk /path/disk.vdi /path/newdisk.vdi -variant Fixed using –variant Standard would create a dynamic disk.  Then open the virtual machine and remove the existing disk and attach the new disk.  Then use the media manager to delete the unused media. Use [...]

A few quirks with Debain 12 include that path not being set in similar fashion to Fedora, Ubuntu, and other distributions.  One must regularly set export PATH=$PATH:/usr/sbin In Gnome, applications will open on the server instead of the client when using X11 forwarding.  This will occur even though xcalc opens on the client normally.  The [...]

To add a new virtual disk and move the existing Linux partition to the new disk use the following process. The process assumes standard partitions without the use of Logical Volume Manager (LVM). 1. Backup the existing VM. One good way to do that is to clone the Virtual Machine and use the procedure on [...]

Minecraft Java edition lost compatibility with Java 17 between 1.20.4 and 1.20.6. Version 1.20.4 works with Java 17, and 1.20.6 no longer works with Java 17.  Several guides appear online for installing downloaded packages of the 64-bit runtime from Oracle or other sources.  Since Debian offers 32-bit server operating systems in the present day, the [...]

Use printenv to see what environment variables are set. #!/usr/bin/env bash printenv set -x

Edit $HOME/.nanorc to contain the following: include /usr/share/nano/java.nanorc include /usr/share/nano/man.nanorc include /usr/share/nano/nanorc.nanorc include /usr/share/nano/python.nanorc include /usr/share/nano/sh.nanorc include /usr/share/nano/html.nanorc include /usr/share/nano/perl.nanorc include /usr/share/nano/php.nanorc CentOS 7 uses a much older version of nano than the one that presently ships on most distributions. The php.nanorc on newer The following should appear in /usr/share/nano/php.nanorc on CentOS7 to allow syntax [...]