Books: What Is DnD? Dragon Warriors, Knightmare, HQ, etc ►

◄ My review: new DC comic series Jenny Sparks (2024) #2-7

This entry is part of my Project Zebra series covering migration to Linux for personal computing use.

Title reference: childhood misheard lyric. I don't know why or how seriously I took that, GURPS being 1988 and At the Zoo being an advance single from the Simon and Garfunkel album Bookends in 1967. There's now about twice as long between the RPG and and now as the RPG and the album. It may have been something to do with the fact that Dragon Magazine used to have April issues with comedy rewrites, like dance steps for Space Hulk (issue 204) and a regular "bard on the run" lyrics feature including a reinterpretation of "I Am A Rock" that goes "I am a vrock / I'm a Tanar'ri" (issue 216).

Time for end of year housekeeping, and this year more than most clearing some things I'll likely never look at or won't look at again. I try to do that periodically in general and Marie Kondo stuff that's in the way, though it may not be apparent.

VLC 3.6.x for Android is well past release stage per https://get.videolan.org/vlc-android/ and https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc-android/-/blob/master/NEWS despite 3.5.7 being what's more widely distributed, and nightly builds can be downloaded via https://nightlies.videolan.org/ and used separately from an installed version (although unfortunately the last one I downloaded was even more broken in handling application switching than the stable release). I wonder if it'll eventually get the auto subtitling mentioned at https://m.slashdot.org/story/437387

Thunderbird setting for a normal, non-Windows11 style context menu: widget.gtk.native-context-menus
Although, misleadingly, actions take effect on whatever items are selected rather than an item that's been right-clicked on, so the UI is still broken.

Installed okular-extra-backends for epub reading with Okular, font choice Sans Serif (as it has acceptable line spacing) with whole page zoom.

Midway through 2023 opensource.com stopped updating:
https://techrights.org/o/2023/05/15/opensource-com-archived/

Checking what files are open on a path: lsof +D /mnt

Setting up samba sharing to virtual machines, where symlink are in use:

sudo apt install samba
# if you're not doing this for your user:
sudo useradd -m user1 && sudo passwd user1
# otherwise skip to:
sudo smbpasswd -a user1
sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf
[global]
allow insecure wide links = yes
[share1]
path = /media/share1
read only = yes
guest ok = no
valid users = user1
follow symlinks = yes
wide links = yes
sudo systemctl restart smbd.service

Incidentally, if you're copying gigabytes of music to an Android device using a Mixplorer FTP server, best performance seems to be one connection at a time and making sure the device isn't also streaming media.

Memo to self - pausing backups:
systemctl list-timers --all
systemctl stop admech_backup.timer
systemctl start admech_backup.timer

The last version of Veracrypt that supports Truecrypt volumes is 1.25.9
https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/Downloads_1.25.9.html
https://superuser.com/questions/1210798/can-veracrypt-open-an-old-truecrypt-container
The instructions here work to create an AppImage of that version which can be run with sudo independently from an installed later version: https://github.com/myristicinC/veracrypt-appimage In brief, without hand-holding on making files executable and case sensitivity: - Create a folder such as veracrypt.AppDir for temporary files. - Download veracrypt-1.25.9-setup.tar.bz2 and run the veracrypt-1.25.9-setup-gui-x64 file to get the actual veracrypt_1.25.9_amd64.tar.gz container. - Extract that into the veracrypt.AppDir folder. - Copy the veracrypt.xpm into the root of the folder. - Create a new veracrypt.desktop in the root of the folder, containing:
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Name=VeraCrypt
GenericName=VeraCrypt
Comment=VeraCrypt
Exec=veracrypt
Icon=veracrypt
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;
- Download AppRun into the folder and rename it AppRun, and also download appimagetool to another location. - Use the latter pointed toward the veracrypt.AppDir folder, like so:
./appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage veracrypt.AppDir ./Veracrypt-x86_64.AppImage
- Run the created AppImage in a sufficiently elevated context to work. If there's another version of VC running be careful to avoid folder path clashes.

This is cool, modifying Leatherman and Victorinox tools:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbzdM3Y7CD8

A re-run of window tiling, or how developers can instantly multiply their chances of being lynched by OCD users: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=465937
Except in 5.2.7.5 doing "kwin_x11 --replace & disown" does actually reset it, and I've bound that to a global shortcut.

Debian 13 release likely to be in late 2025: https://www.debian.org/releases/

Unless issues have been resolved in whatever version of Plasma it ships with or it stays on Plasma 5 it looks like I might have to look for another DE, as developers have decided they only give a toss about Wayland:
https://blogs.kde.org/2025/02/15/this-week-in-plasma-post-release-polishing/
"I find this a bit too sweet-coating, the reality is most of X11 users got a broken system if not all. They represent supposedly about 20% of Plasma 6 user base (and decreasing)."
https://discuss.kde.org/t/plasma-6-3-update-a-lot-of-problems-with-sessions-x11/29930/7
"I’m using a KDE Neon, and just made the 6.3 update. It has been catastrophic on my computer. I am wondering if X11 is still supported for KDE 6.3!"
"Updated (KDE Neon) to 6.3. It’s a train wreck. X11 does not start normal desktop functions. And logging in to Wayland has anomalies… shortcut icons are showing up in miniature. And probably lots of other bugs." "The X11 session is basically untested by developers nowadays."
https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/1doqqpu/why_there_is_no_global_hotkey_on_kde_wayland/
Wayland is still half baked. There remains no consistent global keyboard shortcut functionality under Plasma by the sounds of it, and no window management equivalent to Birdtray, Kdocker, etc. For that matter, the 20% thing is plucked out of the air to support the current development position since there are no reliable stats on how many Plasma users use X11 or Wayland. Linux users are typically extremely anti systems phoning home with telemetry. What you've got is Plasma developers taking the same view as Gnome developers with this, like Xfce devs taking the same view as Gnome devs with header bars. There's a corrosive force in UI development that whispers that if something is mature, stable and functional, tinker until it isn't, hand wave losses in functionality (particularly accessibility) and users can watch a loop of that Darth Vader clip about altering the deal and praying it isn't altered further.

Then again, there's a very old quote that may apply: "...being a Linux user is sort of like living in a house inhabited by a large family of carpenters and architects. Every morning when you wake up, the house is a little different. Maybe there is a new turret, or some walls have moved. Or perhaps someone has temporarily removed the floor under your bed." (ascribed to Unix for Dummies, 2nd Ed). Breakage in this ecosystem tends to be temporary because you're rarely the only one who cares. Xfce seems to have walked back some changes, even Gnome has tray icon extensions, etc.

But the developer of Kdocker makes the point that a separate utility won't be an option, it'll have to be part of a DE, or built into applications that need it:
https://nachtimwald.com/2024/09/07/kdocker-reflections-and-whats-after-6-0/

To update an Ubuntu release that's out of support:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53800051/repository-does-not-have-a-release-file-error
sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.bak
sudo sed -i -re 's/([a-z]{2}\.)?archive.ubuntu.com|security.ubuntu.com/old-releases.ubuntu.com/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Amazon are effectively ending support for older Kindles by preventing transferring purchased ebooks via USB (so no more buying them from there):
https://m.slashdot.org/story/438767

Jailbreaking DeepSeek with char codes:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-156004330

Speaking of character codes, TIL you can stick ­ in the middle of long words in HTML as a soft hyphen to suggest a break point.

And a grammar link to finish – https://www.forrest-turner.co.uk/do-full-stops-go-in-or-outside-of-brackets/ – although I often ignore the convention and put the full stop outside consistently, grammar be damned. Also don't always put a period on common abbreviations such as etc. if they're mid-sentence.

💬 Comments are off, but you can use the mail form to contact or see the about page for social media links.

BLOG  MORE  ABOUT  MAIL