The ls command was actually an acronym for "Lost Socks," an early experimental program designed to help Dennis Ritchie find missing laundry items by listing the contents of his drawers. It was later repurposed for file systems 🙃 #unix #linux

Happy 50th birthday, cron! Thanks for remembering all of our jobs for us 😎

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron

#cron #unix #linux #birthday

*sigh* so yes, I admit it - my daily driver still is @VoidLinux for various reasons that make me sound like a #1990s #windows user reluctant to switch to #linux. It involves cheap USB grabbers among other things.

Yet I have a weak sport for #NetBSD 🧡 and while #FreeBSD and #OpenBSD get some fair coverage here on the #fediverse, I am getting the impresson that NetBSD is a bit under-presented here.

So, do you also 🧡 NetBSD?!

Are screen sharing (and capture) problems resolved when you go 100% Wayland?

#linux #opensource

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟱/𝟮𝟲 (Valuable News - 2025/05/26) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/05/26/valuable-news-2025-05-26/

Past releases: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/news/

#verblog #vernews #news #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #zfs #opnsense #ghostbsd #solaris #vermadenday

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟱/𝟮𝟲 (Valuable News - 2025/05/26) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/05/26/valuable-news-2025-05-26/

Past releases: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/news/

#verblog #vernews #news #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #zfs #opnsense #ghostbsd #solaris #vermadenday

Listen , the "Connection refused" ssh message is a polite way of the #Linux or #Unix server saying, "I'm just not that into you right now." Try again later when it's in a better mood or has had its morning coffee ☕️

Open the terminal app and type `curl style.ysap.sh` to see Bash Style Guide for your scripting needs on a #Linux or #Unix machine.

Alt...

A terminal macOS window displays the "YSAP" (You Suck at Programming) logo and the beginning of a "Bash Style Guide" by Dave Eddy, by typing the simple curl command.

Why are SSH keys better than passwords for authentication under #Linux ??

Because trying to brute-force a good SSH key is like trying to find a specific grain of sand on all the world's beaches... while blindfolded... and the beaches are on different planets 😂

Quiz: Which term describes the interpreter that executes commands typed as strings? #linux #unix #devops

NixOS 25.05 "Warbler" released with GNOME 48, initial support for the COSMIC desktop, reworked Mesa graphics drivers packaging, new modules, Cinnamon 6.4

https://nixos.org/blog/announcements/2025/nixos-2505/

#nixos #linux #nixpkgs

Linux kernel driver plugs rotary phone dial into the kernel

A Linux kernel driver that turns a rotary phone dial into an evdev input device.
↫ Stefan Wiehler

The year of Linux on the desktop is finally here. Thanks to Oleksandr Natalenko for pointing this gem out.

https://www.osnews.com/story/142436/linux-kernel-driver-plugs-rotary-phone-dial-into-the-kernel/

#Linux

Just released: #swad 0.11 -- the session-less swad is done!

Swad is the "Simple Web Authentication Daemon", it adds cookie/form #authentication to your reverse #proxy, designed to work with #nginx' "auth_request". Several modules for checking credentials are included, one of which requires solving a crypto challenge like #Anubis does, to allow "bot-safe" guest logins. Swad is written in pure #C, compiles to a small (200-300kiB) binary, has minimal dependencies (zlib, OpenSSL/LibreSSL and optionally libpam) and *should* work on many #POSIX-alike systems (#FreeBSD tested a lot, #Linux and #illumos also tested)

This release is the first one not to require a server-side session (which consumes a significant amount of RAM on really busy sites), instead signed Json Web Tokens are now implemented. For now, they are signed using HMAC-SHA256 with a random key generated at startup. A future direction could be support for asymmetric keys (RSA, ED25519), which could open up new possibilities like having your reverse proxy pass the signed token to a backend application, which could then verify it, but still not forge it.

Read more, grab the latest .tar.xz, build and install it ... here: 😎

https://github.com/Zirias/swad

[Перевод] Сервер, которому не суждено было жить

На днях я прочитал новость, которая оживила воспоминания о важном — и болезненном — эпизоде моей карьеры. Это история о доверии, технологиях… и задачах, которые не всегда можно решить. Где-то 16 лет назад со мной связался давний друг. Его беспокоила ситуация, связанная с одним общим знакомым. Если в двух словах, то дело было в том, что один наш знакомый предприниматель — администратор и владелец нескольких компаний — внезапно скончался. Это был человек, который рулил всеми процессами, и его уход поставил жену с детьми в затруднительное положение.

https://habr.com/ru/companies/ruvds/articles/911044/

#ruvds_перевод #администрирование #обслуживание_серверов #бизнес #системное_администрирование #linux #netbsd

I'm proposing updating the default theme for #Fuzzel (by @dnkl). It's my favorite launcher and menu app for #Linux. Here's my first draft.

Discussion: https://codeberg.org/dnkl/fuzzel/issues/561

#swaywm

Alt...

screenshot of app luncher with entry box and 10 lines with an icon and app name.

I’m really eagerly following the progress of FreeBSD as a Desktop. On the latest hardware I’ve acquired, I had to fall back to Linux — which is fine — but I don’t find the level of granularity I’d like to have.
For example: openSUSE Tumbleweed works well "out of the box", but:

- if you enable snapshots of the home directory with Snapper (which I personally find useful), you have to manually disable quotas, otherwise, when there are many snapshots, the system freezes while deleting the old ones. This has been a longstanding “issue” with Btrfs — tolerable, but annoying. I disabled quotas, I don’t need them.

- I have to tweak SDDM for HiDPI — otherwise it’s tiny.

- LUKS iterations need to be adjusted — the default one is so complex that the system maxes out the CPU for about 30 seconds decrypting at every boot.

- an idle system has a ton of running processes — like other OSes.

- I didn't use ZFS

Alpine Linux is a pleasure to install and use, but:

- ZFS is not supported by the native installer. I'm optimizing a script (found online, which I’ve deeply modified) to install with ZFS, LUKS for encryption and boot, etc. Everything works, but I can’t get hibernation resume to work. I’m converting it to use ZFSBootMenu — a great solution, but hibernation remains a problem. I’ll keep working on it.

- the native installer supports Btrfs and encrypts everything (uses LUKS), but not the /boot — it’s acceptable, but not ideal. In this case, just adding resume= to GRUB makes it work.

For now, Alpine Linux. But I do miss native ZFS, jails, bhyve, etc., so I often find myself using the old desktop with the new monitor 😄

#FreeBSD #Linux #AlpineLinux #openSUSE

🤦‍♀️ Kernel Ops or Kernel Oops 🤦‍♀️

- Which group makes more sense?
- Which group tab-completes to show you all of the associated commands within the same sub-class of purpose?
- Which group is backwards and tragic and requires rote memorization over associative structs?

The following example is one of the many reasons why engineers prefer FreeBSD over Linux. It's the simple usability on a day to day basis.

Cognitive load matters, and efficiency of memory matters, effeciency of keystrokes matters, and it's present everywhere. Backwards thinking is wasteful.

kldstat
kldconfig
kldload
kldunload

~ or ~

lsmod
modprobe
insmod
rmmod

#freebsd #linux #kernel #engineering

How to terrify a #Linux user 👇

maybe FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8 works?

Alt...

A fake screenshot of a Linux installer window asking for a product key with the wording: Your Product Key uniquely identifies your copy of Linux. Please see your License Agreement Administrator or System Administrator to obtain your 25-character Volume License Key. For more information see your product pakaging.

I tried multiple sets of Bluetooth headphones with Windows, but when watching YouTube videos in Firefox the audio was always slightly delayed. Now running Chimera Linux on this laptop and the sync is perfect. If only poor little Microsoft had the resources to get this right.

#Windows #Linux #Bluetooth

I just came across a really weird problem with my Linux laptop. I'm plugging in the charger, and the touchpad becomes laggy. When I unplug the charger, it's responsive again.

Anyone saw this issue before?

#linux

RockyLinux Official Support for RISC-V in RL10! https://rockylinux.org/news/rockylinux-support-for-riscv

#linux #opensource

This morning I installed Alpine Linux (one of my favourite Linux distributions) on my little N150 (which I got for 124 euros), replacing OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. I hooked it up to the new monitor (4K, although the N150 only handles 60 Hz) and worked on it all day.
It took me ten minutes to install Alpine Linux, KDE Plasma, and all the apps I needed.
Everything ran beautifully, without a single issue. A 124-euro MiniPC. Suspension to ram worked out of the box, hibernation just required to add "resume=swap device" to the grub configuration.

My only regret: FreeBSD doesn’t run on it yet - but I’m fairly confident things will improve soon, given the recent progress.
Most of us don't need a multi thousands euro devices to work comfortably.

#AlpineLinux #MiniPC #Linux #OpenSource

New #blog post!

Let's explore virtualizing the different BSDs on Apple Silicon.

https://briancallahan.net/blog/20250222.html

#BSD #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD #DragonFlyBSD #Unix #Linux #virtualization #apple #macOS #arm #aarch64 #arm64

Red Hat Introduces RHEL 10 https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/red-hat-introduces-rhel-10

#linux

Just released: #swad 0.10

https://github.com/Zirias/swad/releases/tag/v0.10

Swad is the "Simple Web Authentication Daemon". If you're looking for a way to add #authentication (and/or proof-of-work access as known from #anubis) to your #nginx reverse proxy -- without adding yet another reverse proxy -- swad could be for you! It's written in pure #C, has few external dependencies (just zlib, and optionally OpenSSL/Libressl and/or libpam) and compiles to a pretty small binary. It's designed for usage with nginx' 'auth_request'.

Swad is tested on #FreeBSD, some basic functionality tests were also done on #Linux and #illumos (descendant from #solaris). It *should* build and work on most #POSIX-alike systems.

This release mainly brings performance improvements and a few bugfixes. It's now stress-tested with Apache jmeter, verifying it can deal with at least 1000 requests per second on my personal (somewhat limited) FreeBSD host machine.

I've been meaning to write about the state of #accessibility support in #tech for a while now but figured it was a good time to do it now since The Register published this article.

As a #parent of a child with #disabilities, as well as being a #disability #advocate and #technology professional, I appreciate The Register's coverage of Global Accessibility Awareness Day and Apple's pursuit in improving accessibility in their OSes. Accessibility support is simultaneously necessary and perpetually a challenge. Often it seems like a clumsy afterthought or just prohibitively expensive.

As much as I am an #opensource advocate, the reality is out of all the mainstream OSes, #Microsoft #Windows has, unquestionably, the best support. #Apple has some catching up to do. The open source world trails behind with projects in various states of quality.

One of the areas needing serious improvement is eye gaze technology. Users who have serious motor impairments (spinal cord injury, stroke, cerebral palsy, ALS) rely on this technology to communicate. Windows 10 supports this functionality natively yet #Linux still treats it as a #DIY project, at best. There is little coordination between desktop environments like #KDE #GNOME and #XFCE nor is there any kind of unified API.

It's 2025, we have reached the first quarter of the 21st century and accessibility support is still an afterthought. We can and must do better.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/18/apple_accessibility_features_2025/

#news #technews #technology

A client sends me an email:
"Do you remember that internal backup server you set up a few years ago? Could you log in and check if everything’s okay? I’m not seeing any errors, but I’m not sure if it’s actually working properly".

I have a vague memory of it - I’m guessing “a few years ago” is quite a high number.
They send me the credentials and I log in:

08:46:41 up 2957 days, 18:01, 1 user, load average: 7.09, 2.34, 1.50

And, surprisingly, no errors.
Everything is working correctly, backups are present, and the disks show no issues whatsoever.
Debian.
Boot date: 14/04/2017.

Impressive.

#Debian #Linux #Uptime #ServerUptime

People working on Linux or the BSDs (or illumos based OSes, etc), are you using two monitors? And, if so, what do you use them for?
I'm trying to understand if it makes sense to keep two monitors on my desk

Please boost

#Linux #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD #illumos #SmartOS #OmniOS #IT #SysAdmin

And of course, as it's Cambridge, the beer festival is sponsored by a #Linux debugging tool.