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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 7th, 2023

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  • Not in rescue mode. If you can’t mount your root partition because something was fudged in /etc/fstab, for example, you may be stuck in recovery and depending on your distribution, it may not have nano in that minimalist mode.

    For me it also happens when I install a VM of Debian using the small image, on my dedicated server in a data center. The company hosting the server requires a special network configuration and AFAIK, there’s only vi. So i need to use the console to access the VM and from there, edit /etc/network/something with vi to setup the network. Once done I can reboot and install the rest of the software over the network, including nano.

    I’ve been using Linux for more than two decades. Before nano I was using pico, but it also required to have pine/alpine installed. So knowing the basics of vi has often been helpful over the years for me.

    Maybe it’s because I like tinkering with VMs and SBCs, and most people will not encounter situations where they don’t have nano, but it can happen. And you’ll be glad to know at least “i” and “:wq!”.





  • More like it doesn’t want to get the money to maintain those infrastructure by going into further debt.

    I’m not following German politics very closely but the article mentions that this restriction is in their constitution.

    There was something in that genre in my province decades ago when a government dedicated itself to ‘zero deficit’ by cutting on infrastructure maintenance for many years. A bridge eventually fell. Classic story. It seems like a common thing.


  • Meh. I have a cabin in the countryside 130 km away from my apartment and I can cycle the whole way, or take a coach with a foldable bike and pedal the 30 km left.

    It’s actually in the region where I grew up so I have to get there frequently to see my family. It’s a hassle sometimes but it’s only because my government can’t adequately fund and maintain a decent transit network.

    I also bike to national parks nearby, and sometimes haul my inflatable kayak with a bike trailer.

    People overestimate distances and think the country side justifies a car but it’s usually just excuses. I did move in a big city eventually but I lived in small towns and cities for a decade before that. I still hated cars and didn’t have one.

    For example, my mother lives on a rural road outside a village of less than 2000 people. And she works in the next town that is 7 km away. Meanwhile I live in a city and work in the same city but I have to bike 9 km to get to work.

    So sometimes distances are shorter in smaller cities and towns but people still insist they need a car. People will give any excuse to use their car. It’s like cocain.

    Also, here Uber is only available in major cities where it’s competing with public transit anyway. AFAIK you can’t take an Uber to a small town or a rural road.

    EDIT: Also, most people DO live in a city anyway. And they still have excuses to use a car.

    Today, some 56% of the world’s population – 4.4 billion inhabitants – live in cities.







  • I work in the tech support field and Microsoft is making me want to quit and find a work that doesn’t involve using Teams. I’ve never liked them very much and been a Linux user for over 20 years, but I still have to deal with them for work. However they’re becoming increasingly difficult to tolerate.

    They really really want Windows users to have a Microsoft account. I avoid that and prefer local accounts. But Microsoft likes to link my local account with my Microsoft account anyway, because I need to give it to them to play Minecraft on Windows. So now even if I didn’t want to, my Windows account is showing the picture of my Microsoft/Windows Gaming account profile because I must have passed over a box to uncheck somewhere while logging into Windows Gaming to play Minecraft… mildly infuriating Microsoft.

    I used a personal laptop for work a few times and accidentally connected my OneDrive to my corporate account. Again, I must have misunderstood the configuration and login process because it synced (more like moved) all my personal files on my work’s OneDrive. Mildly infuriating Microsoft.

    Same personal laptop used for work sometimes. I use Edge specifically to separate work from personal browsing and somehow, again, I logged in somewhere with my work account and it synced all my personal browsing history and saved passwords from a different browser, into my “Edge for business” online thigny. So when I was using Edge at work, on my work computer, it was suggesting me logins and passwords from my personal browser that I use on different computers. Mildly infuriating Microsoft.

    Teams, OneDrive, Edge for business, their subscription model, forcing Microsoft accounts… individually they are mildly infuriating but combined together, let’s say it’s a powerful generator of rolling eyes.


  • Israeli generals hold themselves responsible for the failure to protect Israelis from a slaughter like the one inflicted by Hamas on 7 October. The security establishment feels it has to redeem itself in the eyes of the nation.

    By slaughtering innocent people “animals”. They will redeem themselves, obviously.

    The article doesn’t mention the supposed alternative but by the tone of the interview and what’s said, I’m surprised they just don’t flat out say that their alternative to invasion is just bombing it all to rubble. They really seem keen on killing more people and finishing up the genocide they started 60 years ago.



  • AFAIK that’s one of the goals of the ARM (and maybe eventually RISC-V) architecture. It’s doing well on mobile and the low consumption is needed for a future that will require less energy. Or at least, do more with less. Having ARM desktops would also merge the mobile and the desktop environments.

    Apple has moved to this architecture, and software wise, Linux is very compatible too. Even Microsoft knows and is trying (clumsily) to move to ARM.

    The Pi5 will indeed open new possibilities on that front.


  • I kind of moved on to other devices or older models, depending on what is needed. If you just need a low power computer that can run Linux for simple tasks and projects, there’s now lots of alternatives. So far I’ve tried a Banana Pi BPI-M5 and a Le Potato and they’re both promising.

    There’s a few instances where an original Raspberry Pi is still needed. For example, it’s super easy to install Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi while not really supported on other experimental boards. Same with GPIO tinkering with some hit and miss implementation on alternative boards.

    The only negative thing that I’ve began not to like about the Raspberry Pi was/is the power management and consumption on the version 4. The fact that I had to use a “dumb” USB-C charger and that everyone on forums and in comments were always “screaming” that you needed a beefier or more powerful power supply kind of killed the enthusiasm for me. Like, I can charge my laptop using a power bank and PD, while the Raspberry Pi 4 complains that it doesn’t get enough power from the same bank. I’m sure they fixed their power issues and PD negotiation in the version 5 but apparently, it will also necessitate a pretty “good” power supply because it can pump up to 25 watts. Personally I don’t need that much power for most of my projects and it’s even annoying because it significantly reduced/reduces the number of ways that I can power the board.

    Still, I’ll certainly try it if I can get my hands on one. They are very nice devices and their popularity makes them very standard and compatible. But I’m not in any rush because I’ve since tried alternatives and some will also do just fine too, or even better.