Hey, welcome to my blog! I typically write about various forms of technology, including software, programming, and Unix-like operating systems. I often discuss topics related to OpenBSD.
Font comparison and review: Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono Published: July 22nd, 2025 Updated: July 25th, 2025 Recently, I modified anthes.is to use my own subsetted versions of Atkinson Hyperlegible Next and Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono. Following the principle of eating your own dog food , I also switched to Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono in my terminal. After a month of daily use, I can now assess this…
Gentoo one-liners for a rainy day Published: June 4th, 2025 Updated: July 3rd, 2025 Table of contents Prerequisites Finding packages with the most dependencies Finding the largest packages Combining package size and dependency count Print packages without a package.env entry As above, but only larger packages Analyzing upgradeable packages Multi-column sorting Practical applications Prerequisites…
OpenPGP Key Transition Statement Date: April 6, 2025 I am transitioning from my old GPG key to a new one. The old key will continue to be valid until its expiration date (August 8th, 2025). However, I d prefer for all encrypted email correspondence to be encrypted to the new key, and will be making all signatures going forward with the new key. This transition document is signed by both keys to…
Linux Unix internals: x86_64 CFLAGS CXXFLAGS Published: December 29th, 2024 Updated: July 3rd, 2025 As I ve used Gentoo, I ve become curious about what kinds of interesting build flags other systems use to compile their binaries on a global level, as well as what configure-time flags they set on GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) and Clang. This article collects these flags for some distributions to…
Encrypted headless Raspberry Pi running Gentoo Published: July 6th, 2024 Last updated: July 3rd, 2025 Setting up Gentoo on a Raspberry Pi 4B with full disk encryption took me about a week, but I m happy with the result and learned several things along the way. I want to share my findings so others don t have to spend as much time figuring this out. Note that this provides a rough outline, not a…
How to find the best software for you Published: February 14th, 2024 Last updated: July 4th, 2025 With software, there can be so many choices that figuring out where to start is less easy than it could be, let alone deciding which project fits your needs best. In my experience, finding good quality software usually involves taking a moment to ask the right questions and look in the right places.…
domain-sift: extract and format domains Last updated: July 8th, 2025 domain-sift is a Perl script that extracts unique domains from at least one provided file and prints them to standard output in a given format. If you don t provide a file, domain-sift reads from Standard Input (STDIN) instead. One use of this utility: extract domains from blocklists that contain known malicious or otherwise…
Domain name meanings This article is about the personal meaning of amissing.link and anthes.is . Table of contents What was the meaning of a missing link? What s the meaning of anthesis? What was the meaning of a missing link? I think of it this way: when something goes missing, you find it in the last place you look. I figured a missing link could represent a website someone hasn t visited yet.…
Migrating to anthes.is Hey all. I know it has been a while since I have written anything. I am still around and I have some articles planned that I would like to write, though I feel it is important to first announce that this website s domain name is changing. Table of contents When is this happening? What will happen to the old domain name? Why change the domain name? DNSSEC Top-level domains…
Creating a DNS sinkhole with Perl and unbound(8) Tested on OpenBSD 7.0 and OpenBSD 7.1-current NOTE (2023-09-10): I m deprecating genblock, please use domain-sift instead. domain-sift has a proper test suite and packaging, unlike genblock. This page and genblock remain available for historical purposes, at least for now. Table of contents What is a DNS sinkhole? Why not just use an adblocker?…
On overwriting disks Tested on OpenBSD 7.0-current NOTE : data loss may occur if you run commands in this article without care. Ensure you target the correct disk before executing anything. Table of contents The usual method Overwriting disks with a progress bar Writing image files to disk with a progress bar Why use dd at all then? Conclusion The usual method It s common (and good) advice to…
Local authoritative DNS on OpenBSD using dhcpd(8) and unbound(8) Tested on OpenBSD 7.0 One meaningful addition to home networks is the ability to refer to devices using domain names instead of IP addresses. Domain names are more memorable and human readable. Local authoritative Domain Name System (DNS) enables things like this to work: $ host peterepeat peterepeat.home.arpa has address…
Setting up a 4K Kodi box with sndio on FreeBSD Tested on FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE Table of contents Installation After installation Setting up power management Creating make.conf Checking out the ports tree Installing portmaster Checking out FreeBSD s source code Installing needed tools Setting up doas.conf Entering a tmux session Using portmaster to compile ports Reviewing installation messages…
Recommended F-Droid apps NOTE: Though I care about open source software, I can no longer recommend F-Droid as an app store as of 2023-04-18. Please see F-Droid Security Issues . These days I prefer to update apps via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) instead. I may rewrite this post or delete it later, but I felt I should at least mention this concern first. Table of contents What is F-Droid?…
Why OpenBSD? Previously, I scattered my thoughts on OpenBSD around my website, alluding to its strengths when needed. However, that approach made my argumentation feel disjointed as a result. It seems more sensible to have a central place to discuss these things. Table of contents Why not OpenBSD? Simplicity Less decision paralysis Great documentation Security Privacy Stability Sane defaults…
Tagging and managing music with beets Last updated: July 8th, 2025 Table of contents Why metadata matters Beets as a music manager How to install beets How to configure beets How to import music How to query music What plugins does beets have? Album art with fetchart Genre metadata with lastgenre Cue sheets and how to use them Scripting cue splitting Why metadata matters Tagged music files come…
Building an OpenBSD router using an APU4D4 Tested on OpenBSD 6.8 NOTE (2023-07-22): the Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) platform is end-of-life . This article may need updating, though many principles still apply. Proceed with caution. Table of contents Foreword Hardware Download OpenBSD Install OpenBSD After installation WireGuard Foreword Consumer routers are riddled with security problems.…
Firefox keyword search: bookmark method Last updated: July 8th, 2025 Table of contents Introduction Why use bookmark keywords? Defining a keyword for Wiktionary Test it out: search Wiktionary for definitions What else can you do? Introduction Many people use a search engine to navigate the Internet, but not everyone knows about Firefox keyword search. This feature lets you assign keywords to…
NixOS review: 8 important pros and cons Last updated: July 4th, 2025 Before you continue on with my review of NixOS, here s a short list of the advantages and disadvantages I talk about for reference. Strengths Abstraction Reproducible builds Atomic upgrades Rollbacks Immutability Weaknesses The learning curve Some security concerns Requires systemd Table of contents What s NixOS, and why use it?…
Benefits and drawbacks of self-hosting Last updated: July 7th, 2025 As someone who has run many services for a while now, I feel I can speak to the advantages and disadvantages of self-hosting. In my case, the benefits have more than made up for the drawbacks. Still, each person or organization must decide for themselves whether the pros outweigh the cons. Table of contents Benefits Drawbacks…
Open source operating system recommendations The xkcd comic above illustrates the difficulties of creating a universal standard, and why it often creates yet another competing standard instead. This broadly applicable lesson explains the wide array of open source operating systems available today. One of the most common experiences that someone exploring alternative operating systems on their own…