Recent content on ./gibson.sh --blog
My previous employer pivoted to “AI” too hard, so I’m looking for a new job as a software developer (not LLM micromanager).
Update: Not looking for a job anymore, found one :-)
I’ve been working as professional software developer for around 15 years now. I’m a generalist, but my career so far was a bit biased towards:
Development on and for Linux…
I had a simple task: Install and configure my mothers new laptop. 
To my surprise she wanted to to try Linux, because Windows 11 again has a new UI and her reasoning
was that if she needs to get used to something new it might as well be Linux - and I guess the fact
that Win11 only got buggier over time has reached normies now. 
 Now this should be no problem. 
 Unfortunately…
I’ve been using the Eclipse IDE with its “CDT” C++ plugin (the Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers package)
since forever, basically. 
 It’s generally great, but setting up a project can be a bit of a PITA if you haven’t read this
article, as it’s not exactly intuitive if you want it to actually work. 
 “Actually work” as in: Eclipses…
In my experience, git gui is a very useful tool for committing changes to Git . 
It makes it very easy to review your own changes before committing them, and only committing the
changes you actually want to commit, instead of all changes in a file. 
 This helps avoid committing debug prints, temporary hacks used during debugging, TODO comments
of things you just implemented and…

 This Howto explains how to set up a Linux server that runs SSH ,
 WireGuard VPN , Forgejo (a fork of
 Gitea , a web-based git forge, kinda like self-hosted Github) behind a local
 nginx reverse proxy and a minimal DNS server 
so we can have an internal domain for pretty URLs.
It also shows how to set up a minimal MTA/mail forwarder so the
server can send mails, an…
Creating application binaries for Linux that run on a wide range of distributions
is a bit tricky, as different distributions ship different versions of various
system libraries. These are usually backwards compatible, but not forwards
compatible, so programs linked against older versions of the libraries also
work with newer versions, but not (necessarily) the other way around.…
Hi, I’m Daniel.
I like Heavy Metal, cats, (mostly oldish) computer games and open source software.
I write code, usually gamedev- or Linux-centric (often both). Sometimes I write about that. In this Blog.
Some for-fun/free-time projects I’m involved with:
Yamagi Quake II (also on Github) co-maintaining, OpenGL3 renderer, … dhewm3, a source port of Doom 3:…
Because of https://github.com/nothings/stb/issues/113 I was wondering how good/bad
stb_image_write’s PNG compression really is in comparison to other encoders. 
 So I did a quick comparison between stb_image_write (v0.98) LodePNG (version 20150418),
miniz’s tdefl_write_image_to_png_file_in_memory_ex() (v1.15) and libpng (version 1.2.50
from Ubuntu 14.04), always with…
Let’s assume you have an image that you want to use as a window icon in your
cross-platform application that uses libSDL2 . 
A suitable window icon is 64x64pixels big (other sizes should work as well, though)
and has 32bit RGBA colors, which means it contains an alpha-channel. 
 Now it would be handy if the icon could just be part of the executable
and if this could be…
I recently tried out Sean Barrett’s stb_image.h 
and was blown away by how fucking easy it is to use. 
Integrating it into your project is trivial: Just add the header and somewhere do: 
 #define STB_IMAGE_IMPLEMENTATION
 #include 'stb_image.h' 
 That’s all. (If you wanna use it in multiple files you just #include "stb_image.h" there without the #define .) 
 And…
Don’t. 
It’s a fucking pain in the ass. 
 Note: This refers to Windows 7 (and probably Vista and Server 2008
and older). Starting with Windows 8, the Windows installer should support
UEFI better and things should be easier. 
 Buy a <= 2TB hard disk for Windows installations (additional Windows partitions
can be on larger HDDs using GPT, it’s only painful…
This is just a very short roundup of the relevant commands needed to reinstall grub,
e.g. when migrating a Linux installation to a new hard drive. 
 
 boot live Linux system (from CD/DVD or USB key, I use
 grml , any other live Linux should do) 
 mount root-fs of your installation (e.g. /dev/sda2) to /mnt/ 
 if they’re in separate partitions, mount the /boot/, /usr/,…
I recently got myself a Lenovo Thinkpad T500 (2055V1X) . I chose this older model over the T510 and such, because I prefer a screen resolution of 1680x1050 over a crippled 1600x900 or worse. I write and read a lot of code so I need vertical space on the display and I’d definitely miss the 150pixels additional vertical space my old Laptop (Samsung X20 with a resolution of 1400x1050) has.…
This is a follow-up to debian bug #541658 for Iceweasel: “cannot open research.microsoft.com” .
It turned out that this bug applies to all (tested) browsers with cookie-support (Iceweasel, Opera, Chrome, Arora, Kazehakase),
but only very few people are experiencing it. 
First I’ll tell how to reproduce the bug, then I’ll sum up the facts I already
collected…
I’m using a eSATA external harddrive and want to be able to safely unplug it without shutting down my PC. While just removing the drive after unmounting worked so far, I’m not sure if it’s really safe - I’d really prefer to cleanly disconnect it and spinning it down before pulling the plug.
I googled that and stumbled upon…
My favorite desktop environment is XFCE , because it’s fast, doesn’t need much memory¹ and still is convenient (automounting of CDs and memory sticks, easy unmounting by clicking, a real desktop, etc).
I also use SLiM as a display manager because it is slim and looks much better than xdm. 
 On my Laptop I also use GNOME’s NetworkManager because I haven’t yet found a…
Like most computer-savvy people I am frequently asked to give tech support to my family etc. Because telling them on the telephone what to do is a major pain in the ass, VNC is my weapon of choice, if SSH isn’t sufficiant (got to show how something is done, SSH impossible/hard because the other side uses Windows or is behind a NAT, …). 
 I’ll describe how to set up a normal…
After years of using centericq for ICQ and Jabber I switched to gajim (ICQ via transport), because centericq didn’t have any useable UTF8 support. I was never really satisfied with gajim though, because I happen to switch between my PC and my Notebook multiple times a day, resulting in inconsistent chat-histories etc - a console based solution in a screen is so much nicer. 
 So I tried…