Recent content on Wimpy's World
Picture this: you’ve just spent literal minutes crafting the perfect bit of code, you’re chuffed with yourself, and then you open your git client only to stare at that commit message box. 🤔 That cursor blinking mockingly while you try to remember what you changed just moments ago. And you wonder, why do I have to write this? git already knows what happened! Now, I’m a proper…
Have you ever tried to build a complex NixOS ️❄️ configuration in GitHub Actions only to be greeted by the dreaded “no space left on device” error? I certainly have, and it’s been driving me bonkers for quite some time! 😖 Standard GitHub Actions runners come with a paltry ~20GB of free disk space, or so it would seem. Which sounds decent until you try to build sophisticated…
We’ve all been there - you’re knee-deep in customizing your desktop, tweaking configs, perfecting that theme, and suddenly you need to grab a specific colour from somewhere on screen. If you’re like me and recently made the jump to Hyprland (or other contemporary Wayland compositor), you might have found yourself missing some of those handy X11 utilities that “just…
It took 9 episodes of Linux Matters for my friends and co-hosts Alan and Mark to wear down 😅 my resolve to buy a Steam Deck , even after I passed on my original Steam Deck pre-order . I’m glad they did, it’s a great little device and a dream come true for Linux 🐧 nerds; excellent hardware and completely hackable 🧑💻 I ordered the 64GB model via the recently announced Steam Deck™…
When I received my Steam Deck Purchase Information email I wasn’t playing games all that often; mostly online racing games with friends once a week. I didn’t think I’d get much use out of a handheld console. I also had an inventory of PC parts available that could be used to build a dedicated Steam Box. So on July 18th 2022, I declined spending £569 on a Steam Deck and set about…
I was a Google Stadia “founder” and when it was shut down on January 18, 2023 I was left with 3 perfectly usable Stadia Controllers; provided I could connect them using a USB-C cable. I quite like the Stadia Controller, the form factor is similar to the PlayStation DualShock but with an Xbox style button layout. Stadia Controller While using it via USB-C is great for PC, wireless…
During the second half of 2022, I dusted off my laptop and travelled to three events for the first time in over two years. During these trips, it became apparent that my laptop is not the right tool for the job. At KubeCon EU 2022 my colleague Lindsay brought her Apple Macbook Pro M1 . It was lightweight, compact, looked fabulous and had epic battery life. Meanwhile, my ThinkPad P1 Gen 1 looked…
Join 3 experienced Open Source professionals ( Alan Pope , Mark Johnson , Martin Wimpress ) as they discuss the impact Linux has in their daily lives. Upbeat family-friendly banter, conversation and discussion for Linux enthusiasts and casual observers of all ages. A new episode every two weeks covering terminal productivity, desktop experience, development, gaming, hosting, hardware, community,…
machinespawn is a wrapper for machinectl and systemd-nspawn to creating and managing containers; primarily focused at local development environment and CI/CD with a heavy emphasis on caching. Organisation: machinespawn Date: October 2022 - date Role: Project Lead
Open source professionals Martin Wimpress , Hayden Barnes , Gary Kramlich , and Alan Pope join Joe Ressington for relaxed discussions in their downtime. From working in the industry and progressing your career, to managing a project’s community, and beyond. Organisation: Linux Downtime Date: April 2022 - April 2023 Role: Co-presenter & Producer
deb-get makes it easy to install and update .debs published in 3rd party apt repositories or made available via direct download on websites or GitHub release pages. Organisation: deb-get Date: April 2022 - date Role: Project Lead
Creating production-ready containers for use in commercial-grade apps can be a far cry from the “get started with Node.js and Docker”-type of tutorials that are common around the Internet. Those guides are great for introducing all the advantages of Docker containers in modern cloud-native development, but creating a container that passes muster in a large-scale application in…
So you’ve coded an awesome app and you are ready to deploy it to the cloud. You’ve heard a lot about Docker and completed a few online tutorials to containerise your app. All set, right? But what do you need to know if you’re going to move that app to a production environment on the public Internet? What if you’re using it for your job and need to pass security scans and…
Retro Home is custom Raspberry Pi operating system purpose built for retro gaming. Built with Ubuntu and using the minimalist emulator frontend Ludo it supports most classic consoles from Atari, Nintendo, Sega and SNK along with arcade emulation support. A number of retro styled Raspberry Pi cases from Retroflag and Waveshare are supported (with more in the works) using bespoke GPIO drivers.…
Simple shell script to convert Ubuntu into a “rolling release” that tracks the devel series; for the toughest of Ubuntu users . This project has served its purpose. It inspired another group of developers to create a fully fledged Ubuntu Rolling Rhino distro . Organisation: Rolling Rhino Date: March 2020 - November 2022 Role: Project Lead
Quickly create and run highly optimised desktop virtual machines for Linux, macOS and Windows; with just two commands. You decide what operating system you want to run and Quickemu will figure out the best way to do it for you Organisation: Quickemu Project Date: March 2020 - date Role: Project Lead
Inspired by the recent NES Classic I made a DIY SNES Classic just in time for the Christmas holidays and it’s very portable! Raspberry Pi 3 in a 3D printed SNES case with 8Bitdo SNES30 controllers To make one yourself you’ll need: Raspberry Pi 3 Model B . Retropie 4.1 or newer. Two 8Bitdo SNES30 wireless controllers . A SNES 3D Printed case . CRT scanline shaders to complete the retro…
I recently bought the Nextcloud Box . When it came to setting it up I ran into a problem, I only had Raspberry Pi 3 computers available and at the time of writing the microSDHC card provided with the Nextcloud Box only supports the Raspberry Pi 2. Bummer! Overview This guide outlines how to use Ubuntu Core on the Raspberry Pi 3 to run Nextcloud provided as a snap from the Ubuntu store. If…
I’ve installed Open Media Vault on a HP ProLiant MicroServer G7 N54L and use it as media server for the house. OpenMediaVault (OMV) is a network attached storage (NAS) solution based on Debian . I want to minimise power consumption but maximise performance. Here are some tweaks reduce power consumption and improve network performance. Power Saving Install the following. apt-get install…
I’ve just bought my first brand new computer since 2008. Thanks to the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales on Amazon.co.uk and Scan.co.uk this year I was able to put together a pretty sweet Intel NUC which is now running Ubuntu MATE 15.10 . I spoke about this new system on LINUX Unplugged Episode 122 and have been contacted by people wanting more details. Hopefully this blog post will answer…
Nikola is a static site and blog generator written in Python that I’ve been using for a good while now. This blog post describes how to install Nikola on Ubuntu 14.04 or newer. Now, this may look like a long winded way to install Nikola, given that .deb package exists, but in my opinion it is the correct way to install Nikola on Ubuntu. Installing Python First you’ll need Python. sudo…
Ubuntu Podcast was a weekly podcast that discussd news from the Ubuntu and Open Source community. The podcast ran from 2008 to 2021 and I joined the line up of presenters in 2015. In addition to the weekly podcasts we also participated in live shows at OggCamp and FOSS Talk Live . Organisation: Ubuntu Podcast Date: February 2015 - September 2021 Role: Co-presenter & Producer
Debian is a Unix-like computer operating system and a Linux distribution that is composed entirely of free and open-source software, most of which is under the GNU General Public License, and packaged by a group of individuals known as the Debian Project. Organisation: Debian Project Date: October 2014 - date Role: Package maintainer
Willie is an IRC bot written in Python that I’ve recently started using. This blog post describes how to install Willie on Debian and as usual I will be using virtualenv to isolate this Python application from the rest of the system. Installing Python First you’ll need Python. sudo apt-get install libpython2.7 python2.7 python2.7-dev python2.7-minimal The following will also be…
I have been using the BIP IRC proxy that maintains a persistent connection to a list of IRC channels. However, I’ve heard good things about ZNC and decided to give it a try. The purpose of an IRC proxy, or bouncer, is that you can then point your IRC clients to them to maintain a transparent connection from multiple clients and playback the conversations that took place while you were away.…
I have a few Debian servers that run at home and on VPSs. I wanted to add some basic systems monitoring to them, but didn’t want anything too complicated to look after. I found Monitorix . Monitorix is a free, open source, lightweight system monitoring tool designed to monitor as many services and system resources as possible. It has been created to be used under production Linux/UNIX…
Last year I removed all my music from Google Play Music and created my own subSonic server. I really like subSonic but don’t use it a huge amount, mostly for syncing some music to my phone prior to going on holiday or business. Therefore, I’ve made a single one time donation to the project rather than the ongoing monthly usage fee. Installing subSonic on Debian This is how I install…
I have a Brother MFC-7360N printer at home and there is also one at work. I wanted to to get Cloudprint working with Android devices rather than use the Android app Brother provide, which is great when it works but deeply frustrating (for my wife) when it doesn’t. What I describe below is how to Cloudprint enable “Classic printers” using Debian Wheezy. Install CUPS Install CUPS…
I’ve had these notes kicking around for absolutely ages. I haven’t checked to see if this stuff is still accurate because during the last 12 months or so our viewing habits have changed and we almost exclusively watch streamed content now. That said, my father-in-law gave us a Humax Foxsat HDR Freesat digital recorder as a thank you for some work I did for him. It turns out the Humax…
This how-to was updated for Open Media Vault 2.x and 3.x on 22nd August 2016. I’ve installed Open Media Vault on a HP ProLiant MicroServer G7 N54L and use it as media server for the house. OpenMediaVault (OMV) is a network attached storage (NAS) solution based on Debian Linux. I use a free Dropbox account to sync photos from mine and my wife’s Android phones and wanted to automate to…
At the time of writing OpenMediaVault 0.6 is pre-release. But it is possible to install OpenMediaVault on Debian Wheezy in order to get some testing done. Install Debian Wheezy on your target VM or test server. Go with the defaults until the ‘Software selection’ dialogue. Make sure everything is unselected, like this: [ ] Debian desktop environment [ ] Web server [ ] Print server [ ]…
I’ve replaced Dropbox with BitTorrent Sync . In order to do this I’ve have btsync running on a VPS (2CPU, 2GB, 400GB), my home server and assorted Arch Linux workstations. I had a couple of reasons for migrating away from Dropbox. Dropbox was costing $100 per year. Dropbox encryption model is weak and I have data security/privacy. The VPS I am running BitTorrent Sync on costs $50 per…
I’m a member of the MATE Desktop team and until recently the majority of my involvement has been focused around Arch Linux . However, I’m working on a MATE project that is based on a Debian derivative. MATE has recently been accepted into the Debian Backports repository for Wheezy, so I decided to do a “MATE from scratch” on Debian using an old netbook to get familiar with…
A community developed Ubuntu based operating system that beautifully integrates the MATE desktop . Ubuntu MATE is a stable, easy-to-use operating system with a configurable desktop environment and is suitable for modern workstations, laptops, single board computers and older hardware alike. Organisation: Ubuntu MATE Project Date: June 2014 - date Role: Project Lead
I switched from BIP to ZNC , and recommend you use ZNC instead ! BIP is an IRC proxy that maintains a persistent connection(s) to a list of IRC channels. You can then point your IRC client to BIP each time you log in and playback the conversations that took place while you were away. I’ve found bBIP to be so useful that I now maintain BIP for Arch Linux , although I now run my BIP proxy on…
At some point last year I was experimenting with Linux Containers (LXC) on Arch Linux. I never finished the blog post but somehow it was briefly published and then unplublished . I have no idea how accurate this blog post is but someone did see it and bookmarked it. They recently emailed me to ask where the blog has disappeared to, so here it is in all its unfinished glory . Install LXC sudo…
Nikola is a static site and blog generator written in Python that I’ve been using for a good while now. This blog post describes how to install Nikola on Debian. Now, this may look like a long winded way to install Nikola, given that Debian .deb package exist, but in my opinion it is the correct way to install Nikola on Debian. Installing Python First you’ll need Python and…
Note Updated on June 3rd 2014 and now includes LXQt and Unity. For the last 9 months or so I’ve spent my spare time working with the MATE Desktop Team . Every so often, via the various on-line MATE communities, the topic of how “light weight” MATE is when compared to other desktop environments crops up and quite often Xfce is suggested as a lighter alternative. After all MATE and…
Mentored three students for the openSUSE 2014 Google Summer of Code . All three students successfully completed their projects for the MATE Desktop . Organisation: openSUSE Date: February 2014 - August 2014 Role: Student mentor
LINUX Unplugged is a weekly show, by Jupiter Broadcasting , that debates and discusses developments and goings on in the Linux community. I joined as a regular contributor in January 2014. Organisation: Jupiter Broadcasting Date: January 2014 - February 2021 Role: Talking Head
Arch Linux is a Linux distribution that uses a rolling release model, such that a regular system update is all that is needed to obtain all the latest software. The design approach follows the KISS principle ( “keep it simple, stupid” ) and focuses on elegance, code correctness, minimalism and simplicity. Organisation: Arch Linux Date: December 2013 - December 2016 Role: Trusted user &…
I have an old Thinkpad T43p that I am trying to extend the life of. So I recently fitted a cheap 60GB IDE Solid State Drive (SSD) and put a 320GB SATA Hard Disk Drive (HDD) in the Ultrabay. This is not a true hybrid disk, but the principles are similar. The root partition will go on the SDD (for performance) and the home partition will be located on the HDD (for capacity). I’ve been running…
I’ve recently started using Plex Media Server to handle most media streaming duties around the house. I run in on Open Media Vault 0.5.x. At the time of writing Open Media Vault is based on Debian (Squeeze) 6.0. Plex Media Server Anyway, it turns out that installing Plex Media Server on Open Media Vault is super simple thanks to the hard work of Christian Svedin who has packaged everything…
I have Open Media Vault running on a HP ProLiant MicroServer G7 N54L . OpenMediaVault (OMV) is a network attached storage (NAS) solution based on Debian Linux. At the time of writing OMV 0.5.x is based on Debian 6.0 (Squeeze). In recent months Plex has taken over just about all media streaming duties in our house, with the expectation of streaming music because Plex music playback and streaming is…
I use SketchUp at work to manipulate models for use in Google Earth . Here is how I got SketchUp Make 2013 installed and working on Arch Linux under Wine 1.7. Wine for Arch Linux Install Wine on Arch Linux as follows. sudo pacman -S --needed icoutils libwbclient libxslt lib32-mpg123 p11-kit lib32-p11-kit samba wine winetricks wine-mono wine_gecko sudo packer -S --noedit --noconfirm ttf-ms-fonts…
I’ve installed Open Media Vault (OMV) on my new HP ProLiant MicroServer G7 N54L to replace my aging, and lackluster, ReadyNAS NV. OpenMediaVault (OMV) is a network attached storage (NAS) solution based on Debian Linux. At the time of writing OMV 0.5.x is based on Debian 6.0 (Squeeze). This blog post is not going to cover the extremely simple OMV installation procedure, it assumes OMV 0.5.x…
Recently I’ve been deploying Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) and 7.0 (Wheezy) servers for some personal projects. These servers are provisioned in different ways: Open Media Vault using a Squeeze pre-seed VPS powered by LXC deployed via debootstrap VPS powered by KVM using the hosting providers Wheezy pre-seed Consequently the basic install differs on each instance and requires a little bit of post…
I have an NFS server at home and at work we have Windows (not Samba) servers. When I first switched to systemd I noticed that boot and shutdown were seriously delayed while NFS and CIFS were mounted/unmounted. systemd was designed to eliminate those kinds of delays, so I did some research to find out how to correctly mount NFS and CIFS using systemd . systemd friendly fstab Below are some example…
At work I maintain the Jenkins test and build servers. I’m just about to update our Windows build servers and thought I’d better check the available “Python Distributions” to see if our current choice (the brilliant Python(x,y) is still the most suitable for our needs. Our Flight Data Analyzer makes extensive use of Numpy , Scipy , h5py and other analysis tools. So,…
About a year ago I migrated all my workstations, laptops and netbooks to Arch Linux . Since then, I’ve setup Arch Linux on a Raspberry Pi and this server was also recently migrated to Arch Linux. I’ve had no major issues issues during the last year and have upgraded through five major Linux kernels, transitioned to systemd and upgraded from GNOME 3.2 to 3.8. Although I have been…