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What're some of the dumbest things you've done to yourself in Linux?
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_console

    tl;dr:

    Serial ports are (for example) commonly RS-232, although other types of ports exist. Imagine it to be a very slow Ethernet device. Because it's so slow (and the technology predates Ethernet and also has different requirements), it's usually attached directly to a device instead of to a network. But you could connect a modem to it and it becomes connected to a network device.

    It could also be connected to a system console device. These are commonly called terminals. Such devices are often monochrome (especially older ones) because a serial connection is often bandwidth limited (eg, measured in kilobits per second instead of megabits or gigabits). Since it's so slow, it's not practical for video, so it's generally just text-only.

    Note that your GPU might also output a system console but rendered on your display at very high resolution and with graphics-drawing capabilities. So a system console would be any console that connects to the system.

    What is a console? Well, Wikipedia presents several valid articles and the common theme as far as computers go is that a "console" is typically something that a human and a computer use to interact with each other.

    For serial consoles, you might find device files for them at /dev/tty*. But for general serial devices, it could be any of several different types of device files.

    Wikipedia's article on /dev devices has a pretty decent listing of what kinds of devices you might find and several of them might be classified as a serial port. Any serial port might be connected to a serial console.

    So in my case, a serial console is:

    1. 2x USB-to-RS-232 (USB is a serial protocol and is basically "just" another (Universal) (and perhaps high speed) Serial port (Bus), so conversion is super cheap)
    2. 1x RS-232 null modem cable

    That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Then

    1. System 1 (the failing system) UEFI boots into repair system partition on a separately attached disk (eg, boot from CD or live USB) to get a local system console
    2. System 1 repair system mounts the failing system partition
    3. System 1 modifies failing system grub configuration to enable a serial console on the attached USB-to-serial device file and saves changes, then unmounts failing system partition
    4. Power off System 1
    5. Remove repair partition device
    6. Open terminal window on System 2 (recovery system)
    7. Connect System 2 terminal to the attached USB-to-serial device file using screen (oh wow those were some old days)
    8. Power on System 1
    9. System 1 boot enters grub recovery menu which allows fixing the system remotely

    To be fair, a lot of that complexity could have been done by either reinstalling, or removing the hard drive and attaching it to another computer. But doing it this way allowed me to poke around and try different ways of solving the issue, rebooting, etc. It was a learning experience worth exploring.

    It was years ago though and I think there was some complication with trying to understand what device file (or device number or something) needed to be to work on the correct serial device (there are often multiple)

  • the hardest exam question
  • It’s also not a scripting language.

    It definitely is a scripting language.

    hello-world.js:

    #!/usr/bin/env node
    
    console.log("Hello world");
    

    Your favorite command line tool:

    chmod +x ./hello-world.js
    ./hello-world.js
    

    You just need to install npm, eg via apt-get install npm.

  • What're some of the dumbest things you've done to yourself in Linux?
    1. have an nvidia GPU

    2. have Fedora

    3. download RPM package of drivers for Red Hat (after all, Fedora and Red Hat are... compatible, right?)

    4. Everything goes fine

    5. Six months later, upgrade to a new version of Fedora

    6. oops, kernel panic at boot after the upgrade, and no video to troubleshoot after UEFI boot

    7. figure out how to boot into a recovery partition from UEFI

    8. figure out how to enable a serial console over a USB device

    9. figure out how to connect to the serial console from another computer using another USB device

    10. figure out what the kernel panic is from (not the upgrade, but the driver which wasn't upgraded)

    11. figure out how to uninstall the incorrectly installed driver

    12. figure out how to install the correct driver

    That was a fun three week OS upgrade.

  • Nestlé adds sugar to infant milk sold in poorer countries, report finds
  • There's less regulation in a developing country. So... if you get them hooked on it then, at least, you've got easy (albeit low) income. During the developing country maturity they will then be hooked on sugar and less likely to ban it or curb it.

    It's just as any addiction.

  • YouTube puts third-party clients on notice: Show ads or get blocked
  • OTA TV: with ads

    OTA TV: if you record you are pirating

    Cable TV: you pay a fortune to have no ads!

    Cable TV: now with extra premium stuff!

    Cable TV: now with ads!

    Cable TV: if you record, you'll be prosecuted

    Cable TV: pray we do not alter the deal further

    Cable TV: why is everyone moving away from Cable TV?

    Youtube: your own videos!

    Youtube: your own videos are actually ours

    Youtube: our videos with ads!

    Youtube: now pay a fortune to remove ads!

    Youtube: pray we do not alter the deal further

    Youtube: if you download or remove ads you'll be banned

    This isn't the pattern you're looking for. Move along.

  • Linus Torvalds Injects Tabs To Thwart Kconfig Parsers Not Correctly Handling Them
  • I'm honestly on Torvalds' side here.

    Tabs are a necessary part of the tooling and configuration files. Any tool which doesn't properly handle files that are correctly formatted for other tools is... a broken tool.

  • Is there a way to add "Run as Sudo" to context menu like with Windows?
  • I have had to un-teach dumb things that people learn from Windows.

    A menu item to run a GUI program as root it is indeed a rather absurd scenario. It suggests that you want to violate the admin/user barrier which is intended to be difficult to surpass except in certain circumstances.

    There can be a lot of things under the hood that are necessary to run a GUI program as root depending on whether you're using X11 or Wayland or something more esoteric. It's doable though.

    But instead of doing that, why not just learn how to use the command line? Every administrative task can be done via the command line, but not every administrative task has a GUI counterpart. So you're going to need to learn to use the command line sooner or later.

  • XZ backdoor in a nutshell
  • and would not include it in the main repo

    Tests that verify behavior at run time belong elsewhere

    The test blobs belong in whatever repository they're used.

    It's comically dumb to think that a repository won't include tests. So binary blobs like this absolutely do belong in the repository.

  • Snap store from Canonical (Ubuntu) hit with another crypto scam app
  • Disabling a systemd service won't prevent it from starting. For example, if another service depends on it then it will start anyway.

    You have to mask the service which redirects the service files to /dev/null so that the service effectively has zero directives.

    systemctl mask --now snapd

    It also means that anything which depends on snapd will likely fail. That is absolutely an improvement since we obviously don't want anything that depends on snaps.

  • KDE Goes and Does It (Double-Click By Default, That Is) - OMG! Linux
  • Don't worry, apps are so slow that we don't risk repeating the same problem of double-clicking causing the first click to open the app and the second click to do something in the app that you didn't want to do.

  • What's (are) the funniest/stupidest way(s) you've broken your linux setup?
  • I was running Fedora. Something like 27 or so. I needed drivers. I don't remember if it was AMD or Nvidia, but they were only available on RedHat.

    So I downloaded the RedHat drivers for the GPU and forced it to install. It worked! It was great.

    Then when I updated the distro to the next release... everything failed. It was dropping into grub, but no video was output. Ooof.

    So I ended up enabling a terminal console and connecting to it via a serial port to debug. I had to completely uninstall that RPM and I was never happy that it was properly gone. So a few months later I ended up reinstalling the whole OS.

    On the plus side, I learned a lot about grub and serial consoles. Worth it.

  • Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney was asked by Verge why there is no support for the Steam Deck for Fortnite
  • Speaking as a former game cheater...

    Cheaters are going to cheat. Booting into Linux isn't going to change that.

    Anti-cheats just keep the filthy casuals from cheating. A broken anti-cheat on Linux would be fixed pretty quickly.

  • What are your hidden gem medications/drugs/substances and what makes them ideal for your usecase
  • tastes good

    Sir, let's discuss the taste of water.

    My sister tells me water is tasteless. I disagree. Water definitely has a taste. I have yet to find water with a taste I like except when I am very dehydrated.

    Tap water? Definitely no. Filtered water? Nope. Mineral water? Nah. Flavored water? Eugh.

    Tea, though. Tea is amazing. Especially coffee tea. Coffee tea is amazing. You take coffee beans, grind them up, and pass hot water through it. It's so amazing.

  • Why is everything in consumer / American life so fucking shitty now - and companies literally just say 'oh bc profit margins' and we're now expected to swallow that and sympathize?
  • First: Don’t take financial advice from randos on the internet

    Just a conversation, man :)

    I didn't even know someone could borrow against securities. Sounds like I need to have a discussion with my finance guy...

    ... speaking of finance guys, I should find one.

    A million dollars is a number we need to have a conversation about in this country, because everyone wants to hate on millionaires.

    Sure, let's talk about that.

    People who hate on millionaires are making arguments a million hours too late (for many of the reasons you stated). The rage these days is to hate on billionaires.

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    inetknght @lemmy.ml
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