Beachy thoughts: Many ways to solve a problem
I'm always thinking about solving problems and the beach doesn't change that. It's kind of the way my mind works. It's also the way life...
Heading to the Beach
Tomorrow, Saturday as I write this, we’ll be heading to Atlantic Beach, our current favorite. By then time you read it, we’ll be there enjoying the amazing views including the one in the picture above. We do this every year.
To make my computing life as seamless as possible, I take my laptop. I always sync my home directory from my primary workstation to my laptop, named Voyager3 or vgr3 for short.
Easy File Management with Thunar
Computers are all about files. Linux itself is a collection of many files; application programs like LibreOffice are made up of many files; and the documents, spreadsheets, financial data, photos, videos, audio, and more that you use are all files. Working with files is a very important part of your work as a user.
This article introduces the use of the Thunar graphical file manager for managing files.
Setting the status line for the Screen program
In my recent article about the Screen program, I mention that one of the best things about the Screen program is that it gets out of the way and lets you just do your work. As a result, there may be no on-screen indication that you’re in a Screen session. That can cause a bit of bother.
I decided to investigate. What I found is interesting.
Using the screen command for flexibility
You might at first think of “screen” as the device on which your Linux desktop is displayed. That is one meaning. For SysAdmins like us,...
How I send email from the command line
There are times when I find it useful to send email from the command line. I’m not talking about using one of the text mode clients llike Alpine. I mean sending email directly from the command line.
How to access Rescue mode (runlevel 1) in Linux
I frequently find need to perform maintenance on the filesystem of one of my dozen or so physical computers. Many maintenance tasks require the system to be running the Rescue.target, formerly, runlevel 1. There are two methods you can use to enter Rescue mode.
The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, Tenet 06 — Be the Lazy SysAdmin
I am a lazy SysAdmin. I am also a very productive SysAdmin. Those two seemingly contradictory statements are not mutually exclusive, rather they are complementary in a very positive way. This article is about working hard at the right tasks to optimize our own efficiency. It’s about finding a few of the myriad ways to use the short cuts already built into Linux.
Top Five reasons I use Dolphin as my file manager
Linux has many file managers, and all of us have our favorites. I’m currently using Dolphin. Find out why.
Top Five reasons to use KDE Plasma desktop
As many of my readers know, I have had problems with KDE Plasma in the past. I won’t bore you with a rehash of those problems, but for many years I used KDE and was very happy with it. While it was having problems I tried several other desktops but finally switched to Xfce.
KDE Plasma 6.1 is included with Fedora 40 and I always try new major releases of KDE Plasma and other desktops. I did this time, too and I’m very happy to report that all the problems I’ve experienced in the past have been completely resolved.
The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, Tenet 05 — Embrace the CLI
Author's note: This article is excerpted in part from chapter 6 of my book, The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, with some changes. The Force is...
Happy Birthday to the IBM PC
The IBM PC turned 43 on the 12th of August and I, for one, have fond and interesting memories of its birth. I’m a bit behind the curve on writing this article, but better late than never. You can read the public history and the original specifications on Wikipedia, but this is my story — at least part of it.
When STEM becomes STEAM
For the last two years I've been invited to staff a table at a local STEM Saturday event for school kids, and to present at...
The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, Tenet 04 — Use the Linux FHS
The Linux Filesystem Hierarchical Standard (FHS) defines the structure of the Linux directory tree. It names a set of standard directories and designates their purposes.
Results of the Great Both.org Challenge
Since no one entered out little challenge, we have no new results to share. I was hoping to see if the results from this time...