Debian: Install More Recent Packages Without Creating a FrankenDebian

Note: While you can use youtube-dl as an exercise, it is pointless to backport it for your own use since it is already available in the backports repo. When I made this guide, I either missed it while checking, or maybe it wasn't there, or, and that's probably the likely explanation, I just forgot to …

What About Ubuntu? (+ mini.iso with UEFI/Secure Boot Trick)

"Is Ubuntu just for noobs?" "Will I be a laughing stock if I use Ubuntu?" These are questions that often come around. I've got a few minutes to kill, so why not give my honest thoughts about it. To answer the last question first: No one cares what distro you are running (at least, no …

Quickly Making Tarball (without directory structure) with a Small Shell Script

Creating a tarball (without retaining the directory structure) through the command line is quite easy, all you have to do is cd into the directory where the file/directory you want to compress is located, and run: tar -c -f <output-name>.tar.gz --owner=0 --group=0 <file/directory to compress> This is rather straightforward, but can be made even easier …

Install guide: Suckless’ dwm (with st and dmenu)

Original post date: April 8, 2020Updated: September 22, 2021 First things first, there is only one right way of installing dwm and other Suckless tools, and that’s from source (be it directly from Suckless, or your own build, or someone else’s build, although I don’t really recommend that one unless you fully trust the person) …

What’s the best Linux distro?

This subject has been discussed to death, but I don't particularly care. This is a question that pops up all the time, one that many people are sick of answering. In any case, some will say it's Arch, other Debian, or Ubuntu, or Fedora, or Void, or whatever their current favorite distro is. Others will …

The Coronavirus Ate my Gains!

Is what I would say if I was one of the poor folks relying on commercial gyms. In all seriousness, yesterday I figured that now was the time to get some new stuff for my gym, so I headed over to Rogue Fitness' website to get a new barbell and some extra weight plates, only …

Openbox: Quick Window Manipulations with Keybindings

As much as I like dwm, for my work computer I need the full capabilities of a floating/stacking window manager, which is why I use Openbox on it. I'm not complaining, Openbox is the first standalone window manager I ever used. Setting up minimal installs with Openbox has thought me most of what I know …

Fix: Network Manager (nm-applet) "Device not Managed"

A small issue that will pop up after installing a minimal Debian system (with the netinstall) or a minimal Ubuntu (with the mini.iso) and using nm-applet is the good old "Device not Managed" message when pressing the applet icon in your system tray (I never encountered that one on Arch, though). A few years ago, …

Tint2 Executors

If you’re an Openbox user, there’s no doubt you have heard of Tint2, a lightweight yet full featured panel. It is incredibly customizable, and thanks to it’s “executors”, you can get an even more minimal system without sacrificing certain features you might be used to if you come from a traditional desktop environment. A prime …