Hey Gang!
Just a quick note that thanks to @stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe, I've moved my Mastodon account to the BSD Café!
It looks like most of my followers made it over, feel free to reconnect if it didn't happen automagically.
New account:
Remote
Root Moose
@RootMoose@mstdn.ca
mastodon 4.8.0-alpha.3+glitchMonkeying with computers since 1984, Linux user since 1994.
Free/Libre Open Source Software, data sovereignty & privacy advocate.
I've seen some things; is there such a thing as computer related PTSD?
Transitioning to "just a user".
My automotive half can be found at @fxworks@mstdn.ca
Boosts / Shares ≠ Endorsement.
7 Followers
178 Following
25 Posts
Joined November 06, 2025
Website:
Car Stuff:
One full week under the keel running Alpine Linux on my primary workstation. Even set root on a ZFS mirror - simple to setup. First experience with rEFInd as well - I like it.
Sharp and snappy, just like the way I like my cars! Ha!
No new revelations compared to the first few weeks on the test workstation... I'm still tweaking some things for personalization as it happens but all good.
The Alpine repos are full of good stuff and are current/up2date in a practical manner.
The only flatpaks I've had to run are Waterfox, Signal Desktop and messing around with the new CoMaps Linux version (this exists - happy! happy! joy! joy!).
I'm going to migrate my Debian Bookworm servers to Alpine when I get around to the upgrades. I'll keep clients on Debian for the foreseeable future.
I'm not sure why I'm so excited about Alpine, it just feels like a breathe of fresh air! Modern and simple. Enjoying it.
#AlpineLinux #Linux #desktop #homelab #SelfHosted #Waterfox #Comaps #rEFInd
"Upgraded" an old MacBookPro10.2 (early 2013) from Debian to Alpine Linux. Bit a pain remembering how to get the Broadcom B43 driver installed but not a big deal (Thanks, Alpine Wiki!).
Nice, snappy little machine with a fantabulous screen. It's ancient (Ivy Bridge i5-3230M!) but still very usable for light duty computing.
This machine will probably live in the garage so I can stop using my big, "good" laptop for connecting to OBD ports and flashing crap and whatnot.
Looking for a hosted code repository system located in Canada? Came across the linked platform today. I have no personal experience with it... yet.
#DigitalSovereingty #Canada #Linux #RunBSD #HomeLab #SelfHosting
Changing the init system used by Debian (during install or on a running system).
https://wiki.debian.org/Init#Changing_the_init_system_-_at_installation_time
@mathias Also Google: We built our empire on the backs of open source software. How dare you consider doing the same thing and making us irrelevant!
For the first time in like... 15 years I'm running bind servers on the public Internet.
Next thing you know I'll be getting a mail server going again...
Le sigh... The only way to have 'nice things' nowadays is to build it yourself it seems.
After over a month of running/playing with Alpine and FreeBSD exclusively this bit of work required returning to messing with systemd (Debian). Even less of a systemd fan now. lol
Server installs will be going non-systemd in the future for certain.
Been doing a little anecdotal cross comparing Alpine versus Chimera for little things that I stub my toe on every once in a while.
I notice that Chimera already has Plasma 6.6 since it is a rolling release. I expect for Alpine it'll come with 3.24 in May. Which is fine of course - no one died waiting for a point release. Ha.
I wanted to dump ImageMagick for an alternative method to CLI bulk convert webp images. Alpine has libwepb-tools and ffmpeg (fishing with nukes), but wanted to try gmic. It is in (a)testing but complains that libImath is not available. Edge has it so will be in 3.24 I guess. Chimera installed it without issue.
Alpine doesn't rely on Flatpak as much for the stuff I use compared to Chimera but that's no big deal, especially coming from Debian.
I have nothing scientific (metrics) to back this up but Chimera seems to run like a scalded cat in a VM, even compared to Alpine after coming from Debian. May need to reinstall on real hardware & verify.
Fun!
A couple days ago I posted a few links discussing using a different init system on Debian (instead of systemd).
Thinking about it more, I wouldn't do that unless I was prepared for the world of hurt that doing so may cause.
There is bound to be "gotchas" related to how packages that are dependent on an init system are configured and would expect systemd and/or long term b0rk@ge related to same.
When something eventually breaks? Ain't got no time for dat!
For Debian without systemd, Devuan is an alternative. I've dabbled with Devuan but don't know what it's like in prod. How "init curated" is the Devuan repo vs Debian repos? It's been around a long time and the forums aren't on fire so probably fine.
There's non-systemd life beyond Debian based systems of course. The distrowatch web site has a search filter that can exclude systemd. Have a play.
FWIW, I've been running Alpine on three desktop hosts (kde+way) happily for a few months. Desktop != Server
#RunBSD ?
@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk @stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe Web post with all the "gotchas" when? 🙃
@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk I switched from DDG to Startpage oh... about six(?) months ago as part of switching from Floorp to Waterfox. Waterfox suggests Startpage by default.
It's been perfectly fine for me. Most of my searching is Linux/BSD stuff and automotive stuff and I haven't really had many times where I thought I wasn't getting decent results. Occasionally when searches came up bad I'd try DDG and/or Google but they'd return same so ...
I always feel 'dirty' when I install Windows in a VM on my Linux hosts in order to test client software and whatnot when supporting clients (people).
There must be a better way?
Currently I'm installing a 'full fat' Windows 11 LTSC virtual machine to do this type of work.
Is there a slimmer, simpler way to get 'real Windows' for testing things?
I haven't had much luck with things like Winboat or similar and it doesn't seem to be much more than a full fat Windows instance running in a container anyway. Wine is not Windows so don't want to go there.
I could do Win10 since the client software is available on 10 but the client (users) are on 11 so not much point.
Options? Slimmer, simpler installs somehow?
All ears over here...
Time to re-enable and configure noscript on my browsers me thinks.
Glad I kept my old custom settings file from 2024 to ease into it.
#noscript #web #webbrowser #Socialmedia #security #privacy #extensions
Confluence is a WORZ solution: Write once read zero.
Has anyone experienced stability issues with AMD 7800XT GPUs under Linux?
I did some research last week and found some web pages that discussed locking down the over clock to try to stablize but hell if I can find it now.
Anyone have some hints or web pages that talks about these GPUs under Linux?
I'm seriously thinking about porting my cell phone number to a land line.
Double entendre
Replying to
@wezm How common are these guys? Will it get to full size and still hang out around your house? Are they generally skittish or do they kind of stay around.
Very interesting.
Replying to
@notthebee This is where I'm at. Not sure what I'm going to do other than go into a pure 'maintenance mode' on home labbing stuff and focus on other projects and tech stacks, stuff not focused on computers and software.
Replying to
@macer@his.macer.life Yeah, that's a good idea. I'll see how much use I get out of it.
That machine has been sitting on shelf for like 3-4 years so I'm kinda loathe to even spend $20 on a wifi card. Ha.
The screen is so nice though. Hmm, conflicted.