plembo

Brave browser on Android post install checklist

This is based on my limited initial experience with Brave browser on Android (v12). Although customization is more limited than on Linux or Windows, it can be configured to be more usable than the default. If possible, I try to configure and set up sync on a desktop before mobile for efficiency.

1. Brave Shields and Privacy: Social Media blocking. Disable all except Allow Google and Show autocomplete in address bar.

2. WebRTC handling policy. Disable non-proxied UDP.

3. Allow sites to check payment methods: Disabled.

4. IPFS Gateway: Disabled.

plembo

Ubuntu Error on apt update: Package header, MergeList

Thanks to Amr, I didn't have to rebuild my system the other day. AmrAbdeen. "Fix| Error E:Encountered a section with no Package: header, E:Problem with MergeList". GitHub Gist, 21 Nov 2015, https://gist.github.com/AmrAbdeen/59d688b3d4cf20cc81f2.

Doing an apt update on my house Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS, I kept getting this error:

Error “E:Encountered a section with no Package: header, E:Problem with MergeList …….”

Trawled the internets for advice, none of it worked, at least one suggestion was pretty clearly dangerous (as in system-crippling dangerous).

plembo

Brave browser on Linux desktop post install checklist

This is based on my limited initial experience with Brave browser on Linux (Ubuntu desktop). There are subtle differences for Android that I'll put in a separate document when I've actually applied my changes in a methodical way.

1. Get started: Profile name and icon.

2. Import bookmarks from your previous browser (e.g., Chrome or Firefox). Brave is your default browser.

3. On startup: Open a specific page or set of pages. Enter your homepage.

4. Appearance: Brave colors, Dark. On Ubuntu, also pick GTK theme.

plembo

Suppress "~/Mail does not exist" in mutt

An annoying message, asking for permission to create a folder that mutt then never uses (unless your MTA is configured for Maildir, but that's another story).

To fix it I just added unset folder to the end of /etc/Muttrc.

You probably will want to remove that if you ever decide to switch to Maildir.

MetaEd. "Suppresss "~/Mail does not exist" in mutt". Unix & Linux StackExchange, 4 May 2023, https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/108097/suppresss-mail-does-not-exist-in-mutt.

plembo

lxc and ufw

Problem

Basic lxc allows you to spin up lightweight system containers for testing. But if you're running a host firewall you may find it prevents your containers from acquiring an IP address over DHCP for networking, and from connecting to external hosts (like distro package servers).

NOTE: I don't use lxc in production, and have purged it from all my machines after some experimentation. Diving deeper into Docker seemed a better use of my time.

Solution

If running ufw on Ubuntu you should be able to fix that with the following command:

plembo

Steam on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Desktop with an NVIDIA RX3050

Note the detailed heading. The subtitle should be "It's a miracle I got it to work at all". What follows are notes that I hope will help the next time I have to set this up, although I know they probably won't. They probably won't work for you either. Sorry.

Prerequisites

Make sure you're in an xorg, not wayland, session.

1. Remove any existing nvidia packages:

• sudo apt autoremove nvidia* --purge and/or
• sudo /usr/bin/nvidia-uninstall

plembo

fscrypt to encrypt existing user home

NOTE: I no longer rely on this procedure, as I've become more concerned about data corruption than privacy risks. But I also now only travel with a machine that has been privacy hardened and scrubbed of most private data, relying on secure cloud storage (Proton Drive) to retrieve any sensitive materials I may need.

Open source fscrypt provides native encryption for ext4 filesystems on Linux. With it you can encrpyt folders within a disk partition, including user folders. It cannot encrypt files in place, so data must be backed up before proceeding.

The process described below has only been tested on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Desktop after install and user home creation. All device filesysystems are ext4. The /home directory is mounted on its own dedicated partition (e.g., "/dev/sda3"). I'm doing this to secure the personal data on a laptop from common theives, not state actors or anyone who can get access to the machine while it's running. Your Mileage May Vary. Because.

plembo

Restore Linux virtual console knocked out by NVIDIA

NOTE: This problem appears to have been cleared up with my latest NVIDIA driver update (535.171.04), and so I no longer need to make the changes noted below.

There's apparently a longstanding bug in NVIDIA's driver that can prevent the use of Linux virtual consoles ("text consoles") when plugged into the card. This doesn't affect virtual consoles when plugged into integrated graphics.

While I don't have a bug report reference for this particular issue, there is this response to an Ask Ubuntu post from 5 years ago:

Zanna. "nVidia driver kills text consoles - how to get them back?". Ask Ubuntu, 30 July 2018, https://askubuntu.com/a/662782.

plembo

nmcli commands for static networking

This is for a common use case: setting up static networking from the command line on a Linux system that uses NetworkManager.

For all its faults, I like NetworkManager because of its versatility. Here are the commands to use on a new Linux machine to take it from DHCP to static networking. On some systems you may need to execute these sudo root.

Do all this at the host console if possible, not over the network. Connectivity will be lost during these changes.

I like to start with renaming the connection after the device it controls. Connection names are case-sensitive.

The hardware device in these examples has been assigned "ens3" as its device name. This will almost certainly be different on different machines. Use ip addr to retrieve the name for yours.

plembo

Docker for System Containers

Docker is a popular solution for packaging applicatiom containers, but it can work equally as well for building system containers.

I've tried using lxc, and then lxd, for this, but the former requires too much tweaking (e.g. to get networking going, with sparse and outdated documentation), and the latter chases docker in a not-very-serious way. It's also only available as a snap.

The problem with creating system containers with docker is that by default they shut down immediately after creation, because there's no app or service to keep it running.

Solution

To create a docker container from an O/S image that will keep running after creation, use this command: