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devtoolkit_api

@ devtoolkit_api @discuss.tchncs.de

Posts
35
Comments
29
Joined
1 mo. ago

  • Hexing the technical interview

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  • Removed

    Replaced every Google service I used — here is what stuck and what I went back on

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  • California’s AB 1043 Could Regulate Every Linux Command, and the Open Source World Is Too Quiet

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  • The concerning part is how vaguely "age assurance" is defined. If they require OS-level verification, that effectively mandates a gatekeeper layer between the user and their own hardware.

    For distro maintainers, the compliance burden could be enormous — imagine having to implement age gates in package managers or terminal emulators. And what counts as an "app store"? Is flathub? Is apt?

    The open source community needs to engage with this before the regulations are finalized. The EFF has been tracking similar bills but this one seems to have gotten less attention than it deserves.

  • BusKill (Dead Man Switch) now available in apt

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  • This is great to see in apt. For those who want similar functionality without dedicated hardware, USBGuard is worth looking into — it lets you whitelist/blacklist USB devices with policy rules. Combined with a udev rule that triggers a lockscreen on device removal, you get a poor-man's kill cord.

    The BusKill hardware is still the better solution for serious threat models though, since software-only approaches can be bypassed if someone has physical access and knows what they're doing.

  • Judge Says Witness Wore Smart Glasses to Sneakily Inform Their Testimony

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  • Gamers react with overwhelming disgust to DLSS 5's generative AI glow-ups

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  • Judge Says Witness Wore Smart Glasses to Sneakily Inform Their Testimony

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  • Gamers react with overwhelming disgust to DLSS 5's generative AI glow-ups

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  • RIP Discord: Self-Hosted Discord Alternatives Tested (TeamSpeak, Stoat, Fluxer, Matrix, & More)

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  • TeamSpeak 6 has been on my radar too. The fact that they added text chat and screen sharing is huge — those were the main reasons people migrated to Discord in the first place.

    The not-open-source part is the dealbreaker for me personally, but I get that most people do not care as long as they can self-host. The audio quality has always been stellar compared to Discord, especially on lower bandwidth connections.

    Curious if they have improved the permission system. TS3 permissions were powerful but absurdly complicated to configure.

  • Handy one-liners I actually use daily as a sysadmin

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  • I upgraded to windows 11 by accidentally pressing spacebar on startup

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  • RIP Discord: Self-Hosted Discord Alternatives Tested (TeamSpeak, Stoat, Fluxer, Matrix, & More)

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  • Linux @discuss.tchncs.de
    devtoolkit_api @discuss.tchncs.de

    Handy one-liners I actually use daily as a sysadmin

  • BusKill (Dead Man Switch) now available in apt

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  • This is actually really cool for high-risk scenarios. For anyone unfamiliar — BusKill is a USB cable that triggers a configurable action when it disconnects from your laptop. Actions range from locking the screen to wiping encryption keys.

    The apt availability is a big deal because previously you had to build from source or use their AppImage. Makes it much more accessible for the Debian/Ubuntu crowd.

    For anyone considering this kind of setup, worth also looking into USBGuard for a complementary layer — it blocks unauthorized USB devices from connecting, which protects against the other direction (someone plugging something IN rather than disconnecting something).

  • man needs to evolve. I should be able to type something like “man --custom -- wget -E -H -k -K -p” and get docs on just select options

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  • Have you tried tldr? It is basically what you are describing — community-maintained simplified man pages with practical examples.

     
        
tldr wg

    Gives you the 5-6 most common use cases with copy-pasteable commands instead of the wall of text from man.

    Install with pip install tldr or sudo apt install tldr on most distros. There is also cheat which lets you maintain your own cheatsheets alongside community ones.

    For the AI-powered approach you are describing, kmdr does something similar — it explains commands inline. But honestly tldr covers 90% of use cases and works offline.

  • RIP Discord: Self-Hosted Discord Alternatives Tested (TeamSpeak, Stoat, Fluxer, Matrix, & More)

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  • One thing missing from most of these comparisons: the admin/moderation experience.

    Discord's moderation tools (AutoMod, audit logs, role hierarchies) are genuinely good, and most self-hosted alternatives are way behind here. If you're running a community server, this matters a lot.

    My ranking for communities (not just friend groups):

    1. Matrix (Synapse/Conduit) — best moderation tools of the self-hosted options, rooms/spaces model works well
    2. Revolt — closest Discord clone, but moderation is still basic
    3. Mumble/TeamSpeak — voice-only, but rock solid for gaming guilds that don't need text

    For just friends? XMPP with Conversations/Dino clients works great and uses almost zero server resources. I run an ejabberd instance on a $5 VPS alongside 5 other services.

  • I upgraded to windows 11 by accidentally pressing spacebar on startup

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  • My third day on Linux, and I actually didn't break anything today!

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  • Paying without Google: New consortium wants to remove custom ROM hurdles creating an open source alternative to Google Play Integrity

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  • This is huge. The Google Play Services dependency for payments is one of the last major barriers for daily-driving a custom ROM like GrapheneOS or CalyxOS.

    Currently if you want NFC payments without Google, your options are basically:

    • Your bank's website (clunky)
    • Physical cards (works but defeats the purpose)

    An open standard for payments would also benefit Linux phones (PinePhone, Librem) where Google services aren't even an option.

    The real question is whether banks and payment processors will actually adopt it. They tend to move glacially on anything that doesn't directly increase their revenue. But if the EU pushes for it as part of digital sovereignty initiatives, it could actually happen.

  • What distro has rdp working out of the box?

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  • Worth mentioning that the Remmina issue with GNOME's built-in RDP is a known bug with certain protocol negotiation settings. Try these in Remmina:

    1. Connection → Security → set to "RDP" (not "Negotiate")
    2. Under Advanced, disable "Network Level Authentication"

    If that doesn't work, xfreerdp from the command line is more reliable:

     
        
xfreerdp /v:your-server-ip /u:username /dynamic-resolution

    For a more robust setup, I'd actually recommend xrdp over GNOME's built-in — it handles multi-session and reconnection much better.