I’m working on a some materials for a class wherein I’ll be teaching some young, wide-eyed Windows nerds about Linux and we’re including a section we’re calling “foot guns”. Basically it’s ways you might shoot yourself in the foot while meddling with your newfound Linux powers....
Serial ports are (for example) commonly RS-232, although other types of ports exist. Imagine it to be a very slow Ethernet device. Because it’s so slow (and the technology predates Ethernet and also has different requirements), it’s usually attached directly to a device instead of to a network. But you could connect a modem to it and it becomes connected to a network device.
It could also be connected to a system device. These are commonly called terminals. Such devices are often monochrome (especially older ones) because a serial connection is often bandwidth limited (eg, measured in kilobits per second instead of megabits or gigabits). Since it’s so slow, it’s not practical for video, so it’s generally just text-only.
Note that your GPU might also output a system console but rendered on your display at very high resolution and with graphics-drawing capabilities. So a system console would be any console that connects to the system.
What is a console? Well, Wikipedia presents several valid articles and the common theme as far as computers go is that a “console” is typically something that a human and a computer use to interact with each other.
For serial consoles, you might find device files for them at /dev/tty*. But for general serial devices, it could be any of several different types of device files.
Wikipedia’s article on has a pretty decent listing of what kinds of devices you might find and several of them might be classified as a serial port. Any serial port might be connected to a serial console.
So in my case, a serial console is:
2x USB-to-RS-232 (USB is a serial protocol and is basically “just” another (Universal) (and perhaps high speed) Serial port (Bus), so conversion is super cheap)
System 1 (the failing system) UEFI boots into repair system partition on a separately attached disk (eg, boot from CD or live USB) to get a local system console
System 1 repair system mounts the failing system partition
System 1 modifies failing system grub configuration to enable a and saves changes, then unmounts failing system partition
Power off System 1
Remove repair partition device
Open terminal window on System 2 (recovery system)
Connect System 2 terminal to (oh wow those were some old days)
Power on System 1
System 1 boot enters grub recovery menu which allows fixing the system remotely
To be fair, a lot of that complexity could have been done by either reinstalling, or removing the hard drive and attaching it to another computer. But doing it this way allowed me to poke around and try different ways of solving the issue, rebooting, etc. It was a learning experience worth exploring.
It was years ago though and I think there was some complication with trying to understand what device file (or device number or something) needed to be to work on the correct serial device (there are often multiple)
There’s less regulation in a developing country. So… if you get them hooked on it then, at least, you’ve got easy (albeit low) income. During the developing country maturity they will then be hooked on sugar and less likely to ban it or curb it.
Absolutely. If you’re passionate about it then you might want to learn more about how the scams are enabled by modern technology’s complete disregard for security and privacy.
Tabs are a necessary part of the tooling and configuration files. Any tool which doesn’t properly handle files that are correctly formatted for other tools is… a broken tool.
I found a (lengthy) guide to doing this but it is for gksu which is gone. I have to imagine there’s an easy way. I am running Ubuntu. There is no specific use case, it is just a feature I miss from windows....
I have had to un-teach dumb things that people learn from Windows.
A menu item to run a GUI program as root it is indeed a rather absurd scenario. It suggests that you want to violate the admin/user barrier which is intended to be difficult to surpass except in certain circumstances.
There can be a lot of things under the hood that are necessary to run a GUI program as root depending on whether you’re using X11 or Wayland or something more esoteric. It’s doable though.
But instead of doing that, why not just learn how to use the command line? Every administrative task can be done via the command line, but not every administrative task has a GUI counterpart. So you’re going to need to learn to use the command line sooner or later.
Disabling a systemd service won’t prevent it from starting. For example, if another service depends on it then it will start anyway.
You have to mask the service which redirects the service files to /dev/null so that the service effectively has zero directives.
systemctl mask --now snapd
It also means that anything which depends on snapd will likely fail. That is absolutely an improvement since we obviously don’t want anything that depends on snaps.
Don’t worry, apps are so slow that we don’t risk repeating the same problem of double-clicking causing the first click to open the app and the second click to do something in the app that you didn’t want to do.
Tinkering is all fun and games, until it’s 4 am, your vision is blurry, and thinking straight becomes a non-option, or perhaps you just get overly confident, type something and press enter before considering the consequences of the command you’re about to execute… And then all you have is a kernel panic and one thought...
I was running Fedora. Something like 27 or so. I needed drivers. I don’t remember if it was AMD or Nvidia, but they were only available on RedHat.
So I downloaded the RedHat drivers for the GPU and forced it to install. It worked! It was great.
Then when I updated the distro to the next release… everything failed. It was dropping into grub, but no video was output. Ooof.
So I ended up enabling a terminal console and connecting to it via a serial port to debug. I had to completely uninstall that RPM and I was never happy that it was properly gone. So a few months later I ended up reinstalling the whole OS.
On the plus side, I learned a lot about grub and serial consoles. Worth it.
If you notice an improperly formatted reply, kindly message the poster and gently remind them it needs to comport with the Naltrexone example below. It is simple and keeps things traversable and useful, thanks 🙏...
My sister tells me water is tasteless. I disagree. Water definitely has a taste. I have yet to find water with a taste I like except when I am very dehydrated.
Tap water? Definitely no. Filtered water? Nope. Mineral water? Nah. Flavored water? Eugh.
Tea, though. Tea is amazing. Especially coffee tea. Coffee tea is amazing. You take coffee beans, grind them up, and pass hot water through it. It’s so amazing.
“More than half of the websites in the study accepted passwords with six characters or less, with 75% failing to require the recommended eight-character minimum. Around 12% of had no length requirements, and 30% did not support spaces or special characters.”
If a website requires so few characters that I have to create custom rule in my password manager for it… then it’s a website I’m strongly inclined not to use.
Sadly, a lot of these websites deal with finances or employment.
Why does a ScrewdriverFactoryFactoryProvider need PHP? I imagine it’s a typo’d Phillips-head screwdriver factory that got lost in the conversion to producing star-spangled torx screws.
like I went to taco bell and they didn’t even have napkins out. they had the other stuff just no napkins, I assume because some fucking ghoul noticed people liked taking them for their cars so now we just don’t get napkins! so they can save $100 per quarter rather than provide the barest minimum quality of life features.
You’re trying to tell me that borrowing against securities solves the problem. But it only moves the problem.
If I borrow against the securities, I get cash. I use that cash. I now have zero cash (again). Then I die a horribly quiet death with megabucks owed for loans against the securities. The estate does not have cash to pay back those loans. You’re saying those securities would be sold… for more profit than what I borrowed against? Then it sounds like I didn’t borrow against their full value. And if I did borrow against their full value, then the loan cannot be paid back because the cash is spent.
You have zero cash plus a property asset. The value of that asset will grow as well.
Well okay I did ask about buying a fancy house so I think it’s a reasonable assumption.
But I want to change the argument move the goalpost. Let’s suppose I bought a fancy house and the housing market bubble finally burst… and that the house is now worth 1/3 of what I bought it for. That loss of value caused a massive heart attack and definitely caused death.
Or let’s say I spent the money on hookers and blow. Might as well go out with a bang, after all.
Now all of that value truly is gone. Sucks to be my kids I guess. But at least I had a fun time, right?
First: Don’t take financial advice from randos on the internet
Just a conversation, man :)
I didn’t even know someone could borrow against securities. Sounds like I need to have a discussion with my finance guy…
… speaking of finance guys, I should find one.
A million dollars is a number we need to have a conversation about in this country, because everyone wants to hate on millionaires.
Sure, let’s talk about that.
People who hate on millionaires are making arguments a million hours too late (for many of the reasons you stated). The rage these days is to hate on billionaires.
FTC votes to ban noncompete clauses that bar employees from working for competitors (www.cnbc.com)
What're some of the dumbest things you've done to yourself in Linux?
I’m working on a some materials for a class wherein I’ll be teaching some young, wide-eyed Windows nerds about Linux and we’re including a section we’re calling “foot guns”. Basically it’s ways you might shoot yourself in the foot while meddling with your newfound Linux powers....
the hardest exam question (lemmy.ml)
Nestlé adds sugar to infant milk sold in poorer countries, report finds (www.theguardian.com)
YouTube puts third-party clients on notice: Show ads or get blocked (arstechnica.com)
Sextortion Scams Are Driving Teen Boys to Suicide (www.bloomberg.com)
Linus Torvalds Injects Tabs To Thwart Kconfig Parsers Not Correctly Handling Them (www.phoronix.com)
Linus Torvalds added hidden tabs to Kconfig to challenge parsers that can’t handle them....
Is there a way to add "Run as Sudo" to context menu like with Windows?
I found a (lengthy) guide to doing this but it is for gksu which is gone. I have to imagine there’s an easy way. I am running Ubuntu. There is no specific use case, it is just a feature I miss from windows....
XZ backdoor in a nutshell (lemmy.zip)
C++ Moment (lemmy.world)
Snap store from Canonical (Ubuntu) hit with another crypto scam app (www.gamingonlinux.com)
KDE Goes and Does It (Double-Click By Default, That Is) - OMG! Linux (www.omglinux.com)
KDE Plasma 6 will require users to double-click on files and folders to open them by default....
What's (are) the funniest/stupidest way(s) you've broken your linux setup?
Tinkering is all fun and games, until it’s 4 am, your vision is blurry, and thinking straight becomes a non-option, or perhaps you just get overly confident, type something and press enter before considering the consequences of the command you’re about to execute… And then all you have is a kernel panic and one thought...
Hate when it happens (lemmy.kde.social)
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney was asked by Verge why there is no support for the Steam Deck for Fortnite (lemmy.ml)
What are your hidden gem medications/drugs/substances and what makes them ideal for your usecase
If you notice an improperly formatted reply, kindly message the poster and gently remind them it needs to comport with the Naltrexone example below. It is simple and keeps things traversable and useful, thanks 🙏...
Largest Study of its Kind Shows Outdated Password Practices are Widespread (www.cc.gatech.edu)
“More than half of the websites in the study accepted passwords with six characters or less, with 75% failing to require the recommended eight-character minimum. Around 12% of had no length requirements, and 30% did not support spaces or special characters.”
Apparently DuckDuckGo has a low opinion of the new PHP release (hexbear.net)
Why is everything in consumer / American life so fucking shitty now - and companies literally just say 'oh bc profit margins' and we're now expected to swallow that and sympathize?
like I went to taco bell and they didn’t even have napkins out. they had the other stuff just no napkins, I assume because some fucking ghoul noticed people liked taking them for their cars so now we just don’t get napkins! so they can save $100 per quarter rather than provide the barest minimum quality of life features.