Upgrading from Fedora 41 to Fedora 42
If someone were to ask me which Linux distro has provided the best desktop experience, I wouldn't hesitate to answer: Fedora Workstation 41. So of course I upgraded to Fedora 42.
Philip Newborough - Web Developer and Linux Enthusiast
Blog
How to install PHP extension for Microsoft SQL Server under Fedora
I found myself needing to connect to a Microsoft SQL Server via a PHP application running under Fedora. Finding concise details about installing the necessary drivers and extensions was not easy, so here is a blog post detailing how I did it.
GNOME menu entries for Visual Studio Code projects
I work on a large number of code projects and I wanted a quick way to open any of my projects in Visual Studio Code, my preferred code editor. I figured the quickest way to do this under GNOME would be to create a .desktop file for each project directory.
How to set-up WatchGuard VPN with IKEv2 under Debian and Fedora
A blog post detailing how to set-up WatchGuard VPN with IKEv2 under both Debian and Fedora Linux. This guide works for me under Debian 12 (bookworm) and Fedora 40/41, but your mileage may vary depending on how your VPN service is configured.
My Debian 12 (bookworm) server set-up
I've been running Debian on my servers for years. It's dependable. I guess my server set-up is pretty common, consisting of Apache, PHP and MariaDB, but I figure it is still worth sharing details of how I provision my servers.
My Debian 12 (bookworm) desktop set-up
Creating a good Debian desktop experience is not too difficult, thanks to the excellent work of the Debian developers, but I thought it might be interesting to share how I set-up my Debian systems.
Upgrading from Fedora 40 to Fedora 41
A post describing my first experience of upgrading a Fedora installation. TLDR: The upgrade went smoothly and Fedora continues to impress me.
How I do todos
Details about how I've manage my todo list, past and present. Starting out with a single text file, before developing my own basic todo list application.
Creating a Bootstrap dark CSS colour scheme by inverting the colour values of an existing light colour scheme
I recently added a dark mode to my website. This post details how I achieved this by copying the existing light scheme's CSS and inverting the colour values.
How to add a custom search engine to Firefox
I thought it would be trivial to add a custom search engine to Firefox. To be fair, it is fairly trivial, but not quite as easy as navigating to the correct Firefox settings page and adding a new entry. Instead, I found the process to be somewhat hidden and less obvious.
Status
Not sure what I think about these new GNOME donation notifications 🤔
Completed Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine and Space Marine 2 on the Steam Deck. Great games. The original ran much better then the sequel, but both were enjoyable.
Note to self: the Dash to Dock GNOME extension is pretty handy when using 2k/3k/4k monitors. My list of installed extensions is now:
- AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support
- Caffeine
- Clipboard Indicator
- Smile - complementary extension
- TopHat
- Transparent Top Bar (Adjustable transparency)
- Freon
- Dash to Dock
After more than a year of using Fedora, I've moved my systems back to Debian. I've been super happy with GNOME 48 on Fedora, but now it's available with Debian stable I'm happy to move to back. I learnt a lot about Fedora in the past year and it's a fantastic distro, but it feels good to be back using Debian.
Finished reading The Fall of Cadia by Robert Rath. Took me a while to get through this one as I kept picking it and putting it down - I think the multi-stranded storyline broke my rhythm. That said, I enjoyed the story and it really heated up towards the end.
Just completed Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus on the Steam Deck. This game is all kinds of messed up, in a good way. Killing Nazis in an alternative timeline is a lot of fun and the story is twisted. Would recommend.
My Steam Deck arrived on Friday. This thing is proper good and has exceeded my expectations. Been playing some Doom, Boltgun, and Diablo, as well as a few survivor titles.
Ordered myself an OLED Steam Deck to replace my desktop Linux machine. Late to the party, as usual, but we're changing offices/bedrooms at home to make way for the grandchild and so I'm downsizing my gaming rig.
Best band in the world.
Got myself a cheap original Apple Magic Trackpad from Vinted. It works nicely with my Fedora/GNOME systems, apart from when I connect my Bluetooth earbuds to the same system, at which point it becomes laggy and unusable. I'll have to try and debug this at some point, but not today.
Bookmarks
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Pikaday Who needs a JavaScript date picker? The answer, in most cases, is nobody! Complex UI leads to more errors and abandoned forms. There can be easier ways to pick a date than a calendar widget. This guide provides alternate ideas and aims to send developers on a path towards user-friendly interfaces.
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How to optimize SVG files: A complete guide for beginners -
Dual Boot Diaries - YouTube Dual Boot Diaries follows two long-time Windows users as they see if they can switch to Linux full time. Each week hosts Adam Patrick Murray and Will Smith go through their experiences daily-driving Linux, with the whole show culminating in them deleting either Windows or Linux from their hard drives.
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How I Reversed Amazon's Kindle Web Obfuscation Because Their App Sucked -
COSMIC Desktop BETA - Can it replace GNOME and Plasma? - YouTube
Cosmic desktop is looking pretty good.
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ashimokawa/cosmic-debian-installer: Script to install the COSMIC Desktop on Debian 13 by converting Fedora packages - Codeberg.org Script to install the COSMIC Desktop on Debian 13 by converting Fedora packages.
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.htaccess: A Helper Script to Easily Block Website Traffic by Country · Jens Oliver Meiert Whatever the motivation for you to consider this—though after all, there are countries attacking, invading, and occupying other countries (e.g., Russia, Israel) and countries committing genocides (e.g., Israel)—, here’s one streamlined approach to geographic IP blocking via .htaccess
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IPdeny IP country blocks
IPdeny offers country GEO IP address block downloads free of charge. Our country based IP zone files can be easily used in your applications and web sites to minimize on-line fraud, SPAM, floods and sometimes brute force attacks. IPdeny country IP block files can be used to set-up firewall or packet filter rules to disable specific service access and ports based on a specific country.
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Harper Harper is a free English grammar checker designed to be just right. You can think of it as an open-source alternative to Grammarly. I created it after years of dealing with the shortcomings of the competition.
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mobygratis In 2005, internationally renowned musician and activist Moby launched mobygratis as a free music resource designed to empower creative projects by students, non-profits, indie filmmakers, musicians, producers, rappers, singers, animators, choreographers, songwriters, remixers, and more. Over the past two decades, this groundbreaking initiative has supported over 50,000 indie films and media projects, becoming a cornerstone for creatives in need of high-quality, royalty-free music.
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