Blog - Philip Newborough

Upgrading from Fedora 41 to Fedora 42

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 17:17:05 +0100

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.

How to install PHP extension for Microsoft SQL Server under Fedora

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 15:29:11 +0100

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

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 20:00:00 +0000

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

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 22:05:43 +0000

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

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 19:29:12 +0000

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

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 20:22:30 +0000

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

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 22:31:11 +0000

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

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 19:35:06 +0000

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

Mon, 14 Oct 2024 22:22:17 +0100

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

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 18:45:07 +0100

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.

Calling Puppeteer via PHP

Mon, 30 Sep 2024 17:29:24 +0100

A blog post detailing an issue where a Puppeteer screenshot script, triggered through a PHP application using CodeIgniter, stopped working due to Chromium not starting under the Apache www-data user on Debian.

Vivaldi notes

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 18:08:21 +0100

I've been reading a lot of good things about the Vivaldi web browser of late, so I thought I would give it a try. These are my notes on what I did to personalise Vivaldi.

Desktop Linux and compiling from source

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 20:23:22 +0100

If anyone is in any doubt as to whether you need to compile any software from source in order to use desktop Linux, you really don't.

My concerns with generative AI

Sat, 14 Sep 2024 09:00:43 +0100

A post where I try to clarify my current stance on LLM/AI. I share my concerns about data privacy, energy usage and Big Tech influence.

AI in Firefox

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 16:52:52 +0100

Some thoughts about Mozilla's decision to build AI features into the Firefox web browser.

Switching desktop Linux from Debian to Fedora

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 08:49:46 +0100

Last week I switched the operating system on my daily driver (Lenovo ThinkPad T14s) from Debian 12 to Fedora 40. In this post I write a little about why I switched and how the switch went.

Firefox Nightly as a daily driver

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 07:35:21 +0000

I believe that it's really important to support and use Firefox. Not only do I think that Mozilla understand/support user's privacy more than Google, but I also think it's important for the health of the web that more than one option exists when it comes to rendering engines. Also, it's a really good web browser.

Single computing device lifestyle

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 07:34:00 +0000

I've recently decided to simplify my life by moving away from using multiple computers to using a single laptop. What are the main advantages and disadvantages of using a single computer?

Redux

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 11:30:00 +0000

As a web developer, I like to build and rebuild websites. My own website is no different.

How to create Bash aliases in Fedora

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 11:48:00 +0100

Creating your own Bash aliases is a relatively easy process. That said, I recently switched my desktop linux distribution from Debian to Fedora and there are subtle differences.