RDP Fail

Remote Desktop in Linux remains elusive. I have tried time and again. I've tried a couple different servers, a couple different clients. I've tried tweaking the firewall rules, did chmod changes. And still nothing. The client prompts me for my login then it just gives up.

Now I'm unable to even smb to my tower. So I'll need to uninstall the firewall I installed per an RDB tutorial. This is all very frustrating. I understand security but this is all within my home network, surely it shouldn't be this difficult. I can SSH into the machine, not sure why I can't get RDP to work.

I'll post an update when I finally succeed.

HDD Ugh-ness

Arch install paused. Apparently the first hurdle - disk partitioning - might be the end of this attempt. It seems my HDD may have finally given up the ghost. It has given me grief in the past, but an fsck fixed it. Still at random times I would get disk errors. Now it appears to have gotten pretty bad. Any time I try running fdisk it just blows up with HDD errors.
I have many other projects to work on so the Arch install will have to be put on hold. Kind of sad. I need a decent cheap beater machine to play with. I don't want to do virtual machines, I would rather work on a full on install. So I may be keeping my eyes open for a machine I can mess with.

Arch Adventure

Ok I dug out good ol' broke screen, plugged it into a monitor, downloaded Arch, and put it on a jump drive. Thus begins my adventures in advanced Linux distro installation.

I'm excited. I've never really done a Nix deep dive. I've always run straightforward 'desktop user' distros with graphical partition managers that do everything for you. Wireless connections are part of the install. Piece of cake.

The Arch Linux install boots you to a prompt, with a great install.txt file as a guide. That's it. So the first step is setting up the partitions. Bam. First wall to climb. Even with graphical partition managers I've never taken the time to truly understand how Linux partition tables are typically set up (I know, I suck). So at the first step I have a lot to learn!

As I progress through this project (with my amount of knowledge this is truly a project), I'll post updates.

Embrace the Pain

I have not explored the caverns of hardcore Linux yet. But it crosses my mind every now and then. I happen to have an old laptop with a broken screen. I could hook it up to a monitor. And I could put Arch on it. Or Slackware. Or Gentoo.

I could definitely use the experience. I would be forced to become intimately familiar with the inner workings of Linux. I have *sort of* done this in the past. When I hit the network setup wall, plugged in my network cable, and hit the network set up wall again.... and again. I decided I didn't really want to be a Linux guru.

Snce then I've had to do some digging and debugging on my new laptop. So maybe now I know enough to struggle through the process. If you haven't looked into advanced Linux distros before, here's a couple suggestions culled from various distro reviews:

Arch Linux
https://www.archlinux.org

Debian
https://www.debian.org/

Slackware
http://www.slackware.com/

Fedora
https://getfedora.org/

Gentoo
https://www.gentoo.org/

So Much Doom

It has been a surprisingly long time since I've had to rebuild my computers. Well, nevermind, it wasn't that long ago. BUT the last time was by choice and not because I broke the OS etc. I was making the switch to LinuxMint. And I still love it.

But the other night it happened. I ran the updates tool, I hadn't updated my system etc in a while. Then the next time I logged in - NOTHIMG. Frozen, black screen. I had to do a hard shutdown to get it to do anything. Well I broke something so maybe it was time to install the next version of Mint.

Fluxbox worked, but not Plasma for some reason. So...
 

Two days later I finally finessed nix into clearing out my thumbdrive and getting a disktable that was proper for booting. But in the course of my struggles I truly did break something. You know how people are like:
 

"Be careful when you use dd. Set the of= correctly."

Yeah. There goes my SSD (primary drive). But I didn't realize it right away, you see the current Ubuntu, that Mint is built on won't even run from a thumb or CD if the drive designated as 0 is messed up (Some people's bios has a floppy drive entry they had to disable). But it took me a while to realize this was why my live CD/USB boot was freezing. I ripped a bunch of DVDs and re-dd'd my USB a couple dozen times with diff Mint versions etc. Thankfully I inadvertently hit F11 and dropped into the actual nix boot messages. That's how I found the 'no filesystem on 0' error messages. Prior to that it just appeared Mint was hung then eventually said 'no drive containing file system found'.

What is interesting is Mint built on earlier versions of Ubuntu had no problem with my messed up SSD. So I ran an old version of Mint and worked more with gparted and various terminal commands. I finally got the SSD put back into a state that the BIOS liked.

I installed the latest Mint... Buuut... I couldn't log in. Plasma was still giving me grief, and this time I couldn't get in to install Fluxbox.

Finally I installed the previous Mint version and am back in business.

What a nightmare.

Fluxbox! Because BlackArch

I do some pretty ridiculous things sometimes. And right now is a perfect example. I run Linux Mint KDE, because I love the distro's simplicity and KDE's flexibility. But I love the look of BlackArch Linux.

So, not knowing anything about it - on a granular level, I installed it in VirtualBox. And found out it runs fluxbox. Having toyed with openbox a little, I guessed flux might also be config file-driven. I found the theme file - but couldn't get a file manager installed. Wrestled with pacman for a while.

Then it dawned on me - there's probably a website w/ all the BlackArch files available. Sure enough, found a Git repo and snagged the theme. After some tweaking of the keys config, and a couple others I have a hardcore looking, super minimal black and red theme on my computer. We'll see if fluxbox grows on me.

Elusive Theme

If you haven't seen or heard of it, BlackArch is an interesting Linux distro. It is designed for ethical hacking and it recently added more tools to its arsenal. I've never run it myself but, oh man, that theme!

I have an MSI gaming laptop, so it is all black and red, just like the BlackArch theme. It would be very cool to customize my OS to match the look of my laptop. So far I haven't found such a beast (Although the Twooten window decorations are pretty sweet). I'll keep looking.

If you haven't seen BlackArch, check it out:

BlackArch

Your Python is Old

The other day I decided to update my version of Qutebrowser. I'm really loving it so far, so I wanted to take advantage of any bleeding edge changes to it. I was using apt to install it - mainly just because that's what I usually use. I got stuck on the Python requirements so downloaded a bunch of .debs attempting to get them all.

It was tedious but I was working my way through them. I hit a snag where one package didn't like the version I already had installed so I decided to uninstall my package. Bad. My terminal filled with notices that it was uninstalling core KDE apps. I knew I had just broken my system and sure enough.

I could have troubleshooted the issue, probably, but I just rebuilt it.

I tried installing the latest QB and had the same issue. So I hit IRC. It turns out LinuxMint has some old Python dependencies deep within the system. It was suggested I install QB using tox. The process was very painless, just a few console commands. I made a script to launch it and made a link to it in bin and I was golden.

I still love LinuxMint but beware of its Python issues.

KDE Or Go Home

I had no idea. KDE has been working on a mobile OS. I love KDE. I run all my computers on Linux w/ KDE as the desktop. I love the flexibility. Why shouldn't I be able to tweak my desktop? It's the interface I have to use every day, I should be able to make it behave as I prefer. And that is KDE's philosophy. I love it.
The idea of running KDE on mobile devices is amazing. However I'm not keen on rooting my phone just yet. My tablet or watch, yes. Something as critical as my phone no. Maybe once I'm experienced in rooting and know its ins and outs. But when I do, I'm definitely going to give the Plasma mobile a go.

For My 'Dohs People

I have been neglecting my Windows friends. It's not personal. Just because I don't like your OS doesn't mean I don't like you... And certainly I have nothing to add that you already don't know about. I have to say that I DO like your OS more than Mac. But anyway, I'll save irritating people for later.

In Linux I love aliases for console work. And for the graphical desktop, shortcuts in the /usr/bin which work with the launcher. For example a thunderbird link named tb allows me to type tb in the launcher and voila thunderbird.

Of course the nix launchers are pretty good. Apps can typically be launched after entering two or three letters. And Windows is kind of getting better.

It turns out the shortcut trick works in Windows as well. Simply make a shortcut in your user directory. I know in some versions of Dohs you will need to put it in a more global directory, sadly I don't recall which one. Anyway, with your shortcut(s) in place just fire up the run dialog and enter the name of your shortcut. For example a shortcut to Visual Studio named vs.lnk would allow you to enter vs into a run dialog to launch it.

For both the Nix trick or the Dohs trick, you could make links to shell scripts or .bat files, or directories, etc.

Unleash the power!

Users Need to be Free!

Sorry, but this is another tirade against mobile OS's. I am very much a Yankee in the traditional sense of the word. Back in the 1800's the British sent the world's moat powerful Man-O-War to the U.S.'s east coast, to intimidate us. We sunk it.
I am  firm believer in Hump An Git It individualism. I can't abide tyrants and oppressors.
Data must be free... OS's are data, just like  applications. They must be free. Mobile OS's go against every philosophy I hold dear.
I have an old HP 10 G2. Why in the world am I not allowed to be an admin on MY OWN DEVICE?! It's not like it's tied to a mobile contract. I should be able to do what I want. As it is I'm stuck with Lollipop and all of HP's bloatware. Ugh.

Apparently I need to begin the journey. It's time to 'know thy enemy'. I need to get to know Android inside and out. I will need to be able to not only root it,  but to fully understand the process and go even deeper. I want to COMPLETELY take control of my tablet.
I would also like to root my SmartWatch 3... if Sony is going to not allow me to run Android 2.0 -- I'm gonna hump an git it. It's my watch, it's not tied to a contract. I'm going to keep it up to date.

Free the Users!

A Nix Terminal On My Phone, What?!

If I haven't already said it, I find mobile OS's obnoxious. Especially in light of the fact that tablets run on mobile OS's. They are operating systems that keep you from doing anything substantive on them. Sure you can run the allowed apps and games, but what if you want to rebuild them with another OS? Nope. What if you want to tinker with it and mess with system files or other admin activities? Nope.
You can only have freedom on your own device if you root it, which unless you really know what you're doing is dangerous, and it voids your warranty etc. So doing any real development etc on your tablet is out of the question unless you root it. I haven't had the time to learn to do this so I'm stuck with unrooted devices. So I looked around for options for running a linux terminal on an unrooted device. And I found GnuRoot. It is amazing. It runs on unrooted Android devices AND it has apt-get capabilities! So I can run calcurses, VIM (True VIM), and other Linux console apps. I can grep and do other things.
If you're an unrooted nerd and haven't tried it yet, you must.

Do You Even Android, Bro?

Android. I am going to be brutally honest here. I can't stand mobile OS's. The idea that an OS has been specifically designed to keep me from utilizing a device that I paid a lot of money for - and continue to pay service fees to use is disgusting.
Sure there's security etc to consider. But laptops. No the heart of it is ensuring we are locked into our carrier. Anyway, as you will find out in future posts, it drives me crazy.
But this article is about the Android Studio. AS is by far the most frustrating IDE I've ever used.
About a year ago I bought a Sony Smartwatch 3 with the metal bracelet. It looks super retro-future-sci-fi. I love it. And I was excited to build my own watchfaces for it. So I grabbed Android Studio and spent hours looking for examples and trying to figure out the basics. I got it down enough to make what I wanted. I created a nix console-looking watchface: TerminalTime and a grid of squares watchface: Central Mother.
After about a half a year I wanted to do some improvements to them. I launched AS and it wanted to update itself. Cool, I like rolling the most recent stuff. So I did the update. Aaaand that was the last time my watchfaces ever ran. Or ANYTHING in AS for that matter. I have wasted so many hours removing, reinstalling, deleting virtual devices, creating new virtual devices, building watchfaces using the new project wizard. So many hours scouring forums and contacting Google. Hours and hours and hours, trying to do the most basic thing you could possibly do in AS. Create a watchface project and run it (Without changing anything in it first). I can't get the  project AS created to run in AS.
It's maddening to not be able to modify my own watchfaces because of some dumb IDE. I'm sorry but I hate AS.