Using VDO on CentOS/RHEL7 for Storage Efficiency

Posted on September 13, 2018 by

Besides Btrfs, native Linux-based storage solutions have lagged behind the robustness and features of ZFS and the BSDs.  Recently Red Hat acquired Permabit which provides an Open Source device-mapper Linux kernel driver and layer that sits between block devices and filesystems providing deduplication, compression and thin provisioning.  Here’s my first experiences setting it up and initial returns using it. Continue reading →

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Run iTunes on Linux via Wine

Posted on June 20, 2018 by

Recent versions of Wine can run iTunes and Apple Music for Linux with no wizardry required.  Having been given a free Apple Music subscription as part of a family plan it’s useful to have additional streaming media options.  Below are the steps to use iTunes on Linux via Wine and have access to iTunes and Apple Music.

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Fix for Intel i915 GPU Freeze on Recent Linux Kernels

Posted on May 18, 2018 by

Recently Intel started including their graphics drivers into the mainline Linux kernel.  This is great except when it stops working.  Having suffered intermittent, sporadic GPU freezes on my Lenovo x270 (Kabylake) work laptop since Kernel 4.12+ I came across a bug report that seemed related.  Here’s my temporary fix on Fedora 28 for getting things stable again until it’s fixed for good upstream.

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Using Signal Desktop on Fedora with Flatpak

Posted on March 16, 2018 by

In the 2018 race to re-invent AOL instant messenger Signal comes out on top of the competition for end-to-end encryption and a focus on privacy and security.  Signal desktop was recently released for Windows, Mac and only Debian-based Linux distributions with no official RPM available.  Here’s how to use app sandboxing with Flatpak to get it running nicely. Continue reading →

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Block Advertising on your Network with Pi-hole and Raspberry Pi

Posted on February 27, 2018 by

I recently setup Pi-hole on an existing Raspberry Pi running CentOS on my home network to serve as my DNS server and block advertising and unwanted domains for all internet-connected devices.  I’m still using an ASUS router with Shibby Tomato firmware for routing, DHCP and private VLANs so I had to make a few changes.  This is how I got up and running along with some performance tuning.

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Automate RPM Builds from Git Sources using COPR

Posted on September 3, 2017 by

The Fedora project COPR service builds/hosts free RPM package repositories and provides useful automation hooks for your Devopsing.  You can combine COPR and any standard Git source (Github, Gitlab, etc) with webhooks for automated package builds when your source repository is updated.

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Backup and Restore using SpiderOak on Linux

Posted on August 20, 2017 by

Recently the SSD Operating System disk on my primary work desktop failed without warning and no manner of arcane xfsrepair or xfsdump/xfsrestore chicanery would bring it back.  Luckily I had SpiderOak backups as my employer offers this as a service to associates.  Being the first time I’ve needed to restore data with SpiderOak here’s some things I’ve learned and impressions of the service on Linux.

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