Linux
166 episodes
#6188: Every Way Linux Relieves Memory Pressure
Zram, zswap, swappiness, and the OOM killers — the full ladder Linux climbs when RAM runs out, and what to actually run.
#6187: Can Your Laptop Borrow Your Desktop's RAM?
Two gigabytes free on the laptop, sixty-four idle on the desktop next door. Can swap over the network actually help?
#6186: A Virtual Disk Inside Your Linux Filesystem
Loop devices let a plain file act as a real disk — format it, encrypt it, mount it from fstab. Here's what works, and what bites back.
#6182: Running a Private APT Repo for Family Machines
Daniel wants his Debian packages on family machines without becoming their unpaid update service. Here's the modern way to do it.
#6166: Turning a Drifted Server Into a Rebuildable Playbook
Your server grew for years. Now you want a recipe that can rebuild it from scratch. Here's the honest path from drift to playbook.
#6128: Where the Screws Go: Internal KVM Mounting
PiKVM, NanoKVM, JetKVM, and BliKVM all promise remote rescue — but wiring one inside your case is a different problem entirely.
#6125: Which Env Var Wins? Cloud vs. Local Precedence
Same variable name, two values, one silent winner. Vercel and n8n go one way; dotenv goes the other.
#5970: Swapping Your Linux Kernel: What Actually Changes
Your kernel is swappable without reinstalling anything. But do Liquorix and XanMod actually beat the default? The benchmarks say less than the mark...
#5969: Ubuntu 26.04 LTS: Is Staying on LTS Still a Trade-Off?
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS shipped in April. Point releases, HWE kernels, and SRUs have quietly closed most of the freshness gap — but not everywhere.
#5968: Gentoo in 2026: Still Worth Compiling?
Twenty years on Linux and he's never tried Gentoo. In 2026, does the compile-everything reputation still hold?
#5967: How UEFI, Secure Boot, and the Boot Chain Actually Work
Twenty years of Linux and nobody explains the firmware. Here's the boot chain, the keys, and what's changing in 2026.
#5966: How Much of Your Linux Desktop Is Actually Misconfigured?
Most "Linux tweaks" are folklore. A few are real — and one toggle most people never open is worth up to 42%.
#5965: Compiling From Source: What You Actually Get
Source builds aren't faster — they're smaller. What USE flags, compiler flags, and the build feedback loop actually buy you.
#5964: Containers vs VMs for GPU Inference: What You Actually Pay
Containers cost 0.03%. Passthrough VMs cost 1%... or 36%. Same hardware, different systems — here's how to tell which you'll get.
#5961: What Your GPU Is Actually Waiting On
Your GPU says 100% utilized. It's multiplying zeros. Here's what the counters actually measure during inference.
#5942: Service Workers: The Proxy That Never Sleeps
A JavaScript file with no tab, no DOM, and the power to intercept every request your site makes — and why refreshing never updates it.
#5938: One Regex Rule Worked, One Was Impossible
A dictation app, two text-replacement rules, and the mathematical line between what regex can match and what it provably cannot.
#5905: Bare Linux Routing vs OPNsense: What Actually Wins?
You can build a router on plain Debian or Ubuntu. The question is whether you should — and what it costs you over ten years.
#5870: Homebox Fork's Two Backend Scripts Need a Real Job Runner
A Homebox fork has two incremental scripts — WebP conversion and AI image enrichment — and no scheduler built to run them safely.
#5851: The Earbud Assistant Problem Nobody Solves
The AI model is solved. So why does the assistant in your ear still fail? The answer is the unglamorous plumbing nobody demos.
#5848: The Libraries Nobody Thinks About
zlib, SQLite, OpenSSL, and the xz backdoor — the tiny pieces of code running everywhere, and the volunteers keeping them alive.
#5836: Counting Every Letter: Ancient Text Integrity Systems
Before checksums existed, scribes counted every letter of the Torah. How did ancient error-correction actually work?
#5827: LTFS Explained: Tape That Acts Like a Disk
LTFS makes tape pretend to be a filesystem — but 37-second seeks decide whether it can anchor a searchable archive.
#5816: Why Linux Still Runs on a 1986 Mailing List
Linux 7.3 release candidates ship through a 1986 email tool. Here's why the kernel never left the listserv.