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How to Survive Working From Home

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Image courtesy of Doug McCaughan

I can’t believe, when I looked at the post history, that it’s been over a year since I put something up here. In all honesty, this hasn’t been in my mind much, I’ve mostly been focusing on other things: photography, travel, living. I’ve always meant to write some new posts but there are always other distractions. But no more! Thanks to the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, the world is sheltering at home. … Continue reading

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Setting up KVM to PXE boot virtual machines from a local TFTP server

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Image of the initial config screen

I had occasion to test some failures that a partner is seeing in the field when trying to pxeboot the Ubuntu Server installer.  I’d never set up KVM to do this before, as I almost exclusively use MAAS to do all server deployments, and in fact, this is required for my work.  The partner is doing this as a side project and it seemed like a nice way to waste an afternoon.  The following is somewhat specific to my desktop running Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.  16.04 systems require a few extra steps to get a qemu that supports PXE … Continue reading

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Installing Ubuntu 16.04.x with the HWE Kernel stack

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Image showing list of installed kernel packages

Ubuntu LTS releases have two different kernel streams. Deciding which to use, and when and how to use them can seem daunting and possibly confusing.  But it’s actually quite simple, really.  In the next few paragraphs, I’ll explain briefly about the different kernels available for an Ubuntu LTS release, and provide some basic information on how and why to use each.  Then I’ll show you quickly how to install your system with Ubuntu Server choosing the HWE (Hardware Enablement) kernel so that your hardware is fully supported.

First, lets talk about the available kernels for a moment.  There is the … Continue reading

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A mutt by any other name…

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Jeff and Mutt in the Snow

Jeff and Mutt in the SnowI’ve been thinking a bit about dogs lately, and that’s all been triggered by sorrow.  The passing of a beloved dog is a hard burden to bear, especially because that passing is usually at my own request.  But with each passing, I’m reminded anew of all the dogs I’ve loved in my life and how they’ve changed me, loved me in return and made my life richer for it.  That I … Continue reading

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A Tale of Two Model Ms

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It was the best of keyboards, it was the worst of… wait, no it was the Best of Keyboards, period.

Unicomp Classic and IBM Model M

A long time ago, someone brilliant at IBM (IBM was full of brilliant people) came up with an idea for a keyboard.  This keyboard was constructed of steel and plastic.  It was murderously heavy.  No, seriously, you could kill someone with it.  It had replaceable, cleanable key caps.  It used a buckling … Continue reading

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Actually Useful Getting Started Guide to LXD on Ubuntu

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OK, this will still be kinda brief, but hopefully helps get you going with LXC containers (via LXD) quickly in a way that’s actually useful.

I have typically used things like Digital Ocean and AWS to quickly launch a testbed, deploy some modified packages and, check the changes and then tear it all down quickly.  This works well for me but I’ve recently been trying to break my dependence on foreign services for this work.  So I’ve been using LXD more and more which is just as fast, and … Continue reading

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What grown man doesn’t want a sixteen year old girlfriend?

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On the way home from a doctor’s appointment, I was rocking out to the 50s channel on SiriusXM. I grew up listening to 50s and 60s rock and developed a fondness for it early on. I can probably sing more 50’s songs than I can 90’s songs, truth be told. But one thing I also enjoyed about the “innocent days of rock and roll” was the amount of creepiness that pops up if you pay a bit of attention to the songs.

Case in point, “You’re Sixteen” originally sung by Johnny Burnette.  Right off the bat, we know he’s in … Continue reading

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Getting started with Juju 2.0 on AWS

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Browser showing deployed wordpress installation.

This is a bit of a first timers guide to setting up Juju 2.0 to work with AWS.  To be honest, it’s been quite a while since I really messed with Juju and AWS (or anything outside of MAAS), and this is the first time I’ve really looked at Juju 2.0 anyway.  So this is me sharing the steps I had to take to get Juju 2 talking to my AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) to spin up instances to prototype things.

First, let’s talk about the parts here.   You should already know what Amazon Web … Continue reading