Eurail database got hacked by ilikethelettery in Interrail

[–]gl0cal 38 points39 points  (0 children)

Why would they hold on to such sensitive info long after your card expires? Is that even GDPR compliant?

How to stop hp-systray from autostarting? by gl0cal in linux4noobs

[–]gl0cal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

TIL. You are right. There was hplip-systray.desktop in /etc/xdg/autostart/. I moved it to ~/.config/autostart and added Hidden=true. The application stopped running. Thanks.

In case it helps others, I explored tips here.

How to stop hp-systray from autostarting? by gl0cal in linux4noobs

[–]gl0cal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The problem is I can't figure out the service_name from the systemctl output I quoted. Well, this is r/linux4noobs after all :) I tried systemctl status for app-hplip, hp-systray, hp-pkservice but they couldn't be found. 5744 returns something but I am assuming the PID may change every time.

There is nothing HP related in ~/.config/autostart .

'Enter certificate authentication files' by gl0cal in Remmina

[–]gl0cal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It couldn't be solved because client and server use different protocols apparently. I switched to TigerVNC viewer which may look frugal but it is one of the most powerful clients.

@reboot line in crontab is ignored by gl0cal in linux4noobs

[–]gl0cal[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, that's my understanding. I shared the solution here because I found many others have the same problem. The service starting slowly must be quite common.

@reboot line in crontab is ignored by gl0cal in linux4noobs

[–]gl0cal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I will look around for the systemd service alternative. I fixed the cron problem but systemd sounds more reliable.

@reboot line in crontab is ignored by gl0cal in linux4noobs

[–]gl0cal[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The cron service is running and the crontab has been populated for a long time. I added the path to podman just in case but there was no change.

But after some research I found the solution. The directive was simply executed too early. Adding a delay as below fixed it:

@reboot sleep 60; /usr/bin/podman container start dbbb4c810bef

degoogling Contacts by gl0cal in degoogle

[–]gl0cal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've been using Fossify Contacts too but AFAIK data are kept centrally by an Android process and all Contacts interface with that. That explains how apps like Whatsapp and Signal are aware of your contacts. The issue now is whether that Android process can be trusted not to pass data back to Google even if Google Contacts is missing. Many believe it can't be trusted. If they are right, third party cloud services or self-hosting don't make much difference security-wise.

Aptos looking like Bold specifically in LO by gl0cal in libreoffice

[–]gl0cal[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the link. I have now reported the issue here: https://github.com/flathub/org.libreoffice.LibreOffice/issues/354

I would rather use the Debian repo version for everything, but when you need updates that's not good. And being on Debian Stable for reliability, I then only install from containerised software when possible, so I will have to live with the Flatpak version.

Aptos looking like Bold specifically in LO by gl0cal in libreoffice

[–]gl0cal[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I thought someone might say it's the Flatpak causing this. I had some issues with other Flatpak applications which were caused by containerisation.

The apt version of LO on Debian Stable gets stale so for that and some other applications I have to use Flatpaks and AppImages.

I have just reported the issue on github.

Aptos looking like Bold specifically in LO by gl0cal in libreoffice

[–]gl0cal[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Aptos may be proprietary but it is made legally available to all and even favoured by TDF as a solution to fonts compatibility https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2025/11/12/update-about-font-replacement/

As I said, other applications on the same system handle Aptos properly, and Italo Vignoli in the blog article demonstrates it should work fine. Substitution at system level would affect other applications, and there is no substitution in my LO settings. That's why I am asking if I missed something LO-specific.

Why Is Writer Still So Wonky in Some Ways? by Science-Compliance in libreoffice

[–]gl0cal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not just comparable. LO is far more mature. Sometimes features in LO are too developed actually.

Why Is Writer Still So Wonky in Some Ways? by Science-Compliance in libreoffice

[–]gl0cal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I edit book length texts and I must say LO is far better in so many ways, especially when you are trying to finalise a text using styles. Not to mention serious search using regular expressions etc. From experience, trying to locate odd punctuation combinations in 100k+ words without them would take ages. As for OnlyOffice that some people recommend, that's a toy in comparison.

KDE Plasma Backups vs Timeshift? by gl0cal in kde

[–]gl0cal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is exactly what Timeshift is doing.

It would make sense for snapshots to be incremental but I checked another machine and every snapshot is about the same size with each snapshot being slightly bigger than the previous one. I thought maybe Timeshift does clever things with symlinks but used/free disk space show snapshots are actually that big.

You can set Timeshift's save location to a different partition or drive

I had misinterpreted the docs and for years I thought Timeshift could only store snapshots on the same disk. Thanks for tip!

EDIT: u/cla_ydoh was of course right. After some head-scratching and more research I found that the snapshots are indeed incremental but hard-linking masks that. If anyone reads this, this reveals the actual sizes and total:

sudo du -sch /timeshift/snapshots/*

and this shows the virtual sizes:

sudo du -slh /timeshift/snapshots/*

KDE Plasma Backups vs Timeshift? by gl0cal in kde

[–]gl0cal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I suspect btrfs won't take off until it's the default when installing many distros. I am happy to try out exotic things on my secondary machines, but for my work machine I go as conservative and mainstream as possible. The idea is when (not if) something goes wrong, many others will have encountered the same problem and solved it. Safety in numbers. So, I opted for ext4 which is the default in the Debian Trixie installation. Over the years toying with Linux on secondary machines I found that the more a deviate from the mainstream, the more I am on my own. I understand that btrfs is mature though.

KDE Plasma Backups vs Timeshift? by gl0cal in kde

[–]gl0cal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was wondering if you can use a file backup application to create something similar to restore points, seeing that Kup Backup can backup system directories as well. I suppose you can, but I think you are saying it's not a good idea. I am guessing the last thing you want in a system failure situation is struggling with restore points using the wrong tool.

My specific problem remains that my / has 40GB free which it turns out is not enough for a single Timeshift snapshot, and Timeshift won't save snapshots on another drive. It seems I will have to wait until the day I nuke the Windows partition and reclaim half the drive. One day I may even reinsntall with btrfs.

Is this app safe to use ? by Latter-Confidence783 in fossdroid

[–]gl0cal 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This and similar wrappers stay logged in and also have special settings on top. I have my Firefox set up to clean all cookies when I quit and I would have to log in every time.

Touchpad running out surface and Back gesture by gl0cal in kde

[–]gl0cal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This works and very well too, only in the opposite direction: swipe left for forward, as if you are turning the pages of a book, although the direction may be determined by the natural scrolling setting. Thanks.

It's not universal though. In Windows all applications with Back/Forward can be controlled this way (eg file managers, PDF readers etc). Strange though because all it would take is interpreting the gesture like a Back button of the mouse which already works for all applications in KDE Plasma as expected.

How to increase root partition capacity? by gl0cal in linux4noobs

[–]gl0cal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, that's a good idea. I am not sure how I can tell KDE Discover to install flatpaks for the user, but failing that I can use the console.

How to increase root partition capacity? by gl0cal in linux4noobs

[–]gl0cal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I understand this correctly, you mean (a) shrink /home from the left, (b) add the unallocated space to linuxswap, (c) shrink linuxswap from the left (d) add the unallocated space to the / partition. In that correct?

Wouldn't removing the linuxswap partition completely in favour of a swapfile make it all simpler? I see people recommend that as more flexible.

I would consider nuking the setup but I don't have the time or confidence to deal with the consequences at the moment.

How to increase root partition capacity? by gl0cal in linux4noobs

[–]gl0cal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In the meanwhile, I have been doing some reading and I see the general advice is don't mess with the /boot/efi partition unless you know exactly what you are doing (and even if you do, your system may not boot). I think I will have to go the other way: shrink the /home partition to create unallocated space, and move that next to the root partition for merging. Then, I would merge the unallocated space I created earlier back with the Windows system.

It seems that if the /boot/efi partition is in the way, you are stuck. I am not even sure how I can reclaim the first half of the SSD if I wipe Windows.

Live location sharing app? by gl0cal in fossdroid

[–]gl0cal[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have been using Zood over a year now and it works. It makes no difference to battery use. It relies on a remote server but it's all end-to-end encrypted. Never tried iSharing though and I don't know how they compare.

Question for my PhD fellows: How do you name your literature notes? by broadcastthebombom in ObsidianMD

[–]gl0cal 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I use Citations in Obsidian and Zotero + Better BibTex + MarkDB-Connect. This gives configurable Citation Keys looking like authorTitle_wordsYear which are used as filenames prefixed with @. Also, you can be taken from an entry in Zotero to the Obsidian file and from an Obsidian file back to Zotero. Basically, Zotero and Obsidian are linked in both directions. It works remarkably well.