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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 7th, 2023

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  • Not in rescue mode. If you can’t mount your root partition because something was fudged in /etc/fstab, for example, you may be stuck in recovery and depending on your distribution, it may not have nano in that minimalist mode.

    For me it also happens when I install a VM of Debian using the small image, on my dedicated server in a data center. The company hosting the server requires a special network configuration and AFAIK, there’s only vi. So i need to use the console to access the VM and from there, edit /etc/network/something with vi to setup the network. Once done I can reboot and install the rest of the software over the network, including nano.

    I’ve been using Linux for more than two decades. Before nano I was using pico, but it also required to have pine/alpine installed. So knowing the basics of vi has often been helpful over the years for me.

    Maybe it’s because I like tinkering with VMs and SBCs, and most people will not encounter situations where they don’t have nano, but it can happen. And you’ll be glad to know at least “i” and “:wq!”.






  • I do tech support on the phone.

    When I can’t take remote control, the person on the other side is not following instructions, and they just keep repeating “no, not working!” while trying multiple things one after another, that I can’t see.

    Like, I can understand not being good with technology, I’ll be patient. But if I tell them to try loading the site in a private/incognito window and they’re telling me “but I tried in Firefox and it’s not working”, it’s not what I’m asking them to do. And if they’re like “wait, I’ll try again in Chrome” then repeat “nope, not working!”, it’s still not what I’m asking them to try!





  • AFAIK Kodi can use pulseaudio and probably pipewire. I use Kodi too on those computers and I just leave it to use the default PA device that I’ve set. I switch the default devices with pasystray.

    What’s usually breaking for me is paprefs. Every so often after an upgrade, the options are greyed out and I can’t share or access my devices over the network.

    I never tried to setup simultaneous output before because I just switch from device one to another, but I just enabled it in paprefs and it’s working too.





  • Audio over the network is a feature of pulseaudio/pipewire from a module aptly named “module-simple-protocol”, and as simple as it is to make it work on Linux (when it works), it’s unfortunately not as easy on other platforms. Technically speaking, it’s possible to do that on Android with an app called “Simple Protocol Player” but it’s apparently very glitchy and you’re going to need some patience for the setup. It’s from someone that wanted to stream audio from an HTPC with Ubuntu to an Android phone, but the author states that it’s pretty buggy. Here’s the link to their blog: https://kaytat.com/blog/?page_id=301

    So the short answer is unfortunately “no”, unless you want to practice your patience on a project.



  • When it works (!), it’s one of the reasons I brag to my tech friends about Linux, and why I switched to Linux many many years ago. In fact, it was when Esound was a thing. But once in a while it stops working after an upgrade or a dist-upgrade, and I have to spend time trying to fix it.

    I like to joke around with tech minded friends that Windows keeps breaking with every updates, but then I have to spend an hour finding out why my sinks disappeared after an upgrade, and I’m forced to realize that… sigh… these things happen with Linux too.


  • Mainly because of bluetooth headphones with multiple computers. That way they are paired to only one computer and I can use them with other computers at the same time. Just right click on paprefs system tray icon, change the sink and the audio is sent somewhere else. I know it’s now possible to have bluetooth headphones that have multiple connections but it wasn’t the case a few years ago and I still find it much more useful this way.

    But it’s also useful when I have my laptop near my main computer and want to use its much better speakers instead of the crappy ones on the laptop. Right click, select another sink, and that’s it.

    It’s just nice to have the option to send the audio from one computer to another. It’s a shame that it’s apparently a niche thing.