Wayland screen recording has matured significantly. Here are the tools that actually work well in 2026, with their tradeoffs and setup. GNOME Built-in Screen Recording GNOME 40+ includes integrated screen recording on Wayland. Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+R to start. A red dot appears in the top-right corner. Press the same shortcut again or click the indicator to…
Before expanding your root partition and filesystem: Back up your data using cloud snapshots or external backup tools. Partition and filesystem resizing can cause data loss if misconfigured. Have root access to the VM. Ensure your cloud provider has already expanded the underlying block device (EBS volume for AWS, persistent disk for GCP, managed disk…
The fundamental lesson from years of big data work is straightforward: solve problems with tools designed for those problems. Organizations routinely force large-scale data through mismatched infrastructure — pushing streams through micro-batching systems, analyzing graphs as tables, handling real-time requirements with batch windows. Each mismatch adds latency, complexity, and operational burden. Stream processing deserves particular…
Google Drive remains the dominant cloud storage platform, but Linux users still lack an official client. Insync fills this gap—it’s a third-party sync tool that actually works well and maintains local file access rather than relying on virtual filesystems. Why Insync Over Alternatives Insync’s main advantage is that Google Drive files appear in your actual…
Ubuntu MATE ships with the MATE desktop environment, but you might prefer GNOME’s modern interface and tighter integration with system tools. Installing GNOME alongside MATE is straightforward and lets you switch between them at login without removing either one. Installation Update your package list and install the GNOME desktop package: sudo apt update sudo apt…
Zlib is a foundational open-source compression library implementing the DEFLATE algorithm. It powers gzip, PNG, HTTP compression, and countless applications. While Ubuntu’s package repositories provide pre-built binaries, compiling from source lets you use the latest version, customize the installation path, enable specific compile-time features, and maintain multiple versions simultaneously. This guide covers building zlib on…
Thunderbird’s default feature set is deliberately minimal. Addons fill critical gaps for users managing multiple accounts, large archives, or specific workflow requirements. Here are the addons that solve genuine problems. Organization and Maintenance Remove Duplicate Messages Mail folders accumulate duplicates from IMAP syncing glitches, accidental re-imports, or migrations across devices. Remove Duplicate Messages scans folders,…
Go doesn’t have a dedicated FileExists() function. Instead, use os.Stat() to retrieve file metadata and inspect the error type to determine what actually happened. Basic File Existence Check import “os” func fileExists(path string) bool { _, err := os.Stat(path) return !os.IsNotExist(err) } os.Stat() returns an error only if something goes wrong. The key is using…
Sparse files optimize storage by storing only metadata for contiguous zero-filled ranges instead of allocating actual disk blocks. They’re essential for VM images, virtual block devices, and large databases where much of the allocated space remains unused. Most modern filesystems support sparse files: ext4, btrfs, and XFS on Linux; NTFS on Windows; and APFS on…
When you need additional swap space but all partitions are allocated, creating a swap file lets you add capacity without repartitioning. This is especially useful on systems with fixed disk layouts or cloud instances where you can’t modify the underlying disk structure. Creating the Swap File Start by allocating space. fallocate is the fastest option…
URL encoding (percent-encoding) converts special characters into a format safe for transmission over HTTP. In Python, the urllib.parse module provides straightforward functions for decoding these strings. Basic Decoding with unquote The unquote() function is the standard approach: from urllib.parse import unquote encoded_url = “https://example.com/search?q=hello%20world” decoded_url = unquote(encoded_url) print(decoded_url) # Output: https://example.com/search?q=hello world This handles the…
Patch files are essential for projects that use email-based code review or maintainer-driven workflows. They’re especially common in Linux kernel development, embedded systems, and projects that don’t rely on pull requests. Creating a patch from a single commit The standard approach is git format-patch: git format-patch -1 <commit-hash> This creates a .patch file containing the…
In C++11, lambda parameters required concrete types. Creating a truly generic lambda meant wrapping the logic in a template struct — awkward and verbose. C++14 introduced generic lambdas using auto for parameter deduction, eliminating this friction entirely. Basic Generic Lambda Syntax The simplest approach uses auto in lambda parameters: auto add = [](auto a, auto…
C++20 introduced std::string::starts_with(), which is the most straightforward way to check if a string begins with a specific substring: #include <iostream> #include <string> int main() { std::string text = “big string here…”; std::cout << std::boolalpha; std::cout << text.starts_with(“big”) << std::endl; // true std::cout << text.starts_with(“small”) << std::endl; // false std::cout << text.starts_with(“big string”) << std::endl;…
Splitting strings by a delimiter is a common task in systems programming. C++ doesn’t provide a built-in split function like Python, but you can implement one efficiently using the standard library. Using std::istringstream and getline() The standard approach uses std::istringstream with std::getline(). The getline() function accepts a delimiter parameter, allowing you to extract tokens until…
Using operator[] on a const map will fail to compile. This code: #include <iostream> #include <string> #include <map> std::int64_t count(const std::map<std::string, std::int64_t>& map) { return map[“one”] + map[“two”]; } int main() { std::map<std::string, std::int64_t> map = { {“one”, 1}, {“two”, 2} }; std::cout << count(map) << std::endl; return 0; } produces a compiler error: error:…
Vim’s default indentation can mangle C++11 lambdas, treating them like nested blocks instead of closures. The lambda body gets indented too far relative to the enclosing statement. The Problem Given this code: #include <iostream> #include <string> #include <vector> #include <algorithm> int main() { std::vector<std::string> strs({“one”, “two”}); std::vector<std::string> newstrs; std::transform(strs.begin(), strs.end(), std::back_inserter(newstrs), [](const std::string& s) ->…
Thunderbird can leak your LAN IP address in SMTP email headers, even though the mail server itself only sees your public IP. This happens because Thunderbird sends its local IP during the HELO/EHLO handshake with the SMTP server, and that information gets recorded in the email header. For example, you might see: Received: from [192.168.1.2]…
By default, parted displays partition boundaries in bytes. To view start and end positions in sectors instead, you need to set the unit explicitly using the unit command. Using the unit command The unit subcommand in parted sets the display unit for locations and sizes. The syntax is straightforward: parted /dev/sda unit s print The…
GNOME Evolution’s email address auto-completion works by querying your local address books and, optionally, external sources. Here’s how to get it working properly. Check Your Address Books Evolution pulls auto-completion suggestions from multiple sources: Personal address book (local contacts you’ve added) On This Computer (system-wide contacts) Synced contact sources (Google, CalDAV, CardDAV, LDAP) To see…