PGP combines symmetric and asymmetric encryption to achieve both speed and security: Symmetric Encryption: The message itself is encrypted using a random session key with an algorithm like AES-256. This is computationally fast for large files. Asymmetric Encryption: The session key is then encrypted with the recipient’s public key using RSA or ECC. Only the…
Verification: You need the public key to verify digital signatures (e.g., in Bitcoin or TLS). Sharing: Public keys are meant to be shared, while the private key must remain secret. Conversion: Sometimes you need to convert a private key file into a public-only certificate for a web server or blockchain application. System Integration: Many tools…
If you regularly switch between macOS and Linux, having consistent keyboard behavior across platforms cuts down cognitive load and keeps your muscle memory intact. The main difference is that macOS uses Command (⌘) for most shortcuts, while Linux defaults to Ctrl. You can remap your Linux keyboard to behave like macOS by making Alt function…
WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning) is an HTTP extension that lets you manage files on remote servers over the web. It’s built on HTTP/1.1, so it works through standard web infrastructure—firewalls, proxies, load balancers—without special configuration. Think of it as a bridge between simple HTTP file serving and full-featured version control. You get file…
In many Linux desktop environments (especially GNOME), the Super + . (Windows key + period) shortcut is used to open the Emoji picker. While useful for some, it can interfere with gaming, terminal workflows, or other custom keybindings. Disabling the Emoji Hotkey The cleanest approach is using gsettings, which manipulates the underlying dconf database without…
Zlib is a critical compression library used across the Linux ecosystem. You’ll need it for compiling software from source, as it’s a dependency for git, libpng, openssl, and countless other tools. If you’ve hit a “zlib.h: No such file or directory” error during compilation, this is what you need. Quick Install sudo apt update sudo…
ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) remains a core cryptographic standard across blockchain systems, HTTPS/TLS, and cryptocurrency wallets. Understanding how to generate and work with different ECDSA curve variants is essential for secure key management. Why ECDSA? ECDSA offers distinct advantages over RSA for many use cases: Key size efficiency: A 256-bit ECDSA key provides…
Docker containers persist on disk even after they exit. For quick testing and one-off tasks, you don’t need that leftover cruft. Use the –rm flag to automatically delete containers when they stop. The –rm Flag The –rm option tells Docker to remove the container as soon as it exits. This is useful for: Quick tests…
Snaps bundle applications with their dependencies to work across distributions, but this isolation creates compatibility gaps. One common problem with Thunderbird snap is missing or incorrectly rendered fonts—a direct result of how fontconfig is handled inside the snap sandbox. Why Thunderbird snap doesn’t use system fonts Thunderbird snap includes its own fonts.conf located at ~/.var/app/com.thunderbird.Thunderbird/config/fontconfig/fonts.conf…
GNOME 3 and later versions include built-in screenshot functionality accessible via keyboard shortcuts. These work without opening any application, making them faster than the dedicated Screenshot utility. The shortcuts split into two categories: saving directly to the Pictures folder, and copying to the clipboard for immediate pasting. Save screenshots as files These shortcuts save to…
Linux kernel 4.19.178 is a stable release from the 4.19 LTS series, containing 248 patches addressing security fixes, memory leaks, and driver corrections. This release modified approximately 239,909 lines of source code compared to the base 4.19 release. Device Tree and Architecture Fixes Several ARM and ARM64 device tree updates improve hardware support and thermal…
Linux kernel 4.14.223 is a stable release in the long-term support (LTS) 4.14 series. This patch version includes 176 changes and bug fixes across 277,921 lines of code modifications compared to the base 4.14 release. Where to Get the Code The source code is available from the linux-stable tree with the linux-4.14.223 tag. You can…
This post covers the changes, bugfixes, and new features in Linux kernel 5.4.102. The release includes 338 patches totaling approximately 160,715 lines of changed or added source code compared to the 5.4 baseline. You can find the source code in the linux-stable tree, or download the 5.4.102 release package directly. The patch bundle is also…
The Linux 4.9.60 stable release was published on November 2, 2017, introducing 24 fixes and improvements across 64,224 lines of code changes compared to the 4.9 baseline. This point release addresses critical security vulnerabilities, buffer overrun issues, and device driver fixes that affected several subsystems. You can find the source code in the linux-stable tree…
The xt_quota netfilter module reports quota values back to userspace for tools like iptables-save and rule management. A critical kernel patch changed how these values are communicated to ensure proper handling of quota rule removal and persistence. The Problem Originally, the xt_quota module copied the current quota value back to userspace after each packet match….
ODT files often contain formatting that you don’t need. Whether you’re archiving content, preparing text for further processing, or just need readability without markup, converting to plain text is straightforward. Here are the practical approaches and their tradeoffs. LibreOffice Conversion LibreOffice’s –convert-to flag handles ODT natively: libreoffice –headless –convert-to txt input.odt The –headless flag prevents…
LibreOffice is the most reliable tool for command-line document conversion, offering robust support for Microsoft Office formats. Install it on Ubuntu/Debian/Linux Mint: sudo apt install libreoffice On Fedora/RHEL systems: sudo dnf install libreoffice For minimal headless-only installations without GUI dependencies: sudo apt install libreoffice-writer libreoffice-calc libreoffice-impress Converting .docx/.doc to .odt LibreOffice runs in headless mode…
Hex-encoded strings are common in system administration, debugging, and network packet analysis. Whether you’re examining binary data, decoding network protocols, or troubleshooting data encoding issues, you’ll often need to convert between hex and ASCII representations. xxd is the standard tool for this task on Unix-like systems. It creates hexdumps and reverses them back to binary…
This document provides the essential software versions and upgrade instructions for running Linux 2.0.x kernels successfully. It covers package compatibility, known issues, and practical solutions for system administrators upgrading from earlier kernel releases. Networking Configuration The loopback route configuration in many older network scripts is incorrect and will cause kernel errors in 2.0.x. Look for…
This document preserves the original Linux 1.0 release notes (source: linux-1.0.tar.gz), released in March 1994. It’s a snapshot of early Linux kernel development and shows the rapid pace of improvement during the pre-1.0 era. The original ASCII formatted version appears at the end of this post. Changes since 0.99 patchlevel 15 Removed all the bugs,…