GNOME’s natural scrolling setting can be frustrating — especially when the GUI option is missing or doesn’t apply to your mouse while leaving your touchpad alone. The issue usually comes down to your session type, GNOME version, and how input devices are registered on your system. Check your session type first Before troubleshooting, verify whether…
bbPress is WordPress’s standard forum plugin. When you need to modify how forum topics, replies, or other content displays, you’ll use WordPress filter hooks to intercept and transform the content before it reaches users. Common bbPress Content Filters Filtering Topic Content The bbp_get_topic_content filter runs after topic content is retrieved from the database but before…
iptables remains the standard firewall interface across most Linux distributions, though it’s technically a compatibility layer over nftables. Whether you’re managing legacy systems or prefer the familiar syntax, here’s what you need to know. Basic Command to Open a Port The fundamental syntax to allow inbound traffic on a specific port: sudo iptables -A INPUT…
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…
“Cleaning” history usually means rewriting it to remove large files, sensitive data, or to squash messy commits into logical units. This is destructive—it rewrites history and affects anyone who’s cloned the repo. Only do this on branches you control or coordinate with your team first. git filter-repo: The Standard Tool git filter-repo replaced the deprecated…
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]…
Evolution automatically wraps long lines in Plain Text mode, which can be frustrating if you need to preserve line breaks exactly as you’ve written them. Unlike some email clients, Evolution doesn’t support “soft wrapping” where text reflows visually in the composer but sends without hard line breaks. Using External Editor The most straightforward approach is…
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…
Sometimes you have a global gitignore rule—like ignoring all *.log files—but need to track one specific exception. Git lets you negate patterns using the ! character. # Ignore all log files *.log # But DO track this one specific file !important.log Pattern matching is evaluated top-to-bottom, and the last matching pattern wins. Your negation rule…
Retrieving hardware serial numbers is essential for inventory management, warranty tracking, and identifying physical servers across your infrastructure. The standard approach uses dmidecode, which reads the system’s DMI (Desktop Management Interface) data. Using dmidecode First, install the tool: sudo apt-get install dmidecode For Rocky Linux, RHEL, and derivatives: sudo dnf install dmidecode Then query the…
The classic LaTeX workflow requires running pdflatex multiple times with BibTeX in between: pdflatex main.tex bibtex main pdflatex main.tex pdflatex main.tex This seems redundant, but there’s a solid reason for it. How the Three-Pass Workflow Works First LaTeX pass: LaTeX processes your document and writes all \cite{} commands to the .aux file. At this point,…
alien is a straightforward package converter available in EPEL that handles conversion between .deb, .rpm, Slackware, and other package formats. This is useful when you need to install Debian packages on RPM-based systems. Prerequisites You need EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) enabled. On CentOS 7, 8, or Rocky Linux 8+: sudo dnf install epel-release…
By default, Python buffers stdout when it’s not connected to a terminal — typically when you redirect output to a file, pipe to another command, or run inside a container. This buffering can hide output until the buffer fills or the program exits, making debugging and log monitoring difficult. Using the flush parameter The simplest…
GFortran is the GNU Fortran compiler from the GCC toolchain. It’s essential for scientific computing, numerical simulations, and legacy Fortran code maintenance. Quick Install On modern RHEL-based systems (RHEL 9+, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, CentOS Stream): sudo dnf install gcc-gfortran On CentOS 7 (EOL since June 2024), the older yum package manager still works: sudo yum…
The error ValueError: zero length field name in format occurs when using implicit positional arguments in .format() strings with Python versions that don’t support this syntax. The Problematic Code print(‘== {} SPF’.format(d)) This raises ValueError: zero length field name in format on older Python interpreters. Why This Happens The {} syntax without explicit position numbers…
The fastestmirror plugin automatically selects the fastest package mirror for your system. While useful, you might want to disable it if you’re experiencing slow mirror detection, prefer a specific mirror, or troubleshoot package manager issues. The plugin is provided by yum-plugin-fastestmirror (on older EL7 systems) or as part of DNF’s core functionality (EL8+). Unlike older…
Rocky Linux 9 and later distributions use FirewallD as the default firewall management tool. However, if you need direct control over iptables and ip6tables rules, you can disable FirewallD and use the iptables-services package to restore your rules at boot. Install and Configure iptables-services Start by installing the iptables-services package: dnf install iptables-services Create the…
If you’re seeing PHP errors like Class ‘DOMDocument’ not found, your PHP installation is missing the XML extension. This is common after migrating sites or fresh installations where the base PHP package doesn’t include DOM support out of the box. Install php-xml The solution is straightforward — install the php-xml package: sudo dnf install php-xml…
The default data directory for MySQL and MariaDB installed from official repositories on modern distributions is: /var/lib/mysql This applies to CentOS 7, Rocky Linux 9, Fedora, and most RHEL-based systems. Finding the Data Directory Programmatically If you’ve customized your installation or need to verify the exact location, there are several reliable methods. Query MariaDB/MySQL Configuration…
If you’re running an older CentOS or RHEL system with Vim 7.4, upgrading to Vim 8 or later gives you modern features like async I/O, jobs API, terminal emulator support, and better plugin performance. Here are the practical approaches. Check Your Current Version $ vim –version VIM – Vi IMproved 7.4 (2013 Aug 10, compiled…