EncFS is a FUSE-based encrypted overlay filesystem that was once popular for transparent file encryption. However, its use on Android has become impractical due to Android’s security architecture. Here’s what you need to know in 2026. Why EncFS Doesn’t Work Well on Android Anymore Android’s evolution has made direct EncFS usage difficult: Scoped Storage (enforced…
Bash provides straightforward methods to convert Unix epoch timestamps into human-readable formats. This is essential for log parsing, system monitoring, and scripting across CI/CD pipelines and production environments. Using the date Command The standard approach is the date command with the -d flag (GNU coreutils) or -r flag (BSD/macOS): Linux (GNU date) date -d @1234567890…
The standard sort command is single-threaded by default, which limits performance on modern multi-core systems. Several approaches exist to speed up sorting operations using parallelism. GNU Sort with Parallel Sorting Modern versions of GNU sort (8.23+) include built-in parallel sorting support. Enable it with the –parallel flag: sort –parallel=4 large_file.txt > sorted_output.txt The –parallel option…
aclocal is part of GNU Autotools and generates aclocal.m4 files needed by the autoconf build system. It’s typically required when working with projects that use traditional Autotools-based builds. Quick Install sudo dnf install automake The automake package provides aclocal, automake, and related utilities. Verify the Installation After installation, confirm aclocal is available: aclocal –version You…
If you already have PHP and nginx running on Rocky Linux 9 and need to add or update glibc, glibc-common, and GD libraries independently, you can do so safely without disrupting your existing installation. Understanding the dependencies glibc: The GNU C Library — the core runtime library for nearly all C programs on Linux glibc-common:…
Grep handles tab characters in a few different ways depending on your needs. Here’s what actually works. Using \t with extended regex The most straightforward approach uses grep’s extended regular expressions (-E flag): grep -E ‘\t’ filename.txt This matches any line containing a literal tab character. The \t escape sequence is interpreted as a tab…
When you have multiple static libraries (.a files) and need to combine them into a single archive, GNU ar provides several approaches. The most straightforward method uses ar‘s MRI mode for clarity and maintainability. Using ar MRI Mode The cleanest approach is to use ar -M with an MRI script. This method is explicit and…
When you compile or run screen on a remote host where you lack root privileges, you’ll often hit this error: Cannot make directory ‘/var/run/screen’: Permission denied This happens because screen needs a socket directory to manage sessions, and /var/run/screen is owned by root. If screen isn’t already installed system-wide, you can’t create this directory without…
Finding and sorting files by modification time across directories is a common task for log rotation, cleanup scripts, and audit purposes. Here are the most practical approaches. Using find with printf (simplest method) The find command with -printf is the fastest and most portable approach: find . -type f -printf ‘%T@ %p\n’ | sort -rn…
YouCompleteMe’s installation script fails on Fedora with a CMake error about missing PYTHON_LIBRARIES and PYTHON_INCLUDE_DIRS, even when Python is already installed. The error looks like this: CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake/Modules/FindPythonLibs.cmake:201 Could NOT find PythonLibs (missing: PYTHON_LIBRARIES PYTHON_INCLUDE_DIRS) The issue is that you have the Python runtime libraries installed but not the development headers needed for…
Converting text to lowercase is a common task in shell scripts and command-line workflows. Linux offers multiple approaches, each with different trade-offs in performance, portability, and Unicode handling. Using tr for simple conversions The tr command translates characters and is widely portable across Unix-like systems: echo “HELLO WORLD” | tr ‘[:upper:]’ ‘[:lower:]’ Output: hello world…
GNU Screen is a terminal multiplexer that lets you manage multiple shell sessions within a single window. If you’re new to it, here are the best resources to get up to speed, plus practical tips for getting started. Getting Started with Screen For an introduction to the basics, start with A quick tutorial on screen….
The sed stream editor is the go-to tool for deleting lines from files in Linux. It’s fast, works on large files without loading everything into memory, and handles complex patterns easily. Delete a Single Line by Line Number To delete the 4th line from a file: sed -i ‘4d’ ./file The -i flag edits the…
The default dd command can feel sluggish because it uses a small block size (512 bytes) by default. You can dramatically improve throughput by increasing the bs (block size) parameter. Basic optimization Instead of: dd if=/dev/sda2 of=./sda2.bak Use: dd if=/dev/sda2 of=./sda2.bak bs=1M The bs parameter controls how much data dd reads and writes in each…
musl libc is a lightweight C library implementation that’s useful for creating statically-linked binaries, containerized applications, and embedded systems. It’s the standard C library in Alpine Linux and increasingly common in production environments. Installation from distribution repositories The simplest approach is installing musl from your distribution’s repositories: sudo apt update sudo apt install musl musl-dev…
When running make recursively with $(MAKE) or make -C, you’ll see verbose messages like “Entering directory” and “Leaving directory” for each subdirectory. These messages clutter the build output and make it harder to spot actual errors. The Quick Fix Pass –no-print-directory to make: make –no-print-directory Or set it in your Makefile: .MAKEFLAGS: –no-print-directory Suppressing via…
GNU Screen’s status bar (called the hardstatus line) displays useful information about your current session—which window you’re on, the time, hostname, and more. It’s especially helpful when you’re running multiple windows and need a quick visual reference without typing commands. Basic Status Bar Setup Add these lines to your ~/.screenrc: hardstatus alwayslastline hardstatus string ‘%{=…
When you need a command or library file but don’t have the package installed, you need to search for which package provides it. On Red Hat/Fedora systems, yum provides or dnf provides does this. On Debian/Ubuntu, the equivalent is apt-file. Red Hat, Fedora, and CentOS (DNF/YUM) Use dnf provides (or yum provides on older systems):…
The most straightforward way to identify which installed package provides a specific file is with dpkg: dpkg -S /path/to/the/file The -S flag searches for a filename pattern across all installed packages. This works for any file path in your system, whether it’s a binary, library, configuration file, or anything else. Searching for command binaries To…
The fclose theme is a lightweight Question2Answer theme distributed as a set of PHP and CSS files. It provides a clean base layout that you can extend with custom styling and icon sets. Getting the Theme Files You need two core files to run fclose: qa-theme.php — The theme class that extends qa_html_theme_base and controls…