Nicholas Toone

Nicholas Toone

  • Project: Friction – Update 3. This Mess Is A Place

    Getting there. It’s a slog, but I’m getting there. Just so you’re on the level, here’s what we’re working with:

    • An old WD Elements “bookshelf”, 4TB platter drive that we got in sometime in, I think, 2012. It has old family computer backups as well as a massive folder of photos.
    • Tiny computer with 256GB main SSD and a 1TB SSD storage drive (both M.2 2280). Going to be a NAS.
    • Old Dell Latitude with 1TB 2.5″ SSD. Old kids computer that had been turned into a temporary Plex server.
    • USB enclosure with a 500GB, 2.5″ SSD. My backup. Had music shit on it that has since been organized and moved over to my main desktop.

    The WD is the one that was taking a shit last week and while I wasn’t overly worried about the computer backups, I was very worried about the photos. There are pictures in there from as far back as 2009.

    This is how I manged to work things:

    I wrote about the the bullshit with TrueNAS Core, and while I’m still somewhat pissed about them killing plugins, at least what’s setup now is functioning as a NAS. I’d also written about how the WD drive was freezing my main desktop when I was copying files. I plugged the WD into the Old Dell Latitude, let Windows 10 do whatever repairs it wanted, and then copied the Photos directory over to the laptop a bit at a time. Then connected the laptop to the NAS and copied the files over to that. Then connected my main desktop to the NAS and copied the files here. Then I did this with the rest of the backup folders on the WD. One good thing that came out of this was I took time and went through my ridiculously massive backup folder, organized it and shitcanned so much useless crap (like full Time Machine backups from 2010 though 2016ish). Once I culled that folder, the entirety of our family archive took on a more reasonable size.

    Last thing that’s being coped over is the Plex library which should be done in (looks over at laptop) about half an hour. Then another hour or so to copy it from the NAS to my computer (or Ms. Tucker’s – we’ll see how mine is doing for space) is now copying over to my desktop.

    Then the real fun will begin! Stay with me now…

    • Remove the 1TB drive from the laptop, put it in my USB enclosure
      • This will be plugged into the TinyPC for extra storage purposes.
    • Wipe the Tiny PC and install TrueNAS Scale.
      • Copy backup and media files over to the NAS
      • Install and configure Plex server.
    • Put the 500GB drive from the enclosure into the laptop.
      • I’m going to install Linux on this for two reasons:
        • Writing
        • Steam (only for JackBox. It’s the only game that will run on the laptop and it’s a fave when we have people over. We plug the laptop into the TV, fire up JackBox and enjoy the shenanigans).
      • Gonna give Linux Mint a spin, I think.

    Slow and steady wins the race and all of that shit. We’re getting there :)

  • Project: Friction – Update 2. Backup And Bullshit.

    Data backup has been, well, something. While working on the NAS, I’ve been figuring out how much data we have to backup and where to put it. It was in the middle of this where I found out that the freezing I’ve been experiencing on my PC was most likely due to one of two things:

    • A whacked out file somewhere in the large mess of directories and files or
    • the backup drive I was trying to copy file over to/from

    I zeroed in on the drive and started using Konsole to copy but holy hell, even rsync froze the computer. Jesus, wtf?

    I did some research and found that freezing while copying large amounts of files can be attributed to a bad disk – and for some reason I’d ignored the fact that this large USB backup drive is well over ten years old. Guess I needed to check it for errors and, well, smartctl wouldn’t pick up anything about this old drive at all, so eeeek. At this point I don’t even know how it was managing to spin its platters. All I knew was Linux wanted all but nothing to do with it.

    I plugged the damn thing into the old Windows 10 laptop we have that’s doing nothing but being an interim Plex server (until I get a NAS up and running, which is a story on its own) to see if I could find out anything and Windows complained that “This disk has errors, please fix”. I let it do its thing and everything worked out enough for me to move data off that old drive onto the SSD on the laptop – which is now being copied over to the secondary drive on my desktop (by way of the temporary TrueNAS Core machine). Convoluted? Sure. But, as they say, it is what it is for now.

    Speaking of Windows. The aforementioned laptop is an old Dell, i5 that I put a new SSD drive in. It runs Windows 10 which has been fine. Yesterday I turned it on and it took its time updating, like Windows does, and it eventually landed here:

    What the absolute shit is this? A few more services, eh? I really, really dislike this “oh! they must have all the things connected all the time!” mindset.

    I clicked Remind me in 3 days (because of course they won’t make a button that’s labeled: “No, never. Absolutely not ever in a million years do I want to connect to more of your services, even if it’s just a few”. That would take up the whole bottom of that screen and it would look yukky design wise) and it put me at the login screen. I logged in…

    .. And there was a Copilot button next the the Start menu.

    I just can’t with this AI shit. At least I could uninstall it. No matter. Once all the file copying and NAS setup is done, this old laptop is going to be introduced to Linux.

    Goddamned Phone

    GrapheneOS update: I got one of my work apps sending notifications. I really wish I could move to this full time, but I just can’t at the moment.

  • Project: Friction – Update 1. “Oh, Come ON!”

    Project: Friction is ongoing. Working to setup a NAS has been… friction-y.

    It took a few attempts to install TrueNAS Core on the refurbished desktop but I got it. Once I got going, took about maybe ten minutes from starting the install to loading the interface up and logging in. Maybe another five minutes to create a pool and a share and a user and opening a file explorer and moving some test files around.

    I’m impressed.

    Moved on to getting a Plex Server up and running because the Internet says this be super easy on TrueNAS Core (and why I chose it in the first place). Started the process and…

    Well, there’s an error, so there is a web page out there that will tell me what the actual shit this error is. I’m sure it’s a config issue of some sort or I need to manually add a … wait, what? They have a new version called TrueNAS Scale and have just completely shitcanned their plugins in Core?

    Maybe I should have read more about TrueNAS Core before I dove in and got this far, but come on! I’d have been happy with “This plugin is unsupported: it blows up, you’re on your own.”

    This is some bullshit, lemme tell you what. Guess I’ll be checking out Scale.

  • Really?

    Moving my online accounts away from my Microsoft email. Decided to click the Summary button again for shits and giggles.

    Can someone please tell me, with a straight face, how the fuck this makes life better? This Summary is the literal content of the email Parts Select sent me minus a few words and small images. As with the last time, it took me the same amount of time to read the actual email.

    I can’t help but think I caused a brownout in some podunk town when I clicked that Summary By Copilot button just to get that output.

    AI is so stupid. Every single time I try it, I’m reminded how utterly stupid it is.

  • ToneLib-GFX: libgl1-mesa-glx

    On Ubuntu Studio I ran into an issue installing ToneLib-GFX. It was telling me that the libgl1-mesa-glx dependency was missing on my system.

    Here’s my notes on the two ways I could get this solved. Note: ToneLib-GFX-amd64.deb file is in my Downloads directory.

    Download/Command Line

    Download the package. I got it at pkgs.org but I’m sure you can find it all over the place.

    This will, of course, put it in your Downloads folder

    cd to Downloads, then:

    $ sudo dpkg -i libgl1-mesa-glx_22.3.6-1+deb12u1_amd64.deb

    Once this runs, then install ToneLib:

    $ sudo dpkg -i ToneLib-GFX-amd64.deb

    Command Line Only

    Update apt

    $ sudo apt update

    Install the package

    $ sudo apt -y install libgl1-mesa-glx

    Once that’s complete, install ToneLib

    $ sudo dpkg -i ToneLib-GFX-amd64.deb

  • 2/24/2025 – Randoms Go Boom!

    Oh, FFS. Really. FFS.

    Weirdness abounds all of a sudden. First up, Plasma Discover is acting strange. I get this when I launch it:

    Dunno why. Researching online shows that I may have (re)configured repositories when installing my shit. Or not. Who knows really.

    I do know that when I uncheck all of these:

    The error goes away, but then I have problems installing shit. Windscribe was a particular pain to get on here even though I’ve never had issues installing it in the past. I did find a fix for this (the missing dependencies bit), however it included rechecking all of those Other Software options. So now the error is back in Discover… until I pulled the nuclear option and ran sudo rm -r sources.list.d (after I backed it up, of course). That removed all of those entries on that list and I probably have to build the repositories again… we’ll see I guess.

    Another thing to note is that my computer is randomly freezing. No rhyme or reason. Just in the middle of something, anything, and boom! Frozen. Hasn’t happened since early this morning, so maybe that nuke I dropped on the repository sources fixed up something else that fixed the freezing? I’ll never know.

    I’m kind of kicking myself since the Ubuntu Studio install I had prior to the complete wipe and reinstall was humming along just fine. Or was it? everything but my gamez was ok. Now my gamez are ok.

    Make of it what you will.

    I’m not adverse to wiping and starting all over again, but I’d much rather not.

  • Installing deb Packages

    Ok, Right Click > Open With > Discover is fine, but I found this to be the better.

    Open a command line (Konsole). cd to where your app installer is. Then run this:

    $ sudo dpkg -i your_app.deb

    And that should do the trick. Note: pay attention to prompts. Sometimes you have to do a Y/N thing or just hit enter if it says something like “This will take up 800k of space or whatever.

    If you see a message about missing dependencies: something like this:

    dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of your_app:your_app depends on this_thing; however:
     Package this_thing is not installed.

    This command should do the trick.

    $ sudo apt-get install -f

    Want to uninstall?

    $ sudo dpkg -r your_app

    And voila.

  • 2/21/2025 #2 – Too Much

    One quick gripe before I sign off.

    These Linux distros come with so much bundled software it’s not even really funny. I mean, come on. There is

    just

    so

    much.

    Some are cool (I’m really going to give LMMS a serious look). Most are not anything I need. More than a few appear to be borderline useless. Some of them crash on startup and have I mentioned there are a LOT of them?

    Yes I did mention that, and I’ll say it again: There are a lot of preinstalled apps.

    I will say this: while there are a lot, there isn’t bloat like they way PC companies garbage up Windows (HP being the biggest offender). Most all of the apps I’ve removed are small, tiny even, and are not running in the background hogging up resources.

    So I guess it’s not all that bad really. What the hell am I complaining about anyway?

  • 2/21/2025 – Snow Everywhere

    Now that this here PC was wiped clean and up running with just Ubuntu Studio, and I don’t have to pay attention to boot loaders and all that, I really don’t want to install Windows again.

    Of course, I keep saying the one thing that would make me setup a dual boot with Windows is gaming. I’m not a huge gamer, but I do loves me some RPG action.

    The last time I tried to play The Witcher 3 via Steam/Proton on Ubuntu Studio it took well over five minutes to load up to the main menu. Then I set my video and gameplay preferences back to the way I like, played for five minutes and it crashed. Hard. To the point that when I booted into Windows to see if my save had taken, it wouldn’t even load as my cloud save was all jacked up.

    I eventually got everything back in order (on Windows) but it worried me that games on Linux was a fools errand.

    Seems that I just need to settle down and spend time looking through ProtonDB. After some minor configs for The Witcher 3, I seem to have it running just fine. Time will tell, but it’s launching and loading quickly and gameplay seems smooth. Hopefully it stays this way because I’m just about to start the final battle of the main storyline.

    Then I have the expansions to wade through.

    Another favorite is Skyrim which seems to work flawlessly out of the gate. Although I must admit I haven’t played Skyrim since last summer and I’ve forgotten most all of the controls and basic fighting tactics, bit that’s all a me problem, and nothing to to with the system it’s running on.

    So far so good!

  • Project: Friction

    Following up on my last post, I’ve come up with a plan to untangle myself and Ms. Tucker as much as we can from Microsoft, Apple, and Google.

    And, because I’m oh, so very edgy, I’ve named whole thing Project: Friction. Here’s what I’m tackling:

    Microsoft 365

    I’m not going to lie, I kind of like MS 365. Scratch that, I like OneDrive which is one of the better of the Big Tech cloud storage options that is pretty seamless across Windows, macOS, and even Linux by way of InSync. However, like everything else Big Tech, they done gone and fucked it up. Standalone OneDrive accounts are gone. You can now only get a “basic” plan that includes 100GB of storage, the web based apps, ad free Outlook (seriously) and some other nonsense. If you want more space, then you need to sign up for one of their personal or family accounts that has 1TB of space (ok, cool) and a bunch of shit you may never use (it will install all of their apps on your computer, most of which you’ll probably never use). Oh, and they just increased the prices because they’re forcing stupid Copilot on everyone.

    Essentially, fuck all that. Reminds me of this from last year:

    Same mood now as then: fuck you and your growth at all costs.

    I’m taking the following approach with Microsoft:

    Cloud/OneDrive: A new provider that’s (a) not based in the US and (b) supports Windows, Linux, and macOS. I think we’ve settled on pCloud. I’ve been playing around with the service on a basic month to month plan for about a week now and, so far, it’s pretty amazing. Aft first it was not as straightforward as OneDrive but that was to be expected. It is a wee bit of a finicky setup on Linux but that was figured out (and I’m keeping this link handy). I have everything backed up and syncing and it’s humming along doing it’s thing. Remember: Embrace Friction. Bonus points to pCloud for offering a lifetime option; pay once and it’s yours.

    At the same time I’m working on configuring a local NAS. While I love the idea of syncing files to the could, let’s face it, we all should have local backups on hand just in case. I have an old, second hand mini computer and will be testing out TrueNAS CORE. This will be a challenge for sure

    Apps: This one’s easy: LibreOffice. I mean, come on. It all does the same shit as Microsoft’s apps and, let’s face it, the Microsoft stuff has never really been great. Microsoft is just a monopoly and they tell us they’re the best while duct taping more shit (sorry, “features”) onto their apps. Now we have to deal with Copilot and they can just fuck right off with that.

    Operating Systems

    At this point in the game, I’m back to Linux being my daily driver. I may setup a dual boot of Windows for the sole reason of playing games1, but we’ll see. Now that I’ve made a full cloud backup with pCloud, I’ve completely flattened my PC and started fresh with just Ubuntu Studio. I’m taking my time configuring everything to my tastes.

    Note that I’m not going to force anyone else in the house to take the Linux path but, going forward, I will be looking at setting Windows up without an MS Account.

    Goddamn Phones

    This one is the most difficult. Your choices are Apple/iOS, or some flavour of Android be it Google or Samsung or whoever. Which means you need to have an Apple ID or a Google account (or a Samsung login or whatever) in order to use the phones in any real capacity.

    Then we tripped across GrapheneOS.

    A hardened version of Android with all of the Google slop stripped out? And the Google stuff you do install has to live in a sandbox where YOU control its permissions?

    Fucking sign me up.

    So here we go…

    After four days my oh so brief review is this: GrapheneOS is excellent except for two things:

    1. The handful of apps I need for my job don’t work 100%.
    2. I can’t get RCS chats working.

    The apps I require for work are only half functional. Messages do come into them, but notifications are broken; they simply just don’t alert me. Since part of my job is an OnCall sift every few weeks I need to ensure that I get notifications. I’ll have to stick to the stock Google OS until I can get this figured out. If I can’t get these apps sending notifications at all, then GrapheneOS will have wait.

    RCS is another matter. Do I really need it? No? It is nice, but it’s not a deal breaker. I can make due with SMS and I’m working to find out who on my contacts list uses Signal. I know that RCS in the Google Messages app is implemented via Google and I suspect that I can’t get it working because my Google account is not tied to the GrapheneOS phone.

    On the other hand, Ms. Tucker has an iPhone 8 that is giving up the ghost and she’s not sure that she wants to give any more money to Apple. So the plan may be to slowly get her used to a Pixel 7 running GrapheneOS with the limited Play services so she can access the apps she needs and see how that goes.

    GrapheneOS is amazing even if it reminded me how much shit actually runs on a phone all in the sake of “convenience”. Thanks to playing around with GrapheneOS, I’ve managed to clean up a pile of apps from my stock phone.

    None of this is easy, but it’s not meant to be. And I’m back to enjoying what I enjoyed about Linux those couple of years ago: learning new things. Yet it was so easy back then to just give up at the slightest hint of inconvenience and take the stupid, familiar route. Hell, it’s easy to do that now.

    At the end of the day, stupid, familiar routes are boring. And I just don’t want to fall back on that anymore.

    1: I am attempting to get my games running under Linux (Steam/Proton/Lutris) again.