September 2025 - Lug-nuts

free software maintainer complaints
by Brian E. Lavender 02 Oct '26

02 Oct '26

LibXml2 seems to be one of those un glorious packages to maintain. I saw the following posted by a project maintainer. https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxml2/-/issues/913 His observations on disclosing security vulnerabilities seem to be interesting. Brian -- Brian Lavender https://www.brie.com/brian/ "There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies." Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture

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Re: Systemd
by Kevin Brisson 18 Feb '26

18 Feb '26

Gary, computers are hard and shouldn't be used by retired folks. :) Run it like below, it will load last. Use AI for docs - much easier and faster than our brains. Type=idle Behavior of idle is very similar to simple; however, actual execution of the service program is delayed until all active jobs are dispatched. This may be used to avoid interleaving the output of shell services with the status output on the console. Note that this type is useful only to improve console output, it is not useful as a general unit ordering tool, and the effect of this service type is subject to a 5s timeout, after which the service program is invoked anyway. https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd.service.html Kevin

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Fingerprinting
by Gary 19 Oct '25

19 Oct '25

I recently had some issues with an old install, fc 25, and espeak. As a longer term solution, I'll upgrade the OS. But, I got some nice AI help in fixing my current install in the meantime. Although some sequences were out of order, and things like that, given the different functions involved, it saved me a lot of reading and research. But, I'm digressing. During the troubleshooting process, it occurred to me that it would be nice to know what my settings had been and how the espeak app was functioning before it just stopped, for no apparent reason. I was wondering if "fingerprinting" an app on the system is a common thing, or just too much effort to get anything useful in the end, and what other people are doing.

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AI revisited
by Gary 24 Sep '25

24 Sep '25

I find that in the evening, sometimes, I enjoy exploring a topic with AI for an hour or two. If done right, it can be very informative, and well, relaxing. I started to wonder, "Why didn't I do this with regular old Google?" Then I remembered that I did. Maybe 10 to 15 years ago. Back before the search results go so bad. By bad I mean tilted a lot toward selling you stuff as opposed to providing you with information. That took all the fun out of Googling for things. And, something else must have changed, because the results became much less diverse and it is harder to get around the just plain stupidity that occurs naturally :) But, I can't help wondering if, or perhaps when, the public and free AI will become the same way. Perhaps you will be able to pay for "better" AI, just like ca ble TV used to be. But, it will end up being the same, only different LOL. Jus t like cable TV. I guess there is no way to avoid it :( But, in some ways, it is a trip down memory lane LOL.

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change of topic for September meeting, tomorrow
by Brian E. Lavender 15 Sep '25

15 Sep '25

Title: September General Meeting Tags: general meeting Event: 2025-09-16 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm Speaker: Brian E. Lavender Location: Bel Air #502 S.E.G.R. Author: Brian E. Lavender Slug: september-2025 We have a change of topic for the September meeting. Have you ever used the Liferay *Digital Experience Platform*? The next meeting, we will do a little exploring in Liferay. We will investigate [Liferay](https://liferay.dev/), [form](https://learn.liferay.com/w/dxp/low-code/forms/creating-and-managing-… creation, and [special field types](https://learn.liferay.com/w/dxp/low-code/forms/developer-guide/writi…. -- Brian Lavender https://www.brie.com/brian/ "There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies." Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture

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article on Secure boot
by Brian E. Lavender 02 Sep '25

02 Sep '25

I saw the following articles on Secure Boot. Linux and Secure Boot certificate expiration https://lwn.net/Articles/1029767/ Secure boot certificate rollover is real but probably won't hurt you https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/72892.html -- Brian Lavender https://www.brie.com/brian/ "There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies." Professor C. A. R. Hoare The 1980 Turing award lecture

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Lug-nuts September 2025