" There are only two hard problems in computer science: Cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors." - source

Given a bunch of servers being graphed in Munin, how do we combine a single graph of some value for each server into a stacked graph?

It would look like this:

Lets do this with the load average graphs. Add the following to /etc/munin/munin.conf:

[server-loads]
update no …

I donated to Mozilla Thunderbird today to #freetheinbox. Join me to support communication privacy. Donate.

Victor Eijkhout at the Texas Advanced Computing Center has a free (Creative Commons Attribution) series of books on HPC and scientific computing. Of note is the volume entitled "HPC Carpentry" which would benefit anyone using who finds themselves needing to use Linux for scientific computing.

https://theartofhpc.com/

Today I learned that in Python 3.8 they added the walrus operator.

:=

This docile creature lets you do this:

if m := re.search('(\d+) inch tusks',line):
    print(f'length: {m.group(1)}')

This was badly needed.

I think I need to read all the Python 3.x "whatsnew …

This might be a huge time-saver for people needing to convert non-LaTeX documents to LaTeX. It has the ability to use screenshots and return the corresponding LaTeX to your clipboard. PyTorch supported GPU required.

https://github.com/lukas-blecher/LaTeX-OCR

I've updated the Notifying users of processes killed by the in-kernel OOM killer page. The code has been updated is now in GitLab.

Notable changes:

• Uses Rsyslog's omprog facility to run the script
• That allows you to pass the configuration file to use as a command line
  argument
• Mail deliver …

There's a new TeX package in town. Lots of nice new features.

• https://tectonic-typesetting.github.io/
• https://tectonic-typesetting.github.io/book/latest/

FYI for you LaTeX users: FreeCodeCamp has just posted a full course on LaTeX on YouTube.

https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-latex-full-course/

Update: Yes, this is a rant. It's a rant against the assumptions that: everybody learns equally well from video content, that video is actually superior to text. I welcome your statements of objection ... in writing.

I believe in text.

If you want to explain something technical or complex to me …

Whether or not you are writing your resume, you may find this tutorial helpful.

https://drshika.me/2022/04/15/latex-resumes

An open source book on Linux is always a welcome resource to have.

Released under a Creative Commons license, this book is available for free download in PDF format. Download it here.

...

Designed for the new command line user, this 555-page volume covers the same material as LinuxCommand.org but …

If your world involves lots of technical papers in PDF format you may find this useful.

https://sioyek.info/

"Sioyek is a PDF viewer with a focus on technical books and research papers"

These are some very good things to consider when writing shell scripts.

I am not sure about point #1 though. If you are writing a script that would be in a software package you need to consider whether the package should require Bash or not. Some minimal systems only have …

Assumptions:

• You have a remote Linux machine with a VirtualBox VM and you want to access the VM console remotely.
• The remote machine is named "vv000" and is accessible only via SSH.
• The VM is named "jammy"

Procedure:

1. SSH to the remote machine where the VM is located.

2. Cleanly shut …

Updates:

• 2023-05-01: Moved code to GitLab. Corrections to reflect how new version works.
• 2022-09-09: Updated script to add Bcc option.

We've got servers with up to 512GB of RAM. And we've got users who periodically use it all up. Then their process gets killed by the kernel and the user …

Changes

2022-08-27

• Fixed small bug in /usr/local/bin/if-up-novpn script

2022-08-10

• Added ~/bin/bash-novpn script example.
• Made /usr/local/bin/if-up-novpn script more robust

Setting up a VPN bypass for applications

You use a VPN and all your traffic gets routed through it. But what if you want some …

GitHub just announced that "You can now use LaTeX style syntax to render math expressions within Markdown inline (using $ delimiters) or in blocks (using $$ delimiters)."

We have a server that is used as a gateway SSH server, meaning the server is used to gain access to our research servers and other machines for users who are on an external network.

The SSH gateway server responds on port 22 to internal networks and on another port …

So I ran across this site, Maffs is Phun, when someone linked to a discussion of the Pi vs. Tau debate. I was not aware of this debate and found it humorous, and slightly absurd. But then I'm not a mathematician.

From there I found the author's article on one …