How To: Run Freelancer on Linux

Here’s another piece of gaming nostalgia: Freelancer. It’s celebrating its 20th birthday this year which seems like a good opportunity to me to get it up and running again. Prerequisites Although this can probably achieved in any number of ways here is what I used: Lutris (flatpak or native), the version used here was 0.5.14 from Flathub Freelancer install script for Lutris (the following is a customized version of this which contains various fixes including a no-CD fix). This script contains a custom return code after the initial installation. This is necessary because this step does not exit cleanly resulting in the Lutris installation crashing. Expand to see script ...

November 8, 2023 · 7 min

How To: Create a Digital Frame with MagicMirror

I’ve wanted a digital frame at home for a while now. I’m notoriously bad at organizing pictures, even worse at sorting, printing, arranging or displaying them. So when I found out that digital frames were a thing it seemed like this would be a natural solution to this problem. Unfortunately, the commercially available ones either don’t have the features that I want (e.g. some way to connect with my images stored in my Nextcloud) or feature worrying amounts of integration with various third-party services, clouds, phone apps and whatnot. I’m absolutely not inclined to yield control of my pictures to some provider who is supposed to sell me a device for displaying them but maybe that’s just me. ...

February 8, 2023 · 5 min

How To: Find Which Package Provides a Given File

Don’t you just hate it when you’re in your terminal and want to run some commands, only to discover that you don’t have the appropriate package installed (yet)? Maybe you recently reinstalled your machine and haven’t fully set it up yet or there is a mismatch between your personal and work machine. Whatever the case, you quickly want to install the package and get on with it. But what if the name of the command isn’t the name of the package? In this case you need to query the repos. What’s the command for doing that again? I keep forgetting it. ...

November 2, 2022 · 1 min

How To: Remove DRM from eBooks

A while ago I bought an eBook reader. I figured it’s a smart investment because the shelves at my place are almost full. Also, this would let me carry my whole library with me at all times so I have to carry less. Buying new books should also be easier because I don’t have to order them and wait but can just download them instantly. What’s not to like? Sure, there’s something to be said for holding an actual paperback in your hands but I think the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, at least for me. ...

August 20, 2022 · 4 min

How To: Run Several Services Behind a Reverse Proxy

This is a follow-up article for my previous one which describes how I migrated my personal Nextcloud to a docker setup. It’s part me telling a story of what I learned and part “How To” so someone can recreate my steps. After I had managed that I figured I might as well go one or two steps further and host additional things on my home server. After all it has 4 GB of RAM, most of which is still unused. Also, if I only use these services myself, they should never generate enough load for it to become a problem. Or so I judged. ...

April 13, 2022 · 8 min