GNU/Linux Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 21, 2026

• XDA ☛ Almost every service I self-host runs in a Linux container, and the math just doesn't favor a VM anymore

  For most of the workloads I actually run at home, like Caddy, Affine, Immich, a Jellyfin frontend, and all the little Linux daemons that need to live somewhere, the default assumption is still that you spin up a VM. It's the safe answer, many tutorials suggest it, and on a Proxmox box it's the option sitting right at the top of the create menu. But almost every time I've started off with a VM, I've switched to a Linux container not too long after. The reason is simple: the math just doesn't favor the VM for the kind of stuff a homelabber runs.

  First, let's sort some nomenclature. A "container" can refer to two different things, and they're easy to mix up. System containers like LXC, LXD, and Incus behave like tiny Linux servers. You SSH in, run systemd, install packages, and treat them like long-lived machines. Application containers like Docker usually run one service from an image and are designed to be rebuilt, replaced, and thrown away. They aren't the same workflow, but they refer to the same basic idea: isolated Linux user space running on the host's kernel.

• Desktop/Laptop

  • Rui Carmo ☛ TIL: Noctalia Shell Lock on Suspend

    This is a little bit of follow-up to my MiniBook X review – I keep using it routinely (especially when we travel for leisure) and love the little thing to bits, but I’ve been wanting to run it mostly on power saving mode to reap the most benefit out of the hardware (and battery, of course), so I started looking at desktop environment alternatives.

• Server

  • Kubernetes Blog ☛ Announcing etcd 3.7.0-beta.0

    SIG-Etcd announces the availability of the first beta release of etcd v3.7.0. This new version of the popular distributed database and key Kubernetes component includes the long-requested RangeStream feature, as well as a refactoring and cleanup of multiple legacy components and interfaces. v3.7 will deliver improved security, better operational reliability, and an improved experience for working with large resultsets.

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • Graham Cluley ☛ Smashing Security podcast #468: High-speed train hacks and homicidal lawnmowers

    Meanwhile, owners of $4,000 robot lawnmowers are discovering that their gadget can be hijacked over the internet, redirected at journalists who foolishly lie down in front of it, and used to harvest Wi-Fi passwords, email addresses, and GPS coordinates. Change the default password? Sure – until the next firmware update silently resets it back.

• Graphics Stack

  • Make Use Of ☛ eGPU docks are the laptop upgrade more people should know about

    Laptops are great, and I’d even consider them worthy of being desktop replacements. Well, almost. They’ve always been compromised in some way or the other — you can’t break the laws of physics, after all. All that heat has to go somewhere, and you’ll quickly find yourself choosing between efficiency and performance.

    I recently managed to snag a new eGPU dock, (after my weird hacked-up Oculink-to-USB-4 build) and the convenience has been rather remarkable.

  • Video Cardz ☛ Quake II RTX hits 60 FPS path tracing on PlayStation 5 Linux

    Digital Foundry has tested path tracing on the base PlayStation 5, but not through a normal console release. The test uses PS5 Linux, which works on older consoles running firmware up to version 6.02, released in October 2022.

• Desktop Environments (DE)/Window Managers (WM)

  • Darren Goossens ☛ xbindkeys giving JIT errors – DSPACE

    Problem is gone. Reduced capability, apparently, but I never use its more powerful components anyway.

• Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Casuarina Linux ☛ Introducing Casuarina Linux: A glibc-Based Chimera Linux Derivative

    Casuarina Linux is an experimental, in-development Linux distribution derived from Chimera Linux. It uses glibc instead of musl as libc. The motivation for this is to preserve much of the Chimera experience while remaining binary compatible with the wider GNU/Linux ecosystem. The initial x86_64 ISO has been published, check out the download page to download it.

  • EasyOS

    • Barry Kauler ☛ cdrtools replaces cdrkit

      I posted yesterday about getting Xfburn to work in EasyOS: [...]

    • Barry Kauler ☛ Pburn version 4.3.16 to 4.3.19

      Earlier today, posted about dropping Xfburn, changing cdrkit to cdrtools, and bumping Pburn to version 4.3.16-1: [...]

  • BSD

    • Miod Vallat ☛ Writing a Firefox OS

      Near the end of march 2002, Wim Vandeputte was contacted for a possible VAX hardware donation in Delft, in the Netherlands. The description of the hardware was a bit vague, it was supposed to be a VAXstation, in a large deskside cabinet.

      What's the relationship between a VAX and Firefox, you may already be wondering. Please bear with me, you will see in a few paragraphs.

      Vandeputte shared the offer with Hugh Graham (living in British Columbia, Canada) and me.

      I said I could "afford some space for it". Hugh had useful comments: [...]

    • Dan Langille ☛ Increasing a bhyve vm disk

      This post is mostly notes for myself. There’s no real useful information here, apart from how to increase the disk space of your vm-bhyve instance.

      I’m just back from a short time away. I noticed my Home Assistant instance was running, but not responding.

      In this post: [...]

  • Debian Family

    • Tails ☛ Tails - Tails 7.8

      Update Tor Browser to 15.0.14.

      Remove Thunderbird.

      You can still install Thunderbird as additional software.

  • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

    • ZDNet ☛ Ubuntu Core 26 offers an immutable Linux you can trust through 2041

    • Pi Network News: Protocol 23 Upgrade Nears Final Rollout After Most Complex Migration in Project History

      Pi Network is moving closer toward its major Protocol 23 transition as the team confirmed that most Mainnet node operators have now successfully upgraded to v23. According to the latest update from the Pi Core Team, the protocol is expected to fully migrate very soon after one of the most technically demanding upgrades in the project’s history.