today's howtos

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Mar 11, 2026

• Julia Evans ☛ Examples for the tcpdump and dig man pages

  The goal here was really just to give the absolute most basic examples of how to use the tool, for people who use tcpdump or dig infrequently (or have never used it before!) and don’t remember how it works.

  So far saying “hey, I want to write an examples section for beginners and infrequent users of this tools” has been working really well. It’s easy to explain, I think it makes sense from everything I’ve heard from users about what they want from a man page, and maintainers seem to find it compelling.

• Harry Cresswell ☛ HTML elements vs tags

  It appears the confusion came from a misunderstanding between the terms element and tag. An easy mistake to make, given we often talk about these two constructs as if they’re interchangeable names describing the exact same thing.

  I thought I’d write a quick post about the issue, to give some context on how it came about and how I solved it. Or rather, how I attempted to improve clarity in my choice of wording, to be exact. You’ll also find a quick primer on the difference between HTML elements and tags. Simple stuff perhaps, but it’s so easy to forget the basics when you’re busy working on the difficult stuff.

• Keith Cirke ☛ Too Much Color

  I've been working a lot on colours (or "color") in CSS, for csskit's minifier. This gives me the unfortunate burden of now having Opinions™ about colours. I also built a minifier test suite in the hopes that the ecosystem can get smarter. The minifier tests are not a vanity project: csskit currently has the worst pass rate and fails in some rather bad ways.

  During this work, trying to minify oklch colours, I wondered "just how precise is precise enough?". Is a color like oklch(0.659432 0.304219 234.75238) needlessly precise? Spoiler alert: yes. I contend that you almost never need more than 3 decimal places. For oklch and oklab that's a safe ceiling, and for their less-than-ok variants (lab & lch) you can get away with even less. Writing more is just wasting bytes.

  So here's the TL;DR: [...]

• idroot

  • ID Root ☛ How To Install iRedmail on Debian 13

    Running your own mail server used to mean cobbling together Postfix, Dovecot, SpamAssassin, and ClamAV one package at a time, debugging config files for days before sending a single test email. iRedMail removes that pain entirely.

  • ID Root ☛ How To Install OpenClaw on Manjaro

    If you run Manjaro GNU/Linux and want a personal Hey Hi (AI) assistant that works locally, answers on Telegram, manages your calendar, and executes shell commands on your machine, OpenClaw is worth your attention.

  • ID Root ☛ How To Install Cockpit on AlmaLinux 10

    Modern server management demands efficiency and accessibility. System administrators need tools that simplify complex tasks while maintaining security and performance. Cockpit, a powerful web-based server management interface, delivers exactly that for AlmaLinux 10 systems. This comprehensive guide walks through the complete installation and configuration process, from initial setup to advanced usage scenarios.

  • ID Root ☛ How To Install VeraCrypt on Fedora 43

    Data breaches are no longer a question of if — they are a question of when. Whether you are a developer protecting client credentials, a sysadmin securing sensitive configs, or a privacy-conscious Fedora user, disk encryption is one of the most effective defenses you can deploy.

  • ID Root ☛ How To Install PhotoPrism on Fedora 43

    Managing thousands of photos on a cloud service sounds convenient — until your subscription doubles, your data ends up on someone else’s servers, or worse, the service shuts down entirely. That is where self-hosted photo management tools like PhotoPrism change the game entirely.

• Linux Capable ☛ How to Install pnpm on Ubuntu (26.04, 24.04, 22.04)

  JavaScript projects waste a surprising amount of time and disk space when every repository downloads its own copy of the same dependencies. pnpm fixes that with a content-addressable store, stricter dependency handling, and workspace tools that scale better than a pile of duplicated node_modules directories.

• Linux Capable ☛ How to Check Ubuntu Version

  Package guides, release upgrades, and repository instructions make a lot more sense once you know whether the machine is running jammy, noble, or resolute. To check Ubuntu version quickly, start with the built-in terminal commands below. They work on Ubuntu Desktop, headless servers, cloud VMs, and Ubuntu running inside WSL.

• Linux Capable ☛ How To Change or Reset Root Password on Ubuntu Linux

  Losing the only admin path on an Ubuntu machine gets stressful fast, especially once you discover that root is locked by default. You can change or reset the root password on Ubuntu either from a working sudo session or, when that path is gone, from GRUB recovery mode.

• The New Stack ☛ How to deploy an Hey Hi (AI) server on your Debian/Ubuntu server

  Whenever I use AI, I always opt to go with a locally installed instance. The reason for that is twofold.

• Real Linux User ☛ Thunderbird Basics – How to manage your tasks in Thunderbird

  I’m a bit of a productivity nerd. I’m always looking for ways to optimize and organize my thoughts, ideas, tasks, projects, and communication [...]

• RoseHosting ☛ How to Install Python on Ubuntu 26.04

• RoseHosting ☛ How to Install MongoDB on Ubuntu 26.04

• TecMint ☛ How to Generate and Verify MD5 Checksums in GNU/Linux [5 Methods]

• Linuxize ☛ How to Create a systemd Service File in Linux

  Create a systemd service file in GNU/Linux with step-by-step instructions for unit file structure, service types, restart policies, and service management with systemctl.

• LinuxConfig ☛ How to Install MicroK8s on Ubuntu 26.04