QBFreak's Blog

I have a DEC VT320 dumb terminal, it sat in storage for many years before I decided to get it out and use it as a console on my Linux Mint 18.3 (Sylvia) system. These are my notes on configuring it. They should apply to most Debian/Ubuntu based distros running systemd. One of my criteria is that I did not want it to be the primary

I've been using rsync a bit lately. It's a pretty nifty tool. Nine times out of ten I just use rsync -avz source/* dest/ and let it go. But recently while trying to sort out the giant mess of data I've accumulated over the years into something manageable and useful, I discovered another use for it. Typically if I needed to

I wanted to use the WSJT-X software with an mcHF QRP radio. Specifically, I wanted to operate the FT8 mode and I wanted to use the mcHF's USB interface for CAT control and audio. An of course, I wanted to do all this on Linux Mint (18.3 Sylvia, MATE). I downloaded the .deb for WSJT-X from the site linked above, and installed it

Over the last year or so I've converted most of my computers from Windows to Linux, typically Linux Mint. For Field Day 2017 I attempted to get the wonderful N3FJP Field Day Logger running on my Mint laptop. I tried both the Mono route, as well as Wine. I installed all manner of software, and generally made a giant mess. In the end, it was a

I have a neat little device, though rather aged, called a Transporter. Basically I get the benefits of cloud storage, but I have to buy the disks, pay the electric and internet bill, and find somewhere to plug it in. When I purchased it, I was running all Windows machines. Since then I have transitioned to almost exclusively Linux. Unfortunately

I'm running Linux Mint MATE 18.2 (Sonya) on two PCs, and one of the things that I've found annoying is the inability to configure the screensaver in mate-screensaver-preferences. It all looks just like xscreensaver, but it's missing bits. My goal was to display a slideshow of pictures, located on a network share, without any panning or zooming or

I run Linux Mint on my primary desktop. I also have a subscription to Amazon Prime. My music tastes shift around and I slowly drift between the various music services I have access to, as well as my personal collection. Recently I tried the Amazon Music player in Chromium 59 on Linux Mint 18.2. This was my first time attempting to play music from

A friend was setting up an APRS i-gate with a Raspberry Pi and an RTL-SDR receiver and ran into the issue that he needed to configure it for a negative PPM value for frequency correction. When providing rtl_fm with the PPM correction, it expects it in the format of rtl_fm -p nn where nn is the PPM value. The

I previously wrote about binding the left mouse button to the Caps Lock key. My goal was to use it specifically for Minecraft, however my implementation was broad enough to cover the entire OS. I've since written a wrapper script for the Minecraft launcher to deal with this. Let's take a look: MCRUNNINGFILE=~/.minecraft_running First off we need

I play Minecraft. Somtimes I play a lot of Minecraft. When I play, I have a tendancy to want to build massive projects, which means I need to mine lots of resources. All that clicking and holding of the left mouse button starts to become uncomfortable after a while. I had a run in with a poorly designed mouse that debilitated my entire right