Some Linux Detective Work

Linux is really neat.

After a fresh installation of Debian Bookworm with XFCE4, I noticed my laptop’s battery was draining faster than I expected it to. I ran powertop and found that pulseaudio was active continuously, giving my laptop a discharge rate around 5.47W.

Using pactl list sink-inputs, I discovered that the speech-dispatcher (a text-to-speech service) was sending silent audio streams constantly to the output. I then disabled and uninstalled speech-dispatcher and killed its processes, including dummy processes.

Post-removal, the discharge rate dropped to approximately 5.08W, and the CPU wake-ups count was cut in half (481 --> 254). This extended my estimated battery life by almost an hour!

https://redd.it/1m1d2sc
@r_linux

Mailspring released version 1.16.0

Mailspring is the forked and maintained version of the defunct Nylas Mail. It is a solid Email Client for Linux.

Note, I am not part of the Mailspring team. Just a user of it.

Website: https://www.getmailspring.com/

Change Log

Thunderbird-style Autoconfiguration
Fix in-app previews for PDF attachments on Windows / Linux
Update and improve zh-TW Traditional Chinese locale
Update Czech translation
snap: Use core24 as base
Change lsb-core-noarch to be an optional dependency in the RPM package.
Fix a few misc application errors logged to our reporting service
Upgrade to Electron 37.2.2 - Chromium 138, V8 13.8, and Node.js 22.16 for faster JavaScript execution and better email rendering, native system context menus on Linux, and more!

https://redd.it/1m1fpzz
@r_linux

Non-Profit FOSS Solves the Conflict of Interest
https://home.expurple.me/posts/non-profit-foss-solves-the-conflict-of-interest/

https://redd.it/1m1gwv1
@r_linux

Going back to windows... Did anyone ever say it

I'm interested to know if anybody's ever gone back to Windows and why they did it, And what was your experience.

I recently just installed Windows 11 to dual boot alongside my Linux Mint for gaming. I honestly forgot how bad an operating system window is.

I always believed it was more refined than Linux, but it's extremely rough. It's years of old technology forced to work with updates. Menus all over the place. And it lags, despite my system being an absolute beast.

For me, it's reinforced 100% why I choose Linux and Open Source in general.

https://redd.it/1m1mf0e
@r_linux

Slackware Release Anniversary

On this day in 1993, Patrick Volkerding — the “Benevolent Dictator for Life” of Slackware — released Slackware 1.0, launching the oldest Linux distro still maintained. Still simple. Still solid. Still Slackware.
Read the original announcement: https://www.slackware.com/announce/1.0.php

https://redd.it/1m1p837
@r_linux

Forgot I had an old windows 8 laptop laying around.
https://redd.it/1m1r925
@r_linux

Built devstat - CLI tool to check GitHub/LeetCode/Codeforces stats in one place

Got tired of opening multiple tabs to check my coding stats across different platforms, so I built devstat, a command-line tool that fetches and displays your GitHub, LeetCode, and Codeforces profiles in one place.

Preview

Features:

GitHub: repos, stars, followers, top languages, etc.
LeetCode: problems solved, difficulty breakdown, ranking
Codeforces: rating, rank, contests, etc.
Profile comparison between users
Interactive CLI with progress bars and animations
Remembers your usernames for quick access

Try it: npx devstat

The tool is open source and I'm looking for contributors! Would love feedback on the code structure or ideas for new features.

GitHub: https://github.com/Indra55/devstat

What do you think? Any other platforms you'd want to see integrated?



https://redd.it/1m1ofaj
@r_linux

Dual booting, now I wanna dump Windows, what about Grub?
https://redd.it/1m1ww93
@r_linux

SO! I found a font that makes reading linux forums tolerable. OpenDyslexic

opendyslexic.org

I have a young friend who has difficulty reading (dyslexia or something like it). I did a test of this font for her. With a side by side of reg font vs this font. She was able to read through the OD font at 3x speed.

I did a blog about it (YT and TT too), for people who needs this for their kids (mostly focused on windows users).

But then I realized that I can legit read MAN Pages and Linux Forums way faster using this font. So.... I'm keeping the extension installed. And I put it system wide on my Linux Mint VM.

Check it:

https://preview.redd.it/ubco1c2rwcdf1.png?width=1477&format=png&auto=webp&s=bbc871f09252f2ed77f553898ffd087c85cbc6b3

sudo apt install fonts-opendyslexic



https://redd.it/1m1xi9e
@r_linux

Did You Know This Fact ?

So I found that around 16-18% of users of India uses Linux which is the third highest and that is a big number

1st is norway
2nd is Andorra ( I didn't knew about this)

So how many here are Indians in this community

https://redd.it/1m234jd
@r_linux

VoxInput v0.5.0 - Voice trannoscription that works with any Linux desktop/app and LocalAI
https://github.com/richiejp/VoxInput

https://redd.it/1m24a8p
@r_linux

Any thoughts on recent humble bundle? Is it worthwhile?
https://redd.it/1m26jk1
@r_linux

eBPF perf buffer dropping events at 600k ops/sec - help optimizing userspace processing pipeline?

Hey everyone! I'm working on an eBPF-based dependency tracer that monitors file syscalls (openat, stat, etc.) and I'm running into kernel event drops when my load generator hits around 600,000 operations per second. The kernel keeps logging "lost samples" which means my userspace isn't draining the perf buffer fast enough. My setup:

eBPF program attached to syscall tracepoints
\~4KB events (includes 4096-byte filename field)
35MB perf buffer (system memory constraint - can't go bigger)
Single perf reader → processing pipeline → Kafka publisher
Go-based userspace application

The problem:At 600k ops/sec, my 35MB buffer can theoretically only hold \~58ms worth of events before overflowing. I'm getting kernel drops which means my userspace processing is too slow.What I've tried:

Reduced polling timeout to 25ms

My constraints:

Can't increase perf buffer size (memory limited)
Can't use ring buffers (using kernel version 4.2)
Need to capture most events (sampling isn't ideal)
Running on production-like hardware

Questions:

1. What's typically the biggest bottleneck in eBPF→userspace→processing pipelines? Is it usually the perf buffer reading, event decoding, or downstream processing?
2. Should I redesign my eBPF program to send smaller events? That 4KB filename field seems wasteful but I need path info.
3. Any tricks for faster perf buffer drainage? Like batching multiple reads, optimizing the polling strategy, or using multiple readers?
4. Pipeline architecture advice? Currently doing: perf_reader → Go channels → classifier_workers → kafka. Should I be using a different pattern?

Just trying to figure out where my bottleneck is and how to optimize within my constraints. Any war stories, profiling tips, or "don't do this" advice would be super helpful! Using cilium/ebpf library with pretty standard perf buffer setup.

https://redd.it/1m28ji4
@r_linux

meta Proposal to auto reply to rule-breaking posts with a link to the About or sidebar

I sometimes see rather terse "see rule 1" responses here; I've even done it.

Some newbies might not recognize where to find the rules, for whatever reasons (they seem easy enough for me, but who am I to judge). A "see rule 1" response could come across as rude and elitist.

I propose that if a post is reported as breaking the rules, then an auto reply is made with links to the About and/or sidebar. Those have the rules and lots of useful information for newbies. This would help make the sub a little more newbie-friendly.

The link to the About page: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/about/

https://redd.it/1m2aeh2
@r_linux

How to tell what is supported by a usb port?

I have a ten year old laptop and one from last year, both running the latest Fedora. A USB C to hdmi adapter only works on the newer one. My guess is that whatever protocol is used by the adapter is not supported on the old one. Is there a command I can run to check for the future if I want to buy other accesories?

I looked at lsusb but didn't see anything useful

https://redd.it/1m2j71b
@r_linux

30 years ago...
https://redd.it/1m2k7b5
@r_linux

How TPMs Work and Why We Added Support in Bottlerocket
https://molnett.com/blog/25-07-16-bottlerocket-part2-tpm-additions

https://redd.it/1m2l99p
@r_linux

Terminal history wrapped
https://redd.it/1m2nwzl
@r_linux

fun fact about debian!

Every release of debian from 1-14 is named after a toy story character!

Debian 1.1 (buzz) is named after Buzz Lightyear

Debian 1.2 (rex) is named after the green toy dinosaur

Debian 1.3 (bo) is named after Bo peep

Debian 2.0 (hamm) is named after the pig

Debian 2.1 (slink) is named after Slinky Dog

Debian 2.2 (potato) is named after Mr. Potato Head

Debian 3.0 (woody) is named after woody

Debian 3.1 (sarge) is named after the sergeant of the toy soldiers

Debian 4 (etch) is named after the Etch-A-Sketch

Debian 5 (lenny) is named after the pair of walking binoculars

Debian 6 (squeeze) is named after the green "squeeze" aliens

Debian 7 (wheezy) is named after the penguin (how fitting)

Debian 8 (jessie) is named after jessie

Debian 9 (stretch) is named after Stretch Armstrong

Debian 10 (buster) is named after Andy's dog

Debian 11 (bullseye) is named after the horse woody rides.

Debian 12 (bookworm) is named after the smart worm at the daycare

Debian 13 (trixie) is named after the blue dinosaur

Debian 14 (forky) is named after the spork craft project.

https://redd.it/1m2oghu
@r_linux

Trash Can Mac and Proton

I know it's dumb. But the 2013 trash can Mac is one of my favorite PC designs of all time. I've never used one because 1, hate apples walled garden and 2 could never afford one. Now that I can afford one Id like to use it for something useful.

With the advent of steam OS and Proton I'm wondering if I could use it as a gaming machine. I don't think steam os can work on it. But is there a Linux version that would also work well with Proton that would work on this machine? I am a total newb.

This is my first foray into trying to use Linux. I've built two PCs in my life. That's it. And I had help. Bad idea for a project?

Thanks,
A lover of design but a hater of Apples Ecosystem

https://redd.it/1m2p8ij
@r_linux

I need a KWin Script that can play a sound when closing a window

There’s this cool Desktop Effect called “Fall Apart” and I wanted to pair an audio with it, I’m relatively new to Linux so I really need someone’s help, whether there is a noscript published online or if someone can help me develop one. Please help!

https://redd.it/1m2rym6
@r_linux