Linux, Open Source & Unrelated Topics by Paul Barker

Professional Software Engineer, Embedded Linux expert & Open Source enthusiast.

Amateur wildlife photographer, rambler and craft beer/whisky appreciator.


Posts

A quick bash/zsh tip

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Tags: linux, bash

! is a valid character you can use in a bash/zsh alias. And as a bonus, it's not used in the name of any common commands!


Website Refresh

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Tags: meta

Today I've deployed the new design for this website, built using Pelican and Tailwind CSS. After the changes I've made, I'm really pleased with the new design!


It's time for a year end review of meta-linux-mainline, a Yocto Project layer which contains recipes for all currently supported Linux kernel release series and the latest mainline kernel. This year the project has seen various improvements as well as the regular flow of new Linux kernel & Yocto Project releases. The layer is now updated most weeks, more closely tracking the kernel release cycle but there's still more we can do with additional resources.




Thoughts on PyPI, PGP and Sigstore

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Tags: python, pgp

A recent grumble about PGP signatures on PyPI has quickly led to PyPI dropping support for PGP. While I agree that there are major issues with PGP, I don't agree that its use in PyPI is "worse than useless" and I'm disappointed to see support dropped before a replacement has been deployed. Sigstore seems to be a promising replacement, but I think further work is needed before this can become a key pillar for securing the open source ecosystem.




Rekeying

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Tags: pgp, ssh, home-network

I've recently made a couple of changes to my development environments. As I've been configuring these environments, I've taken the opportunity to extend the lifetimes of my PGP keys (as they were nearing expiry) and generate new SSH keys.


Syndication

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Tags: open-culture, writing, indieweb

Inspired by Cory Doctorow, I've been thinking about the IndieWeb idea of POSSE (Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere) and how to extend the reach of my blog posts. So I'm trying something new and syndicating blog posts to dev.to, a mid-sized social media site for software developers.