All posts by Tor Håkon Haugen

Running Fedora Linux

English, Linux

I’m impressed. Really, I am. After getting tired of Windows 11, which didn’t take long to be honest, I finally got the push I needed to install Linux as my daily operating system. I first installed Ubuntu, since I have years of experience with it on the server side.

Well, that did not last. Ubuntu has introduced something called ‘Snaps’, which I did not make any effort to understand — except that it keeps crashing on my machine.

I also tested SUSE at some point, but I’m pretty sure I ditched it because I could not get the external monitors to work on it. To be fair, getting DisplayLink drivers is not as easy as it should be. This is due to the docking station I use, I guess.

Finally, I found Fedora with support for the mentioned DisplayLink. I still have to compile ‘evdi’ each time I get a kernel upgrade, but it’s a trouble I’m willing to go through for a decent setup.

What really sold me was when I installed the KDE desktop environment. I don’t understand why this is not default. It is way ahead of Gnome, which seems to be default on both Ubuntu and Fedora. Way, way ahead. It’s insane!

So, yes. Finally, after many painful years with Windows (my old desktop machine has Windows 8.1, which is still better than Windows 10), I finally have a desktop environment that works with me, and not against me. With the one exception on compiling DisplayLink drivers, but I can’t blame that on Fedora. It’s the people making DisplayLinks fault.

DisplayLinks logo, promising more that it can keep.
Yeah, this is not entirely true

IPv6 on OpenWRT and Altibox

English, Technology

I spent too much time getting IPv6 to work on OpenWRT (version 22.03.5) and Altibox, my local ISP. The first issue was getting an IPv6 address in the first place, but that seems to just have fixed itself and I have no idea why. The second issue was to get OpenWRT to hand out IPv6 addresses to the clients on my network. I tried this guide from Nils Norman Haukås (in Norwegian), but that did not help in this case.

So below is just a ton of screenshots in case I need to do this again at some point in the future. Or maybe it will help you. At this point you should have a working IPv6 address on the wan6 interface.

DHCP Server for LAN (IPv6)

Go to “Network->Interfaces” and select “Edit” on the lan interface and verify the following under IPv6 Settings. When you set RA-Service to “server mode” a new tab will show up called IPv6 RA Settings.

Interface Settings for WAN6

Click on “Save & Apply” on the main interface tab (Network->Interfaces).

The Easter Detox

English, Personal

I’ve been doing my digital detox again this Easter. Although, truth be told, it is probably also a people detox. A noise detox. A get away-from-it-all detox. But it works. The solitude was…enriching.

Still, I kind of crave more of it. More away-from-it-all. To just disappear. Completely.

Maybe someday.

The activities this Easter was as follows: eating, sleeping, reading and kayaking.

A picture of Ryvarden lighthouse as seen from a kayak.

I highly recommend getting away from it all. Just be prepared that you probably will experience withdraws when your trusty old phone is turned of and hidden away. Luckily this ain’t my first rodeo, and I am perfectly fine letting my streak on Wordle wither away.

Having said that; it was nice with a shower after 5 days.

For better or worse, I own my content

English, Personal

I stumbled upon this post by Jose Gilgardo called “own your work“. In a nutshell it argues that, sooner or later, a platform owned by someone else will kick the bucket. GeoCities and MySpace is a good example.

The solution seems simple: own the data, own the entry point. And it is simple.

Own the data

Own the data is easy. Make sure you always have a copy at your place. That is, do not just write your work directly in Medium, Facebook, Blogger or whatever. Keep a copy at your local device. Preferably in a format that open and easy to upload somewhere else.

Own the entry point

Get a domain, point it at your data. If you need to move your data, update your domain accordingly. This way your data will always be associated with your domain name, and not the current provider that hosts your data.

Cost of ownership (and why it isn’t that high)

The cost associated with this is slightly higher than the alternative. But that is the price of owning, rather than giving it away for free. Actually, in most cases you are actually paying for giving away your data. You just don’t know it.

Writing a post on Facebook is free. You don’t pay for it directly. But you pay for it in terms of viewing ads and giving away personal data, which Facebook and their parent company Meta in turn sells to the highest bidder.

I host my own domain on my own server at my own house. Ergo, I own my own content. It may not be good, but it is mine. And if I move, I have the data, I have the entry point (given I continue to pay for the domain name.)

The part about “my own server at my own house” is the “or worse” part in the title. If there is a power failure or a disk failure or the internet connection for some reason goes down, my content is unavailable. I still own it, but you won’t see it.

Actually, this happened this week. For some reason my router stopped working. It took a few reboots for it to work again. And this was only two weeks after I enabled IPv6. So my blog was not only IPv6 in-accessible, it was IPv4 in-accessible as well. And as I feared, I got a new IPv6 block once my router started working again.

Time waits for no man

English, Personal

In other words: Norway has entered summer time, also known as UTC+2. And while time itself had nothing to do with it, everyone else acts as if it has. I myself will wait till tomorrow and turn the clock one hour ahead during a meeting. Maybe I’ll do it twice. Once before lunch and once again after.

I’ll correct any mistakes when I get home after work.

Actually, I suspect I will keep on making new mistakes, but hopefully not the same ones. Because I don’t have time for that (pun intended, you may slow clap.)

Unrelated. I think it’s time to get rid of Windows 11. Again, this is unrelated to the UTC+2 changes, but it certainly didn’t help either. I’ve been looking at openSUSE, which seems to be enjoying growth as of late. I have come so far as to download the installation, but not far enough to have put it onto a bootable USB drive. Also, I have misplaced the USB drive altogether. But I know where it is, and once I get it back it is “go time.”

Many, many years ago. A bit more. No, not that far. Anyway, somewhere back in time, I used to have Linux as my main operating system. And as time goes, I feel more and more that I should move back. The only thing keeping me back these days are Adobe Lightroom, and possibly Steam. But I don’t play my games, so it seems like a silly excuse. Then again, you haven’t heard my other excuses, so this one may actually be one of the more reasonable ones.

Well. Times up. I have books to read. Hooray!