u/mrandr01d

My buddy just got offered a beaker analyst job, he'll be starting next month. He's been working on the self study, but hasn't gotten that far in it. There just happened to be a job opening internally (hospital), and he applied even though he wasn't done with the self study.

What are some things he should watch out for or pay attention to as a new analyst? I think he said he has to get his cert within x months or they'll fire him, so certainly pressure's on! Any tips you'd give to newbies?

It's gotta be bots, right? I've seen like 10 posts today that are cross posts from another sub that's totally unreal to Google Messages.

Background: I'm currently using Ubuntu. Used it 10 years ago, came back to Linux last year, very glad to be back. When picking a distro, I settled on Ubuntu again, but I hate snaps. So I've removed snapd, and installed flatpak instead. But I'm still thinking there has to be a better answer out there.

I'm looking for something that's...

1. Regularly updated. I like new toys, and Debian's 2 year release cycle isn't going to cut it. It literally wouldn't work on my then-new laptop. Ubuntu at least gets updates every 6 months which is a decent cadence.

2. Gnome desktop by default. Some people hate it, but I kinda love it. I like the vaguely Mac-like UI.

3. Debian based. I'm already familiar with deb, I don't want to bother with rpm or aur. Plus I have some apps that are deb only.

4. No snaps. Fuck 'em. Gimmie flatpak.

5. Security updates are important, so that rules out Debian testing

So far my best answer that I or AI has been able to come up with is Ubuntu with manually removed snaps like I've been using. But I'm wondering if Debian sid is a better answer, or if it'll introduce packages too often that don't quite have the bugs worked out. So for discussion... What's anyone's experience been with Debian sid as a daily driver? If it works for you or if you tried it and had to switch away, I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

Check for update tells me I'm up to date... The ota is a week old at this point. I'm well aware I can sideload it, but I'm wondering if T-Mobile/Fi is holding it back again for some reason.

Android 17 brought the new assistant volume, separate from media volume. Whereas before I could automate my media volume to change based on where I was (work, home, etc) now I have to constantly adjust the assistant volume every time I ask Gemini something.

Is there a tasker hook for assistant volume yet? Is there a way to link the two back together again with adb or something?

Originally posted to r/Linux

Flared as a discussion because I'd like it to be more that than a straightforward answer and response help post.

Tl;dr: my Ubuntu laptop isn't encrypted, and I don't think i need a swap partition anymore. Need to do a fresh reinstall from scratch, but want to come back up exactly as I have it now, with my windows partition intact, and using the tpm module for encryption. Looking for advice on best order of operations to restore my system with timeshift to how I have it now.

More detail: Hey everyone, I've got a Thinkpad x9 15 gen 1 that I initially dual booted with Ubuntu 25.04 and windoze. I've since updated it to 25.10 and now 26.04. I have flatpak installed and I removed snaps. I also have a handful of gnome extensions, and a bunch of .deb packages. After upgrading to 26.04, I realized my drive isn't encrypted at all. I also think I made my swap partition too big (or that I don't need one at all) so I'd like to fix this. The cleanest way seems to be by just reinstalling Ubuntu from scratch. Another reason I think that's the best option is I'd like to use the newly supported tpm module.

Reinstalling is easy enough. Make the bootable just like before and go through the prompts. Dual boot with luks seems supported now finally too.

But after the new system is up and running, I need help making everything back exactly as I have it now, as painlessly as possible. I have a timeshift backup on an external drive that does both my system and /home. I'll make a fresh one right before reinstalling.

But after that, what's the best way to start? Here's a list of things I've come up with that need restored, in no order:

1. Make apt install the exact list of debs I have now on the old system. Restore all app data

2. Restore all my flatpak apps and all their data. I think I can just restore the executables outright since everything is packaged together? I'd rather just copy everything from a backup instead of reinstalling everything like you have to with debs.

3. Delete snap (is that taken care of by 1? Since snapd would get purged)

4. Restore my gnome extensions and their settings. (Thankfully I only have a few.)

5. Restore my /home folder. Are the config files in here enough to restore all app data for my deb packages?

6. Restore all my system settings, including saved networks, Bluetooth pairings, etc. Does 5 take care of this?

7. Restore apt sources (I use Signal on my laptop, the deb comes from their repo)

8. Restore keyboard shortcuts - I've customized a few, like shift+ctrl+A centers the window. Handled by 5?

9. Gnome authenticator (flatpak) needs all the totp codes restored flawlessly. Presumably this would be part of 2.

10. For timeshift - I'll use that to restore all of this, but then moving forward can I write to the same hardlinked backup that I'm currently writing to? Or do I have to delete the entire timeshift drive and start over? I'd rather not do that just in case I need to later retrieve something I may have not restored correctly.

11. Restore my Signal chat history and phone link - presumably, this would be handled by 5? What about the fact that the SQL database key is encrypted by the system keychain? I'll also ask about this in r/signal.

I need people smarter than me to help me come up with an order of operations here.

I'm thinking I should restore debs first, then flatpaks, then gnome extensions, then overwrite the new /home folder from my backup? That way all the packages exist for the config files to handle without being overwritten by installing the packages after.

What am I missing?

Flared as a discussion because I'd like it to be more that than a straightforward answer and response help post.

Tl;dr: my Ubuntu laptop isn't encrypted, and I don't think i need a swap partition anymore. Need to do a fresh reinstall from scratch, but want to come back up exactly as I have it now, with my windows partition intact, and using the tpm module for encryption. Looking for advice on best order of operations to restore my system with timeshift to how I have it now.

More detail: Hey everyone, I've got a Thinkpad x9 15 gen 1 that I initially dual booted with Ubuntu 25.04 and windoze. I've since updated it to 25.10 and now 26.04. I have flatpak installed and I removed snaps. I also have a handful of gnome extensions, and a bunch of .deb packages. After upgrading to 26.04, I realized my drive isn't encrypted at all. I also think I made my swap partition too big (or that I don't need one at all) so I'd like to fix this. The cleanest way seems to be by just reinstalling Ubuntu from scratch. Another reason I think that's the best option is I'd like to use the newly supported tpm module.

Reinstalling is easy enough. Make the bootable just like before and go through the prompts. Dual boot with luks seems supported now finally too.

But after the new system is up and running, I need help making everything back exactly as I have it now, as painlessly as possible. I have a timeshift backup on an external drive that does both my system and /home. I'll make a fresh one right before reinstalling.

But after that, what's the best way to start? Here's a list of things I've come up with that need restored, in no order:

1. Make apt install the exact list of debs I have now on the old system. Restore all app data

2. Restore all my flatpak apps and all their data. I think I can just restore the executables outright since everything is packaged together? I'd rather just copy everything from a backup instead of reinstalling everything like you have to with debs.

3. Delete snap (is that taken care of by 1? Since snapd would get purged)

4. Restore my gnome extensions and their settings. (Thankfully I only have a few.)

5. Restore my /home folder. Are the config files in here enough to restore all app data for my deb packages?

6. Restore all my system settings, including saved networks, Bluetooth pairings, etc. Does 5 take care of this?

7. Restore apt sources (I use Signal on my laptop, the deb comes from their repo)

8. Restore keyboard shortcuts - I've customized a few, like shift+ctrl+A centers the window. Handled by 5?

9. Gnome authenticator (flatpak) needs all the totp codes restored flawlessly. Presumably this would be part of 2.

10. For timeshift - I'll use that to restore all of this, but then moving forward can I write to the same hardlinked backup that I'm currently writing to? Or do I have to delete the entire timeshift drive and start over? I'd rather not do that just in case I need to later retrieve something I may have not restored correctly.

11. Restore my Signal chat history and phone link - presumably, this would be handled by 5? What about the fact that the SQL database key is encrypted by the system keychain? I'll also ask about this in r/signal.

I need people smarter than me to help me come up with an order of operations here.

I'm thinking I should restore debs first, then flatpaks, then gnome extensions, then overwrite the new /home folder from my backup? That way all the packages exist for the config files to handle without being overwritten by installing the packages after.

What am I missing?

Long story short, I'm going to be reinstalling my Ubuntu system. I have the deb installed right now and linked to my phone.

I've been using signal since before deletions were synced, so I have messages on my laptop that I don't on my phone. When I previously migrated from Mac to Ubuntu, I decrypted the SQL database key, ported the config file to my new computer, and managed to copy everything over. I didn't even have to relink my phone.

Presumably, if I install the deb of signal after I reinstall, and then restore my /home folder, the SQL database and key will be restored to how they are now. But since the key is encrypted with the system keychain, will the fact that I'm technically on a new system mean that key won't be able to be decrypted the same way?

Post is basically in the title... Before the update, if I left my flashlight on and left my phone sitting on my leg or something, it would get extremely hot after just a couple seconds. After the Android 17 update, this doesn't happen anymore!

It doesn't really look like the brightness of the flashlight was decreased noticeably, however, I did have to edit one of my Tasker tasks because the range of brightness didn't go up as high as it used to before. I'm not sure if Google just changed how many increments there are for the whole scale, or if they actually made the flashlight just less bright.

Either way, I don't notice much of a difference in brightness, although I can't really compare side by side, and it doesn't get super hot anymore, so I'm billing this as a win.

This seems to be common wisdom across brands: don't ever fully, completely, run your car to dead.

​

Why?

​

What's it physically/chemically do to the battery that damages it?

Thinking of flip to shh or game mode or something. It apparently allows the user to delete even those preset ones... If you do that, is there a way to get that back? What happens if you delete flip to shh and then you want to use it? Presumably it won't work, but if you somehow made another one named the same thing, would it be able to replace the original one and work based on the same triggers?

My pixel shoots in HDR, and when I look at those images I send to someone on signal on my laptop - Ubuntu - it's pretty clearly brighter than the rest of the screen. I'm not sure if this is just bugged out, or if signal actually supports HDR now?

It doesn't seem to on my phone, so I'm surprised that desktop would have HDR support first. And I thought the compression you can't turn off would get rid of the gainmap either way...

Damn thing isn't encrypted.

Anyways, I've been using signal long enough that I have messages on the desktop client that aren't on my phone. If I reinstall the deb, and then restore my /home directory exactly, before I open the signal app... will everything be exactly as it was before the reinstall? Will I have to relink my phone? Will all my attachments and everything be intact?

Before I switched to Linux I was using a MacBook, and I went to quite some lengths to extract the db key and move everything over to the new laptop. I'd hate to have to do that again, but the regular built in backup isn't good enough. Is copying my home directory from a time shift backup good enough or does signal keep files elsewhere on the system?

I've always assumed that if a spouse dies, the surviving spouse always keeps all their assets. I think my folks have things as joint ownership, so I assume when one of them passes away the other just... keeps everything.

But I see posts on some of the money subs (this one, boglehead, fire, etc) where people will discuss their own spouses or a parent passing away, and the other receiving an inheritance. Or the kid will get something when one parent passes away instead of the other parent keeping all of it until they're both dead.

Is... that not how that works? Do most couples have separate assets such that a surviving one gets an inheritance? I just read a post about a widow (she was younger, I felt so bad) who got a stepped up cost basis on her husband's company stock when he passed. If he was granted those shares during the marriage (he was) then wouldn't she also have owned those shares all along? Is this what a "community property" state means?

Flagged as discussion because I'm hoping to have one haha. Admittedly, I might be a little bit more of a noob than a nerd... Anyways...

So I have a Thinkpad x9 that I bought with windows. I need dual boot. I installed Ubuntu 25.04 on it last year, and have since upgraded it through 25.10, and I'm now on 26.04.

Because I dual booted it, apparently, nothing was encrypted. I remember going back through the installer UI and picking luks, but I guess going back through the manual partitioning method on the version I used meant that nothing actually got encrypted.

So now I have a dual booted machine with no encryption whatsoever. Seems like newer Ubuntu versions do support using luks and dual boot.

So, what to do? It sounds like you cannot encrypt a partition while it is mounted, meaning that if I want to encrypt my Ubuntu partition, I would have to do a full clean install. That's a huge pain in the ass, but I do have a time shift back up that I could use to restore most stuff. And I guess it would be an exercise in making sure that that works like I think it does in case of future unplanned disaster.

However...

Full disc encryption (fde) really only protects you against threat models where your device is powered off. If it gets swiped from a coffee shop or confiscated by the cops (idk, maybe I have some spicy memes I'm taking through TSA that this admin doesn't like... kidding, but still) or something then the keys are still in ram, and a thief can just brute force your password to get past the UI.

I basically never turn off my laptop. I pretty much only reboot it when I have to for updates. I think this is very common behavior among people generally.

Android and iOS have changed their encryption methodology to use file-based encryption, where the device can boot the OS without the user putting in their password, and the user's data is protected with the screen lock. Clearly, since it can boot, the whole drive isn't uniquely encrypted, but if your phone gets stolen or something, your lock screen can still protect your data.

I was asking Gemini about Linux's approach to this, and it said the Linux approach has pretty much settled on full disk encryption instead of only encrypting your home directory, but that Ubuntu does still support encrypting just your home folder, and that it would be protected by the OS's lock screen.

So, here's my dilemma: why has Linux settled on fde instead of encrypting the home folder? It doesn't matter that much if certain OS files are recovered by an attacker, but it'd be pretty bad if your personal files were compromised. I'd really like to avoid having to reinstall my system if possible, and it seems like encrypting my home folder better matches my threat model of having my device swiped in public while powered on, but locked. On the other hand, this doesn't seem to be the recommended way to go, and I would also be worried about support for just encrypting /home being removed in the future.

What does r/Linux think?

Saw this on the Tesla sub: https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaModel3/s/5FjSSKP027

Dude wants to take his model 3 to the beach, worried about getting stuck. Personally, I wouldn't in mine... But I'm aiming for an R2 next time. Obviously those aren't out there yet, but I wanted to see what r1 owners have experienced if they've taken their larger adventure vehicle to the beach. How's it do in the sand? Do you worry about salt water exposure at all if you're by the ocean? What else am I not considering for using a rivian as a weekend-beach-trip-mobile?