Posts

Aurora Linux: Finally, a Desktop That Feels Like Home Ladies, gentlemen, and fellow distrohoppers, gather ’round for the story of how I went from a weekend-long sysadmin bender to a blissful desktop user—courtesy of Aurora Linux. Spoiler: I’m using Homebrew for packages, Flatpaks and containers for everything else, and there’s zero declarative config in sight. Act I: A Few Weeks, Five Distros, Zero Rest Just a few weeks ago, I dusted off my Beelink SER5 5600H mini PC to use as a testbed—and promptly launched into a frantic distro hop: ...

When it comes to flexibility and declarative configurations, NixOS has been my go-to system for development. Over time, I’ve crafted a setup that balances stability, innovation, and minimal maintenance, all powered by a few key components: ZFS on root, impermanence, flakes, and Home Manager. ZFS on Root One of the standout features of my NixOS configuration is ZFS on root. ZFS offers features like snapshots, compression, and data integrity, making it ideal for a system that demands reliability. Having ZFS as the root filesystem gives me peace of mind, especially when experimenting with new configurations or development tools. ...

Recently, I decided to dive into the retro gaming world with PICO-8, a fantasy console for making, sharing, and playing tiny games. I picked it up for $15, and although there’s no official BSD version (unfortunately), there are versions for Linux, Raspberry Pi, Windows, and macOS—which works just fine for me since I’m running macOS. Exploring the Quirky Games of PICO-8 One of the first games that caught my eye was Harold’s Really Bad Day. It’s not your typical platformer, as it introduces a strange but brilliant revival mechanic where you use your old lives as bridges to progress through the level. It’s both frustrating and genius at the same time, perfectly encapsulating the charm of PICO-8 games. ...

Recently, I took a step toward building my own online presence by purchasing the domain quantumcircuit.biz from Namecheap. The cost? A mere $6 for the entire year. Not a bad deal for something that will serve as the digital hub for my tech and business endeavors. The Email Setup: Zoho Over ProtonMail With the domain in hand, my next task was setting up a professional email address: salman@quantumcircuit.biz. I originally considered using ProtonMail, but I ended up subscribing to Zoho instead. The decision was simple: Zoho was more affordable and, conveniently, their servers are located in Saudi Arabia. This proximity felt like a nice bonus. ...

It was a crisp spring day on March 25, 2024, when I decided to take a detour from my usual BSD and Linux haunts. My destination? OmniOS, a distribution of the Illumos operating system. Little did I know I was about to embark on a journey that would challenge my assumptions and expand my Unix horizons. The Land of pfexec The first surprise came when I tried to elevate my privileges. No sudo? No doas? In OmniOS, I discovered, we pfexec. It’s like stepping into a parallel universe where everything is familiar, yet slightly off-kilter. I found myself chanting “pfexec, pfexec” like a mantra as I navigated this new landscape. ...

Welcome to Quantum Circuit, where we dive deep into the weird and wonderful world of technology, one sleep-deprived adventure at a time. I’m your host, a curious tech enthusiast with a penchant for turning simple tasks into Herculean challenges. By day, I’m a data scientist and developer, wrangling unruly datasets with Rust, Docker, and Apache Arrow. By night (and often into the wee hours of the morning), I transform into a self-proclaimed sysadmin, turning innocent home servers into routers and engaging in cage matches with firewalls. ...

In November 2023, I embarked on a deep dive into the world of data science using Rust, Docker, and Apache Arrow. Over the course of sixteen days, I faced challenges ranging from containerization woes to the intricacies of error handling in Rust, all while gaining valuable insights into how these tools can be effectively used for real-world data science projects. Day 1: Rust, APIs, and Containerization I began by setting up my project with Cargo.toml, building the necessary components, and diving headfirst into Rust’s error handling system. However, the challenge escalated when I tried to containerize the project using Docker. The initial setup went smoothly, but I quickly ran into roadblocks with how Rust binaries interacted within a Docker container. Despite these early challenges, it was clear that containerization, while offering uniform environments, required careful attention to detail. ...

Back in the summer of 2019, with two weeks to spare before the academic year began, I took my first tentative steps into the world of Linux. My starting point? Zorin OS. It was an experience defined by both excitement and a lot of confusion. The Tarball Debacle One of my first big mistakes was trying to install everything manually from the web. Freshly minted with my new Zorin installation, I somehow thought the correct way to install Firefox was through a tarball, using tar commands. Little did I know that Zorin had an App Center ready and waiting for easy installs. Suffice it to say, my early days with Linux involved more mistakes than victories. ...

FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Me: A Tragicomedy in Three Acts Ladies, gentlemen, and Unix enthusiasts of all stripes, gather ‘round for a tale of network woe, BSD brilliance, and the kind of sleep deprivation usually reserved for new parents and cryptocurrency day traders. I present to you my 72-hour descent into the wonderful, maddening world of BSD. Act I: The Blinking Light of Doom Our story begins with a blinking light. Not just any light, mind you, but the PON light on my ISP’s router. For the uninitiated, PON stands for Passive Optical Network, but in that moment, it might as well have stood for “Panic! Outage! Noooooo!” ...