No surprise that I am a fan of Drummer, and I am using it to write nearly all of my blog posts, both here and on my blog. I also have blogs on Wordpress that frankly have been dormant. Dave recently added Wordpress verbs to DummerScript that I am interested in trying out. Problem is that as far as I can tell there are no example scripts, clearly it's a work in progress. #

I upgraded the microcode and the kernel for Proxmox running on the Beelink U59 Pro and so far the VMs that have been crashing are still running ever since I started them Saturday afternoon. #

Updating the Windows 11 Insider Preview on my Macbook. It must be a big update as it is taking a while to install.#

With checking out the ability to add widgets on the iPad lock screen I have started fiddling with the Focus modes. I think that the Focus modes make more sense for smartphones than tablets, but then the iPad Mini 6 is a bit more like a phone. I've created a Work mode with one pair of lock and home screen, a Personal mode with another, and a Sports mode cover while I am monitoring my fantasy football teams on Sundays.#

Not sure what to think about the DietPi VM, it is still running after I had stopped and started it on Monday. I am running Home Assistant on this VM and that is hosting home bridge to enable me to control my Hue smart lights using Apple Home. #

I obviously don't know enough about the Equinox, aka first day of fall, which I though would be today but apparently isn't until Saturday. So, bonus summer days? #

iPad OS 17 is available to download and install on the iPad Mini 6. I installed the upgrade without incident.#

The virtual machine based on DietPi was locked up on Proxmox this morning. #

Experience AI is a new educational programme that offers cutting-edge KS3 (ages 11–14) resources on artificial intelligence and machine learning for teachers and their students. Developed in collaboration by the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Google DeepMind, the programme supports teachers in the exciting and fast-moving area of AI, and gets young people passionate about the subject.#

Apple held their annual iPhone event today. As I am not an iPhone user, there is not a ton here that of particular interest to me. The two applicable tidbits are that iPad OS 17 will be released on September 18 (this coming Monday) and Mac OS Sonoma will be released on September 26. #

I am seeing issues with Joplin sync not completing on Android. I will need to decided whether if I can't get Joplin to sync properly on Android that means I need to find a different app. #

Over the weekend I observed that the battery in my Pixel 7a seemed to be draining much faster than it ought. I when in to the Apps, App battery usage, and reviewed the Unrestricted apps, reverting several to Optimized. Battery drain appears to have slowed. #

Read an article about using DietPi as a Linux distro for VMs on Proxmox. Followed the instructions to make a template based on DietPi. Going to let this VM marinate to see whether or not it locks up.#

Dave is doing some interesting things with Wordpress. Looks like he plans to use Wordpress as an identity provider and will probably add this to Drummer and Feedland. He also seems to have some pieces that might enable one to use Drummer to edit a Wordpress site. #

The Ubuntu 22.04 VM was locked up this morning, so it would appear that upgrading the kernel to a 6.x version is not the fix to whatever is the problem. The Xebian VM has now been running for 10 days, so however it is configured, it is working.#

I've built an instance of the ntfy.sh notification application in a container in my homelab. First I installed the app on the Pixel 7a but I think the app is causing a bad drain on the battery so I have uninstalled it and installed the app on my iPad Mini. #

Somewhat trapped in the house right now. The parking lot right outside our garage has been fixed with some new asphalt.#

It's the first day of September. Feels like the summer has gone by way too fast. Fortunately, the weather forecast has temps in the 80s for the upcoming week. #

I currently have two Proxmox hosts, the first built on an old HP Probook laptop with an Intel i7 processor and the second built on a newer Beelink U59 Pro with a Intel N5105 processor. I can migrate containers and VMs from the Probook to the Beelink but I can not migrate containers or VMs from the Beelink to the Probook. Not sure why this is, though a difference is that the Probook node only has a local disk of type directory whereas the Beelink has a local (directory) and a pve-data of type lvm-thin. Granted, so far I have only tried the live migration option. #

Upgraded the Ubuntu 22.04 VM to kernel v6.4.0. Observe that kernel is generic while the same version on the Xebian VM is "optimized" for amd64. #

The Xebian VM has now been up for five days. Thinking of upgrading the Ubuntu VM to the same kernel to see whether I get the same result.#

The thermometer said it was 53 degrees outside when I woke up this morning. Now in the mode of telling myself that summer is not over. Fortunately, the weather forcast for this weekend supports that reminder.#

As of now the Xebian VM has been running for almost four days, longer than the other Linux VMs I built beside the one running Kali Linux. I am not entirely sure whether the difference is with the kernel or something else that is installed by default in the other distros but not with Xebian.#

I did not know until now that there is a way to run VMs on iOS. #

The Xebian VM has now been up for 2 days. I just installed OpenSSH server on it. #

Well, the Ubuntu 22.04 VM froze at some point during the last 24 hours even after having upgrade the kernel to 6.3.7, so there is something else going on here. Yesterday I learned about Xebian, which is another Debian based distro that defaults to v6.4 of the kernel. I built a VM based on Xebian late yesterday afternoon and it has been up for about 20 hours. I just installed xrdp on it, so we will see whether it keeps running. #

After using Firefox for a few hours I grew unhappy with how much slower it feels than Chrome in this container, so I decided to spend more time determing why I cannot download files. (BTW, I need this in order to download backups of my Drummer files, which is why I am spending so much time on getting this to work.) My new theory is that Flatpak version is not allowed to write files, which I tested by starting Chrome in the Ubuntu 22.04 VM and trying to download, which I found worked.#

I spent some time trying to give the Flatpak version of Chrome the write permissions it needs by using Flatseal but no matter what I did, download would not work. So, I gave up and uninstalled the Flatpak version. I then downloaded and installed the .deb package off the Google Chrome web site, which is what I am now using, and presto, files download! #

Drummer has been particularly vexing for fonts, if I default to a serif then the fonts appear too small, so I am default to sans serif, which does change the way many of the sites I normally read look.#

Annoyed by the fact that Chrome is not allowing me to download files, so I am switching back to using Firefox. (I need to be able to download files in Drummer.) The problem is that for some reason Firefox does not render fonts well for sites like micro.blog. Consequently, I have configured Firefox to explicitly use specific fonts rather than those specified by the web site. Right now I am using the Liberation Sans, Sans Serif, and Monospace fonts. #

We had a quick power outage that caused my Proxmox host to reboot, so the uptime of the Ubuntu 22.04 VM got reset. It is back up and running and has not locked up like before, so I am really inclined to believe VMs need to be running kernel version 6.x to be stable. #

The Ubuntu 22.04 VM was still running this morning. It has been up now for 21 hours, longer than I think any of the previous machines. We will see whether it continues that way through today.#

Since I completed the upgrade later today the Ubuntu 22.04 VM running kernel version 6.3.7 has been continually running. I hope to see it is still running tomorrow morning.#

I've upgraded the Ubuntu 22.04 VM to kernel version 6.3.7, which is the same version being used by Kali. Now to wait and see whether it is stable. The VM did lock up while doing the upgrade, so I had to stop and restart the VM, but upon redo it seemed to work correctly.#

The Ubuntu 22.04 VM locked up over night as I expected. I am now going to try and upgrade the kernel following these instructions.#

I've observed that the VM running Kali has been running continuously on the Beelink U59 Pro Proxmox host and I find that it is running version 6.3.7 of the Linux kernel. I further observe that the Ubuntu 22.04 VM that locks up is running version 5.15 of the kernel, so I am wondering whether upgrading the kernal of the Ubuntu VM to 6.x (instructions to upgrade to 6.2 are here) will address the problem? #

Looks like Google will release the Pixel Watch 2 when they release the Pixel 8 smartphone. I am happy with my Pixel Watch and not likely to buy this one.#

Good start of the day, the Debian remote desktop container was still running this morning! I think we might have a winner.#

I started the day expecting to build out the Fedora LXC container I created yesterday but instead ended up creating and building out a Debian 12 container, which I now think I have fully configured as desired. I will probably eventually remove the VMs that I had created over the last several days. In the end this a better result because containers run much better on this host than VMs, although I am concerned about why some of these VMs are not stable. #

An observation... I have a VM with Home Assistant OS installed that doesn't seem to lock up. It uses the OVMF BIOS, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, default machine and default display. Another VM is running Kali and it also seems to keep running. #

I ended the day yesterday creating a Fedora 38 LXC container on the Proxmox server and installing OneDrive in it and confirmed that it installed. Today I need to enable SSH access to that container, confirm OneDrive sync works, then figure out how to install a desktop in the container and set up remote access.#

Created a Fedora 38 LXC container on Proxmox. After first boot found network not working. Search found a bug report stating systemd-networkd service not enabled. Did a systemctl start systemd-networkd.service and then a systemctl enable systemd-networkd.service.#

Alas, Fedora just locked up on me while I was using it. It's looking like I can't run a VM on this host. #

I now have Fedora 38 running in a VM that I can access via RDP. This time I am using KDE. Fedora workstation uses Gnome which is too graphically intense for remote desktop use. I am not sure whether Fedora is going to be any better at not locking up than Ubuntu, only time will tell. I did select a number of different options for the VM: 6 GB of RAM with no ballooning; OVMF (UEFI) Bios; q35 machine but kept the default display, which I am connecting to at 2560x1600. Performance is decent for running Firefox.#

Creating a Fedora 38 workstation VM, curious to see whether that distro has any problems. I've run Red Hat on this Beelink U59 Pro with no noticable problems, so I am wondering whether Fedora will be as reliable. #

Might be an issue with the CPU used by the Beelink U59 Pro. Reading a thread about this on the Proxmox forums. Might need to determine how to get Onedrive working in an LXC container. Going to turn off memory ballooning to see what that does.#

I could not connect to my remote desktop VM this morning and found that it locked up just like I had experienced earlier. When I look at the VM in Proxmox I see the CPU pegged at 25% and the memory pegged at 50% (4 GB) and the console is not responsive. Not sure here whether the problem is with Proxmox or Ubuntu or both. It would be good to know why this is happening. In the mean time, I changed the VCPU to 2 from 4. #

Something happened with my local network connectivity that caused my homelab DNS server to not be prioritized on my remote desktop VM. I configured this by running sudo resolvectl status and found the gateway to be the current DNS server. A reboot did not fix the problem. Found that /etc/resolv.conf had the line "# This file is managed by man:systemd-resolved(8). Do not edit" and therefore edited /etc/systemd/resolved.conf and then ran sudo service systemd-resolved restart. I expect the DNS settings to survive a reboot. Source#

Last month I decided to seek options for replacing Evernote, which has been my document repository. By document repository, I mean the place in which I store clips of web pages (often receipts), links to web sites, and other miscellaneous information. The first step of that process was exporting my current content from Evernote to another application, which turned out to be Obsidian. Next, I sought out a replacement to which I can store the same information I have been storing in Evernote, and for the moment that appears to be Joplin.#

At this moment I have Joplin installed on my Macbook Air M1, iPad Mini, and Pixel 7a, with end to end encryption enabled and synchronization using OneDrive. During last week I endeavored to set up Joplin and synchronization in a VM that I can use as a remote desktop during my work day. I've been using a Ubuntu 20.04 LXC container to run a LXQT remote desktop but found that the OneDrive client will not work in the container because it doesn't directly support FUSE in the manner that OneDrive expects. #

I created new VMs running Ubuntu 20.04 and Debian 12 using TigerVNC, which is what I use for my remote desktop container, and had random lock ups. Then I found instructions for using xrdb on Ubuntu 22.04 and built a VM based on those instructions yesterday. I've used the new VM all day and after some tweaks I think I have a workable solution. #

The main problem I now have is that I can't seem to get RDP to display the desktop in the same size window has I have with VNC. With VNC I am able to display about two thirds of the LXQT desktop in a window that fully extends from top to bottom of my BenQ Monitor. I then have whichever browser I am using take up that whole space which allow see a larger amount of a web page. This allows me to continue seeing my work desktop and my personal desktop (in a window) at the same time. I can configure RDP to display full screen on my monitor, but so far I haven't been able to resize it in a way that doesn't distort the display. For the time being I am viewing my full remote desktop in a 2560x1600 window. #

I continue to see strange things happening with the VMs I built this past week on the Proxmox host running on the Beelink U59 Pro. For some reason it looks like the Proxmox node rebooted yesterday evening so the VM I had running was shutdown. I didn't spend a lot of time troubleshooting.#

I found instructions for installing xrdp on Ubuntu 22.04 and so I decided to follow them and I think I have xrdp running successfully as a service. I am using xfce as the remote desktop and so far I have only installed and configured Firefox. My plan is to see whether or not this is stable before installing and configuring OneDrive and Joplin. #

I now have the latest version of Electric Drummer running on my Macbook. First, I made a backup copy of the Electric Drummer directory in Library, Applications Support folder. Next, deleted the prior version of the application and the directory from the library. Finally, I downloaded and installed the latest version of the Electric Drummer app. Sign in follows a similar process as Drummer using my email address. I confirmed that public folders are uploaded to the public folders storage that Drummer accesses by creating a new local file and making it public, then checking to see whether I can open that file in Drummer. #