Welcome to decuser’s blog
Topics on this blog include computing, retro-computing, operating systems, math, and whatever other technical subjects I happen to be exploring that I find interesting enough to take and share notes about.
Posts
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Mounting tar files in v7
How to mount a tar file in v7 running in SimH This was difficult to figure out, but perseverance, tuhs, and simh mailing lists helped.
Modern tar files are easy to mount as tapes in SimH (at least theoretically). This note shows the way.
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Fonts and Colours in xterm
A note on how to set fonts and colors for xterms for freebsd & macos.
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How to forward mail from root to user
This note explains the super simple approach to forwarding mail on the local system from the root account to a user. It’s really for people who manage their own system and don’t want to have to always be logging in as the root user to read the system mail. It is based on the idea that you really are the root user, but you’re logging in as a normal user.
If you’re running X (twm, etc), this lets you run xbiff as a normal user and get notified when the system sends an email to root (sudo, periodic scripts, etc).
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Setting up XDM on FreeBSD 12.1
A note about how I I got XDM working on my Thinkpad T430 in 2020. It’s not difficult, but it’s not common anymore.
XDM is the x display manager and provides login capability for unix systems. It is particularly useful for old-style window managers like TWM.
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How to Monitor Battery Life and Sleep on FreeBSD 12.1
A non-ui method for monitoring battery life and sleep on FreeBSD. This is useful for when you just want to run the command line or a lightweight window manager like TWM, FVWM, etc. Installs as a service and will sleep the machine as the battery approaches it’s lowpoint of charge.
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Turn off that pesky Visual Mode mouse integration in VIM
This is a note about how to kill that mouse craziness with vim.
If you’re already in vim type
: set mouse-=aIf you want it off all the time, edit your .vimrc and add
vi ~/.vimrc set mouse-=aNow you can select, copy, and paste using vim and your os’s normal functionality.
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Using a Mac's xterm as a remote Tektronics display for a FreeBSD 12.1 Server
How to use the macos terminal as a remote tektronics display device for a terminal graphics process running on another unix system. In this case, freebsd.
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Restoring Grub - dual boot FreeBSD and Linux
Note describing how to restore the grub bootloader after it is catastrophically removed. Please note that it may be specific to my setup:
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How to set up tor on FreeBSD 11.2
A note describing how to install and set up the tor browser on freebsd 11.2
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Linux Mint Note
A note with fixes for issues arising with the use of linux mint.