First Pinebook Pro Impressions

Tons of Awesome in a small package

 Posted on March 25, 2020  |  Ryan W. Walter

My Experience with the Pinebook Pro I recently obtained a Pinebook Pro with an ANSI Keyboard. My goal was to obtain a device that is not only an affordable, long lasting battery for conferences like Texas Linux Fest. But a laptop that I could use every day for editing, composing, and accessing remote environments. Unboxing The device was shipped with all of its components and accessories in a large cargo envelope. [Read More]
Pinebook  Pine64  Laptop 

Managing Your Dotfiles With Minimal Tools

A Sysadmins Take On Config Managment

 Posted on October 13, 2019  |  Ryan Walter

Some of us like to keep clean directories. I bet if I asked you to run ls It would be a short list. Desktop Documents Downloads Firefox_wallpaper.png Games Landscape-pictures-28.jpg Library localLibrary Music Pictures Public src Sync Templates Videos Now… run ls -a ~. What do you see? Depending on which OS you use. Probably a lot more files than you knew existed. Let me show you mine. . .. .ansible . [Read More]
git  stow  dotfiles  linux 

Texas Linux Fest For The First Timer

Cool Talks for Texas Folk

 Posted on June 4, 2019  |  Ryan W. Walter

What is Texas Linux Fest Texas Linux fest is… The first state-wide annual community-run conference for Linux and open source software users and enthusiasts from around the Lone Star State - Texaslinuxfest.org Meaning It is similar to some of the larger events such as Scale and SELF in their regions. I attended the following talks.. Ansible Beginner to Brilliant by Alex Juarez Becoming Dangerous with Kubernetes by JJ Ashgar Linux Permissions 101 by Alex Juarez Confessions of a Sysadmin by Ell Marquez of Linux Academy and Allie Barnes Linux Performance Tuning by Thomas Cameron Understanding Containers by Ell Marquez Identity Management In the homelab by Steve Ovens Automate Absolutely Everything by Adam Miller Also, multiple vendors were on site, some of them being, in no partical order. [Read More]
Events  Linux  ansible  Kubernetes 

The Yubikey Guide for Newbs

Seriously.. What can this do?

 Posted on April 28, 2019  |  Ryan W. Walter

What is a Yubikey? A Yubikey is a hardware cryptographic engine and secret key storage device that is designed at the hardware level to prevent (if not just uncapable) to export the secrets it contains. It is most commonly used as a second factor in MFA authentication schemes. TL:DR - The Yubikey is a write only device with built in crypographic silicon. What are the use cases for the Yubikey? [Read More]
yubikey  Gitlab  Meta  Auth  ssh  guides 

Deploying a blog using Gitlab Pages and Hugo

Easier than ghost.

 Posted on March 27, 2019  |  Ryan W. Walter

Honestly, it is pretty easy, just use the built-in template from gitlab.com, You can redirect your DNS entry for your website to the yourusername.gitlab.io and it will load the proper pages, it is also free of cost. so its a quick way to save 5 bucks a month! Although as someone who has not used hugo before, that was a bit of a learning curve. Another part that is a bit awkward is SSL certificates, soon I will have this website under HTTPS, but since all content here is static and public knowledge. [Read More]
Hugo  Gitlab  Meta