Category: Uncategorized

## Wed 21 Jun 2023 12:22:33 PM EDT

So, I thought that I was done with writing today–at least for now–until my wifi decided to crap out on me and disconnect my session. I’m sure you know the feeling that I had next–that quick little race of the heart and perhaps a little flush of the face when your computer decides to treat you like Ellen Feiss, and like half of your paper is gone. Yeah.

Well, see, I knew that if I didn’t figure something out, all of my post would be gone as I’ve still not made it a habit to run screen or tmux before starting in on something lengthy. So, I was like, great, is there some sort of temporary file written somewhere keeping track of changes to the file I was creating. Well, there was, and when I googled if it was possible to recover it, my first answer showed me that only a couple of people have had success in figuring out the wizardry needed to open/edit/recover/revert/etc that silly .swp-file. Okay, so, is there an application or command that can steal a process? Turns out, there is. Reptyr.

https://github.com/nelhage/reptyr

If it’s not already in your arsenal, I’d recommend equipping yourself with it, because it saved the day for me. A quick search of the repositories showed that it was available in Debian, so I didn’t have to fuss with compiling, or anything; the only trick I needed to figure out was how to steal the process I wanted, which came down to me needing to be root–the process I really wanted to grab was a subprocess, and in order to take it I needed to take the beginning process, which requires root, apparently. So, a simple “su” and then a “reptyr -T PID” got me right back to where I was before the connection dropped–exactly where I was. Once I finished up my post, the script running things continued as it would’ve, wrapped things up, and brought me back to the shell I was in previously on the tablet. I exited that shell to return to the root shell I’d spawned, then exited it, and came back to the new shell I’d opened to start my attempts at recovering things.

Neat!

I know there might be a few that will read this and laugh at my amazement and joy in discovering a tool they already knew about, but, hey, I’m still learning. Hopefully this silly little post will help someone out, someday.

Thanks for reading;

–J

## Wed 21 Jun 2023 10:51:18 AM EDT

Haven’t written in a week or so–I think. Just figured I’d write something right now since I have a few minutes to spare. Thing is, I really don’t know what to write about.

I’m currently sitting at the kitchen table, typing this on a keyboard I have plugged into my tablet; I’m using the tablet to connect to the “server” via SSH through the use of ConnectBot. Why I’m sharing that info, I dunno. I just think it’s neat that I can have all these different pieces of technology talk to one another.

Yesterday I was goofing around with Termux on the tablet and an old Pixel 2XL–just toying with running VNC’d X-sessions on them. I was kind of impressed with the quality of things when I started watching YouTube videos through Firefox in those sessions. I don’t know, guess I’m easily entertained. I was also toying with getting the tablet to display another computer’s graphics–that honestly halfway stemmed from me tinkering with running framebuffer applications on that computer a few days earlier. The framebuffer thing came from me removing a desktop environment and forgetting to re-assign a desktop manager to fire X into the remaining environment. I was like, “well, I want to play around in the console more than in a GUI, anyway, so let’s not worry about starting X immediately.” That eventually led me to remembering that framebuffer graphics were a thing, so I went down the path of trying to seek out applications to play with. That was a fun little exploration–as there really isn’t much documentation on the Internet from a user’s standpoint on using the framebuffer for fun and productivity. It’s like, when window managers became better and better, and the ‘nix world began to compete more with the Windows and Mac worlds, people forgot about the framebuffer. I wonder if maybe there will be a resurgence in the future, like everyone’s somewhat recent interest in reviving 8- and 16-bit computing.

I also played around with “My House“ a few days ago. I didn’t make it far–I still haven’t progressed past level one. I do hope to sit and give it some serious attention sometime soon. To be honest, I haven’t even played Doom II–I only ever played Doom, as the sequel wasn’t available on the high school sneakernet when I was a kid. Yep, I played a part in passing around copies of games back in the day. Unfortunately, I was only a leecher–if I can apply that term to the sneakernet–as I didn’t have a connection to the ‘net back then. Heck, only now am I trying to explore BBS’ and the like, to try and see what all I missed out on. Guess that kind of explains a little of my interest in toying around with older protocols–and those that mimic them.

Meanwhile, I see that my gemini capsule has hit Kennedy’s index, so I’ve at least helped to bring bits of my hometown into a searchable portion of geminispace.

I don’t know. I think that’s enough writing for now.

Thanks for reading;

–J