Linux
A Shared GPU Cluster with Slurm and BeeGFS
A handful of GPU servers shared by a team tends to go through the same stages. At first people SSH into whichever machine looks idle. Then someone’s job gets killed because two people picked the same GPU. Then datasets end up copied onto every machine, each copy slightly different. A job scheduler fixes the first two; a shared filesystem fixes the third. This post walks through the setup I use: one login node plus a few GPU servers, with Slurm for scheduling, BeeGFS for a shared /home, UFW as the host firewall, and Ansible to keep every node consistent.
Enable Unattended RustDesk Access on Wayland
Ubuntu uses GNOME on Wayland by default. RustDesk works well once someone is sitting at the machine, but unattended access runs into two obstacles: the graphical login screen, and the screen-share prompt GNOME shows after login. On my Ubuntu 26.04 system, the practical solution was to use an X11-based LightDM login screen while keeping the normal Ubuntu GNOME Wayland desktop after login, and to approve screen sharing once so that later connections do not ask again:
Completely Remove Snap from Ubuntu
Snap ships enabled by default on recent Ubuntu releases. It offers a distribution-independent application format, automatic updates, dependency isolation, and optional sandboxing. Those features are useful, but not every system needs a second package-management stack alongside APT. Desktop users may prefer traditional Debian packages, and administrators of minimal servers may want fewer background services with all software under APT-based change control. This guide covers how to: Remove all installed Snap packages Purge the snapd service and its remaining data Prevent APT from reinstalling snapd Restore Snap later if needed The procedure targets recent Ubuntu Desktop and Server releases, including 22.04, 24.04, and 26.04. Package selections may differ between releases.
Setup 802.1X Authentication on Arch Linux
Over the past few days, I attempted to set up 802.1X authentication on Arch Linux, a wired identity authentication protocol widely used in enterprise environments and well-supported on Windows and Ubuntu. However, when it came to Arch Linux, a series of strange issues emerged. To make matters more interesting, the machine in question has two onboard NICs, a Realtek r8169 and an Intel e1000e, and each ended up causing a different kind of trouble: the former during authentication, the latter during DHCP. This post will detail the problems I encountered and the debugging process.
Enable Microsoft Remote Desktop (RDP) on Linux
Gnome 42 has a fantastic new feature that allows Linux users to share their desktops with Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol remotely, namely GNOME remote desktop. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how you can use this great new feature. Without this feature, an alternative solution is xrdp. However, xrdp cannot provide a consistent desktop environment as used in current Linux. Enable Automatic Login and Disable Screen Lock For the remote desktop to work on GNOME, we have to enable automatic login and disable automatic screen lock. Otherwise, it is unable to connect to the Linux PC remotely from Windows 10/11 using the Remote Desktop Connection app.
Arch Linux ARM on an M1 Mac with VMware Fusion
Arch Linux ARM is a simple and lightweight Linux distribution that is actually the official port of the Arch Linux operating system. It’s built especially for processors that support ARM architecture. With its use, the users can have full control of the system and shape their system according to their needs. In this tutorial, we provide the detailed procedure to install Arch Linux ARM on a Macbook Pro (with Apple M1 Pro) running VMware Fusion 13.0.
Install QQ/TIM in Linux with Wine
Note: This post describes a Wine-based workaround from 2017. Tencent now ships an official native Linux client for QQ, rebuilt on the NT architecture and available as deb, rpm, and AppImage packages for both x86-64 and ARM. You should grab the native build from im.qq.com/linuxqq instead; the Wine instructions below are kept only for historical reference. This tutorial introduces how to install QQ/TIM in Linux with Wine, which had been tested on ArchLinux with Wine 2.4.
Setup Raspbian on Raspberry Pi
This post explains how to install Raspberry Pi OS and set up a Raspberry Pi from scratch. You will need another computer with an SD (or MicroSD) card reader to write the image. Note: This post has been updated for Raspberry Pi OS and Raspberry Pi Imager. Raspbian was renamed Raspberry Pi OS in 2020, and the old “download a .zip, unzip the .img, then flash it with Win32 Disk Imager” routine has been replaced by the official Raspberry Pi Imager, which downloads and writes the image in one step and can pre-configure SSH, Wi-Fi, and your user account before the first boot.