Debian on

Running Signal Desktop in a Debian VM on OpenBSD

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:49:49 +0000

Thanks to Anirudh for getting me started on the right path!

Running Signal Desktop in a Debian VM on OpenBSD

I wanted to get Signal Desktop running in a way that integrates smoothly with my OpenBSD host. Since Signal doesn’t have a native OpenBSD port, I spun up a Debian VM using vmm(4) and vmctl. Below are my notes for setting this up, including a few gotchas.

Step 1: Download Debian ISO

Start with the Bookworm Debian netinst ISO (I had issues with Trixie):

Debian Server vs. Ubuntu Server

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 17:40:05 +0000

Lately I have had a few requests for my thoughts on using Ubuntu Server. For me the real question at that point is why use Ubuntu server over Debian?

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I have used Ubuntu server a good bit and while I appreciate the effort, I am not sure I agree with it. What I mean by this is that Ubuntu is based on Debian testing/unstable. Every LTS (Long-term Support) release is guaranteed to be supported for 3 years on the desktop/5 for the server. Knowing that is in essence just Debian under the hood, why go with Ubuntu?

BitlBee and OTR … then add some TOR!

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 15:00:12 +0000

With the release of 3.0.1 of BitlBee you can now chat from your favorite IRC client with the peace of mind that your protected. Since the OTR portion is still very new I wanted to put together a quick howto. I am going to assume you are running Debian Lenny (sid has 3.0.1 in the packages already) and that you really are a security nut:

Download source from http://get.bitlbee.org/src/bitlbee-3.0.1.tar.gz
sudo apt-get install libotr2-dev libotr2-bin
./configure –prefix=/usr –otr=1
make
make install
make install-etc

Done! Now once you start bitlbee (/etc/init.d/bitlbee start) for the first time it will generate your OTR keys. I am going to assume that you are going to use the Question and Answer verification for OTR keys. With our other secure buddy we do the following:

Happy 17th Birthday Debian!

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:37:57 +0000

I love Debian (looks over lovingly @ the fileserver) and look forward to many more years of stable releases. Debian was my first distro when I ran 1.3 at the ripe old age of 12. I built a VM a few years ago just to see how far we’ve come: http://geekyschmidt.com/2008/03/29/login-looking-back-on-debian-13

A link to some interesting history: http://digitizor.com/2010/08/16/happy-17th-birthday-debian-and-some-interesting-history/

Lexmark Drivers for Ubuntu/Debian

Tue, 05 May 2009 02:18:17 +0000

Lexmark provides subpar Linux drivers for any distro, but Ubuntu/Debian is horrible. At work we moved from HP Printers to Lexmark. The situation reminds me of ATI hardware in the late-90’s, great hardware and crappy drivers. I converted the Red Hat RPM for Debian based systems. Attached below:

To install sudo dpkg -i drivers-lexprtdrv_552-2_i386.deb

login: Looking Back on Debian 1.3

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:30:17 +0000

Back at the tender age of 12 I picked up a magazine at the Base Exchange. This magazine contained a CD. This CD contained Debian 1.3. All was well in the world…

I remember reading with such excitement about this amazing new Linux (yes I pronouced it wrong, I was a geek living in Germany) and how it was free. Free you say!? I had just spent the past year lusting for Windows NT for no other reason that it was enterprise ready. I had no clue what that meant but I knew it was something I couldn’t learn. Much in the same way as I would look with much glee on the SGI pictures in magazines with no hope of ever affording the 12,000 dollar machine. Such was life for a youngster.

That is what made Linux so exciting for me. It looked kind of like those funny Sun boxes and it was what HACKERS used so it had to be cool. With no understanding of what installing Linux met I dropped that CD in and used rawrite for the first time to create the boot floppy.

Then it died. My perfectly working Windows 95b edition machine died. Well I thought it had died when really all I did was blank the partition table attempting to do an install. All of this came back vividly today as I retraced that install on my MacBook Pro in vmware.

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Ian Murdock leaves Debian

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 11:35:11 +0000

The Sun folks are sounding the alarm that this is the end of Linux! I think what they fail to reailize is the state of Debian and his original project leads. I see his move as signal of Sun’s new commitment to the GPL3 than to him closing his ideals off from the Linux community. If you read his early papers and reasons for starting Debian you will quickly realize he has almost Richard Stallman views on free software. If you want to see the Sun Blog I commented on: