~dennisleexyz

3D Model Sites

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 18:16:32 GMT

This is a feature comparison matrix of popular 3D model hosting websites focused on 3D printing. Based on the video by Teaching Tech - YouTube, with additions of my own.

Comparing 3D printing model websites objectively to find a winner

	Thingiverse	Printables	MyMiniFactory	Cults3D	Thangs	Creality Cloud	MakerWorld
Free models	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Paid models		⚠️	⚠️	⚠️	⚠️	❌
Ads	❌		❌	❌		❌
Meta/Smart search	⚠️	✅	⚠️	✅	✅		⚠️
Contests		✅		✅	⚠️	✅	✅
Companion app	⚠️	⚠️	✅	⚠️	✅	✅	✅
Cloud printing		⚠️	✅			✅	✅
Rewards		✅			⚠️	✅	✅
Communities	✅	✅				✅	✅
Blog/guides/articles		✅		✅	✅	✅
Download w/o login	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌	⚠️
SCAD Customizer	✅						✅

MakerWorld requires login to download all files. When not logged in, you can only download files individually after completing a challenge.

Rewards

Printables

Earn

title	description	points
Completed profile	avatar, bio, location, languages	20
Publish a model	up to 10 new models in total	10
Create a collection	up to 3 non-empty collections	5
Upload a make	up to 100 Prusameters per calendar month	1-10
	Model reaches 30 downloads and 3 likes	10
	Model reaches 100 downloads and 10 likes	+50
	Model reaches 200 downloads and 15 likes	+100
	Model reaches 400 downloads and 20 likes	+200

Redeem

title	description	points	USD
Prusament PLA	The voucher can be applied to any regular PLA Prusament 1 kg except rPLA and Refill. Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	350	$29.99
Prusament PETG	The voucher can be applied to any regular PETG Prusament 1 kg except PETG Carbon Fiber, Tungsten, V0, Matte Black, and Refill. Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	350	$29.99
Prusament ASA	The voucher can be applied to any regular ASA Prusament 850 g. Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	350	$29.99
Prusa CORE One	3D printer: Original Prusa CORE One Kit! Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	29000	$949.00
Original Prusa MK4S	3D printer kit: Original Prusa MK4S! Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	25000	$729.00
Original Prusa MINI+	3D printer Original Prusa MINI+ kit - smart and compact 3D printing workhorse. Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	10000	$429.00
Prusa Art - Set of 3 Posters	You can choose Technical Art or Infill Art.	300	$20.99
Original Prusa Heatbed Mousepad	Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	240	$14.99
Prusament Refill	The voucher can be applied to PLA or PETG Prusament Refill. Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	340	$26.99
Official Printables T-shirt	You can choose any size. Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	200	$24.99
Prusament Dragon T-shirt	You can choose any size. Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	300	$24.99
Original Prusa T-shirt MK4 Blueprint	You can choose any size. Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	300	$24.99
Original Prusa T-shirt PrusaSlicer	You can choose any size. Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	300	$24.99
Original Prusa T-shirt Classic or Jo’s Edition	You can choose any size. Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	240	$19.99
Original Prusa Hoodie	You can choose any size. Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	600	$43.99
Original Prusa Snapback	You can choose any Prusa Snapback. Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	375	$29.99
Original Prusa Beanie	Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	280	$18.99
Original PrusaSlicer Mug	Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	250	$19.99
$40 voucher for Prusa 3D printer	A $40 voucher that can be redeemed when purchasing a Prusa 3D printer CORE One, MK4S, XL, MINI+, SL1S (including kit versions). Does not apply to upgrades and conversion kit. Only one voucher can be used per transaction, and it’s not possible to combine multiple vouchers into one.	350	$40.00
$100 voucher for Prusa 3D printer	A $100 voucher that can be redeemed when purchasing a Prusa 3D printer CORE One, MK4S, XL, MINI+, SL1S (including kit versions). Does not apply to upgrades and conversion kit. Only one voucher can be used per transaction, and it’s not possible to combine multiple vouchers into one.	1000	$100.00
$200 voucher for Prusa 3D printer	A $200 voucher that can be redeemed when purchasing a Prusa 3D printer CORE One, MK4S, XL, MINI+, SL1S (including kit versions). Does not apply to upgrades and conversion kit. Only one voucher can be used per transaction, and it’s not possible to combine multiple vouchers into one.	3000	$200.00
$400 voucher for Prusa 3D printer	A $400 voucher that can be redeemed when purchasing a Prusa 3D printer CORE One, MK4S, XL, MINI+, SL1S (including kit versions). Does not apply to upgrades and conversion kit. Only one voucher can be used per transaction, and it’s not possible to combine multiple vouchers into one.	7000	$400.00
2× Prusament spool	Voucher for 2 pcs Prusament PLA, PETG, ASA on 1kg or 850g spool of any regular color except rPLA, PETG Carbon Fiber, Tungsten, V0, Matte Black, and Refill. Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	700	$59.98
3× Prusament spool	Voucher for 3 pcs Prusament PLA, PETG, ASA on 1kg or 850g spool of any regular color except rPLA, PETG Carbon Fiber, Tungsten, V0, Matte Black, and Refill. Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	1050	$89.97
3D Printing and Modeling for Beginners (MK4)	Online course	90
3D Printing and Modeling for Beginners (MINI+)	Online course	90
Basics of Product Photography	Online course	350
Design Principles for 3D Printed Parts	Online course	180
3D Modeling in Fusion 360	Online course	350
3D Printing and Modeling for Beginners (MK3S+)	Online course	90
Donating Prusament to Education	Join us in supporting education and donate your Prusameters to benefit students. Your Prusameters will be converted into donated Prusament spools. Thank you for your donation!	200
Basics of 3D Printing with Josef Prusa	You can choose language variation. Only one voucher can be used per order. It is not possible to combine several vouchers into one.	65	$4.99

MakerWorld

https://makerworld.com/en/points

Earn

title	description
Upload a Model	Each new upload can earn 10 points, and up to 50 points in total.
Upload a Print Profile	Each new upload can earn 3 points, and up to 15 points in total.
High-Quality Model Reward	1 Successful Print = 2 Downloads 3 downloads are counted when a user downloads and successfully prints a model. The high-quality model reward has no time constraints; points are earned upon reaching specific download milestones. The points reward is progressive for each model at 4 milestones.
1~50	15 points per 10 downloads
51~500	12 points per 25 downloads
501~1000	20 points per 50 downloads
>1000	30 points per 100 downloads
High-Quality Print Profile Reward	1 Successful Print = 2 Downloads 3 downloads are counted when a user downloads and successfully prints a print profile. The high-quality print profile reward has no time constraints; points are earned upon reaching specific download milestones. In order to receive points, each print profile needs to keep the average rating ≥4 stars, then you will earn points at each milestone.
1~50	3 points per 10 downloads
51~500	3 points per 25 downloads
501~1000	5 points per 50 downloads
>1000	8 points per 100 downloads
Create models using MakerLab	You can earn up to 10 points.
Rate Print Profiles	If your rating is one of the first five ratings for a print profile, you can earn up to 10 points.
Complete personal profile	Completed your personal information and upload an avatar to earn 20 points.

Redeem

title	description	points	USD
Gift Card for $40	This gift card is only valid for use in the US and cannot be changed after it has been redeemed.	490	$40
Maker’s Essential Kit A	This discount code will provide a 99% discount on the purchase of this item in AU and cannot be changed after it has been redeemed.	1200	$165
LED Lamp Kit 001	This discount code will provide a 99% discount on the purchase of this item in the US and cannot be changed after it has been redeemed.	132	$12.87
Wireless Mouse Components Kit 002	This discount code will provide a 99% discount on the purchase of this item in the US and cannot be changed after it has been redeemed.	132	$12.87
Marble Run Components Kit 003	This discount code will provide a 99% discount on the purchase of this item in the US and cannot be changed after it has been redeemed.	110	$10.89
Engine Model Components Kit 005	This discount code will provide a 99% discount on the purchase of this item in the US and cannot be changed after it has been redeemed.	110	$10.89
Jet Engine Model Components Kit 006	This discount code will provide a 99% discount on the purchase of this item in the US and cannot be changed after it has been redeemed.	275	$26.73
Triple-axis Tourbillon Model Components Kit 007	This discount code will provide a 99% discount on the purchase of this item in the US and cannot be changed after it has been redeemed.	440	$43.56
Boat Model Components Kit 010	This discount code will provide a 99% discount on the purchase of this item in the US and cannot be changed after it has been redeemed.	55	$5.4351
Clock Components Kit 011	This discount code will provide a 99% discount on the purchase of this item in the US and cannot be changed after it has been redeemed.	88	$8.91
Maker’s Beginner Kit	This discount code will provide a 99% discount on the purchase of this item in the US and cannot be changed after it has been redeemed (Please note that the product does not include the 3D printed parts as shown in the main image).	110	$10.8801
Lichtenstein Castle	MakerWorld exclusive model is available for you to redeem.	50
Panzerkampfwagen IV Tank	MakerWorld exclusive model (a digital 3D model file rather than physical prints)	100
MakerLab Credits x 10	for MakerLab AI apps	1
MakerLab Credits x 100	for MakerLab AI apps	10

Redeem Cash

Exclusive points, earned through exclusive models, can be redeemed for cash or valuable items in our points shop.

Cash redemption is limited to exclusive points, with an exchange rate of 1 exclusive point for 0.066 USD.
The minimum redemption amount is 100 USD, while the maximum is 1000 USD.

Creality Cloud

https://www.crealitycloud.com/mission-center/eshop

Imports

These are the supported import paths to copy models from one site to another. The services are provided by the destination website.

graph TD;
Thingiverse-->Cults3D;
Thingiverse-->Printables;
Thingiverse-->MakerWorld;
Printables-->MakerWorld;
crealitycloud.cn-->crealitycloud.com;

FOSS CNC Cutting

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 20:32:58 GMT

Software

Laser/vinyl cutter software that is FOSS or at least doesn’t require Windows/macOS.

	Print and Cut	CLI	Devices	Platforms	License
Silhouette Web	✓			web	unfree
inkscape-silhouette	✓*	✓	Silhouette Portrait Silhouette Portrait 2 (working confirmed) Silhouette Portrait 3 Silhouette Portrait 4 (working confirmed) Silhouette Cameo Silhouette Cameo 2 Silhouette Cameo 3 Silhouette Cameo 4 Silhouette Cameo 4 Plus Silhouette Cameo 4 Pro Silhouette Cameo 5 Silhouette Cameo 5 Plus Silhouette Curio (partial success confirmed in #36) Craft Robo CC200-20 Craft Robo CC300-20 Silhouette SD 1 Silhouette SD 2	Inkscape + Python	GPL-2.0
robocut	✓		Graphtec CraftRobo CC200-20 Graphtec CraftRobo CC300-20 Silhouette SD Silhouette SD 2 Silhouette Cameo Silhouette Cameo 3 Silhouette Portrait	Windows OSX Linux	GPL-3.0
Kiri:Moto				NodeJS Electron	MIT
EzGraver		✓	NEJE laser engravers	Linux / OSX Windows	MIT
kkengraver		✓	KKMoon 3000 laser engraver (3000mW)	python / web	GPL-3.0
LaserWeb/CNCWeb			Supported firmwares - LaserWeb / CNCWeb	Windows, OSX and Linux (on x86/x64 CPU)	AGPL-3.0
Visicut			many lasercutters, such as the Epilog Zing/Mini/Helix, LAOS, Smoothieboard, LTT, K40 and some more.	Linux, Mac and Windows	LGPL-3.0
LightBurn			most Ruida, Trocen, TopWisdom, and GCode based controllers, as well as EZCad-based galvo fiber, CO2, and UV lasers using either EZCad2 or EZCad2-Lite boards.	PC or Mac	unfree
Inkcut			Supported Devices - Docs - Inkcut - CodeLV	Windows, Mac, Linux, and Raspberry Pi	GPL-3.0
LaserGRBL			Grbl v0.9 and Grbl v1.1	Windows	GPL-3.0-or-later
LaserMagic
nejePrint			Neje Laser engraver	Python3	MIT
cncjs			CNC controllers running Grbl, Marlin, Smoothieware, or TinyG.	web	MIT
LinuxCNC			LinuxCNC Documentation Wiki: LinuxCNC Supported Hardware		GPL-2.0
LibLaserCut			Older Epilog Lasers (Zing/Mini/Helix), SmoothieBoard (www.smoothieware.org), generic GCode, the LAOS board (www.laoslaser.org), K40, generic GRBL based boards, LTT iLaser 4000, generic HPGL plotters and many more. A detailed list of tested devices can be found in the VisiCut wiki: https://github.com/t-oster/VisiCut/wiki/Supported-Hardware	java	LGPL-3.0

Hardware

Compatible hardware.

https://www.amazon.com/OMTech-Engraving-LaserGRBL-Compatible-Adjustable/dp/B0CYPKRTLX

Silhouette

	Electrostatic Mat	Pop-Out Cut	Silhouette Web	Intelligent Path Technology
Cameo 5¹	✅	✅	✅	✅
Cameo 4²		✅	✅
Cameo 3³			✅

	Max Cutting Size (with a cutting mat)	Max Cutting Size (without a cutting mat)
Cameo	12 in. x 24 in. (30.5 cm x 61 cm)	12 in. x 60 ft. (30.5 cm x 18.3 m)
Portrait	8 in. x 12 in. (20.3 cm x 30.5 cm)	8 in. x 60 ft. (20.3 cm x 18.3 m)

and Portrait 4 ↩
and Portrait 3 ↩
and Portrait 2 ↩

awk(1)

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 04:04:27 GMT

awk(1) feature comparison matrix

	`--csv`
One true awk OpenBSD	2ndEdition¹ 7.4²
NetBSD
FreeBSD
POSIX
BusyBox
Gawk	5.3.0³

Shebangs

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 07:48:42 GMT

The only FHS paths for executables that NixOS populates by default are /bin/sh and /usr/bin/env.
#!/usr/bin/env is one of the shebangs Python builds in support for on Windows.

However, multiple arguments (such as in #!/usr/bin/env awk -f) may be problematic due to, in this case, the entire awk -f being treated as a single argument. GNU coreutils 8.30 (2018) added the env -S to split multiple parameters, so #!/usr/bin/env -S awk -f will execute awk -f as intended. This had already been present in FreeBSD (since 6.0; 2005) and macOS versions. But it’s not POSIX, and not in NetBSD, OpenBSD, BusyBox, Heirloom.

I’ve written things like #!/bin/awk -f in the past, but due to my use of NixOS I thought to move to #!/usr/bin/env -S despite its incompatibility with some other platforms. I imagine a certain hat-and-sunglasses-wearing blue whale telling me off for this, should he ever read this post. However, I did end up finding some other more portable solutions suggested. This is the one I ended up going with, e.g. in allegro:

#!/bin/sh  
exec awk "$(sed 1,2d "$0")" "$@"  
# ex: ft=awk

Shell prompt with exit code color

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 05:01:26 GMT

I believe this is what they call “prompt engineering”.


	
		username@hostname:~/pwd
		rm /
	
	
		rm: cannot remove '/': Is a directory
	
	
		username@hostname:~/pwd
		^C
	
	
		username@hostname:~/pwd

I set the color of the colon : to the 8-bit color corresponding to the Exit status of the last executed command ($?). 0 is success, which maps to black, which is usually the background color, which makes it invisible until copied and pasted somewhere else. Any other value (1-255) makes it visible.

Everything else is pretty basic.

bash


PS1='\[\e[1;32m\]\u@\h\[\e[38;5;$?m\]:\[\e[34m\]\w\[\e[0m\] '

You might see \033 for octal character 33 instead of \e for escape. Hexadecimal \x1b and decimal \27 didn’t work.

The outer enclosing square brackets \[\] around each escape sequence may appear to be optional at first, but after testing, I found that omitting them causes weird behavior.

zsh


PS1='%B%F{green}%n@%m%b%F{%?}:%B%F{blue}%~%f%b '

	bash¹	zsh²
Start boldface mode Set foreground color green	`\e[1;32m`
Start boldface mode		`%B`
Set foreground color green		`%F{green}`
username of the current user	`\u`	`%n`	`username`
literal `@` character	`@`	`@`	`@`
hostname up to the first ’.‘.	`\h`	`%m`	`hostname`
stop boldface mode		`%b`
Set foreground color `$?`	`\e[38;5;$?m`	`%F{%?}`
literal `:` character	`:`	`:`	`:`
Set foreground color blue	`\e[34m`	`%F{blue}`
`$PWD` with `$HOME` replaced by a ’~‘.	`\w`	`%~`	`~/pwd`
All attributes become turned off	`\e[0m`
stop using a different foreground color		`%f`
stop boldface mode		`%b`
literal space character

Monitor shelf

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 19:41:36 GMT

I noticed that the desktop monitors at my workstation were too low, causing me to hunch over. I used ergotron.com’s workspace planner to determine the optimal shelf height based on the heights of myself, the chair, and the desk.

The wood was mounted to a sawhorse and cut to size using a circular saw.

Using a drill press, I drilled a large (1” diameter) hole in the back to pass cables through for clean cable management.

The room underneath acts as extra storage space.

The 1x4 in the back lends structural support to prevent the top piece from flexing under the weight of the monitors. It is attached to the legs with screws.

I then drilled holes into the wood to drive in the screws used to hold the legs in place using these corner braces.

LineageOS 17 to 18 clean flash

Fri, 06 Aug 2021 02:31:39 GMT

I recently updated my OnePlus One from LineageOS with microG version 17 (Android 10) to version 18 (Android 11). Dirty flashing the new system on top of my existing data resulted in a bootloop, so I had to wipe everything and clean flash it.

Also, apparently Magisk’s install process has changed since I last installed it. Now instead of just flashing the zip on top right after installing the ROM in recovery, you have to extract the boot.img from the ROM zip, patch it from the Magisk app in userspace, then flash the patched boot image in recovery.

Data Transfer

First I updated my system to the latest LineageOS 17.1 released in March before the first 18.1 builds started coming. I hadn’t been keeping up with these updates because the automatic install wasn’t working and it was annoying to do it manually (especially since the updater downloads the ROM zips to /data, not sdcard), but it worked this time. I had just installed the latest TWRP 3.5 and maybe that had something to do with it (I don’t use Lineage Recovery due to a lack of functionality).

I installed a newer 17.1 before going to 18.1 in order to use the new SeedVault backup and restore system. SeedVault was made by CalyxOS which is more hardened than LineageOS. Unfortunately my device doesn’t support Calyx but I want to get one that does (or a PinePhone) when my current one finally becomes unusable. SeedVault uses the exact same API as Google’s proprietary system that backs up to Google Drive, but it stores backups to either local storage (internal or external) or Nextcloud.

After I restored the SeedVault backup onto the new install I also had to restore manual backups from Contacts and Signal using their respective built-in backup and restore functionality at the app level. It seems like the contacts storage implementation changed between these particular system versions, so maybe I won’t have to do that part next time.

I also made and will continue using oandbackups (only user apps, and only data, to save space), because some apps like to exclude themselves from being backed up using Google’s APIs which is inconvenient. However these don’t necessarily always work either, for example with Fennec (Firefox) and some things with cryptographic security like the aforementioned Signal. In the past I also had issues with andOTP’s secure 2-factor authentication storage, but with pass-otp these are handled just like my regular password manager storage. For Fennec just sign in to sync, for other apps use their export/import functions if they exist. Also make a full Nandroid backup any time you’re about to wipe your data just in case you need to go back for something. (And delete any downloaded updates from the LineageOS updater before this, or they will waste space in your Nandroid!)

I used to use Slight backup from F-Droid for call logs and SMS/MMS messages, but SeedVault did the trick there no problem.

ZFS fault tolerance

Sat, 11 Jul 2020 03:34:13 GMT

Snapshots

The root directory of a ZFS filesystem contains an invisible folder .zfs/. This differs from a regular “hidden” folder in that it doesn’t show up with ls -A and other such operations.¹

Inside .zfs/snapshot/, every available snapshot is represented in a directory. A snapshot is just a complete representation of the entire file system as it existed at a particular point in time. So you can recover an earlier version of something just by pulling it from one of these snapshots.

I won’t go into the details here, but snapshots are very computationally cheap, unlike if you tried to recreate something like this with cp(1) and rsync(1) or whatever. So it’s advised to create many of them and create them often to maximize their usefulness.

Debian has a couple scripts in its official repositories that completely automate periodically creating new snapshots and removing older ones: zfs-auto-snapshot(8) in contrib and zfsnap in main. Personally, I use the former.

The zfs-auto-snapshot(8) package installs its default cron jobs automatically, so it’s not necessary to configure anything. It does frequent snapshots every 15 minutes (keeping the 4 most recent ones) and also hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly ones. It seems like zfsnap does not come with cron jobs.

Degraded arrays

In a mirrored layout, ZFS will carry on if a disk fails. Here’s what I did in my testing of this:

cd data
echo 'This is a file.' > file.txt
cat file.txt

This is a file.

shutdown -h now
# Unplug one of the hard drives
# Power on
cd data
cat file.txt

This is a file.

echo 'This is a change I made.' >> file.txt
cat file.txt

This is a file.
This is a change I made.

shutdown -h now
# Reattach the unplugged hard drive
# Power on
cd data
cat file.txt

This is a file.
This is a change I made.

https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/332192 ↩

ZFS on different size drives

Thu, 09 Jul 2020 05:43:32 GMT

This is how I set up a mirrored ZFS file system on a system with one 500 GB HDD and one 250 GB HDD.

At this point, I have done the following:

Install the latest stable version of Devuan to half of the 500 GB drive.
Create a 250 GB partition (the size of the other drive) covering the rest of the 500 GB drive.
Install ZFS.

lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,TYPE,MOUNTPOINT

NAME   FSTYPE   SIZE MOUNTPOINT
sda           465.8G
├─sda1 vfat     512M /boot/efi
├─sda2 btrfs    229G /
├─sda3 swap     3.5G [SWAP]
└─sda4 ext4   232.9G
sdb           232.9G
└─sdb1 ext4   232.9G

Optional: you can wipefs(8) to remove the file system information (but not data) from the 250 GB partition and disk. The setup will work whether or not you do this.

sudo wipefs /dev/sda4
sudo wipefs -a /dev/sdb
lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,TYPE,MOUNTPOINT

NAME   FSTYPE   SIZE MOUNTPOINT
sda           465.8G
├─sda1 vfat     512M /boot/efi
├─sda2 btrfs    229G /
├─sda3 swap     3.5G [SWAP]
└─sda4        232.9G
sdb           232.9G

Before creating the ZFS pool, find the unique IDs of the relevant drives. Don’t use those short identifiers with the letters (/dev/sdX) because the system might assign them differently on a future reboot.

ls -ls /dev/disk/by-id/ | awk '{print $10,$11,$12}'

ata-HGST_HTS725050A7E630_TF755AWHHA2J9M -> ../../sda
ata-HGST_HTS725050A7E630_TF755AWHHA2J9M-part1 -> ../../sda1
ata-HGST_HTS725050A7E630_TF755AWHHA2J9M-part2 -> ../../sda2
ata-HGST_HTS725050A7E630_TF755AWHHA2J9M-part3 -> ../../sda3
ata-HGST_HTS725050A7E630_TF755AWHHA2J9M-part4 -> ../../sda4
ata-ST250DM000-1BD141_5VY93J76 -> ../../sdb
wwn-0x5000c5005ce4e07d -> ../../sdb
wwn-0x5000cca77fd2acb2 -> ../../sda
wwn-0x5000cca77fd2acb2-part1 -> ../../sda1
wwn-0x5000cca77fd2acb2-part2 -> ../../sda2
wwn-0x5000cca77fd2acb2-part3 -> ../../sda3
wwn-0x5000cca77fd2acb2-part4 -> ../../sda4

Apparently there are 2 sets of IDs linked to the same disks. I’ll just show the wwn- ones because they’re shorter.

The following creates a mirrored zpool (software RAID, basically) named tank with the 250 GB partition and disk.

sudo zpool create tank mirror wwn-0x5000cca77fd2acb2-part4 wwn-0x5000c5005ce4e07d
lsblk -bo NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,TYPE,MOUNTPOINT

NAME   FSTYPE             SIZE TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda               500107862016 disk
├─sda1 vfat          536870912 part /boot/efi
├─sda2 btrfs      245809283072 part /
├─sda3 swap         3700424704 part [SWAP]
└─sda4 zfs_member 250059350016 part
sdb               250059350016 disk
├─sdb1 zfs_member 250049724416 part
└─sdb9                 8388608 part

ZFS will automatically mount tank to /tank (persisting across reboots), but there are options to change the mount point or handle mounting manually with fstab, mount(8), umount(8) and such. When I create the data file system inside tank, I will change its mount point. data doesn’t have to be mounted inside of tank’s mount point, as you will see.

sudo zfs create tank/data
sudo zfs set mountpoint=/home/dennis/data tank/data
sudo zfs get mountpoint tank/data

NAME       PROPERTY    VALUE              SOURCE
tank/data  mountpoint  /home/dennis/data  local

At this point, /home/dennis/data will be owned by root:root, which is probably not desired (I mounted it inside my ~ for a reason!). Let’s fix that.

cd /home/dennis
sudo chown -R dennis:dennis data
ls -l

drwxr-xr-x 2 dennis dennis 2 Jul  8 20:36 data/

One weird trick to debloat apt-based distros

Wed, 08 Jul 2020 05:58:22 GMT

In apt(1), the package manager for Debian and its derivatives, packages may have “optional” and “recommended” dependencies. By default, the recommended dependencies are installed automatically, as if they are required.

This led to an absurd situation on my minimal server installation of Devuan. When I went to install openssh-server, it wanted to pull in almost 200MB of other random packages, including a bunch of graphical desktop packages for X11!

If you don’t want these recommended packages, here’s how to stop them from being installed. Create the following file:

/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99_norecommends

and add these contents to it.

APT::Install-Recommends "false";
APT::AutoRemove::RecommendsImportant "false";
APT::AutoRemove::SuggestsImportant "false";

Then do apt autoremove to remove already installed recommends.

Just for fun, here’s what my autoremove prompt looks like after installing just openssh-server, mosh(1), and man-db:

The following packages will be REMOVED:
  adwaita-icon-theme apparmor at-spi2-core bzip2 dbus dbus-x11
  dconf-gsettings-backend dconf-service dictionaries-common efibootmgr
  elogind emacsen-common file fontconfig fontconfig-config
  fonts-dejavu-core glib-networking glib-networking-common
  glib-networking-services grub-efi-amd64-signed
  gsettings-desktop-schemas gtk-update-icon-cache hicolor-icon-theme
  iamerican ibritish ienglish-common ispell krb5-locales libapparmor1
  libatk-bridge2.0-0 libatk1.0-0 libatk1.0-data libatspi2.0-0
  libavahi-client3 libavahi-common-data libavahi-common3
  libcairo-gobject2 libcairo2 libcolord2 libcroco3 libcups2 libdatrie1
  libdbus-1-3 libdconf1 libepoxy0 libfontconfig1 libfribidi0
  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 libgdk-pixbuf2.0-bin libgdk-pixbuf2.0-common
  libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-data libgraphite2-3 libgtk-3-0 libgtk-3-bin
  libgtk-3-common libharfbuzz0b libicu63 libjbig0 libjpeg62-turbo
  libjson-glib-1.0-0 libjson-glib-1.0-common liblcms2-2 libmagic-mgc
  libmagic1 libmpdec2 libpam-elogind libpango-1.0-0 libpangocairo-1.0-0
  libpangoft2-1.0-0 libpixman-1-0 libpolkit-agent-1-0
  libpolkit-backend-1-0 libpolkit-backend-elogind-1-0
  libpolkit-gobject-1-0 libpolkit-gobject-elogind-1-0 libproxy1v5
  libpsl5 libpython3-stdlib libpython3.7-minimal libpython3.7-stdlib
  libreadline7 librest-0.7-0 librsvg2-2 librsvg2-common
  libsoup-gnome2.4-1 libsoup2.4-1 libsqlite3-0 libthai-data libthai0
  libtiff5 libwayland-client0 libwayland-cursor0 libwayland-egl1
  libwebp6 libx11-6 libx11-data libxau6 libxcb-render0 libxcb-shm0
  libxcb1 libxcomposite1 libxcursor1 libxdamage1 libxdmcp6 libxext6
  libxfixes3 libxi6 libxinerama1 libxkbcommon0 libxml2 libxmuu1
  libxrandr2 libxrender1 libxtst6 mime-support os-prober policykit-1
  policykit-1-gnome publicsuffix python3 python3-minimal python3.7
  python3.7-minimal shared-mime-info util-linux-locales wamerican
  x11-common xauth xdg-user-dirs xz-utils
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 131 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 211 MB disk space will be freed.

https://askubuntu.com/a/399078

Thunderbird profile anatomy

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 02:57:52 GMT

These are the folders I save when backing up profiles for Thunderbird and Thunderbird-based email clients.

Extensions

The following 2 items are sufficient for fully restoring extensions.

extensions/
├── example@mozdev.org.xpi
├── {xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}.xpi
└── [[:graph:]]+\.xpi

This folder stores extension files for all installed extensions (except ones which are pre-installed).

extensions.ini

List of enabled extensions. Human-readable format.

Authentication/logging in

The following 2 files must be combined with a proper prefs.js or user.js to fully restore logins.

key4.db

Server authentication credentials. If you delete this, you will be prompted to log in to your account(s) again the next time you open the program, but everything else will remain intact.

logins.json

Stores information about which accounts are currently logged in.

Mailbox storage

Mail/
└── Local Folders/

Folder for locally-stored mail.

ImapMail/
├── imap.example.com/
└── mail.example.net/

Folder for saving offline copies of mail which is synced with an IMAP server.

Settings storage

prefs.js

Stores all user preferences, including information about accounts. This file is edited by changing settings from within the graphical environment.

user.js

Can store any user preference, but values defined here will always take precedence over those stored in prefs.js when the program is started.

Suckless software howto

Sun, 28 Jun 2020 05:27:32 GMT

How do you download, patch, configure, and install suckless software?

Downloading

Released versions are listed for download under the homepage for each program. These download links are also provided on the suckless homepage and news (RSS/Atom) feed when they announce the release of a new version.

Programs can also be downloaded via git clone, for the latest development versions and for version control history. See https://git.suckless.org/.

Patching

Find and download patches on the suckless website listed under each program. The commands and strategies below are discussed in order of preference.

git(1) commands

This section assumes that you downloaded the program’s source code as a git(1) repository (which is recommended), using git clone or similar. If not, skip to the next section.

First, try using

git am <patch>.diff

to apply a patch and commit it automatically. This only works with patches that were formatted for/with git(1), though. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for all of the patches, so if git am fails, try

git apply <patch>.diff

which will apply the patch and stage the changes.

To reverse a patch, use

git reset --hard HEAD^

if the patch was commited. (This is the case if you ran git am or commited manually.) If the patch was not commited (you used git apply and did not commit manually), use the following.

git revert .

patch(1) commands

This is only recommended if you cannot use the git(1) commands (as mentioned above).

Use the following. The --merge flag on patch(1) is to handle conflicts more easily (in the same way as git(1) handles conflicts).

patch -i --merge <patch>.diff

Configuration

There are 3 files named config. What are the differences?

`config.mk`

Configuration for the Makefile. The .mk extension/suffix denotes Makefile syntax, for a file meant to be included in a Makefile.

`config.def.h`

Stores default values for all of the configuration options; a template. Often modified by patches; they add the default values for their own custom config options to this file. Used to generate config.h.

`config.h`

Intended to be edited by the end user: they provide their own values for each of the configuration options. If it does not exist, it is copied from config.def.h when running make/make all.

However, if it does exist, it is not modified. This can cause problems when applying patches after config.h is already generated. The program is built from config.h, not config.def.h, so after applying the patch you may not have the config options required by the patch. In that case, compilation will fail with errors!

Installing

Programs are installed by running make(1) targets, which are defined in the Makefile.

To compile, run make or make all. This will output the compiled program to the current working folder, where it can be run; if I compiled st(1), I could run it with ./st.

Installing a program makes it available from anywhere, not just a single directory, and makes it available to all users. Run sudo make install to install.

If you do not have administrative privileges, you may want to (instead of installing) place the compiled executable somewhere in your $PATH so that the program can be started easily from any location.

Hugo date/slug from filename à la Jekyll

Thu, 25 Jun 2020 00:31:49 GMT

OK, so this is now the 3rd post in this saga about automatic Hugo front matter from filenames. This supersedes my 1st and 2nd posts on the subject.

I now have exactly the behavior of Jekyll, where you name files in the format YYYY-MM-DD-title-slug.md and the post date is automatically detected as YYYY-MM-DD and the slug as title-slug. Without explicitly specifying any extra front matter in each individual post! Here’s how:

# config.toml
[frontmatter]
	date = [":filename", ":default", ":fileModTime"]

The important piece is the initial ":filename". This is what enables the behavior described above. If it doesn’t work, it falls back on the subsequent options. ":default" is a shortcut for the default detection behavior.

I’ve also added ":fileModTime" as the last option which is exactly what it sounds like. I have it last because in my experience, while it’s better than nothing, the file system is not quite trustworthy for determining when you actually last modified a file. Sometimes just moving between file systems and storage formats, or having some program open it in write mode without actually making any changes can trigger it.

Source: Configure Hugo | Hugo

Editing AUR PKGBUILDs

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 05:23:41 GMT

I recently installed Interlink from the AUR. I’ll be writing about the choice of email client in a future post, but this post is about how I dealt with the broken AUR package for Interlink and how you can deal with broken AUR packages in general.

The Problem

First I tried just a simple yay -S interlink-bin, but that gave me this:

curl: (22) The requested URL returned error: 404 Not Found
==> ERROR: Failure while downloading http://repository.binaryoutcast.com/projects/interlink/releases/latest/interlink-52.9.7433.linux-x86_64-gtk3.tar.xz

Ok, so it tried to download a file that doesn’t exist. It gives us the path to the file, so I went to the file’s parent folder to see if I could figure out what the problem was. It appears that the developer has released version 52.9.7463, and removed 52.9.7433, the one we were looking for! I flagged the package as “Out of Date” on the AUR page.

The Solution

I use yay as an AUR helper. It has an option called --editmenu, which gives you the option to edit the PKGBUILD before installing. Let’s try it:

yay -S interlink-bin --editmenu

pkgver=52.9.7433
source_x86_64=("http://repository.binaryoutcast.com/projects/interlink/releases/latest/interlink-$pkgver.linux-x86_64-gtk3.tar.xz")

OK, so we just have to fix the pkgver and it’ll grab the right file!

==> Validating source_x86_64 files with sha256sums...
    interlink-52.9.7463.linux-x86_64-gtk3.tar.xz ... FAILED
==> ERROR: One or more files did not pass the validity check!

Oh. OK, how about we just delete the sha256sums and sha256sums_x86_64 checksums from the file. That way, it can’t fail because there’s nothing to check, right?

==> ERROR: Integrity checks are missing for: source_x86_64 source

Oh. So, is there a way to tell it to skip integrity checks on the downloaded file? Turns out, there is.¹

sha256sums=('SKIP')
sha256sums_x86_64=('SKIP')

And with that, the package installs!

Creating Packages For The Arch User Repository (AUR) - DistroTube - Invidious ↩

Change Hugo automatic title/slug

Sun, 21 Jun 2020 01:52:07 GMT

Update 2020-05-24: This post has been superseded by a newer post. The newer post can be found here.

In a previous post I complained about the format to automatically generated titles and slugs in Hugo.

Hugo makes me specify title and date manually, even when using the aforementioned format. And if I want punctuation in my title (like in this post), I even have to specify the slug manually, because otherwise it auto-generates the slug with the punctuation intact!

But what I didn’t know was that you can actually customize this! There is this optional folder in either your theme’s or your site’s root folder called /archetypes/ (the latter takes precedence over the former) where the default front matter is stored. Here’s what my /archetypes/default.md looks like now:

---
title: "{{ replaceRE "[[:^alpha:]]" " " .Name | humanize }}"
date: {{ .Date }}
slug: "{{ replaceRE "[[:^alpha:]]" "-" .Name | replaceRE "-{2,}" "-" | replaceRE "^-" "" | lower }}"
---

The title: template (using regexp) replaces any non-alphabetic character in the filename with a space, then pipes the result into the humanize function to use sentence case. Hugo seems to trim extra leading whitespace automatically, so that is not accounted for here.

For the slug, every non-alphabetic character is replaced with -. Then, sequences of 2 or more - are replaced with a single -. Then, a leading - is replaced with nothing. Finally, all letters are converted to lowercase.

That’s all for now. Don’t worry, the next post will actually be about something other than Hugo!

Projects

Sun, 21 Jun 2020 01:52:07 GMT

canvas-tui’s installer

Improved cross-platform compatibility by conforming to the POSIX standard.
Made to respect user preferences by supporting the XDG base directory specification.
Corrected some shell syntax to fix corner cases.

Jekyll to Hugo

Sat, 13 Jun 2020 22:15:33 GMT

The first version of this site used Jekyll as a static site generator, but now I’m using Hugo.

Why?

Here are some reasons why I switched to Hugo (and why I like it more than Jekyll) in no particular order:

Build Dependencies

When using Jekyll, you have to pull in all of these different packages using RubyGems, a package manager for Ruby. Dare I say… bloat? In contrast, Hugo is just a single package, with an optional dependency for syntax highlighting code blocks (in pure HTML¹)!

And this isn’t just a speed concern either (although it is, having to download a bunch of large packages before being able to do literally anything). Having so many dependencies very often put me in dependency hell when working with things like templates and plugins and themes from different sources. Oh, and speaking of themes:

Themes

The way Hugo handles theming is far saner than the way Jekyll does. In Jekyll, you use either the default minima theme or install a different one (via RubyGems), and then if you want to customize parts of the theme, you place modified versions of the relevant files locally in your site which then take precedence over the default ones. But if you’re installing the theme in packaged form, where are the files that you’re basing your edits on?

In contrast, Hugo themes are always just a subfolder of /themes/. So just go there and make your edits with the full context around you. Without the pointless separation between source and packaged forms, the separation between user-specific and general data is far easier to achieve and mantain.

Speed

The build process with Hugo is just faster. Chad compiled language vs. virgin interpreted language.

Naming/Organization

The names of all of the important files and folders in Jekyll all begin with a leading _, like _config.yml. I don’t know how someone ever thought this was a good idea. Maybe they needed to make them stand out because there’s too much stuff that goes in the root folder (up to 6 or so files for the package management alone, in some extreme cases!), plus the favicon and any page that doesn’t belong in /_posts/).

Anyway, Hugo has none of the above problems (all pages go in /content/, favicon in /static/,…).

blogdown

I recently found out about this thing called blogdown, which generates webpages from R Markdown. It has some support for Jekyll and Hexo, but mostly targets Hugo. I don’t know if I’ll actually use this, but it’s nice to know I have the option.

Hugo actually has more features!

Hugo has internationalization (i18n) functionality built in. Jekyll doesn’t. If you’re still going to use Jekyll though, try this.
Hugo actually lets you change the structure of your site beyond just putting posts in /_posts/ and everything else in /.
Hugo’s local webserver (used when you are testing your site) has live-reloading built in (via injected JavaScript). So you don’t have to keep refreshing manually.

Why not?

But there are, unfortunately, some things I’m missing in Hugo:

Structure/Organization

With Jekyll, you put a file named like YYYY-MM-DD-slug into /_posts/ and it sets the date and title automatically. Hugo makes me specify title and date manually, even when using the aforementioned format.² And if I want punctuation in my title (like in this post), I even have to specify the slug manually, because otherwise it auto-generates the slug with the punctuation intact! At least Hugo has some nice automation functionality for creating new pages, though… Update 2020-05-24: Actually, this can be fixed completely, see my newer post for details.

Jekyll literally actually BTFO forever with FACTS and LOGIC

There are a few reasons I decided to use Jekyll at first, but after using Hugo, I no longer think any of them are good reasons:

Portability

Originally I had this website hosted on GitLab Pages (which supports literally any static site generator), but I figured I might want to switch to GitHub Pages (which only supports Jekyll) at some point. It turns out I was right about that, but I was wrong to let it influence my static site generator decision. You see, there’s this thing called Netlify, and you can just give it your website (via GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, or direct file transfer) and it’ll automatically rebuild whenever something changes. And yes, it even supports private repositiories, unlike GitHub Pages! I have more to say about Netlify and about GitHub vs. GitLab, but that’s better saved for separate posts.

Extensibility (Plugins)

It’s true: Jekyll has plugins and Hugo doesn’t. But I haven’t actually thought of something Hugo can’t do that Jekyll accomplishes with plugins. As mentioned before, Hugo already has internationalization/i18n built in. The only Jekyll plugin I ever actually used was jekyll-email-protect. But in that case, you can just generate the obfuscated email offline and use that (which is better anyway if you ever want to make the source repository of your website public, as I have). Percent encoding for the link, code points for the text.

Flexibility

Uhh, I put this here when I was writing other parts of the page to remind myself of something, but now I don’t remember what I was supposed to write here. Oh well.

Conclusion

Well, I’ve already spent a lot more time writing this than I expected. Hopefully I didn’t forget anything. Later I’ll post more about website building. I’ll tell you about non-garbage static site themes that are actually good and don’t require tons of JavaScript for basic functionality or anything while still looking A E S T H E T I C and stuff.

I’ll probably write more in the future about why this is important. ↩
I’m still going to use the format regardless because it makes organization easier in the filesystem (making my site more portable is a bonus). ↩

Dennis Lee

Sat, 13 Jun 2020 01:37:45 GMT

Table automatically generated using the GitHub API as the source of truth. Source

Athena Defense

Awarded Best Use of Twilio API Project at UC Riverside Rose Hacks.

Athena Defense is a Android mobile app for women who may find themselves in a dangerous situation. With just one click of a button, your location will be sent to emergency contacts or even the police station.

~dennisleexyz

3D Model Sites

Rewards

Printables

Earn

Redeem

MakerWorld

Earn

Redeem

Redeem Cash

Creality Cloud

Imports

FOSS CNC Cutting

Software

Hardware

Silhouette

Footnotes

awk(1)

Footnotes

Shebangs

Further reading

Shell prompt with exit code color

bash

zsh

Footnotes

Monitor shelf

LineageOS 17 to 18 clean flash

Data Transfer

ZFS fault tolerance

Snapshots

Degraded arrays

Footnotes

ZFS on different size drives

One weird trick to debloat apt-based distros

Thunderbird profile anatomy

Extensions

Authentication/logging in

Mailbox storage

Settings storage

Suckless software howto

Downloading

Patching

git(1) commands

patch(1) commands

Configuration

config.mk

config.def.h

config.h

Installing

Hugo date/slug from filename à la Jekyll

Editing AUR PKGBUILDs

The Problem

The Solution

Footnotes

Change Hugo automatic title/slug

Projects

canvas-tui’s installer

Jekyll to Hugo

Why?

Build Dependencies

Themes

Speed

Naming/Organization

blogdown

Hugo actually has more features!

Why not?

Structure/Organization

Jekyll literally actually BTFO forever with FACTS and LOGIC

Portability

Extensibility (Plugins)

Flexibility

Conclusion

Footnotes

Dennis Lee

Athena Defense

`config.mk`

`config.def.h`

`config.h`