Visualizing system performance with RHEL 8 using Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) and Grafana (Part 2)

In this post, I’d like to show you how to use Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) with Grafana and Redis to store and graph performance data for all the machines in your environment. We’ll do this in a simple two machine setup, but the concepts are the same as you add more machines.

Calibre 5.0 for Linux

For those who like to read, Calibre is a wonderful program for managing e-books. Calibre will not only allowed to maintain and organize your library of e-books but also perform format conversions.

Calibre can also let you read your e-books on your system without needing an e-reader. Of course, you can always read an e-book on a smartphone.

Firecracker: start a VM in less than a second

Initially when I read about Firecracker being released, I thought it was just a tool for cloud providers to use – I knew that AWS Fargate and https://fly.io used it, but I didn’t think that it was something that I could directly use myself.

But it turns out that Firecracker is relatively straightforward to use (or at least as straightforward as anything else that’s for running VMs), the documentation and examples are pretty clear, you definitely don’t need to be a cloud provider to use it, and as advertised, it starts VMs really fast!

So I wanted to write about using Firecracker from a more DIY “I just want to run some VMs” perspective.

I’ll start out by talking about what I’m using it for, and then I’ll explain a few things I learned about it along the way.

3 email mistakes and how to avoid them

In prior years, this annual series covered individual apps. This year, we are looking at all-in-one solutions in addition to strategies to help in 2021. Welcome to day 17 of 21 Days of Productivity in 2021.

OK, so we've talked about some things we should do with our email - Stop treating it as an instant messenger, Prioritize things, trying to reach Inbox Zero, and filtering it effectively. But what things SHOULDN'T we do?

6 Steps to Teach Yourself System Administration

Looking for ways to get started in system administration? In this Skills article, we’ll provide an overview of resources that will help you on your way. If you’re unfamiliar with the basics of what a system administrator does, we recommend starting with this introduction.

There is no traditional path for acquiring the technical skills needed as a system administrator, according to Enable Sysadmin. “Some sysadmins have an associate or college degree, and some don’t. Depending on when a sysadmin began their career, he or she might have a variety of technical certificates ... or none at all.” Here, we provide an array of options with which to plot your own course of study.

How to install KaOS 2021.01

How to Install Krita 4.4.2 via Another PPA in Ubuntu 20.04, 20.10

For those prefer installing apps via apt method, the digital painting software Krita 4.4.2 now is available to install via another well trusted PPA for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, Linux Mint 20.

Krita 4.4.2 was released a week ago as the latest version of the free open-source painting software, with new features: SVG mesh Gradients, mesh transform, new gradient fill layer type, new brushes, and improved HiDPI support.

How to set up static IP address on Debian Linux 10/11 - nixCraft

I have Debian 10 Linux cloud server, and it is configured to get IP addresses via DHCP. How do I convert DHCP address to static IP address settings?

How To Enable Hardware Accelerated Video Decode In Google Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi And Opera Browsers On Debian, Ubuntu Or Linux Mint

Google Chrome 88 (and newer) has made hardware accelerated video decoding available on Linux, but it's not enabled by default. Google Chrome is not the only Chromium-based web browser to support hardware acceleration on Linux though. This article explains how to enable hardware-accelerated video decoding in Google Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi and Opera web browsers running on Debian, Ubuntu, Pop!_OS or Linux Mint (Xorg only).

Using hardware-accelerated video decode in your web browser should result in using less CPU usage (and thus, less battery draining) when playing online videos.

It's worth noting that Chromium web browser had patches that allowed making hardware accelerated video decoding available on Linux for some time, and some Linux distributions packaged it using those patches. So Chromium users have had hardware acceleration on Linux for some time, depending on their Linux distribution or if they installed the patched Chromium in some other way. E.g. on Ubuntu / Linux Mint there's a PPA with VA-API patched Chromium builds. Thus, these instructions may also work for Chromium browser, depending on how it's built.

How to Manipulate Images in the Linux Terminal

Ever tire of constantly opening up your favorite image editor for a simple crop, resize, or to change the file format? Maybe you have a need to easily perform these tasks in batch or within software?

Here's how to use the Linux convert tool, which allows you to do all this with terminal via the command line, and much more.