Interesting times ahead! I am really looking forward to the Leap Micro release and hope it advances the state of the art. :-)

Solved: The files are encrypted, see stackoverflow

Hope it is ok to ask technical questions in this channel!

I found a folder of files on one of my back drives which was copied from a very old Sony Ericson cell phone or a SAMSUNG Galaxy S2.

The folder is called DCIM and in a sub folder called Camera there are files with a .jpg extension.

This files are not standard JPG files. They start with the following header:

0000000 0000 0000 3900 c0d8 ac5f d196 2d63 2421 0000010 0003 0200 0000 0010 0200 2d8c 0904 0103 0000020 0000 0000 0000 0000 e960 2861 7025 ba0e 0000030 2424 dcfa 3e3b ee64 0800 c87b a43a a90d 0000040 7287 b815 7ca4 9680 ed65 6216 5f08 4f43 0000050 534e 4c4f 0045 0000 9000 b3e9 1333 92b9 0000060 0002 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000070 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000

And the last bytes look like this:

039fea0 60ff 01fa 6b1e 8ef5 7c6f e69f fd9e 1589 039fef0 2199 dbd9 13fe 337d 2e9f d862 e252 080d

(obtained via hexdump -n 1024 filename.jpg).

The file command just returns 'data'.

The jpgrecovery command simply does not process this files.

The strings command finds an embedded string "_CONSOLE" !

If I open the file in a file viewer (shotwell, GIMP, Firefox, Google Chrome), I get the error that the file starts with 0 0, which is correct, as seen in the above hexdump.

Using identify from the imagemagick package results in:

20140207_142030.jpg JPG 0x0 16-bit sRGB 3.625MiB 0.000u 0:00.002 identify-im6.q16: Not a JPEG file: starts with 0x00 0x00 `20140207_142030.jpg' @ error/jpeg.c/JPEGErrorHandler/338.

All this commands were executed on Debian 12.

I have hundreds of files with this JPG extension and for each file the header is starting with 0 0 in this folder, so I assume the problem is not corruption of one file.

My questions:

1. What kind of file format is this?
2. How can I convert the files to JPGs?

Edit: Added the output of some suggested data/commands to questions Edit: Mark as solved, thanks to @hades@hades@lemm.ee .

Thanks a lot to everyone helping to figure this out/pointing me in the right direction! <3

Solution: Indeed it was EncFs file level encryption.

Thanks a lot for everyone helping!

Original post below:

Hope it is ok to ask technical questions in this channel!

I found a folder of files on one of my back drives which was copied from a very old cell phone or a SAMSUNG Galaxy S2.

The folder is called DCIM and in a sub folder called Camera there are files with a .jpg extension.

This files are not standard JPG files. They start with the following header:

0000000 0000 0000 3900 c0d8 ac5f d196 2d63 2421 0000010 0003 0200 0000 0010 0200 2d8c 0904 0103 0000020 0000 0000 0000 0000 e960 2861 7025 ba0e 0000030 2424 dcfa 3e3b ee64 0800 c87b a43a a90d 0000040 7287 b815 7ca4 9680 ed65 6216 5f08 4f43 0000050 534e 4c4f 0045 0000 9000 b3e9 1333 92b9 0000060 0002 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000070 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000

(obtained via hexdump -n 1024 filename.jpg).

The file command just returns 'data'. The jpgrecovery command simply does not process this files. If I open the file in a file viewer (shotwell), I get the error that the file starts with 0 0, which is correct, as seen in the above hexdump.

All this commands were executed on Debian 12.

I have hundreds of files with this JPG extension and for each file the header isstarting with 0 0 in this folder, so I assume the problem is not corruption of one file.

My questions:

1. What kind of file format is this?
2. How can I convert the files to JPGs?

For years now, I do not buy/create assemble a new computer, because I am totally overwhelmed by the options available to me.

If we agree there is 'The Paradox of Choice', it seems to make sense to have a much more limited choice between CPU models from a consumer point of view. For example, have for each year an entry, business and a pro model, add extreme for gamer and have each of these models have a version with a beefy integrated CPU.

But it seems also a good idea for the manufacturers: They have to design, test and build each of their models, create advertisement etc., like configuring their assembly lines alone costs money. Further, compilers have to generate code for a specific architecture, which means that all my software I didn't compile myself ends up using an instruction set of the lowest common CPU, not utilizing whatever I bought fully.

Apple (not a fan ;-)) shows IMHO how it is done with their Apple Silicon: Basically even I understand which CPU choice would be the right one for me. The Steam Deck is IMHO another success story: As reference hardware I know easily if I can play a game, and it is easy to know if my hardware is faster than a Steam Deck. Compare that to games with hardware requirements like 'AMD TI 5800 8GB RAM' (made up model) which makes my life miserable.

What I am looking for is fact based knowledge:

• Why does it make (commercial) sense for AMD/Intel to create so many models?
• What are their incentives?
• What would happen, if they would reduce the amount of different CPUs they offer? (Is there historical knowledge?)

What are CPU designs which are not fetch/store but operate directly on RAM?

I only know about the design of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), where the CPU does not have registers (AFAIK) and operates directly on RAM, with fast access to low addresses in the RAM.

What CPUs/Systems do you know, which also do not do fetch/store for their operands? Which systems are out there? Why do CPUs like RISC/Arm/AMD64 use fetch/store, what are the tradeoffs? Are there different architectures for CPUs working on operands outside of fetch/store, DMA and stack machines?

By posting another question here I realized, that I really enjoy games which are 'short' (Play start to finish in around one hour) and have lots of replay value.

My favorites are Street Fighter 2, Contra (NES), Slay the Spire, Guilty Gears, etc.

Any recommendations? I am looking especially for games that are hard but fair and have super tight controls (like Contra)

Inspired by a similar question on reddit:

What games do you replay regularly/annually? (No shame if you skipped a year or two.) I am especially interested in 'comfort' games.

Only rule is, you should have played the game for the first time at least 5 years back.

My list:

• Street Fighter 2 in all variations/on all platforms I have access two. I guess I have been playing it regularly for more than 25 years by now. No Street Fighter after the Alpha/3rd Strike ever captured me like this.

• Contra / NES This one I play regularly for more than 30 years (at least), to this day my favorite action game and the ultimate benchmark (I played all NES/SNES/Genesis Contras and Operation Galuga, nothing comes close.)

• Slay the Spire: Hits 5 years of being released, I played since the early access and wasted too much time on this, still fun and perfect on smartphones

• Doom I/II: I cannot tell you what it is, there are obviously better FPS than Doom I/II, but sometimes, if I just want to blow some steam, Doom is the only thing that delivers. (I think I never played trough all episodes of either Doom I or Doom II

Contra is back. A real, honest, bitching 2D Contra.

Played the demo multiple times and it really gets the 'Contra' right, one of my main griefs with wannabe Contra clones.

Already a personal game of the year contender for me!

I want to configure a Raspberry Pi 4 as a web (application) server.

Although I could of course simply do it via Raspbian, I would love to use an Immutable/auto updating OS like Fedora Core OS/Fedora IoT/OpenSUSE MicroOS.

To my surprise, every solution does not look very turnkey ready for Raspberry Pi 4.

Please correct me, if I am wrong but it seems:

• For Fedora Core OS/OpenSUSE MicroOS it seems like I have to download the firmware for the Raspberry Pi, partition the sd card by hand and afterwards login to configure WiFi and/or use an ignition file on a separate USB stick on boot

• For Fedora IoT it seems I need a running Fedora system first (yes, I know about LiveCDs) and I still need to edit by hand the Wifi configuration How to install Fedora IoT on Raspberry Pi 4. Further, it seems Fedora IoT has 'fixed' version numbers and no automatic updates.

So, my questions:

• It seems Fedora IoT is the nearest fit for my use case and comparatively the easiest version to setup?
  • Am I missing out on Fedora Core OS or OpenSUSE MicroOS?
  • Are there other viable immutable options from reputable sources?
• Does anyone know about an immutable distribution, where the initial setup is basically like Raspbians 'dd image to sdcard and copy user credentials and wifi config to the /boot partition.'?
• How does Fedora IoT handle updates between versions (like Fedora 38 to Fedora 39)
  • Is it a regular update or do I have to tell the OS to update explicitly
• Most important question: Anyone here has experience with running Rasbian and one of my options in practice and can give some advice/recommendations if immutable is worth it?

When watching movies, I always try to differentiate between my personal enjoyment and the inherent merits of the movies. There are a lot of bad movies, which I totally and thoroughly enjoy watching, and some really great movies, which I don't enjoy that much, but still can respect/appreciate.

With this prelude, I totally do not get the positive reactions to Denis Villeneuve's Dune movies. At the time I am writing this question, part two has 94% critique and 95% audience score at Rotten Tomatoes, 9.0 at IMDB.

In my opinion, Dune 1 and Dune 2 have obviously high production values and good special effects. What I do not like is the acting, the pacing, the total flat/simple characters and the whole narration, which is for me a trivial love story between Chani and Paul, plus becoming a leader and get some revenge. I could simply replace the 'Dune' theme with a standard war theme and a few tribes, and I would have exactly the same movie. Also the battle scenes at the end of part 2, they are for me totally cookie cutter war movie/battle aesthetics. (Total waste: There are big Sandworms after all, and combat with personal shields etc.).

My question is, especially if you very much enjoyed watching the Dune movies:

• Why did you personally enjoy the movie?
• Do you think this movies have some inherent merits?
• How do you like the acting/plot/pacing?

I am not a member of the Anti-Snap crowd (although of course the server sources should be open source), but there is obviously a lot to improve. Flathub/Flatpak should also take note!

There is a similar question on the site which must not be named.

My question still has a little different spin:

It seems to me that one of the biggest selling points of Nix is basically infrastructure as code. (Of course being immutable etc. is nice by itself.)

I wonder now, how big the delta is for people like me: All my desktops/servers are based on Debian stable with heavy customization, but 100% automated via Ansible. It seems to me, that a lot of the vocal Nix user (fans) switched from a pet desktop and discover IaC via Nix, and that they are in the end raving about IaC (which Nix might or might not be a good vehicle for).

When I gave Silverblue a try, I totally loved it, but then to configure it for my needs, I basically would have needed to configure the host system, some containers and overlays to replicate my Debian setup, so for me it seemed like too much effort to arrive nearly at where I started. (And of course I can use distrobox/podman and have containerized environments on Debian w/o trouble.)

Am I missing something?

Surprisingly often I see guys in the gym, which have a totally jacked/trained upper body but untrained legs.

The first times I saw a guy like this, I assumed perhaps there are some medical reasons to not train the legs, but by now I saw too many guys like this, even sometimes in a group, for explaining this.

These guys know obviously how to train and I just wonder why you would invest so much time/energy in your upper body w/o doing a minimum for your legs. It also seems not too functional; what good is your upper body strength in real life if you cannot use it for lifting something heavy, because your legs are too fragile? Further, it looks very unbalanced to my eyes and usually the stars/models have a more balanced look, so I don't even understand where these people get the inspiration/trend.

I almost always read in the news/press that dentists recommend to brush teeth two times a day for 2-3 minutes.

This drives me crazy, because it does not make sense; The point for dental health is to systematical clean every surface of your teeth twice a day (and use inter-dental brushes/floss once a day). For me, brushing my teeth takes around 6 minutes, if I hurry up. For someone faster it might be possible in 1 minute.

So, why do dentists always give the 2-3 minutes recommendation?

Recently I stumbled over an article, about how to customize your shell prompt. What really surprised me, is that it lacked one of the most basic tips I learned nearly 20 years back: Always display a timestamp in the prompt, to be able to check how long a process is running or when it ended. (Don't need it daily, but every so often it saves my butt. ;-)) The other trick is to always have a colorful prompt, to easily discern where output from programs start/stop. In total my PS1 looks like this (with GIT status at the end): \[\e[32m\]\u\[\e[m\]@\[\e[35m\]\h\[\e[m\] \[\e[36m\]\A\[\e[m\] \[\e[37m\][\[\e[m\]\[\e[31m\]\w\[\e[m\]\[\e[37m\]]\[\e[m\]$(__git_ps1 "(%s)")\$

My question is, what customization, tips and tricks do you have for the shell prompt?

What are your 'defaults' for your desktop Linux installations, especially when they deviate from your distros defaults? What are your reasons for this deviations?

To give you an example what I am asking for, here is my list with reasons (funnily enough, using these settings on Debian, which are AFAIK the defaults for Fedora):

• Btrfs: I use Btrfs for transparent compression which is a game changer for my use cases and using it w/o Raid I had never trouble with corrupt data on power failures, compared to ext4.

• ZRAM: I wrote about it somewhere else, but ZRAM transformed even my totally under-powered HP Stream 11" with 4GB Ram into a usable machine. Nowadays I don't have swap partitions anymore and use ZRAM everywhere and it just works (TM).

• ufw: I cannot fathom why firewalls with all ports but ssh closed by default are not the default. Especially on Debian, where unconfigured services are started by default after installation, it does not make sense to me.

My next project is to slim down my Gnome desktop installation, but I guess this is quite common in the Debian community.

Before you ask: Why not Fedora? - I love Fedora, but I need something stable for work, and Fedoras recent kernels brake virtual machines for me.

Edit: Forgot to mention ufw

I am playing around with Fedora Silverblue and openSUSE Aeon and I really like the painless updates.

Still, my daily driver for some years now is Debian, and I have a decent setup via Ansible - everything just works for me.

My question is mostly to long term Linux users, which use Linux in a professional context and jumped from a distribution like Fedora, Ubuntu, openSUSE or Debian to NixOS, Silverblue, Aeon etc.

What is your experience? How did your workflows change on your immutable Linux distribution? Did you try immutable and went back to a more traditional distribution - why? How long are you running the immutable distribution and what issues and perks did you run into?

At the moment I am using Debian Bookworm and I can setup/configure 100% of my setup automatically everything via Ansible. (Only thing left after the Ansible script is login to my online accounts/email which I would rather not automate.)

Is there a way/does anyone have this working/running on Silverblue?

To be more concrete: After I install Silverblue with default settings, I want to automatically install all needed flatpaks, configure them (and link configuration files to a github repository) and also setup some toolboxes for development. With one command/step, like running Ansible.

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