Last night I was nearly tearing my hair out trying to get a crappy inkjet printer installed when I turned to ChatGPT for help; 5 minutes later it was done (driver issues).

I realised that I use it a lot for all sorts of things but haven’t really seen any posts on here about it, and was wondering if other people do the same.

I’ve used it to create bash scripts, write small, niche python programs (eg sort photos into separate folders based on their orientation), and create cron jobs among other things.

In particular, I find it useful when I want to use a command line program that has a complicated set of options / syntax, but I might only ever want to use it once, or very infrequently. So I tell it what I want to accomplish, and ask it to give me the correct command to run with the options I specify in plain language.

Example:

User

Give me the correct rsync command to recursively copy all files in /home/user/Documents that are image files of any type but were created more recently than 1/1/2024. The destination is /home/user/foo

ChatGPT

rsync -avm --include='*/' --include='*.jpg' --include='*.jpeg' --include='*.png' --include='*.gif' --include='*.bmp' --include='*.tiff' --include='*.svg' --exclude='*' --prune-empty-dirs --min-age=$(date -d '2024-01-01' +%s) /home/user/Documents/ /home/user/foo/

User

Break down the command and explain each part of it in dot point format.

ChatGPT

- rsync`: Invokes the rsync program, which is used for efficiently transferring and synchronizing files across systems or within a system.

• -avm:
  • -a: Archive mode, which preserves permissions, symlinks, modification times, group, and ownership. Implicitly includes recursion.
  • -v: Verbose mode, which provides detailed output of what rsync is doing.
  • -m: Prune empty directory chains from the file-list.
• --include='*/': Include directories themselves, which is necessary for recursion.
• --include='*.jpg' --include='*.jpeg' --include='*.png' --include='*.gif' --include='*.bmp' --include='*.tiff' --include='*.svg': Include files that match these image file extensions.
• --exclude='*': Exclude all other files that do not match the previously stated include patterns.
• --prune-empty-dirs: Exclude empty directories that result from the inclusion/exclusion pattern.
• --min-age=$(date -d '2024-01-01' +%s): Exclude files that are older than the timestamp for January 1, 2024. This uses date -d to convert a date string into a timestamp, which rsync uses to filter files.
• /home/user/Documents/: Source directory from which files are being synchronized.
• /home/user/foo/: Destination directory to which files are being synchronized.`

It’s also really good for explaining concepts / commands in plain language.

It’s like having a 24 hour on call Linux expert :)

#Things to note:

- Get the subscription. ChatGPT 3.5 is pretty useless. ChatGPT4 is fine, but I’m pretty sure you need the subscription to access it.

- Give it pre-instructions. I have told mine what distro, what shell I’m using and the make and model of my laptop. If you have a subscription you can add these as permanent pre-instructions, so to speak. That way it will be much more likely to give you correct answers.

- It’s not magic In order to get what you want, you have to be able to ask the right questions. It will boost your ability but won’t turn you in to a 1337 haxx0r

-Ask questions As always, don’t run any commands that you don’t understand. Ask it to break down any commands it tells you to run if you don’t understand them.

-Sometimes it goofs For various reasons, sometimes it will ask you to install a package that no longer exists, or will give you a command that doesn’t work. When that happens, I just feed the error message back into ChatGPT and it usually is able to correct itself.

-Ask “Is there a better or easier way to do this?” This is probably the most valuable question I’ve found to ask chatGPT. Sometimes it gets so far in the weeds looking for a solution to a problem that you need to pull back and start fresh.

Assume that you only have the resources and money that you've acquired up to this point in your life, and you still have to pay rent, bills etc. You are basically physically capable of everyday activities but extreme feats (eg running marathons, climbing everest) are not realistic.

Hi Lemmy,

I like the idea of this sub so I thought I'd contribute the first post.

I'm 40, and I have cancer. I don't know if I'll survive or not. Being in this position though has forced me to get all my "life stuff" in order, and boy, I can tell you there's a lot more of it than you realise.

Start now. Especially if you're healthy, double especially if you have a spouse and/or kids.

I get it that nobody wants to think about their own mortality, but consider that what you're actually doing is making things easier for your family.

1. Get a properly done will from a lawyer. Not one of those "write your own will" kits. It's not just about who gets what, but also burial vs cremation, who will be your executor, any special gifts/request, who is next in line if your beneficiary dies etc.

2. Organ donation? Tell your relatives AND register.

3. Insurance. Get life insurance as its the only insurance with a guaranteed payment BUT calculate yearly cost vs how much you would have if you just put that money in the bank. Amount should cover all outstanding debts. Get separate insurance for house and vehicles.

4. Superannuation (retirement savings). Where I'm from they need a form filled out that tells them who your executor will be. If they don't have this, your executor will have to go to court and it's a real pain in the arse.

5. Photos. Get them off your phone and back them up using the 3, 2, 1 backup rule. Make sure someone else has access if you pass away. Photos are one of those things that doesn't seem important until someone dies and that's all you have left of them.

6. Power of attorney. Who will make financial and health decisions for you if you're in a coma?

7. Advanced health directive. If you're in a coma, do you want someone to pull the plug, or keep you alive no matter what? Read about Terry Schiavo to see why this is so important. Again, tell your relatives AND fill out the documents.

8. Consider prepaying for your funeral. Especially if your family doesn't have a lot of money. They're more expensive than you think. It may take weeks or months before your relatives can access your savings or insurance money, and they'll still have to pay for it in the meantime.

Hot tip: caskets are a waste of money; get the cheapest you can. I am friends with a mortician, and he tells me that most of them are cheap crap made in China with 1000% price markups. They get away with it because frankly, nobody's going to bring one back for a refund.

9. Write letters to the people you care about. If you die suddenly, they'll have a heartfelt letter as your last words to them instead of a text saying "Do we need more cheese?"

10. Relax. We all die eventually, but at least now you know that everything is taken care of. Your friends and family will still be sad, but at least your death won't be any harder on them them it has to be.

Hi Lemmy,

I'm organising a funeral, and one of the ideas that has come up is for people to write memories on a balloon and let them go. However, I've also heard that they often end up in trees etc and are terrible for the environment.

Is there such a thing as environmentally safe balloons? Other suggestions are also welcome.

How to update the BIOS on a Dell laptop running Linux

For models not supported by lvfs

Completed successfully on a Dell Inspiron 3595 running Manjaro

This fix does not require Manjaro, it should work on any distro.

It took me a looong time to figure out how to do this for various reasons, and there are a lot of forum posts on the net about this exact problem. So for posterity I offer up this guide for any future googlers.

TLDR for advanced users: Use Ventoy to boot the Windows 10 installer and open the command prompt in the "Repair my PC" menu to launch the Dell BIOS update executable from a second USB.

1. Grab two USBs that are at least 8 GB in capacity.
2. Download the BIOS update file from the Dell support website.
3. Copy it to the first USB. Mine was formatted as NTFS but I don't think it's critical to the process.
4. Download Ventoy. If you've never heard of this, spend a minute reading about it. It's a cool tool.
5. Flash Ventoy to your second USB.
6. Acquire an .iso of Windows 10. I chose Windows 10 because Windows 7 didn't boot on my laptop (not sure why), and Windows 11 was too heavy for the CPU. I also tried Freedos but my laptop only has UEFI boot enabled, and no legacy option, which is apparently not supported. Note - you don't actually need to install or activate Windows in any way so I didn't feel it was necessary to be too picky about how I acquired the image.
7. Copy the Windows 10 .iso file to your Ventoy USB.
8. Boot from the Ventoy USB and select Windows 10. (F12 on most Dell laptops to interrupt the boot sequence)
9. Click "Repair my PC" in the bottom left hand corner - DO NOT install.
10. Click on the "Use command prompt" option which should be in the "Troubleshoot" menu.
11. Insert your first USB with the Dell BIOS update file on it.
12. Change directory to your first USB. It automatically mounted mine as D: Simply type the name of the drive to change to it.
13. Type the name of the BIOS update file to execute. For example: Inspiron_3595_1.5.0.exe If you forget the name of the file, type dir to get a list of files in the current directory.
14. Watch the magic happen and don't freak out if it reboots more than once - just let it do its thing until it's finished.
15. (Optional) boot into the BIOS to confirm that the update has been successful (check the version number).

The entire process was fairly quick, less than 5 mintes, and it automatically rebooted twice. The only indication I had that it was finished was that on the third reboot it booted back into Linux. I went back into the BIOS later to confirm that the BIOS version number matched the version number on the Dell website (in this case, 1.5.0).

How to update the BIOS on a Dell laptop running Linux

For models not supported by lvfs

Completed successfully on a Dell Inspiron 3595 running Manjaro

This fix does not require Manjaro, it should work on any distro.

It took me a looong time to figure out how to do this for various reasons, and there are a lot of forum posts on the net about this exact problem. So for posterity I offer up this guide for any future googlers.

TLDR for advanced users: Use Ventoy to boot the Windows 10 installer and open the command prompt in the "Repair my PC" menu to launch the Dell BIOS update executable from a second USB.

1. Grab two USBs that are at least 8 GB in capacity.
2. Download the BIOS update file from the Dell support website.
3. Copy it to the first USB. Mine was formatted as NTFS but I don't think it's critical to the process.
4. Download Ventoy. If you've never heard of this, spend a minute reading about it. It's a cool tool.
5. Flash Ventoy to your second USB.
6. Acquire an .iso of Windows 10. I chose Windows 10 because Windows 7 didn't boot on my laptop (not sure why), and Windows 11 was too heavy for the CPU. I also tried Freedos but my laptop only has UEFI boot enabled, and no legacy option, which is apparently not supported. Note - you don't actually need to install or activate Windows in any way so I didn't feel it was necessary to be too picky about how I acquired the image.
7. Copy the Windows 10 .iso file to your Ventoy USB.
8. Boot from the Ventoy USB and select Windows 10. (F12 on most Dell laptops to interrupt the boot sequence)
9. Click "Repair my PC" in the bottom left hand corner - DO NOT install.
10. Click on the "Use command prompt" option which should be in the "Troubleshoot" menu.
11. Insert your first USB with the Dell BIOS update file on it.
12. Change directory to your first USB. It automatically mounted mine as D: Simply type the name of the drive to change to it.
13. Type the name of the BIOS update file to execute. For example: Inspiron_3595_1.5.0.exe If you forget the name of the file, type dir to get a list of files in the current directory.
14. Watch the magic happen and don't freak out if it reboots more than once - just let it do its thing until it's finished.
15. (Optional) boot into the BIOS to confirm that the update has been successful (check the version number).

The entire process was fairly quick, less than 5 mintes, and it automatically rebooted twice. The only indication I had that it was finished was that on the third reboot it booted back into Linux. I went back into the BIOS later to confirm that the BIOS version number matched the version number on the Dell website (in this case, 1.5.0).

How to update the BIOS on a Dell laptop running Linux

For models not supported by lvfs

Completed successfully on a Dell Inspiron 3595 running Manjaro

This fix does not require Manjaro, it should work on any distro.

It took me a looong time to figure out how to do this for various reasons, and there are a lot of forum posts on the net about this exact problem. So for posterity I offer up this guide for any future googlers.

TLDR for advanced users: Use Ventoy to boot the Windows 10 installer and open the command prompt in the "Repair my PC" menu to launch the Dell BIOS update executable from a second USB.

1. Grab two USBs that are at least 8 GB in capacity.
2. Download the BIOS update file from the Dell support website.
3. Copy it to the first USB. Mine was formatted as NTFS but I don't think it's critical to the process.
4. Download Ventoy. If you've never heard of this, spend a minute reading about it. It's a cool tool.
5. Flash Ventoy to your second USB.
6. Acquire an .iso of Windows 10. I chose Windows 10 because Windows 7 didn't boot on my laptop (not sure why), and Windows 11 was too heavy for the CPU. I also tried Freedos but my laptop only has UEFI boot enabled, and no legacy option, which is apparently not supported. Note - you don't actually need to install or activate Windows in any way so I didn't feel it was necessary to be too picky about how I acquired the image.
7. Copy the Windows 10 .iso file to your Ventoy USB.
8. Boot from the Ventoy USB and select Windows 10. (F12 on most Dell laptops to interrupt the boot sequence)
9. Click "Repair my PC" in the bottom left hand corner - DO NOT install.
10. Click on the "Use command prompt" option which should be in the "Troubleshoot" menu.
11. Insert your first USB with the Dell BIOS update file on it.
12. Change directory to your first USB. It automatically mounted mine as D: Simply type the name of the drive to change to it.
13. Type the name of the BIOS update file to execute. For example: Inspiron_3595_1.5.0.exe If you forget the name of the file, type dir to get a list of files in the current directory.
14. Watch the magic happen and don't freak out if it reboots more than once - just let it do its thing until it's finished.
15. (Optional) boot into the BIOS to confirm that the update has been successful (check the version number).

The entire process was fairly quick, less than 5 mintes, and it automatically rebooted twice. The only indication I had that it was finished was that on the third reboot it booted back into Linux. I went back into the BIOS later to confirm that the BIOS version number matched the version number on the Dell website (in this case, 1.5.0).

Regarding the UFO sessions being held in the US currently, what would you like to see happen, and what do you think will actually happen?

Personally I'd like to see: -Any proof that conclusively shows that this isn't some kind of weird disinfo / smoke show by the US -Actual physical evidence of living or deceased aliens or their craft -Details of communication that has occurred (if any)

I think we'll actually see: -Talk -Claims -Discussion

!

This isn't R. R is shit. That's why you left. Stop trying to make this place like R. R still exists. If that's what you want, go back there. R sucked because of the hive mind mentality and pandering for (pointless, imaginary) upvotes.

Don't try and recreate that. R trained you to write and post in a certain way so that the owners of that private company could get maximum engagement for their advertisers and make money off of your eyeballs. Let it go. Be free. Let the weird web flourish.

I know there was some project about this but haven't heard of anything for a while. Ewaste is such a crime; all of my devices are used or older purchases that are past their "cool by" date. I have an iPad 2 and iPad mini that function perfectly but aren't supported by apple anymore. Would love to get a second life for them instead of having to get rid of them for no good reason.