So my ThinkPad just borked itself. It was running Ubuntu LTS. I got tired of Ubuntu’s faffing about with ads in the terminal, pushing private data to Amazon, and general asshattery. From a previous install I knew that installing Debian wasn’t as difficult as I recalled from the before times, so I went with that. Unless otherwise stated, everything here happens in the terminal. Don’t be afraid, it’ll be ok. Just open a terminal.

Occasioned by an imperfect backup strategy (ahem) and a used ThinkPad off eBay that may just be a little dodgy, here are my notes on how to recover data from a Linux machine that refuses to boot. I’m mainly writing this down to save myself some trouble the next time this happens, as it inevitably will. Starting situation: The computer turns on fine, but won’t boot into the installed Linux OS.

This is not a book review, don’t get your hopes up. Someone on the Fedi asked if I had any thoughts on the book, and I found it easier to type them here. Published in 2009, “Inherent Vice” is a strange and exciting in a different way than Pynchon’s earlier works. Gravity’s Rainbow, Vineland, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day - these are Big Books, each creating an entire world for themselves.

This post is aimed at people who’ve maybe tried out a couple of Linux distros, and are looking for something to settle on long-term. I’m assuming some basic familiarity with the command line, but no real sysadmin skills. Give Debian a try If you’ve been trying to pick a Linux distro, you’ll be aware that Debian is the grandparent of many of them. It has a reputation as a pro tool: Powerful and highly reliable, but also a bit difficult to approach.

When December comes in Germany, mulled wine is everywhere. Every town has its Christmas market, and at each of them, you´ll find several stalls that sell the cheap red plonk with a few spices and lots of sugar. But there´s a cup of mulled wine that is especially dear to my heart. Let me tell you about it. More than twenty years ago, living in Madrid on a student exchange program, I went to visit my friend Sebastian in Bilbao.