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An SSH prompt that's hung at the password

Fixing unresponsive headless Raspbery Pi Zero

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Just a quick note about a Raspberry Pi Zero that has become unresponsive over SSH.

The Pi Zero 2 W I used for the smart mirror project started exhibiting this symptom. I’d try to log in over SSH, enter my password at the prompt (I know I should have pushed a key to it but that’s immaterial) and it’d then hang before terminating the session.

OpenSSH has recently been trying to enforce a QoS level that the Pi Zero and Zero 2’s feeble wifi can’t satisfy leading to timeouts. The solution is to add the following line

IPQoS 0x00

to /etc/ssh/ssh_config and /etc/ssh/sshd_config.

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Building a combination smart mirror and smart speaker

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It all started a couple of years ago. I was recycling an old laptop – and I mean recycling, it was too old to be remotely useful even with a lightweight Linux distro. I always hate the process of generating e-waste, so I pondered what I could possibly do with it. Then I thought about my mum. She’s never really taken to smartphones, and I’d seen her sit down and boot up her desktop PC just to check the weather forecast.

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Immich stack running in Portainer

How to replace Netflix and Google Photos with your own home server, part 3

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In Part 1 of this guide we went over the basic installation process for your first Linux home server. In Part 2 we covered a brief introduction to the Linux terminal and some useful commands for navigating around. Here in Part 3 we’re going to focus on setting up containerised services using Docker and Portainer.

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Ubuntu welcome screen

How to replace Netflix and Google Photos with your own home server, part 1

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Inspired by a conversation on Mastodon, I thought it might be fun to try to write up the process of turning a spare PC into your own home server, assuming absolutely zero prior knowledge of administering Linux servers. Part 1 will cover installing the OS, Part 2 will cover basic terminal familiarity and Part 3 will cover installing and configuring your services. I’ll be glossing over a lot of things that are outside the scope of the tutorial, but I’ll mention them in passing in case the reader wants to dive down whichever rabbit hole they represent.

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