lastb on Debian

 
So there is this post  which says:
"Yes, the people who are likely to care are admins with cobwebby
homebrew cronjobs that regularly generate painstakingly formatted
security reports and send them to the fax machine, or whatever."

...I feel extremely personally attacked by this :)
(Replace fax with mail, or whatever.)

I want my freshly upgraded to Debian Trixie Raspberry Pi to keep sending this cobwebby report... even if it is only for a couple of years to come... thus:

How to get lastb back on Debian

install dependencies:
apt install build-essential gettext autoconf flex bison libtool autopoint

get the source:
git clone https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux.git

rtfm:
cd util-linux
more Documentation/howto-compilation.txt 

compile:
./autogen.sh && ./configure --disable-all-programs --enable-last
make last

install:
cp ./last /usr/bin/last
ln -s /usr/bin/last /usr/bin/lastb

happiness:
# lastb

btmp begins Thu Dec  4 15:50:47 2025

more?

 How can 'more' take 100 percent CPU? 

 

The command was grep -i start */* | more

middle-of-screen subtitles

I stop watching and downvote the moment your video has middle-of-screen subtitles. Idem ditto for huge forced subtitles.

stty: /dev/ttyACM0: Inappropriate ioctl for device

This command on a Raspberry Pi 3:

stty -F /dev/ttyACM0 ispeed 9600 ospeed 9600 raw

Resulted in this error:

stty: /dev/ttyACM0: Inappropriate ioctl for device

This happened after the sd-card (with the OS) of the Pi entered failsafe mode so it is read only. I used dd to copy the 16GB sd-card to a new 128GB one:

dd if=/dev/sdd of=/srv/iso/pi_20250928.iso
dd if=/srv/iso/pi_20250928.iso of=/dev/sdd

The solution was to stop the module, remove the device, and start it again:

# modprobe -r cdc_acm
# rm -rf /dev/ttyACM0
# modprobe cdc_acm

... as it was probably copied with dd from the read-only sd-card.

epilogue: The 16GB SD was ten to fifteen years old. The Pi expanded the new card to 118GB not 128GB as advertised: relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/394/

Nieuwe hobby: Venus Vliegenvangers

 Tot zover de nieuwe hobby. Venuskes zijn niet de gemakkelijkste om gelukkig te maken.

Nieuwe hobby: Sarracenia

 Enkele van de Sarracenia zoals ze nu buiten staan. Die eten veel insecten, vooral wespen.

Nieuwe hobby: Nepenthes

Nieuwe hobby sinds 2021; vleesetende plantjes kweken.

Hier vijf bekertjes die Nepenthes mij geven.

2025 = (20 + 25)²

2025 = (20 + 25)²

2025 = 45²

2025 = 1³+2³+3³+4³+5³+6³+7³+8³+9³

2025 = (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9)²

2025 = 1+3+5+7+9+11+...+89

2025 = 9² x 5²

2025 = 40² + 20² + 5²

book: Gabor Mate, Scattered Minds

 

A book written by a doctor that has ADD himself, and it shows.

I was annoyed in the first half by his incessant use of anecdotes to prove that ADD is not genetic. It felt like he had to convince himself, and it read as an excuse for his actions as a father.

He uses clear and obvious examples of how not to raise a child (often with himself as the child or the father) to play on the readers emotion. Most of these examples are not even related to ADD.

But in the end, definitely the second half, it is a good book. Most people will recognize several situations and often it does make one think about life choices and interpretation of actions and emotions.

So for those getting past the disorganization (yes there are parts and chapters in this book, but most of it feels randomly disorganized), the second half of the book is a worthy thought provoking read.