#Tag
System programming is how developers learn what software really does. This guide makes the subject accessible, showing how Linux handles resources and runs programs step by step.
It connects theory to real practice, with examples that reveal what happens beneath every process, file, and line of code. Now available at major retailers.
System programming is how developers learn what software really does. This guide makes the subject accessible, showing how Linux handles resources and runs programs step by step.
It connects theory to real practice, with examples that reveal what happens beneath every process, file, and line of code. Now available at major retailers.
Ever built a "minimal" NixOS image and been shocked to find it's over 1.5GB? 🤯
Bloated images are a headache, but it doesn't have to be that way. The second article in our NixOS appliance image series is a deep dive into shrinking a NixOS appliance, taking it from 1.5GB all the way down to relatively lean ~360MB.
The new post shares practical, step-by-step "tricks" for hunting down and eliminating unnecessary dependencies. You'll learn how to use tools like `nix-store --query` and `nix why-depends` to find out why things like Perl, Python, or even speech synthesizers are ending up in your build.
If you're looking to optimize your NixOS systems, this is a must-read.
Check out the full guide here: https://nixcademy.com/posts/minimizing-nixos-images/
#NixOS #Linux #DevOps #ImageOptimization #EmbeddedSystems #Systemd #Performance
Ever built a "minimal" NixOS image and been shocked to find it's over 1.5GB? 🤯
Bloated images are a headache, but it doesn't have to be that way. The second article in our NixOS appliance image series is a deep dive into shrinking a NixOS appliance, taking it from 1.5GB all the way down to relatively lean ~360MB.
The new post shares practical, step-by-step "tricks" for hunting down and eliminating unnecessary dependencies. You'll learn how to use tools like `nix-store --query` and `nix why-depends` to find out why things like Perl, Python, or even speech synthesizers are ending up in your build.
If you're looking to optimize your NixOS systems, this is a must-read.
Check out the full guide here: https://nixcademy.com/posts/minimizing-nixos-images/
#NixOS #Linux #DevOps #ImageOptimization #EmbeddedSystems #Systemd #Performance
"Untested backups are just expensive hopes and dreams."
Did some proper restore-tests of my offsite backups and restored them one after another into a local virtual machine (KVM) and verified that they decrypt, restore and boot correctly 🙂 (including our Mastodon instance burningboard.net)
It's good to have backups, but it's an even better feeling when you know, they work, restore correctly and the procedure has been tested.
All check marks green, next test in January 2026 🙂
#linux #freebsd #backup #restore #devops #it #mastoadmin @tux
I'm looking for work!
I'm a high-level infra and devops engineer and team lead.
I've previously run my own team, and previously worked at Mozilla and Facebook. I'm looking for infra/devops lead or senior infra/devops engineer positions.
I'm not looking for pure development positions, but writing scripts, glue, and things like CI - as demanded by infra/devops - are totally fine. I just don't want to be developing the product.
The one thing I can't budge on is that I am exclusively looking for 100% remote positions, due to physical disability. I am based in the UK but I'm happy working with companies anywhere in the world, and capable of shifting my circadian rhythm around to match yours.
My CV is available at cv.dave.io. I am available to start immediately. The CV is a Notion page and can be cloned directly into your workspace if you use Notion. I'm more than happy to answer any questions, and all leads are graciously appreciated. Drop me a public or private mention, or use the other contact details listed on my CV.
My email address is gated behind a humanity check (don't worry, it's automated) at https://dave.io.
You are very welcome to boost this post, with my thanks.
Obligatory hashtags: #GetFediHired #FediJobs #Kubernetes #DevOps #Infra #Infrastructure #Engineer #Engineering #TeamLead
Cat tax supplied.
Thinking about the DORA 2025_state_of_ai_assisted_software_development report.
Dora is owned by Google cloud and therefore has a financial incentive to be "Pro" AI to support Gemini etc.
It also, historically depends on developers self reporting if they think they are more effective (which has been shown to not necessarily correlate with actual improved effectiveness).
Is DORA a trustworthy commentator on this?
#ai #generativeAI #devops #softwaredevelopment #softwareengineering
I'm looking for work!
I'm a high-level infra and devops engineer and team lead.
I've previously run my own team, and previously worked at Mozilla and Facebook. I'm looking for infra/devops lead or senior infra/devops engineer positions.
I'm not looking for pure development positions, but writing scripts, glue, and things like CI - as demanded by infra/devops - are totally fine. I just don't want to be developing the product.
The one thing I can't budge on is that I am exclusively looking for 100% remote positions, due to physical disability. I am based in the UK but I'm happy working with companies anywhere in the world, and capable of shifting my circadian rhythm around to match yours.
My CV is available at cv.dave.io. I am available to start immediately. The CV is a Notion page and can be cloned directly into your workspace if you use Notion. I'm more than happy to answer any questions, and all leads are graciously appreciated. Drop me a public or private mention, or use the other contact details listed on my CV.
My email address is gated behind a humanity check (don't worry, it's automated) at https://dave.io.
You are very welcome to boost this post, with my thanks.
Obligatory hashtags: #GetFediHired #FediJobs #Kubernetes #DevOps #Infra #Infrastructure #Engineer #Engineering #TeamLead
Cat tax supplied.
I’m self hosting things, and if I don’t write things down I don’t remember how to do them. So far I’ve been relying on Obsidian for my docs, but I’m really tempted to go with @atuin desktop.
No BS playbooks you can run (so playbooks you keep updated), and that you can store on git? Open source and free? No AI?! It’s almost too good to be true!
I'm writing the post-mortem of the 24h outage of matrix.org, and I'm learning so much from our SRE team.
I think I'm going to make "reading public post-mortems" a new hobby of mine. What are good sources to find interesting ones?
One of the points of agile development is to seek input from customers throughout the development process, including early stages. But if a development team isn’t allowed, without authorization from some outside body, to change requirements or specifications in response to what they discover, their ability to innovate is sharply inhibited. —Nicole Forsgren et al.,
Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps
Good design is not a one-and-done activity—it is an iterative process of shaping, testing, and refining ideas in response to how real users engage with them. The best designs emerge not from isolated studios or static documentation, but from rapid cycles of delivery, feedback, and improvement.
Unfortunately, this is where many government digital services fall short. The issue is not simply a lack of design talent or access to modern design methods. Rather, it is the friction in delivering design outputs to real users, and the difficulty of iterating quickly once those outputs are in production.
When users cannot interact with design artifacts, or when changes take weeks or months to deploy, the quality of the resulting services inevitably suffers. Designers are left guessing about user needs, and by the time changes are implemented, the context may have shifted entirely.
The lifeblood of good user experience is frequent deployments. Continuous deployment (the CD in CI/CD) is not just an industry trend, it is literally how improvements and enhancements get into the hands of users. If the time between software deployments is measured in months (or even years for some government organizations) no amount of user research or data analytics can save you. You can’t meaningfully help users unless you can get them enhancements quickly, reliably, and securely.
As service design scholar Lara Penin puts it in her book An Introduction to Service Design: Designing the Invisible:
Designers of interactions not only need to spend a lot of time trying to anticipate people’s reactions but also – and foremost – they need to get their interaction ideas out there and test them with users in context throughout the development process.
This is the heart of good design: short, frequent feedback loops that allow teams to adapt based on what they learn. Understanding the connection between deployment frequency and user experience is critical to successful digital solutions.
Government agencies face unique challenges in achieving this kind of rapid iteration. Compliance requirements like Authority to Operate (ATO) add delays before new features can go live. Legacy systems make deployments risky and expensive. And many teams lack mature DevOps practices that make delivery seamless and low-risk.
Poor DevOps practices are often the unseen culprit in poor digital service designAs a result, even well-researched, well-crafted designs often stall before they can make a meaningful impact.
Improving government services isn’t just about bringing in skilled designers or training staff in human-centered design, though that’s important as well. Those investments will only go so far if agencies cannot act quickly on what they learn from users. The key is reducing the cost, in time, money, and risk, of delivering and iterating on design ideas.
Mature DevOps practices make iteration cheap, secure, and fast. Automated testing, continuous delivery pipelines, and modular architectures mean teams can experiment safely, deploy quickly, and revert easily when needed. Frequent deployments aren’t just a nice-to-have—they are how user experience improves in practice.
If we want better digital services for the public, we need to focus not just on designing the right things, but on making it easier for governments to deliver and refine them—over and over again.
What’s up with mosh? It didn’t receive an update in years, and it seems to be a rather sensitive piece of software. Is it no longer maintained?
I turned a tiny #Mac mini into my own #Mastodon server—secure, low‑maintenance, and running like a dream. Here’s the full build, from #Docker to #Cloudflare Tunnel, and why #SelfHosting doesn’t have to be a headache.
A space for Bonfire maintainers and contributors to communicate
