Linux Desktop

A Kubuntu desktop was running Claude Code with a Telegram bot as a foreground terminal session. At 02:00 on 8/7 the machine rebooted without asking anyone and the session died quietly. Cause: unattended-upgrades had installed a kernel and the NVIDIA module at 06:41 the day before, created /var/run/reboot-required, and the config had Automatic-Reboot "true" with Automatic-Reboot-Time "02:00" — and that is exactly what happened. The journal has 34 systemd-logind warnings in the 19 hours between the first one and the reboot — hourly until three hours out, then at tightening intervals, exactly as systemd's wall-message table prescribes. Automatic-Reboot was set to false, with the trade-off written down (patches sit unapplied until a manual reboot). That day's note said "true" was the Ubuntu default; the file the package ships, opened on the machine itself, has the line commented out — i.e. off by default. Who turned it on is not on record.

A Kubuntu desktop's fans kept running while the CPU sat at a normal 48°C. The culprit was a child `bun server.ts` that the Claude Code Telegram plugin leaves behind when a session dies abnormally: a busy loop holding one core at 100% for 54 minutes and ignoring SIGTERM. The reaper script already running on another machine (a server) identifies orphans by ppid == 1 (re-parented to init) and really does catch them there, but on this desktop systemd --user is a subreaper, so orphans end up under it instead and that gate never matches. The check was changed to 'is there a claude process anywhere in the ancestor chain', and both halves were verified: live sessions untouched, an artificial orphan reaped.

When Windows and Linux share a machine, the clock ends up off by exactly your UTC offset. Here's why the popular set-local-rtc fix pushed the Linux clock even further out, and how to settle it cleanly by putting both OSes on UTC.

Linux has no Logi Options+, so Solaar maps the MX Master 3S thumb wheel to volume. The apt batch-install cancellation trap, the permission problem when the receiver was already plugged in, and the underscore in XF86 key names.

kde_settings.conf names the right theme, but the login screen falls back to the default. It was two bugs stacked: the renamed sddm-greeter binary, and a Qt5-only QtGraphicalEffects module.

A few days ago nvme0n1 was the Samsung (Linux) disk; today nvme1n1 is. An NVMe device name isn't the disk's identity — it's this boot's detection order. Why you identify disks by model, label, or UUID instead.

The cursor snags every time it crosses between two monitors. I suspected KWin tiling zones, and I was wrong — the symptom only reproduced on the NVIDIA proprietary driver under Wayland, confirmed and worked around by switching to X11.

A freshly installed Flatpak Firefox fails Netflix playback with error F7701-1003. Despite the 'check your Firefox version' message, the real cause is a missing Widevine CDM — enabling DRM content fixes it.

On KDE Plasma 6 you install and apply a Global Theme, but only colors and icons change — cursor, window decorations, desktop theme, and widget style stay default. Why 'Get New Stuff' doesn't push everything, and why Kvantum Manager can report a theme as 'applied' when it isn't.

Flatpak Telegram threw an OpenGL crash on X11, and Flatpak Firefox stuttered on YouTube. Neither was the app's fault — the flatpak GL and VAAPI extensions matching the host NVIDIA driver version weren't installed.

A DeX anti-disconnect dummy HDMI plug gets detected as a phantom 4K monitor on Linux and shoves your real monitors' resolution around. The EDID that lacks 1440p, plus the twist that 'Disable' doesn't survive a monitor power cycle.

Attaching a new device to a vault whose CouchDB document count (notes + chunks) runs into the tens of thousands, the first fetch stalls around 700 every time with 'Error during vault initialisation process.' The cause isn't a specific document — it's a 60-second heartbeat cut. How to fetch via the detailed flow instead.

In fcitx5, the Korean/English toggle gets swallowed when you hold another key, and in Firefox pressing Han/Yeong pops the Alt menu. Two seemingly unrelated bugs, one cause: the physical key sends Alt_R, not Hangul.

Flatpak Firefox dies the instant it opens, throwing the crash reporter. I suspected flatpak, but the real cause was an RTX 40 GPU running on nouveau with no proprietary driver — check the driver binding with lspci -k first.

On Ubuntu and its official flavors, the stock apt firefox package is really a transitional stub that pulls in snapd. Here's the root cause, why removing just the snap doesn't stick, and how to evict snap permanently and switch to Flatpak.

Keeping Windows untouched and putting Kubuntu 26.04 on its own SSD for a two-disk dual boot. Tiny installer text on QHD, the fear of wiping the wrong disk, an RDSEED warning, and a Minimal install that ships without a browser — the spots a first-timer actually gets stuck, in order.