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Neither Betterbird nor Thunderbird will launch
by Bev Nicolson 02 Oct '26

02 Oct '26

Updated Betterbird today (153.3) and now it refuses to open. Tried uninstalling then reinstalling and then restarting my laptop. Nothing. Then I thought well Thunderbird's bound to work isn't it? No, as it turns out. How do I figure out what's going on? Bev. (Mint.)

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Cookie issue with Firefox
by Bev Nicolson 12 Sep '26

12 Sep '26

I'm one of the millions who enjoy (?) playing Wordle. But I like it in dark mode. If I try to save the url in Firefox [ like this: https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html ] so I view it in that mode every time, I cannot. It reverts to the general New York Times one, like this - www.nytimes.com. None of the stuff after the forward strokes. What can I do? (Firefox version 155.) Googling has not helped at all. Bev

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Deblobbed amd-gpu and HDMI
by Daniel Hatton 24 Jul '26

24 Jul '26

Does anyone know whether the deblobbed version of the amd-gpu module in the Linux-libre kernel (current LTS version, if it matters) is completely incapable of producing HDMI output from an Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Mullins [Radeon R4/R5 Graphics] (rev 45) card, or whether there's some magic incantation (legacy HDMI 2.0 mode or some such) that will make it work, please? -- Kind regards, Dan Hatton Dr. Daniel C. Hatton E-mail dan.hatton(a)btinternet.com (PGP public key available at <https://keys.openpgp.org>) Signal dch.28 Threema 5UAVHC96 Delta Chat OPENPGP4FPR:3345649E9BF3FD3ADDC3C5E588C6126C190AF86B#a=ut53bnr5t%40nine.testrun.org&n=Dan+Hatton Matrix @only_ohm:quassel.io WhatsApp +44 7908 352683

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extracting pages from a pdf document
by Bev Nicolson 11 Jul '26

11 Jul '26

I have a large document (several hundred pages large) that I would like to extract some pages from. All the online advice suggests using the print function. But I do not have a printer and actually I just want to turn some pages into a separate file. I have Evince, which does the basics well. Is there a pdf editor that can do this that? What would folk recommend? Bev

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GPG key question
by Ewan Slater 15 Jun '26

15 Jun '26

Hi All, I have a GPG key that I managed to get signed at a keysigning party at FOSDEM a few years ago. I want to create a new key, but that obviously will only be self signed. What would you suggest as the best way to proceed with a new key? Does anyone know of any keysigning parties locally (e.g. Ipswich or Norwich). Or failing that, is signing the new key with the old key and vice versa the best way to plug it into the web of trust? Cheers, Ewan

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Puzzling 403 error
by Bev Nicolson 11 May '26

11 May '26

I have this https://apps.gnome.org/en-GB/Podcasts/ as my podcast 'app' of choice on my desktop and it's been really good for a while now. However, with one pod, I keep getting a 403 error when I try to download an episode and I can't seem to fix it. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling it, unsubscribing and resubscribing and neither of those has worked. No other podcast appears to be affected. Ideas? Bev

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Evolution question and puzzle
by Bev Nicolson 19 Mar '26

19 Mar '26

*taps microphone* is this thing still on? Yes? Right, so here goes. 1. Anyone know how to stop Evolution repeatedly asking for password authentication? I tried typing in my passwords. Didn't work. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling. Didn't work. Which brings me to my puzzle. 2. I can, in theory, install Evolution from the Flatpak, but it will not show up in the main menu. I have googled (actually DuckDuckGo) for a workaround and can't make head or tail of the advice. Bev. P.S. (Sorry if you get this twice. I hoped I'd sent the first as plain text but hadn't.)

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Community minded? Interested in getting people off Windows and onto Linux?
by Sue Hagley 01 Feb '26

01 Feb '26

This is a request to find someone community minded who would like to help people escape Windows and start using Linux. I found out that my laptop would not be suitable for Windows 11, that made me furious at the high handedness and the absolute waste. So I started to research on YouTube and other sources and decided to go with Linux Mint. I installed it on my laptop and was really pleased with it, then I did my husband's and another small laptop we had and they all worked. We then rescued an old Mac (2015) from loft and revived that too! So I am a convert. I am involved in a community project just opening in Ipswich and I would like to set up a group which would help people do what I did. But I do not have any real expertise except following instructions and fortunately I had no real issues. I have put feelers out locally and have found a couple of people with some experience but also not confident enough to put themselves forward as an 'expert'. So that's the ask - is there anyone out there who might be up for this? Probably, a once a month group where people bring their tech for assessment for suitability, trying out Linux on a USB and a bit of hand-holding as they switch over. Find out more about our project at linktr.ee/IpswichUmbrella Hope someone can help Sue

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Re: Linux Mint on older hardware / community idea
by peter.northerly＠gmail.com 01 Feb '26

01 Feb '26

Hi Sue, Welcome, and thanks for sharing your experience — it’s always good to hear when people manage to keep older hardware useful. Before discussing anything more ambitious, it would be helpful to understand a bit more about the technical side of what you’ve already done, as this often determines what’s realistically supportable in a community setting. In particular, could you clarify: * The exact model of the Mac you mentioned (Apple model identifier, e.g. MacBook Pro 11,4) * Whether you installed Mint in UEFI mode or legacy/CSM mode * How you handled Apple firmware quirks (Secure Boot, EFI boot selection, rEFInd, etc.) * Any issues you encountered with Wi-Fi, graphics, suspend/resume, or firmware updates These details tend to matter a lot when advising others or offering installations as a service, especially across mixed hardware. Once we have a clearer picture of that, it’ll be easier to see what kind of help or structure would actually be useful. Best regards, Peter

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Missing drafts folder
by Bev 11 Sep '25

11 Sep '25

I'm using Betterbird, which for the most part is pretty good. There is a puzzle though. I have drafts folders for all the other email addresses except one. I've tried restoring the folder and looked into the settings at copies and folders but there’s no way to copy the draft folder to where it should be. Is it possible to edit the location to achieve this or that fraught with risk? All drafts for this one address get saved in the local folders. Bev (Linux Mint 21.2.) (sending this again as the first one was inadvertently not in plain text format.)

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Missing drafts folder
by Bev 11 Sep '25

11 Sep '25

I'm using Betterbird, which for the most part is pretty good. There is a puzzle though. I have drafts folders for all the other email addresses except one. I've tried restoring the folder and looked into the settings at copies and folders but there’s no way to copy the draft folder to where it should be. Is it possible to edit the location to achieve this or that fraught with risk? All drafts for this one address get saved in the local folders. Bev (Linux Mint 21.2.) (sending this again as the first one was inadvertently not in plain text format.)

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Flatpak program not shown in main menu
by Bev 08 Sep '25

08 Sep '25

I thought I'd try switching to the Flatpak version of Evolution, rather than the one that comes in Synaptic and assumed it would go smoothly. Ha. The problem is, as my subject heading says, that it doesn't show up in any menus and I can't pin it the panel. Is there any way of solving this? Bev (Linux Mint 21.2.)

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Ted Harding
by Jonathan McDowell 29 Apr '25

29 Apr '25

I was delighted to see our very own Ted Harding mentioned in LWN's interview with Owen Le Blanc (creator of the first Linux distribution, MCC Interim Linux): https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/1017846/738cd9cf2defd37f/ That caused me to go and see when we'd last seen him on-list - looks like it was back in 2019. Further digging revealed that he passed away in October 2020: https://edwardharding.muchloved.com/ A great loss. J. -- Web [ Know Thy User. ] site: https:// [ ] Made by www.earth.li/~noodles/ [ ] HuggieTag 0.0.24

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Recurring error message after updates to Linux Mint
by Phil Wade 27 Feb '25

27 Feb '25

Second attempt - hopefully in plain text :-( wonder whether anyone else has ever had this? The following text is displayed as an error message after downloading and installing updates to Linux Mint XFCE - every time. "W: Target Packages (main/binary-amd64/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target Packages (main/binary-i386/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target Packages (main/binary-all/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target Translations (main/i18n/Translation-en_GB) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target Translations (main/i18n/Translation-en) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target DEP-11 (main/dep11/Components-amd64.yml) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target DEP-11 (main/dep11/Components-all.yml) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target CNF (main/cnf/Commands-amd64) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1 W: Target CNF (main/cnf/Commands-all) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:1 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources:1" If OK is clicked it just goes away, but I'm at an age where any perceived error on my part is worrying 🙁 Thanks, Phil Wade

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imap login slow
by Bev Nicolson 05 Feb '25

05 Feb '25

Hallo? Is this thing still on? Let's see. I use Betterbird and recently it's started to be slower at logging into my email accounts with imap. Not glacially slow, but not as nippy as it was. I have googled but I'd quite like some plain English advice about what I could try to speed it up a notch. Bev. P.S. And while I'm here, I have two Alug accounts. How do I ditch one of them?

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Re: imap loogin slow
by Peter 31 Jan '25

31 Jan '25

>Just wondering something. On Windows* (at least this was the case >decades ago) if you uninstalled then reinstalled a misbehaving program >all the settings stayed in place. Does the same work with an email >client on Linux? And is that even worth trying, more to the point? I think it does retain all settings. At least on Debian and claws mail. I seem to remember having to do a complete system reinstall, and just kept my home folder untouched, and everything worked fine on restart. I don't recall any more whether I had to point claws to the files again, don't think so. You can make completely safe by backing up the settings and mail files, and I would. Then if they do get overwritten during the resinstall you just copy them back. I have done this on Debian with claws when making a laptop in sync with a desktop. Just installed claws, then overwrote the new files it had created with the corresponding desktop ones, and all the files and settings were there just as on the desktop. Safest to back up first, why risk it. Is it worth doing? Don't know. I would be inclined first to try with another email client and see if it happens with that. I really like claws, its light and fast and it will handle many thousands of emails locally with no problem. At least that would tell you whether its the client or something common to both of them. Though I can't really imagine what that would be! Peter

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Re: imap login slow
by Phil Ashby 26 Jan '25

26 Jan '25

On 26/01/2025 12:00, Bev Nicolson <lumos(a)gmx.co.uk> wrote > > Hallo? Is this thing still on? Let's see. I use Betterbird and recently > it's started to be slower at logging into my email accounts with imap. > Not glacially slow, but not as nippy as it was. I have googled but I'd > quite like some plain English advice about what I could try to speed it > up a notch. > In addition to Chris' suggestion of a huge mail folder, it might be network connection time - sometimes my Thunderbird takes a while to resolve the server address (particularly if I've just opened the laptop and WiFi needs to connect first), once connected it's snappy to operate. > Bev. > > P.S. And while I'm here, I have two Alug accounts. How do I ditch one > of them? You can manage your membership here: https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman3/postorius/lists/ Pick a list (eg main), use the Subscription / Unsubscription bit :) Phil.

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Extracting a zip file
by Bev Nicolson 07 Sep '24

07 Sep '24

I may have asked this before but can someone patiently explain how to extract a zip file? It's a font I've downloaded and it's just stuck there on the desktop and neither use not ornamant at the moment. Terminal or GUI options. TIA. Bev

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Problems with epubs
by Peter 10 Jul '24

10 Jul '24

Since upgrading to Debian Bookworm epub reading doesn't work. Well, the only reader that works is fbreader, and that insists on putting a hyphen after every word! I have tried everything recommended on the net to fix this hyphenation addition, and they none of them have worked. But at least fbreader loads and opens the files. Otherwise, I have tried foliate, which fails with this: KMS: DRM_IOCTL_MODE_CREATE_DUMB failed: Permission denied Failed to create GBM buffer of size 960x593: Permission denied I don't understand either what this means or what to do about it. Bookworm, seems like its opening the epub file but displays nothing. Tried going to dark mode, doesn't help. Tried changing fonts, also doesn't help. Calibre, which imports, but its reader will not open the file. I have tried converting, epub to epub, but it doesn't help. Sigil opens the files and displays them properly (with no added hyphens!). But its not a reader, of course. I installed epub-tools, makes no difference. I know the files are OK, partly because both fbreader and sigil display them (though fbreader with added hyphens!), partly because they have opened in the past with no problems, partly because they open with no problems in a kobo e-reader. They may be old version epubs since many of them are classics from gutenberg. But a lot are from the kobo store, and none of them display either. Another funny thing is that bookworm can be selected from 'open with', and loads but fails to display, but I can't find it anywhere by searching for it, and when entered as a command from the terminal it says no such command. I installed it using gdebi, ass I did foliate, and in both cases all dependencies were met. There was also a strange thing, pcmanfm, which I usually use, would open the kobo e-reader, and then start to not recognise it as a usb drive and crash. Don't know if this is connected, don't really see how it could be, since the files that are failing to open are on the desktop machine and are failing when the kobo is not plugged in. I fixed this by using a different file manager, xfe, which works fine. Actually xfe is a very nice file manager at least as good as pcmanfm. I have an nvidia graphics card and am uising the nvidia driver, could that possibly have anything to do with it? Can't see how. Pdfs are displaying fine, graphics don't seem to have any problems. Its just epubs as far as I can tell. Any ideas? Peter

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Re: VPN options
by Mark Rogers 09 Jul '24

09 Jul '24

On Thu, 13 Jun 2024 at 11:08, BD <dzidek23(a)gmail.com> wrote: > An example that I have seen working was a ZTNA configuration with Fortinet hardware and SDN for network separation. That sort of thing will be out of my budget! > I suspect the same thing could be achieved using pfSense and network management (with > a nice GUI to control it). Quick search on the Internet for "pfSense zero trust" returned a > few interesting sites. Additionally pfSense can serve as a VPN concentrator too. I spent a bit of time looking into this. The biggest issue for me is that it's FreeBSD and most of our stuff is hosted at DigitalOcean, and they no longer offer FreeBSD as an option. I can of-course look elsewhere, but DO combine the bandwidth of all your services and we're nowhere close to using it all, so putting a VPN which could potentially be fairly heavy traffic somewhere it can use that bandwidth makes sense if I can. I spent ages playing with Wireguard - there are some useful tools for building the config ([1], [2]) but I never got a configuration which worked properly with my phone over mobile data (or my laptop using mobile data over a hotspot) and as that's one of the main things I needed to achieve I ended up walking away from my attempts (in part because I managed to get the old SSL-based VPN working over those connections by turning off "FastSSL". I'd like to get this working at some point but a day and half of experimenting and getting nowhere useful was as much (more if I'm honest) as I could afford to allocate to it. [1] https://www.wireguardconfig.com/ - Configuration builder [2] https://github.com/mvpsnet/wireguard4vps - PHP-based manager -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0344 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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OT Firefox 125 won't show me btl comments
by Bev Nicolson 17 Jun '24

17 Jun '24

Or at least, Firefox 125 and onward on Linux Mint won't show much content under a Guardian article, nor can I sign in. All I see is a kind of swirly whiteness like it might be trying to load but can't. It's fine on my tablet. I have tried it in safe mode and tried clearing the cache. I have no idea what else to do. Bev

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Re: LSI megaraid recovery
by Phil Ashby 17 Jun '24

17 Jun '24

On 15/06/2024 12:00, Laurie Brown <laurie(a)brownowl.com> wrote: > ... > Disk /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10: 931 GiB, 999653638144 bytes, > 1952448512 sectors > > Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): > 512 bytes / 512 bytes > ... > Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type > /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10-part1 1 4294967295 4294967295 2T ee GPT > ... > So it has a partition - but I can't find a way to mount it.> > mount /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10-part1 /mnt/test mount: /mnt/test: > special device /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10-part1 does not exist. Hi Laurie, I'd guess that whatever distro you are running doesn't like the GPT partition format, so hasn't created the device file(s) for each partition. I'd go for the simple option of creating a loopback device using the sector size & offsets in the partition table: # losetup -o 512 -b 512 -f /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID0 This should make you a new /dev/loop<n> that avoids existing ones (probably your USB boot stick), which you can mount as NTFS or whatever. If losetup doesn't like having a block device underneath, then more messing with dmsetup should be able to achieve the same (but I've never done that...) Good luck, Phil. PS: Did you check in /dev/disk/... for those partitions?

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LSI megaraid recovery
by Laurie Brown 14 Jun '24

14 Jun '24

I'm at my wits' end on this one, folks, and I could do with some help please. This is all for a customer who is desperate to get this data back... I have an LSI RAID card (Broadcom MegaRAID SAS 9341-4) which has suddenly stopped working. I've been to hell and back trying to get a couple of newer machines to recognise the card and let me near the BIOS. In fact, this card has been working as a 4-disc RAID10 array for more than a year in a 'Doze 11 machine but just stopped a couple of weeks ago. I bought a new card, a different mobo, new cables, the lot. Nothing. The customer shipped me the original machine so I have access to all that was there before. I eventually found an older (Ubuntu) machine in my junk pile in which the PCIe slot let me into the BIOS so I recovered the RAID array, but the megaraid_sas driver in Ubuntu refused to work, so I couldn't access the data. I won't go into the pain involved in getting to this point, but it was extreme and lengthy! I have finally given up on the card, and dropped the 4 drives straight into an Ubuntu box, where I'm trying to get to the data. What I have now is the four disks all seen by the system, and a /dev/mapper device which is the RAID array. ---- cut here ---- # blkid /dev/sda: UUID="LSI ^P" TYPE="ddf_raid_member" /dev/sdb: UUID="LSI ^P" TYPE="ddf_raid_member" /dev/sdc: UUID="LSI ^P" TYPE="ddf_raid_member" /dev/sdd: UUID="LSI ^P" TYPE="ddf_raid_member" /dev/sde1: LABEL_FATBOOT="Windows USB" LABEL="Windows USB" UUID="8B53-C0AB" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="a85d43c9-01" /dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs" /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10: PTTYPE="PMBR" ---- cut here ---- /sde1 is the USB stick I booted from. fdisk -l gives me 2 mapper devices: ---- cut here ---- Disk /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10: 931 GiB, 999653638144 bytes, 1952448512 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10-part1 1 4294967295 4294967295 2T ee GPT ---- cut here ---- fdisk on the mapper devices says this: ---- cut here ---- Disk /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10: 931 GiB, 999653638144 bytes, 1952448512 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10-part1 1 4294967295 4294967295 2T ee GPT ---- cut here ---- So it has a partition - but I can't find a way to mount it. mount /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10-part1 /mnt/test mount: /mnt/test: special device /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10-part1 does not exist. ---- cut here ---- ---- cut here ---- mdadm --examine /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10 /dev/mapper/ddf1_RAID10: MBR Magic : aa55 Partition[0] : 4294967295 sectors at 1 (type ee) ---- cut here ---- Any help appreciated! Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie(a)brownowl.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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VPN options
by Mark Rogers 13 Jun '24

13 Jun '24

The scenario: Two individuals both with fast home Internet connections, plus an office on a pretty basic VDSL connection. All three have distinct subnets. Routers in all three locations have VPN support. The home ones support OpenVPN and Wireguard, the office OpenVPN only, but I'd consider replacing the router if it gave us what we needed. Objective: I want to link all three locations so that IPs on each network can be reached from the others, but in a configurable way. Ie neither individuals home devices should be accessible to the other individual (albeit they may use the VPN themselves to access them personally). Some office-based resources may not be shared. Etc. How can I do this? I'm assuming I'll get a cheap VPS somewhere to act as VPN server and have all three routers connect to that, and after that it's "just" a question of managing access and routing. But I need the result to be maintainable and ideally not just by me, which would mean either some kind of GUI or some really simple commandline tools. When I started looking at this I figured there'd be some simple appliance-type applications I could install on the VPS that would do this but I've come up short so far. I don't have any real budget for this - I'm OK with a few quid a month on a VPS and likewise on a subscription service if I have to go down that route (I'd rather not). (We do already have an office dial-in VPN option which could be used on the routers but I don't think putting all our domestic devices into one bit VPN is a good idea for all sorts of security reasons.) -- Mark Rogers

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Re: KVM shared folders (Mark Rogers)
by peter.northerly＠gmail.com 03 Jun '24

03 Jun '24

I am finding this a very useful point of research for these kinds of question. Not always right, but it mostly gets you there if you persist. https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-to-set-rxsxMNWDRjeuwX3WssHVRQ

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