I am considering switching to OpenBSD. It has its own issues, but it is improving. Its performance should be good enough for me by 7.9.
OpenBSD is slower than GNU/Linux and FreeBSD. It got VA-API support just last year. Chromium and ungoogled-chromium recently got VA-API support in -current. I upgraded a throwaway OpenBSD installation to -current to test this. Video acceleration worked well under Chromium, even with 1080p60 YouTube videos. Playback of some videos in mpv also worked with hardware acceleration with hwdec set to auto and profile set to fast. Even unaccelerated 4K video playback seemed to work better under -current than under 7.8.
My Joey Jr V2++ Game Boy/Game Boy Color/Game Boy Advance cartridge dumper works under OpenBSD despite it not being officially supported. (It did not work under FreeBSD when I tried it.) My Hauppauge USB-Live2 video capture device does not, but I can probably install Alpine Linux on a USB flash drive or something for that. Network printing and scanning with a Brother inkjet network printer worked with some configuration.
That leaves OpenBSD’s filesystem (UFS/FFS2). I have heard horror stories about its reliability, and an OpenBSD developer admitted that UFS/FFS2 was “garbage”. A UPS would help, but I do not have one. Frequent backups (which I should do anyway) should help. (I would store most data on a fileserver running FreeBSD with ZFS if I could, but I have no hardware to use for that.)
[2025-12-09T17:59-0800] Update: The Joey Jr V2++ appears to work under FreeBSD 15.0, according to some bare-minimum testing I did.
]]>NOAA Weather Radio is a government-run radio network that broadcasts weather information and emergency alerts continuously on a dedicated band of 7 frequencies (162.4–162.55 MHz). Many weather radio receivers are equipped with alert functionality triggered by the SAME data bursts or 1050 Hz Warning Alarm Tone.
There are multiple types of weather radios, including nightstand models with SAME alert capability, and emergency models with built-in flashlights, power banks, and the ability to charge the battery from a solar panel or hand crank.
SAME functionality allows the user to exclude alerts for other counties and/or of certain types.
A weather radio provides alerts when you are asleep and/or not near a television, AM/FM radio, PC, or mobile device. (Television and AM/FM radio require actively watching or listening to the broadcast.)
I recommend getting a SAME-capable desktop weather radio and then putting it on your nightstand or somewhere else you can hear it. Configure the SAME-capable weather radio for your county, enable relevant alerts, disable irrelevant alerts (e.g., the flood ones if your home is too high for floodwater to reach), and change the battery annually. (I prefer to change mine when Daylight Saving Time starts, to give it a fresh battery just before severe weather season.)
I also recommend getting an emergency radio with a solar panel and hand crank for your storm shelter or downstairs closet.
You should also have at least 2 other ways to receive weather alerts in addition to a weather radio, in case one of them fails.
Most modern smartphones are capable of receiving Wireless Emergency Alerts. The mobile telephone network is less reliable than NOAA Weather Radio, but you should use WEA anyway as a fallback. Check your smartphone’s settings.
During severe weather, local, news-producing over-the-air television stations interrupt regular programming to cover it. The coverage includes radar imagery and reports from the station’s storm chasers. A normal radio station that carries a news or news/talk format may also cover severe weather, which is useful during a power failure.
It is important that the station has a news department, though — music stations on the FM radio band and over-the-air television stations without news departments (usually those not affiliated with the 4 major networks) will often air only the bare-minimum EAS relay of an alert, which originates from — you guessed it — NOAA Weather Radio! Some low-power stations don’t even have EAS equipment.
Trusted weather Web sites and mobile apps can also give alerts. Internet connectivity often fails during severe weather, though. Personally, I simply use the National Weather Service’s Web site.
This is the absolute worst method. Sirens are for outdoor use only. They are not intended to be heard indoors, and the storm itself may make them difficult to hear. It also provides no additional information.
What to do when you receive a warning is outside of the scope of this blog post. weather.gov’s Safety Tips section should help.
[2026-04-16T20:30-0700] Update: I removed the Weatheradio Canada information because Environment and Climate Change Canada discontinued it (RIP 1976–2026). This post is now applicable only to the US.
]]>I dual-booted between it and an illegitimate Windows XP Professional installation (with a certain infamous volume licensing key), which I was using previously. For the desktop environment, I used the default KDE 3.1. I initially expected it to be difficult to connect to the Internet, but it detected my Ethernet card’s settings automatically. (I initially (falsely) believed it had detected the settings from the Windows XP installation.) Hardware at this time consisted of a 400 MHz Celeron Mendocino (cf Pentium II) and 128 or 256 MB (I forget which) of RAM, the same PC I had been using since circa 2002.
I have run various other GNU/Linux distributions since then, off-and-on with the BSDs (specifically OpenBSD and FreeBSD) starting in 2013. Those distributions included Fedora (then known as Fedora Core), Ubuntu (including Kubuntu and Xubuntu), Gentoo, Arch, and Slackware. I am currently a Debian user, having switched back to GNU/Linux from the BSDs because of hardware and software compatibility issues.
]]>Most recent successful sync was at 2023-10-06T03:05-0700, and it displayed the Level 0 receiving indicator that time (3 being the strongest). At one point, in August, I used the manual receiving feature outdoors, during the day, and it worked fine. (I even had a shortwave radio tuned to WWV’s 15 MHz signal, and I received a good signal from it.)
I have kept it in my bedroom window the entire time per the manual, and it previously worked properly. Did atmospheric conditions change?
]]>The button developed an issue where a single-click would register as a double-click, and click-and-drag was unreliable. I opened the trackball, determined the model number of the button to be D2FC-F-7N, and obtained replacement buttons of that type.
I removed the old button and then soldered in the new one. A quick check with xev confirmed that the new button worked.
The left button is now reliable again.
]]>This new version of my Web site features a new name, light and dark themes, and an Archive page. I also removed some pages.
]]>As I was setting the clocks, I noticed that the save battery in my copy of Pokémon Gold Version was empty. I soldered a new CR2025 battery into it. I had installed the old one in October 2011 using the tape method. (I even had an NES and Super NES in the old save file. :-() That battery lasted a few years longer than I expected, as did the original battery.
]]>/LIST, were not implemented.circe-completion-suffix set to the default : . It also occasionally gave odd tab completion suggestions based on obscure substrings.lui-track-behavior’s value.circe-lagmon-mode, Circe did not reconnect to my bouncer after losing the network connection.circe-lagmon-mode did not work with some servers.circe-lagmon-mode would cause Circe to spam “*** User away: <current nick>” when I was set as away, at least with multiple instances of Circe running./[G]AWAY./TOPIC constantly.Early this month, I switched back to Irssi (with ZNC this time) after getting tired of Circe’s bugs. With multiple clients at least, it is not as good as bare Irssi in a terminal multiplexer, but it works better than Circe did.
]]>Implementing it was easier than I expected. I ran into a “Something went wrong” error at first, but retrying worked.
I had wanted to support HTTPS for a long while, and it has finally happened.
]]>Incoming mail → mbsync (MRA) → mu (email indexer) → mu4e (MUA) → msmtp (SMTP client) → Outgoing mail
First, install the relevant tools. Under Debian, one would install the following packages:
# apt install isync mu4e msmtp
Next, create the directories that will contain your maildirs. Change the path and account names to match your preferences:
$ mkdir -p ~/Mail/{Main,Personal,Work}
I also recommend creating your signature blocks at this point. This tutorial uses files in ~/doc/signatures as an example. See the message-signature-file variables in the below mu4e config for examples.
Write your ~/.mbsyncrc. Here is an example for 3 accounts:
IMAPAccount Main
Host imap.example.net
User foo@example.net
Pass hunter2
SSLType IMAPS
CertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
IMAPStore Main-remote
Account Main
MaildirStore Main-local
Path ~/Mail/Main/
Inbox ~/Mail/Main/inbox
Channel Main-default
Master :Main-remote:
Slave :Main-local:Inbox
Channel Main-sent
Master :Main-remote:"[Gmail]/Sent Mail"
slave :Main-local:Sent
Channel Main-trash
Master :Main-remote:"[Gmail]/Trash"
slave :Main-local:Trash
Channel Main-archive
Master :Main-remote:"[Gmail]/All Mail"
slave :Main-local:All
Channel Main-junk
Master :Main-remote:"[Gmail]/Spam"
slave :Main-local:Junk
Channel Main-drafts
Master :Main-remote:"[Gmail]/Drafts"
slave :Main-local:Drafts
Create Both
Expunge Both
SyncState *
Group Main
Channel Main-default
Channel Main-sent
Channel Main-trash
Channel Main-archive
Channel Main-junk
IMAPAccount Personal
Host imap.example.net
User bar@example.net
Pass hunter2
SSLType IMAPS
CertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
IMAPStore Personal-remote
Account Personal
MaildirStore Personal-local
Path ~/Mail/Personal/
Inbox ~/Mail/Personal/inbox
Channel Personal-default
Master :Personal-remote:
Slave :Personal-local:Inbox
Channel Personal-sent
Master :Personal-remote:"[Gmail]/Sent Mail"
slave :Personal-local:Sent
Channel Personal-trash
Master :Personal-remote:"[Gmail]/Trash"
slave :Personal-local:Trash
Channel Personal-archive
Master :Personal-remote:"[Gmail]/All Mail"
slave :Personal-local:All
Channel Personal-junk
Master :Personal-remote:"[Gmail]/Spam"
slave :Personal-local:Junk
Channel Personal-sent
Master :Personal-remote:"[Gmail]/Sent Mail"
slave :Personal-local:Sent
Create Both
Expunge Both
SyncState *
Group Personal
Channel Personal-default
Channel Personal-sent
Channel Personal-trash
Channel Personal-archive
Channel Personal-junk
IMAPAccount Work
Host imap.example.net
User baz@example.net
Pass hunter2
SSLType IMAPS
CertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
IMAPStore Work-remote
Account Work
MaildirStore Work-local
Path ~/Mail/Work/
Inbox ~/Mail/Work/inbox
Channel Work-default
Master :Work-remote:
Slave :Work-local:Inbox
Channel Work-sent
Master :Work-remote:"[Gmail]/Sent Mail"
slave :Work-local:Sent
Channel Work-trash
Master :Work-remote:"[Gmail]/Trash"
slave :Work-local:Trash
Channel Work-archive
Master :Work-remote:"[Gmail]/All Mail"
slave :Work-local:All
Channel Work-junk
Master :Work-remote:"[Gmail]/Spam"
slave :Work-local:Junk
Channel Work-drafts
Master :Work-remote:"[Gmail]/Drafts"
slave :Work-local:Drafts
Create Both
Expunge Both
SyncState *
Group Work
Channel Work-default
Channel Work-sent
Channel Work-trash
Channel Work-archive
Channel Work-junk
The location of CertificateFile may vary based on your system.
Finally, make ~/.mbsyncrc readable and writable only by the owner, for privacy:
$ chmod 600 ~/.mbsyncrc
~/.msmtprc should look something like this:
defaults
auth on
tls on
tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
logfile ~/.msmtp.log
# Main
account Main
host smtp.example.net
port 587
from foo@example.net
user foo@example.net
password hunter2
# Personal
account Personal
host smtp.example.net
port 587
from bar@example.net
user bar@example.net
password hunter2
# Work
account Work
host smtp.example.net
port 587
from baz@example.net
user baz@example.net
password hunter2
account default : Main
As with mbsync’s CertificateFile, the location of tls_trust_file may vary based on your system.
As with ~/.mbsyncrc above, you should make ~/.msmtprc readable and writable only by the owner. This is especially important with msmtp, as it will refuse to run otherwise.
$ chmod 600 ~/.msmtprc
msmtpqueue is a small collection of scripts to queue outgoing messages and then send them later. Under Debian, it is available in /usr/share/doc/msmtp/examples/msmtpqueue. I copied the scripts to my personal ~/local/bin directory and then edited them for my own use. See /usr/share/doc/msmtp/examples/msmtpqueue/README for more information.
There is also msmtpq, which I have not tried.
mu4e is configured in your Emacs init file. Here is an example:
(require 'mu4e)
;; Make mu4e Emacs's default email client
(setq read-mail-command 'mu4e
mail-user-agent 'mu4e-user-agent)
;; Where the messages are
(setq mu4e-maildir "~/Mail")
;; How to get mail
(setq mu4e-get-mail-command "mbsync -a"
mu4e-update-interval 300)
;; How to send mail
;; (Be sure to point sendmail-program to the proper path for msmtp-enqueue.sh!)
(setq message-send-mail-function 'message-send-mail-with-sendmail
sendmail-program "/home/user/bin/msmtp-enqueue.sh")
;; Gmail needs this
(setq mu4e-sent-messages-behavior 'delete)
;; Display To: header in headers view
(setq mu4e-headers-fields '((:human-date . 12)
(:flags . 6)
(:from . 15)
(:to . 12)
(:subject)))
;; Bookmarks
(setq mu4e-bookmarks
`( ,(make-mu4e-bookmark
:name "Unread messages"
:query "flag:unread AND NOT \"maildir:/Main/Junk\" AND NOT \"maildir:/Personal/Junk\" AND NOT \"maildir:/Work/Junk\""
:key ?u)
,(make-mu4e-bookmark
:name "Today's messages"
:query "date:today..now AND NOT \"maildir:/Main/Junk\" AND NOT \"maildir:/Personal/Junk\" AND NOT \"maildir:/Work/Junk\""
:key ?t)
,(make-mu4e-bookmark
:name "Last 7 days"
:query "date:7d..now AND NOT \"maildir:/Main/Junk\" AND NOT \"maildir:/Personal/Junk\" AND NOT \"maildir:/Work/Junk\""
:key ?w)
,(make-mu4e-bookmark
:name "Inboxes"
:query "\"maildir:/Main/INBOX\" OR \"maildir:/Personal/INBOX\" OR \"maildir:/Work/INBOX\""
:key ?i)
,(make-mu4e-bookmark
:name "Sent messages"
:query "\"maildir:/Main/Sent\" OR \"maildir:/Personal/Sent\" OR \"maildir:/Work/Sent\""
:key ?s)
,(make-mu4e-bookmark
:name "Spam"
:query "\"maildir:/Main/Junk\" OR \"maildir:/Personal/Junk\" OR \"maildir:/Work/Junk\""
:key ?j)))
For multiple email accounts, we will use contexts. If you publish your Emacs config, e.g., in version control, be aware that this section will contain passwords and other personally identifiable information.
(require 'mu4e-context)
(setq mu4e-contexts
`( ,(make-mu4e-context
:name "Main"
:enter-func (lambda () (mu4e-message "Entering Main context"))
:leave-func (lambda () (mu4e-message "Leaving Main context"))
:match-func (lambda (msg)
(when msg
(mu4e-message-contact-field-matches msg :to "foo@example.net")))
:vars '((user-email-address . "foo@example.net")
(user-mail-address . "foo@example.net")
(user-full-name . "Someone")
(mu4e-sent-folder . "/Main/Sent")
(mu4e-drafts-folder . "/Main/Drafts")
(mu4e-trash-folder . "/Main/Trash")
(mu4e-refile-folder . "/Main/All")
(message-sendmail-extra-arguments . "-a Main")
(mail-host-address . "example.net")
(mu4e-compose-signature . (with-temp-buffer (insert-file-contents "~/doc/signatures/Main") (buffer-string)))
(message-signature-file . "~/doc/signatures/Main")))
,(make-mu4e-context
:name "Personal"
:enter-func (lambda () (mu4e-message "Switch to the Personal context"))
:match-func (lambda (msg)
(when msg
(mu4e-message-contact-field-matches msg :to "bar@example.net")))
:vars '((user-email-address . "bar@example.net")
(user-mail-address . "bar@example.net")
(user-full-name . "John Smith")
(mu4e-sent-folder . "/Personal/Sent")
(mu4e-drafts-folder . "/Personal/Drafts")
(mu4e-trash-folder . "/Personal/Trash")
(mu4e-refile-folder . "/Personal/All")
(message-sendmail-extra-arguments . "-a Personal")
(mail-host-address . "example.net")
(mu4e-compose-signature . (with-temp-buffer (insert-file-contents "~/doc/signatures/Personal") (buffer-string)))
(message-signature-file . "~/doc/signatures/Personal")))
,(make-mu4e-context
:name "Work"
:enter-func (lambda () (mu4e-message "Switch to the Work context"))
:match-func (lambda (msg)
(when msg
(mu4e-message-contact-field-matches msg :to "baz@example.net")))
:vars '((user-email-address . "baz@example.net")
(user-mail-address . "baz@example.net")
(user-full-name . "John Smith")
(mu4e-sent-folder . "/Work/Sent")
(mu4e-drafts-folder . "/Work/Drafts")
(mu4e-trash-folder . "/Work/Trash")
(mu4e-refile-folder . "/Work/All")
(message-sendmail-extra-arguments . "-a Work")
(mail-host-address . "example.net")
(mu4e-compose-signature . (with-temp-buffer (insert-file-contents "~/doc/signatures/Work") (buffer-string)))
(message-signature-file . "~/doc/signatures/Work")))))
(setq mu4e-context-policy 'pick-first
mu4e-compose-context-policy 'ask)
Synchronise the maildirs and then index the messages:
$ mbsync -a
$ mu index --maildir="$HOME/Mail"
You can have cron synchronise your maildirs and send pending messages automatically. Put this shell script in ~/bin or a similar directory, name it get-send-mail (or similar), and make it executable with chmod +x:
#!/bin/sh
# Check if we are online; replace with something more appropriate for your setup
ping -c 1 -w 2 example.net > /dev/null
if [ "$?" -eq 0 ]; then
mbsync -aq
/home/user/bin/msmtp-runqueue.sh > /dev/null
fi
Be sure to point to the proper path for msmtp-runqueue.sh. You can now put something like this in your crontab:
@reboot /home/user/bin/get-send-mail
*/5 * * * * /home/user/bin/get-send-mail
It should run at boot and every 5 minutes.
Simply restart Emacs, and then start mu4e with M-x mu4e. For more information, see the mu4e manual: (info "(mu4e)")