Integrating Google Drive on Linux with rclone

Let’s get straight to it. Before doing anything fancy, make sure rclone is installed. Use whatever package manager your distro ships with—on my Arch box it’s simply sudo pacman -S rclone. Create the Google Drive remote Run rclone config in your terminal. Pick n) New remote → type n and press Enter. Give it a name. I called mine gdrive-ripa—choose whatever makes sense for you. Select Google Drive as the storage type (in my menu it was option 18). Leave client_id and client_secret empty unless you have your own OAuth credentials. For the scope, I go with option 1: Full access to all files (drive). Skip service_account_file unless you know you need it. When asked about advanced config, I answer n) No. Say y to open a browser window for authentication, then sign in with the Google account you want to expose to rclone. I don’t use Shared Drives, so I answer n) No to that prompt too. Confirm everything with y) Yes this is OK when rclone summarizes the remote. You should now see something like this: ...

July 8, 2023 · 2 min · 326 words · Me

Setting Up an HP Printer on Arch Linux

Here’s the quick setup flow I use whenever I need an HP printer working under Arch: Install CUPS: sudo pacman -S cups Enable the CUPS service right away so it stays running after reboots: sudo systemctl enable --now cups Install HP’s tooling: sudo pacman -S hplip Plug the printer in via USB and run sudo hp-setup -i. Make sure you run it as root, otherwise you’ll get the classic “No device selected/specified” error. Most of the prompts can stay on their defaults—just keep hitting Enter. Install the GUI helper: sudo pacman -S system-config-printer Launch system-config-printer, click Add, pick your printer, and choose HPLIP as the backend. Print a test page to confirm everything is talking properly. If GTK apps (Evince, Okular, etc.) complain about missing printers, install gtk3 as well.

June 21, 2023 · 1 min · 130 words · Me

Users, Groups, and Access Rights on Linux

On Linux, the whole “users and permissions” thing is one of the first concepts you have to internalize. A user is basically any account registered on the system, and permissions decide what that account can execute, read, or modify. Here’s the quick breakdown: Regular user – the daily driver account. Limited privileges, only touches files or commands granted by the system or the user. Superuser/root – the boss of the OS. Root can touch anything, anywhere, any time. Use it wisely. Then we have groups. Think of a group as a bundle of users that share the same permissions. Handy when you want multiple people (or processes) to access the same files or manage the same service. ...

June 21, 2023 · 1 min · 173 words · Me