Blog

Clean out /lib/modules on Debian systems

2023-01-09

On Debian-based systems /lib/modules tends to fill up with obsolete files. The reason is that kernel packages have to be purged to remove those files, and that doesn't happen while normal upgrade/remove operations. This script is my solution to this problem. Deletion is disabled by default, verify the output of … more

Get random file recursively with home assistant

2022-12-19

The folder sensor in home assistant is good if you need a random file from one directory, but how about a random file from a file hierarchy? more

Mocking/patching open and readlines in Python

2022-12-05

I often want to mock reading from a file when writing unit tests in Python, and I always struggle to find the right solution again. So I'm posting it on my own blog in the hope of finding it later 🤣 My solution is to return a StringIO object from … more

Deserializing Django objects and many to many relationships

2022-11-28

I recently had to restore some data from backups, and was using Django serializers to get the job done. Objects of one class were not deleted, but the relationships were set to None when the related objects were deleted. Here's how I restored the relationship information. more

ValueError: Namespace Soup not available

2022-10-24

I ran into this error several times recently while trying to run a few Python-based GTK apps. Here's how I solved the problem. more

How I run the AWS CLI in docker

2022-10-10

I didn't want to download the AWS CLI client over and over, so I wrote a tiny wrapper script to run it in a docker container. I don't use it a lot as setting up shell completions is a pain, but it can be useful. more

Procmail and unicode headers

2022-07-25

Procmail is an old tool, and the reason you're using it today is probably because you started using it many years ago, and changing to something else is not something you want to do. Procmail doesn't know about unicode, so unicode in headers is problematic. This post contains my solution to creating procmail rules that understand unicode subjects. more