Fingerprint Support on Lenovo Yoga 6 with Arch Linux

Got a Lenovo Yoga 6 2-in-1 and frustrated that your fingerprint reader isn’t working on Arch Linux? You’re not alone. The standard fprintd package doesn’t include the necessary firmware for this laptop’s Synaptics sensor. ...

September 23, 2025 · 2 min · Bastian de Byl

The Case of the Bloated Boot

When sudo mkinitcpio -P fails because your boot partition is full, you’ve got a fun problem. The culprit? That massive fallback initramfs taking up precious space on a tiny boot partition. ...

September 22, 2025 · 3 min · Bastian de Byl

OpenPGP: Updating Key Expiration

It’s a good idea to update your GPG key(s) before they expire. Mine is set to expire year, from whence I last updated the expiration. Let’s explore how this is done! ...

February 17, 2020 · 4 min · Bastian de Byl

Installing a Hardened Linux Kernel (Arch Linux)

It’s generally good security practice to ensure that you’re running a secure kernel, and the best way to do so is by running a hardened Linux kernel. ...

July 30, 2019 · 2 min · Bastian de Byl

Password Checking Script

Having been inspired by the HIBP1 password checker, I set out to write a script with the following goals: Check for duplicate/re-used passwords Check the strength of each password Check passwords against the pwnedpass API ...

April 13, 2019 · 5 min · Bastian de Byl

ThinkPad USB Port Fix

From the moment that I first had my (used) ThinkPad X220, the bottom-right USB port nearest to the SD card reader had been broken. The pad (or bolster) was missing, along with 3 out of 4 pins having been completely broken off. Needless to say this required fixing. ...

February 28, 2019 · 4 min · Bastian de Byl

OpenPGP: Best Practices (and Git)

I decided to start signing my Git commits for personal, and work Git repositories. Currently, most third-party Git repository hosts only support signed commits and do not support signed pushes. ...

February 17, 2019 · 3 min · Bastian de Byl

A Study in Aperture

I found out recently that using the maximum aperture for a lens can have deminishing returns. Simply put: it makes the image look “soft”, or otherwise out-of-focus. In this post I aim to find out find the best acceptable aperture setting for a specific lens. ...

January 16, 2019 · 2 min · Bastian de Byl

Make Your Ears Bern

A colleague offered a pair of Bern Bluetooth drop-in headphones to me fore free, with the catch being: I had to fix them ...

January 11, 2018 · 3 min · Bastian de Byl

Humble Beginnings

After running into too many road blocks I’ve decided to go with the Tranquilpeak theme for this site. Before this, I was really looking forward to using the Tracks theme (ported from WordPress) ...

December 21, 2017 · 3 min · Bastian de Byl