MoonPoint Support Weblog

Symlinks on Linux

Thu, 13 Aug 2026 19:20:00 -0400

To create a symbolic link (symlink), aka soft link, on a Linux system, you can use the ln command with the -s option, i.e., ln -s, followed by the target file path and the name you wish to use for the symbolic link. The -s option specifies that the link should be "soft" or symbolic (omitting this creates a hard link). You can view existing symlinks with the ls command with the -l option and then piping the output through the grep command with the -l or --long option to obtain more detailed information. Since the permission string for files or directories will begin with the letter "l", you can limit the output with ls -l | grep "^l". E.g.:

alice@Wonderland@Serenity:~/Documents$ ln -s ~/Pictures/Phone/PXL_20260715_202210365.jpg erin.jpg
alice@Wonderland@Serenity:~/Documents$ ls -l | grep "^l"
lrwxrwxrwx  1 alice@Wonderland domain users@ad.moonwillowwoods.com        75 Aug 14 15:03 erin.jpg -> /home/alice@Wonderland/Pictures/Phone/PXL_20260715_202210365.jpg
alice@Wonderland:~/Documents$

You can link an entire directory with a symlink. E.g., you could point a local logs folder to a folder elsewhere on the system, even one on another drive. E.g., ln -s /var/log/app_logs ./logs.

If you wish to find all of the symlinks in the current directory and all its subdirectories, you can use the command find . -type l. The -type l flag instructs the find command to look just for links. To see the full, absolute path of where a specific link points you can use the readlink command, e.g., readlink -f filename where filename is the name of the symlink. E.g.:

alice@Wonderland:~/Documents$ readlink -f erin.jpg
/home/alice@Wonderland/Pictures/Phone/PXL_20260715_202210365.jpg
alice@Wonderland:~/Documents$

You can remove a symlink with the unlink command followed by the symlink name.

alice@Wonderland@Serenity:~/Documents$ unlink erin.jpg
alice@Wonderland:~/Documents$

You could also use the rm command. E.g., if you created a symlink named shortcut.txt, you could remove that shortcut with rm shortcut.txt. Never add a trailing slash (/) when removing a directory symlink, or you risk deleting the contents inside the actual target directory.

Changing the horizontal folder display on a Jellyfin server

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 21:14:00 -0400

When you view the media folders on a Jellyfin server, you will see the folders displayed horizontally, so you have to click on a rightward-pointing arrowhead to view additional folders. If you wish to change that behavior so that you see a grid display, instead, you can change it through CSS. To do so, take the following steps:

Click on the hamburger button (3 short horizontal lines one below the other) at the upper-righthand corner of the homepage display for the server when viewing it from a browser.
Select Dashboard.
Select Branding.

Paste the following code into the "Custom CSS code" field, then click on Save.

@media all and (min-width: 50em) {
  .homePage .emby-scroller {
    margin-right: 0;
  }
  .homePage .emby-scrollbuttons {
    display: none;
  }
  .homePage .itemsContainer {
    flex-wrap: wrap;
  }
}

When you go back to the home page for the Jellyfin server and refresh the webpage in your web browser, you should now see a grid display for all of the folders you created, i.e., rows of folders one beneath the other. If you don't see the change take effect, try pressing the Ctrl and the F5 keys, or Cmd, Shift, and R, depending on your operating system, together to force a refresh that will apply CSS changes. For an example of how the display of folders changes, see these "before" and "after" displays for a server on which 6 folders had been created. Note: the custom CSS injected via the server dashboard applies to web browser clients and the desktop client, but dedicated apps, such as Android TV or Fire TV stick, may ignore the web CSS. It does work with the Jellyfin app under the LG webOS on an LG TV.

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Registry location for Advanced Diary registration information

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 15:29:00 -0400

The Advanced Diary journaling/diary program from CSoftLab stores its license information in the Windows registry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary. When you install the software, you will have a 30-day trial period and the LicenseCode and LicenseName keys will not have any values set. You can see the values using the Microsoft Windows registry editor regedit.exe.

If you need to view the license information, you can navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary key in the registry using the registry editor or you can open a command prompt window and issue the following reg query commands.

C:\>reg query "HKCU\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary" /v LicenseName

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary
    LicenseName    REG_SZ    John Doe


C:\Users\Lisa>reg query "HKCU\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary" /v LicenseCode

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary
    LicenseCode    REG_SZ    VN37-H79K-28ZZ-XMMUMM9XX9


C:\>

You can extract the information from the registry by right-clicking on the Advanced Diary entry in the registry and choosing Export and then saving the information to a .reg registry file. That will save all of the registry information for Advanced Diary. You can then delete all but the lines that are like the ones below, if you only need the license entries in the registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary]
"LicenseName"="John Doe"
"LicenseCode"="VN37-H79K-28ZZ-XMMUMM9XX9"

You can then import the registry entries after installing Advanced Diary on another system. You can import them by opening the registry editor and choosing Registry and then Import Registry File.

Note: if you are transferring the registry keys to an installation of Advanced Diary running under Wine on a Linux system, you can run the registry editor provided by Wine by opening a terminal window and then setting the WINEPREFIX environment variable equal to whatever Wine prefix you have set, if you are using one other than the .wine one, and then running wine regedit. E.g.:

$ export WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine-advdiary"
$ wine regedit

If you have saved the registry values to a .reg file, e.g. file.reg, and want to import the values from that file from a command-line interface (CLI), open a command prompt window as an administrator and run reg import "C:\path\to\file.reg". Alternatively, use regedit /s "C:\path\to\file.reg" to import the file silently without a confirmation prompt. To import the registry values from a Windows system into the registry for an instance of Advanced Diary 9.0 running in a Wine prefix named .wine-advdiary on an Ubuntu Linux system, I used the commands below in a terminal window to import a .reg file named AdvancedDiary_LicenseInfo.reg.

$ export WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine-advdiary"$ wine regedit /s "$HOME/Documents/AdvancedDiary_LicenseInfo.reg"
$

After doing so, when I clicked on Help and chose About Advanced Diary, I saw it was registered.

Obtaining a command prompt in Windows 11
Date: August 14, 2023
Windows Reg Query Command
Date: October 1, 2026
Checking Microsoft Windows proxy server settings
Date: January 7, 2015
Installing Advanced Diary on a Linux system with Wine
Date: February 24, 2026
Access violation when installing Advanced Diary 9.0 with Wine on a Linux system
Date: August 4, 2026
Advanced Diary Active Database and Backup Registry Values
Date: July 18, 2026

SSH ServerAliveInterval

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 21:21:00 -0400

If you want to prevent a Secure Shell (SSH) connection being dropped when it has been inactive for several minutes, you can specify a keepalive value. To specify a keepalive value directly from the command line, use the -o flag followed by the ServerAliveIntervaloption

Command Line Syntax

Run the following command to send a keepalive packet every 60 seconds:

ssh -o ServerAliveInterval=60 user@hostname

Advanced Keepalive Control

For more robust protection against drops, combine the interval with ServerAliveCountMax. This defines how many consecutive keepalive messages can go unanswered before the client disconnects.

ssh -o ServerAliveInterval=60 -o ServerAliveCountMax=3 user@hostname

ServerAliveInterval=60: Sends a packet every 60 seconds of inactivity.
ServerAliveCountMax=3: Drops the dead connection if the server fails to respond 3 times in a row.

Making It Permanent (Optional)

If you get tired of typing this out every time, you can save it to your local configuration:

Open your configuration file in a text editor, such as nano:
```
nano ~/.ssh/config
```

Add these lines to apply it to all hosts:

Host *
 ServerAliveInterval 60
 ServerAliveCountMax 3

Access violation when installing Advanced Diary 9.0 with Wine on a Linux system

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 21:27:00 -0400

I needed to install the Advanced Diary diary/journaling program from CSoftLab on an Ubuntu Unix system. The application is developed only for Microsoft Windows, so to get it to work on an Ubuntu Linux system I used Wine, which is free and open-source software that allows one to run applications developed for the Microsoft Windows operating system (OS) on Linux systems. I started the installation from a terminal window after creating and initializing a Wine prefix for it. But when I clicked on Install, I saw the message "Invalid operation in GDI+ (Code: 2)". When I canceled the installation and closed the window associated with it, I saw an error window stating "The setup files are corrupted. Please obtain a new copy of the program." I had encountered the same "Invalid operation in GDI+ (Code: 2)" problem many months ago (the setup file wasn't actually corrupted, so I could ignore that message) when I installed a previous version of Advanced Diary, version 8.0, on another system using Wine — see Installing Advanced Diary on a Linux system with Wine — and remembered that I had used a shell script then to install additional software for Wine that would alleviate that problem. I needed Winetricks installed, so I verified I had already installed it on this system with the which command (you can install it with sudo apt install winetricks, if it is not installed). I used winetricks to install gdiplus and core fonts for Windows applications. That resolved the problem with the "Invalid operation in GDI+ (Code: 2)", but then I saw a "Access violation at address 75D947DC in module 'qcap.dll'. Read of address 5F505353" message every time I started Advanced Diary.

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Making an optical drive accessible to a guest OS running in VirtualBox

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 20:27:00 -0400

I needed to make an optical disc drive accessible to a Windows virtual machine (VM) running in VirtualBox on an Ubuntu Linux system. The drive was attached to the host operating system (OS) via a USB connection. One way to make a USB optical drive connected to a Linux host available to a Windows VM is to pass through the host optical drive. With the VM running, I could select Devices and then the optical drive connected to the host operating system, "Host Drive PIONEER BD-RW BDR-XS07U (sr0)". Since I had seen a recommendation to use a USB passthrough method instead, though, as while passing through the host optical drive works well for ordinary CD/DVD access, unusual discs or software that communicates directly with the hardware are less likely to be problematic if one uses the USB passthrough method, instead, I chose the USB passthrough option. To do so, I verified that the logged in user account was in the vboxusers group by issuing the command grep vboxusers /etc/group in a terminal window. If it isn't, you can add the account to that group using sudo usermod -aG vboxusers $USER. I also verified that the USB 3.0 Controller option was enabled by selecting the Windows 10 VM in VirtualBox and clicking on Settings and then selecting USB. I then made the Pioneer Blu-ray drive accessible inside the Windows VM by clicking on Devices at the top of the running Windows VM window and then selecting Pioneer Corporation Pioneer Blu-ray Drive [0100]. I then was able to see the blu-ray drive in the Windows File Explorer.

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Creating and using a Wine prefix on an Ubuntu Linux system

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 21:18:00 -0400

A Wine prefix is a directory that acts like a separate Windows installation. Each prefix has its own registry, installed programs, libraries, and configuration, providing a way to isolate applications and configure Wine in a way that is optimal for a particular Windows application or set of applications without affecting other Windows applications that you need to run on the system. To create a new Wine prefix, take the following steps:

Create a new Wine prefix

Open a terminal window.

Choose a location for the new prefix. For example:
export WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine-myapp"
Initialize the prefix:
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine-myapp" wineboot

Wine will create the directory and initialize a fresh Windows environment.

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Viewing and setting the display turn off time using powercfg

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 23:41:00 -0400

You can view the current setting for a Microsoft Windows system to turn off the attached screen by typing "power settings" in the Windows "Type here to search" field and selecting "Power & sleep settings".

Settings on a desktop system running Windows 10

Alternatively, you can see the current screen timeout power off settings from a command-line interface (CLI) using the command powercfg /query SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_VIDEO VIDEOIDLE from a PowerShell or command prompt window.

C:\>powercfg /query SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_VIDEO VIDEOIDLE
Power Scheme GUID: 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e  (Balanced)
  GUID Alias: SCHEME_BALANCED
  Subgroup GUID: 7516b95f-f776-4464-8c53-06167f40cc99  (Display)
    GUID Alias: SUB_VIDEO
    Power Setting GUID: 3c0bc021-c8a8-4e07-a973-6b14cbcb2b7e  (Turn off display after)
      GUID Alias: VIDEOIDLE
      Minimum Possible Setting: 0x00000000
      Maximum Possible Setting: 0xffffffff
      Possible Settings increment: 0x00000001
      Possible Settings units: Seconds
    Current AC Power Setting Index: 0x00000258
    Current DC Power Setting Index: 0x0000012c


C:\>

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Installing GVIM with winget

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 13:06:00 -0400

My preferred text editor is gVim, which is available for Linux, macOS, MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows systems as well as other operating systems. It is free and open-source software. I've been using personal computers since the early days of MS-DOS and have used the vi text editor on which it is based for decades, so I've learned many of the keyboard shortcuts which make it a powerful text editor and which make it easier for me to modify text files more quickly than I could navigating through menu entries in a graphical user interface (GUI). So I usually install it on Microsoft Windows systems that I will be using regularly. You can download an installation file from the website of the developer, Bram Moolenaar or on Windows 10 or later versions of Windows, you can use Microsoft's package manager utility, winget. To install the application using winget, you can open a command prompt window or PowerShell window and issue the command winget install vim.vim. Note: on a Windows 10 system (version 22H2), I found that the command was not available from a command prompt or PowerShell window with administrator privileges, only from windows opened with standard account privileges.

C:\>winget install vim
Multiple packages found matching input criteria. Please refine the input.
Name            Id              Source
---------------------------------------
Vim             vim.vim.nightly winget
Vim             vim.vim         winget
Vim Cheat Sheet 9WZDNCRDMCWR    msstore

C:\>winget install vim.vim
Found Vim [vim.vim] Version 9.2.0758
This application is licensed to you by its owner.
Microsoft is not responsible for, nor does it grant any licenses to, third-party packages.
Downloading https://github.com/vim/vim-win32-installer/releases/download/v9.2.0758/gvim_9.2.0758_x64_signed.exe
  ██████████████████████████████  12.7 MB / 11.7 MB
Successfully verified installer hash
Starting package install...
Successfully installed

C:\>

Installing Jellyfin as a Snap package on an Ubuntu Linux system

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 09:05:00 -0400

Jellyfin is a free and open-source media server application. It can be installed on an Ubuntu Linux system as a Snap package through the App Center.

Alternatively, you can install the software from a terminal window with the command sudo snap install itrue-jellyfin.

$ sudo snap install itrue-jellyfin
[sudo: authenticate] Password:               
itrue-jellyfin 10.11.11+ubu2604 from Isaac True (itrue) installed
$

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