jkossen.nl: Blog posts in English

Emacs

2026-08-31T00:00:00Z

While every now and then I try out other text editors, GNU Emacs is where my home appears to be. This page marks the entrypoint of my collection of notes on it.

init.el

I like to configure my init.el with use-package. It consists of a bunch of use-package declarations such as the following:

Notes on Podman and Quadlets

2026-06-02T00:00:00Z

This post contains notes on and examples of my Podman containers on Debian setup.

On running Podman containers rootless

I run a few containers for web services (http/https servers) behind another container which serves as a reverse proxy.

All containers run rootless under their own user account. If I have a site, say, jkossen.nl, it runs under the jkossen-nl user account which has no privileges on the rest of the system.

Notes on the nvi text editor

2026-06-02T00:00:00Z

Aside from Vim, I sometimes use nvi as an even lighter-weight text editor. Don’t underestimate it though, it comes with lots of functionality built-in.

A few tips on using nvi

nvi offers a lot of shortcuts for functionality to help you edit conveniently and fast. Here are a few I use regularly:

Key	Action
{	Move cursor to before current paragraph
}	Move cursor to after current paragraph
[[	Move cursor to beginning of file
]]	Move cursor to end of file
/Fore	Move cursor to next occurrence of 'Fore'
?Back	Move cursor to previous occurrence of 'Back'
n	Move cursor to next match of previous search term
u	Undo. Then press . for multiple undo
:42	Move cursor to line 42
y4l	Yank (copy) the next 4 characters starting from the cursor
y4y	Yank (copy) 4 lines starting from the cursor
p	Paste yanked contents after current line
P	Paste yanked contents before current line
.	Repeat last modification action (undo as well, so multiple undo!)

Configuration

nvi uses a file called .nexrc in your home folder.

Notes on the Vim text editor

2026-06-02T00:00:00Z

In search of a calm editor with few distractions, I made a configuration for the Vim (and Vim Classic) text editor. While some don’t consider Vim to be an editor with low cognitive load, I humbly disagree with this. Yes it has a learning curve, but it’s well documented, and you can learn basic functionality very quickly. Also, the basic use of Vim does not change much, so everything you learn is knowledge you’ll be able to use for decades.

Notes on my Laptop setup

2026-06-01T00:00:00Z

I’ve been using a Lenovo T14 Gen 6 AMD laptop running Debian for a while now. This is where I collect notes on my setup. Some are specific to this type, others are more generic.

Obligatory fastfetch output

 1        _,met$$$$$gg.          jochem@meridian
 2     ,g$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$P.       ---------------
 3   ,g$$P""       """Y$$.".     OS: Debian GNU/Linux forky/sid (forky) x86_64
 4  ,$$P'              `$$$.     Host: 21QJ005EMH (ThinkPad T14 Gen 6)
 5',$$P       ,ggs.     `$$b:    Kernel: Linux 7.0.9+deb14-amd64
 6`d$$'     ,$P"'   .    $$$     Uptime: 6 days, 1 hour, 44 mins
 7 $$P      d$'     ,    $$P     Packages: 1884 (dpkg), 14 (flatpak)
 8 $$:      $$.   -    ,d$$'     Shell: bash 5.3.9
 9 $$;      Y$b._   _,d$P'       Display (LEN403A): 1920x1200 @ 1.25x in 14", 60 Hz [Built-in]
10 Y$$.    `.`"Y$$$$P"'          DE: GNOME 49.5
11 `$$b      "-.__               WM: Mutter (Wayland)
12  `Y$$b                        WM Theme: Adwaita
13   `Y$$.                       Theme: Adwaita [GTK2/3/4]
14     `$$b.                     Icons: Adwaita [GTK2/3/4]
15       `Y$$b.                  Font: Noto Sans (10pt) [GTK2/3/4]
16         `"Y$b._               Cursor: Adwaita (24px)
17             `""""             Terminal: kitty 0.47.0
18                               Terminal Font: HackNF-Regular (14pt)
19                               CPU: AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 (16) @ 5.09 GHz
20                               GPU: AMD Radeon 860M Graphics [Integrated]
21                               Memory: 5.11 GiB / 27.05 GiB (19%)
22                               Swap: 0 B / 32.00 GiB (0%)
23                               Disk (/): 24.85 GiB / 720.92 GiB (3%) - btrfs
24                               Local IP (wlp194s0): 192.168.2.44/24
25                               Battery (5B11M90125): 90% [Discharging]
26                               Locale: en_US.UTF-8

T14 Gen 6 specific: audio quality improvement

Audio quality from the speakers sucks by default. Thankfully, with some configuration, you can improve that big time.

A few examples of and notes on Podman quadlets

2026-02-26T00:00:00Z

As of 2026-06-02, I’ve merged the contents of this page into:

=> Notes on Podman

Simply Vim

2025-09-13T00:00:00Z

As of 2026-06-02, I merged the contents of this page into:

=> Notes on the Vim text editor

A simple JavaScript Lightbox without dependencies

2024-02-19T00:00:00Z

A lightweight photo gallery and lightbox for your website

Web server setup with OpenBSD

2023-06-20T00:00:00Z

As a hobby, I host my website on my own server. It’s currently running the OpenBSD operating system. OpenBSD comes with batteries included. Among other things, it comes with a web (http / https) server, a transparent proxy and load balancer, a mail (SMTP) server, the OpenSSH shell server and a packet filter (“firewall”). Everything you need to host your website yourself. All nicely integrated. All for free.

OpenBSD is very consistent, lightweight and probably the most secure functional operating system available. Maintenance is a breeze, so it’s great for serving purposes.

Imagine you are Jochem ... The Writer

2023-06-12T00:00:00Z

Imagine you, being me.

You have this vague sense of an idea.
It has to get out.
You feel you have to write it into a story.
Or a book perhaps!
You could just start.
Typing one letter after another.
But you want to do this right.
You decide to immerse yourself in the art of writing.

You read every book on writing you can find.
But you only remember On Writing by Stephen King.
In your defense, that’s a good one.
One thing you learn is that you have to read a lot of books.
So you read.

Long(er) Term Software

2023-06-08T00:00:00Z

Abstract

Occasionally I think about the software I use. Why do I get excited about running the latest and greatest? I guess I’m not as immune to fancy marketing as I would like to be. I might have found a cure, though.

How it started

Recently whenever I throw away plastic in our plastic bin (we do separate waste!), I’m shocked to see how much plastic we use. It’s terrible and I am ashamed. It encouraged me to find ways to use less plastic. And reduce waste in general.

Productivity apps

2023-05-08T00:00:00Z

An app for personal to-do’s.
An app for work tasks.
An app for work notes.
An app for personal notes.
An app for reminders.
An app for calendar items.
An app for text editing.

I changed from Microsoft Todo to Todoist as well. Each has half of my tasks.

Where are those notes on the to-do item I should finish by tomorrow? You know, the to-do item I’m unable to find. I’m not sure whether it was for work, for personal or both.

Learning Scheme

2021-01-03T00:00:00Z

At work, we talked our first-year students into participating in the Advent of Code 2020. It’s quite the challenge for them, but quite a few had a lot of fun solving the puzzles together. They mostly utilize PHP and JavaScript.

As a fun project I thought I’d participate as well and use the occasion to learn a different way of programming as an extra challenge. Ever since rediscovering Emacs I’ve been wanting to understand elisp better. Up to now I just considered LISP to be an annoying collection of parentheses containing bits of code. LISP code looks a bit like it was written by aliens. After considering a few options (Emacs with elisp, Common Lisp, Racket, Scheme). I picked the GNU Guile Scheme implementation.

File format considerations

2020-11-22T00:00:00Z

When writing

I just want to read what I have written.
And write what I have not.
In other words I only want to deal with the contents.

I don’t want to get distracted by … features
Such as markup.
Or alignment.
Or shapes.
Or decoration.

My files should be backed up easily. To “the cloud” ¹. Or to other computers.

I want to edit on my computer.
Not in “the cloud”.

jkossen.nl: Blog posts in English

Emacs

Table of Contents

init.el

Notes on Podman and Quadlets

Table of Contents

On running Podman containers rootless

Notes on the nvi text editor

A few tips on using nvi

Configuration

Notes on the Vim text editor

Notes on my Laptop setup

Obligatory fastfetch output

T14 Gen 6 specific: audio quality improvement

A few examples of and notes on Podman quadlets

Simply Vim

A simple JavaScript Lightbox without dependencies

Web server setup with OpenBSD

Imagine you are Jochem ... The Writer

Long(er) Term Software

Abstract

How it started

Productivity apps

Learning Scheme

File format considerations

When writing