Writeups
Longform notes on shipping software and chasing bugs through layers.
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Why vdu_controls launched three times on KDE (a Qt single-instance guard)
Three copies of the same tray app were running on my KDE desktop. Tracing it through the process tree, KDE's parallel launch channels, a missing single-instance check, and a generic .desktop file — then adding a QLocalServer guard and getting it merged upstream.
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Building Clipman — a clipboard manager for Wayland that respects you
How and why I built a clipboard history manager for Ubuntu/GNOME on Wayland, with the protocol stack explained for newcomers and the CI/CD security harness laid out for engineers. Pain points, real bugs, and what shipping to five distribution channels actually takes.
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How I fixed a 0..1 brightness slider in vdu_controls (Philips Evnia DDC/CI bug)
A Philips Evnia 27M2N5500Q on Linux gave me a brightness slider stuck at 0..1 in vdu_controls. Tracing it through DDC/CI, capability strings, and a parser bug — and submitting my first open-source fix.