Jimmie Lightner

Technology, Truth, and Common Sense

mkinitcpio 42 breaks LUKS auto-unlock using crypttab.initramfs
Updated the Dell XPS 15 this morning using the latest Linux 7.2.6 and mkinitcpio 42 only to be repeatedly greeted by the LUKS unlock prompt. After some quick Kagi searching, I noted this little nugget in the release notes:

install/sd-encrypt deprecates the mkinitcpio-specific
/etc/crypttab.initramfs file in favour of using the x-initrd.attach
option in /etc/crypttab (in the fourth field). This matches the
behaviour of other initramfs generators.

If you’re using crypttab.initramfs take heed! Your shit’s gonna break! (Mine did!) No amount of re-enrolling is going to fix this one.

The fix is easy enough, and documented on the Wiki here. Merge your crypttab.initramfs into /etc/crypttab and include x-initrd.attach in the 4th field like so:

/etc/crypttab root UUID=XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX none x-initrd.attach,tpm2-device=auto

Update your initrd and reboot!

Hold on to your butts….
September 15, 2026
Hi-Res Audio Surprise

Just discovered my 2021 Audi SQ8 can play Hi-Res lossless audio! 24bit 192khz FLAC is apparently no big deal. WHO KNEW!

I’ve got one of those 2TB SanDisk USB SSDs from Costco… yeah, that one. I don’t trust it for REAL work, but holding 600 gigs of FLAC and serving as my mobile jukebox? Yeahhhhh buddy!

August 11, 2026
Uh-what-the-fuck

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/08/05/uh-im-pretty-sure-people-would-know

I… don’t know what the fuck I just read. But I nearly spat coffee all over my screen. 🤣

August 6, 2026
Petlibro Granary Smart Feeder Review

Wow. I’m not typically moved to write a product review. You’d think it would be for something special, right? Like it was because something was mind blowingly awesome, riiiiight? NOPE! This review is for a thing that is a total piece of shit. Well, hang on, let me back up. The physical pet feeder itself seems to be fine. So far. Other than it being entirely dependent on the App. But guess what *IS ACTUALLY* shit? You got it – the “app.” Or should I say, the ad. It’s entirely, completely, one giant advertisement full of dark patterns. Every other click pops a new Ad modal, with check boxes already selected – just waiting for you to accidentally “consent” to their up-charged subscription “care plan” for ONLY $10 per month. Charged annually, of course.

You can’t create a fucking feeding schedule without encountering this bullshit. Go ahead. Try.

I’ve already opened a request to return it. Support seemed pretty prompt – at least until I said the R word, now it’s the old fashioned “let’s delay a week and see if they cave, maybe they’ll keep the garbage we sent them.” It hasn’t even been in my possession for an hour and I am already looking for something else. I won’t accept this kind of blatant disrespect.

By the way, did I mention the device connects to WiFi *AND* it has a Microphone? I’ve set up a packet trace to see if it does anything ‘funny’ between now and the “3-5 business days to escalate to a supervisor” to return it… I’ll report back.

Fuck. Me.

August 3, 2026
My Problem with OpenClaw

Honestly at this point I’m about done with OpenClaw and their misguided Doctor nonsense. Doctor warnings are probably great for the beginner who doesn’t understand the ramifications of the runtime choices being made. I’ve investigated nearly every setting, read the docs front to back, and explicitly hand-chosen and curated the configuration of the setup I’m running. I understand the risk of binding to LAN (and permitting exactly one entry point via a trusted proxy). I understand I’m not running the gateway as a systemd user unit. The Matrix channel configuration I’ve chosen IS THE ONLY ONE THAT WORKS for what I need. Quit fucking touching my configuration!

There MUST be a toggle to shut this fucking idiot up and make it stop casually mutating my configuration – some means to suppress the nonsensical warnings that I have already accepted as risk. I’ve already come up with a plan of maintenance. I’m tired of rehashing these things. I’m tired of having doctor “fix” my setup according to the idea of what *SOMEONE ELSE THINKS* I should be using on *MY* system. Only to have to go undo the changes after the fact when Doctor fucks it all to pieces. See the problem here? This system is mine. Doctor’s advisement is one thing (and, you know, entirely acceptable despite how strongly I despise it right now). Unchecked mutation authority is another. This is unacceptable and I’m done with it.

And before you go and say “Jimmie, just use OPENCLAW_NIX_MODE=1,” that does not solve anything to do with updater safety. It disables openclaw update entirely. On nix, sure that might make sense. It’s even in the name of the stupid env variable. Embedding an unskippable repair operation inside the updater with unchecked power to rewrite configuration is lunacy. Just default doctor to advisement, but with a prompt to accept modifications. Blind modification is the problem.

Maybe it’s beyond time to go look at Hermes… ~*wanders off muttering obscenities*~ </rant>

July 30, 2026
Chuck

Last night, Chuck, my next door neighbor passed away unexpectedly. He wasn’t even 70.

When I first heard, I noticed I felt mostly unaffected. Almost as if floating out of body, looking at myself, seeing the “well, shit” reaction crossing my own face. I guess that’s why it’s called shock. He had just been out mowing the yard yesterday. I saw him driving around in his old red pickup the day before that. He was always on the go. And now he’s just… gone. It’s only now really sinking in.

He was an ornery old fuck, a retired sheriff deputy, working across the road at the gun range in his retirement. Got away with more than most, probably. Always lit his bootleg fireworks in the cul de sac every 4th of July. Hah, I remember one year the police actually came out and he told them “oh, they’re just sparklers.” … And the fireworks continued.

I won’t pretend I was super close with Chuck or that I knew him more than casually, but he was the first person to truly make me feel at home, like part of the neighborhood, when I bought this house. It had really low water pressure and he crawled underneath the house with me to check the pressure switch on the well controller.

I hate this part of being an adult. The cost of building connections in life is becoming the keeper of more and more absences as it goes on. What a shitty bargain.

Damn. Rest in Peace, Chuck.

July 27, 2026
No AI Slop

I’m really starting to get tired of the AI written garbage all over the internet. Where’s the original content gone? Why’s every thought have to be augmented by an agent that makes it all bland and sound the same. I used to love being able to tell the difference between writers – now they’re starting to all sound similar.

Hell, I’m guilty of it, too. I used AI to help write a few things in the past – an entry bitching about Ticket Master, another complaining about Garmin BS – I’ve since deleted them. From here on, the only text posted to this site will be written by me. If my two hands didn’t type it, I won’t post it, let alone have it attributed to my name.

We should own our own damn thoughts. I’d rather see some personality in writing than some grammatically perfect but overly calculated clanker (de)generated slop.

July 24, 2026
Come say hi

I spent some time this weekend playing around with Matrix federation. It’s… fascinating. I’ll leave it at that. Come say hi 🙂

https://matrix.to/#/@jimmie:matrix.homeroot.net

June 14, 2026
Breezeline tried to bill me for internet service that never worked

Breezeline installed their “best” internet service at my house on March 28, 2026. Gigabit. Very impressive on paper. In real life, I couldn’t even use it. It did not work.

That should have settled the question of whether I owed them a full month of service charges. Instead, it turned into one of those stupidly familiar consumer fights where a company wastes enough of your time that the dispute itself starts to cost more than the bill.

I asked the installer to use my own modem, an Arris SB8200. It is a supported model, and it was already working on another provider. They tried to provision it and failed. The installer then suggested using Breezeline equipment instead. Fine. I agreed. If they wanted their own hardware in the loop, I assumed they would be able to configure it correctly.

They couldn’t.

The modem they installed was unstable. It rebooted repeatedly, would not hold the needed configuration, and was never actually verified against the setup I needed before the installer left. The install was treated as complete because “the lights show it’s connected,” not because the service was actually working. The installer would not take the equipment back and told me I would have to contact support to sort it out.

So now I had non-working internet and a brand new part-time job: cleaning up a problem that should have been solved before the technician walked out the door.

Support, after trying and failing to properly configure the original dud, later decided their modem needed to be replaced. The replacement unit did not arrive until April 2. So Breezeline had already started the billing clock while the original install was broken and the replacement hardware was still in transit.

When the new modem finally showed up, I plugged it in only to learn that Breezeline does not support IPv6 at all. I was done. Fed up. Pushed over the edge. So I tried to cancel, but their phone system was malfunctioning. I have several recordings of those attempts. If they can record me, I can record them. I eventually got through their incompetent, maddening phone tree, canceled on April 9, and returned the equipment shortly after.

That should have made the billing issue pretty simple. Failed install. Broken service. Replacement hardware delayed. Cancellation completed. Equipment returned.

Instead, Breezeline told me they were charging me anyway.

Their rep said, in writing, that they would still charge the first month. They also said Breezeline is “no longer working with prorated charges, discounts, credits or changes on the account,” that “the system will charge” even if the service was not used, and that they would not escalate the matter.

That is the part that really gets me. Not “we reviewed the record and determined the service was working.” Not “we found usage that supports the actual bill.” Just: the system charges, and that is apparently the end of the conversation.

The billing period they pointed to was March 28 through April 27.

The replacement modem arrived April 2. I canceled April 9. Today is only April 22nd. That math sure as hell just don’t math!

So even under the kindest possible reading for Breezeline, they are trying to charge me for a full month when the replacement equipment was only in my possession for about a week. And that week came after a failed installation and non-working service.

That is not a gray area. That is a stupidly blunt billing policy being used to bulldoze reality.

The agent wouldn’t escalate internally, so I escalated the way I know how…

I filed an FCC complaint. I filed an Ohio Attorney General consumer complaint. I filed a BBB complaint. I sent certified letters to Breezeline’s corporate office and Ohio office with the documentation attached: screenshots, shipping records, my written install notes, return receipt, and call recordings.

This is the real trick in a lot of these disputes. The company isn’t just trying to take your money, they’re trying to make fighting back so annoying that you decide your own time is worth less than their bad behavior. FUCK THAT!

That is the business model. Drag it out. Hide behind policy. Force the customer to do paperwork. Hope they cave.

A lot of people would have paid this just to make it go away. My mother would have. That isn’t a moral failure. It’s what these companies are counting on.

I’m just not the right customer for that strategy.

So no, I’m not about to let it slide. And no, I am DEFINITELY not sorry about becoming a bureaucratic problem. Even the clerk at the post office had her own Breezeline horror story.

If you find yourself in a situation such as this, document everything. Save screenshots. Save tracking numbers. Save return receipts. Save call recordings if you legally can (they’re recording you… I think it’s only fair). Write down dates and details while they’re fresh. Then escalate in writing and make the company answer in more than one place.

Sometimes that is the only language a shoddy company like this understands.

Breezeline should have just fixed the damn bill.

Instead, they got me. 😘

April 22, 2026
Breezeline Setup Feedback

I rated them 0/10. Would not recommend. I provided the following feedback:

I requested that the installation be completed using my own modem, which is a supported model (Arris SB8200) and is currently functioning properly on another provider. The installer attempted to provision it, but when that did not succeed, he suggested using Breezeline equipment instead. I agreed to that troubleshooting step with the understanding that, if Breezeline equipment was used, Breezeline would fully own the outcome.

Unfortunately, the provided equipment was not stable. It rebooted repeatedly, did not reliably maintain the required configuration, and was not verified to support my required deployment mode (bridge mode with a public IP presented to my router) before the installer left. The install was effectively treated as complete once basic connectivity indicators appeared, rather than when the service was actually functioning to requirements.

As a result, I was left with non-working equipment, an unresolved configuration problem, and the need to spend significant additional time with support after the installer had already departed. Support ultimately determined that the provided gateway needed to be replaced with different equipment, which now has to be shipped to me separately, while I also have to return the originally installed equipment.

This was a significant miss. The installer did not leave me with a working, correctly configured service, and the follow-on burden of support calls, equipment replacement, and return logistics fell on me because the installation was not properly completed the first time.

March 28, 2026