Posted on Oct 13, 2025 by kingbeowulf
A while ago, Valve added a built-in system for creating and sharing your game play footage in the Steam Client. This makes it easy to record game videos "on the fly" and easily share clips without having to learn OBS Studio and video editing software. Game recording works quite well and was even ported to the Steam for Linux Client.
There is one glitch, however. On Linux, with a AMD GPU, and sometimes with an Nvidia GPU, trying to export a video or video clip from the 'Original' tab results in the error:
"Failed to export, try again"
Not very helpful. This occurs when trying to export in H.265 format - the default format Steam uses to record the video. Turns out this was reported a while back:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/11850
Steam lis looking for libcuda.so.1, even when running on a non-Nvidia GPU. You can export with transcoding to H.264 in the 'Custom' tab just fine. This works fine (you may need to install ffmpeg and the relevant codecs for your linux distro).
I found a workaround in a small blog post:
https://y.tsutsumi.io/reading-steam-game-recordings
To copy the original H.265 stream, look in you Steam directory:
.local/share/Steam/userdata/{id}/gamerecordings/clips
You will see one or more directories of the format:
clip_{game id}_{date_time in UTC}
Locate your game and open the directory. The original vidoe is the in
video/fg_{game id}_{date_time in UTC}
where you with find the video stream *.m4s files as well as the important session.mpd' XML file. Ffmpeg can read mpd file natively, so simply
ffmpeg -i session.mpd -c copy out.mp4
Other container formats compatible with H.265 and AAC audio will work as well. You now have the full original video to copy, upload, modify etc.
Have Fun!
Posted on Jul 09, 2025 by kingbeowulf
GoPro Hero 13 Black Action CameraPosted on Apr 05, 2024 by kingbeowulf
Yesterday was the 30th Anniversary Meeting of Portland Linux/Unix Group - one of the oldest LUGs still in progress. Not only did we have cake,
Posted on Feb 25, 2023 by kingbeowulf
Instead of buying expensive security cameras or USB webcams, older cell phones (iOS and Android) can be repurposed as internet (IP) cameras via WIFI. SIM card not required. In this post, I'll describe a two camera security configuration with ZoneMinder video surveillance software system.
For each phone, you'll need to install software to stream the camera video in format accessible to web browsers (Firefox, etc). For my cameras I chose:
These apps will allow you to stream video inside your WiFi network without internet access via http access. There are others; choose wisely.
I recommend setting the phones for a fixed IP address so that the same IP is assigned should the phone restart. One way (recommended), is to set your router to provide static leases and block traffic to the internet (WAN). In the iOS and Android settings, under network, look up the MAC address of your phone.
NOTE: Some Android configurations set up a random MAC address. You'll need to turn this off and use the actual hardware address.
My Wifi router utilizes OpenWrt firmware. Others are similar. To set the static lease and profide a fixed IP address when the phone connects to Wifi:
Network -> DHCP and DNS -> Static Leases -> Add
Enter in the camera hostname, MAC address and IP address to use. Enter the values in the --custom-- field. The values below are examples. You will need to select an IP address that doesn't conflict with any other devices on your network.
Posted on Jan 23, 2023 by kingbeowulf
As a follow-up to my previous post regarding obtaining system information via dmidecode, here is a small bash script for a quick motherboard summary using string keywords. This will display a short summary of your motherboard.
Posted on Jun 29, 2022 by kingbeowulf
dmidecode is a userspace command-line utility for Linux that can parse the SMBIOS data of your computer. This utility is handy to display system information without having to reboot into the UEFI/BIOS. Details are in 'man dmidecode' for the various options; I prefer the "--t, --type TYPE" option as it also uses human readable TYPE keywords to groups and drill into the specific information needed. The inxi utility usues dmidecode (and many other utilities) and some nice formatting to deliver comprehensive system information.
Posted on Feb 03, 2021 by bkoenig
On Linux, all of the layered subsystems required to play sound from your speakers are exposed to the user. For those interested in trying out Pipewire, the latest user-space daemon in audio device management, here's a short guide.
Posted on Feb 03, 2021 by bkoenig
On Linux, all of the layered subsystems required to play sound from your speakers are exposed to the user. For those interested in trying out Pipewire, the latest user-space daemon in audio device management, here's a short guide.
Posted on Jan 31, 2021 by bkoenig
Weekly update statistics are here for January 30, 2021! This is where Official updates in the Slackware changelog are retrieved, summarized, and presented for YOUR viewing pleasure.
Enjoy and be sure to visit the Official Slackware Changelog for full details!
Posted on Jan 22, 2021 by bkoenig
As a Slackware user, I often run into situations where I find myself having to prove that Slackware is in fact a current and up-to-date Linux Distribution. Since we now live in an era of "data driven" decision making here are some statistics that showcase the pace of Slackware development.
Posted on Jan 10, 2021 by bkoenig
The biggest challenge with Slackware in any use case is getting things set up after the initial installation. By default Slackware does not provide any functionality or services beyond those required to boot the kernel and basic background services. This can present a significant change from what people are accustomed to on other platforms, so I'm going to list the things I do immediately after installing Slackware on a new PC.
Posted on Dec 15, 2018 by kingbeowulf
The Linux Counter project shut down a few days ago. It had a good run. I'm sad to see it end, and also that it never quite developed the popularity to fully serve its purpose. Commercial / proprietary software installed base is easy to count: sales. With F/OSS it is difficult to get a true count of the number of systems running Linux distributions. Raw downloads aren't a reliable count for systems actually in use.
Wikipedia: Linux Counter
Oct 13, 2025
kingbeowulf
Jul 09, 2025
kingbeowulf
Apr 05, 2024
kingbeowulf
Feb 25, 2023
kingbeowulf
Jan 23, 2023
kingbeowulf
Jun 29, 2022
kingbeowulf
Feb 03, 2021
bkoenig
Feb 03, 2021
bkoenig
Jan 31, 2021
bkoenig
Jan 22, 2021
bkoenig
Jan 10, 2021
bkoenig
Dec 15, 2018
kingbeowulf