I decided to replace my Arlo cameras today. They did not break; Arlo changed the rules, and some cameras stopped working.
Recently, one of my Arlo cameras stopped appearing in the Arlo app and web dashboard. I replaced the battery, resynced the camera, and the app confirmed it was active. Then, immediately, the app warned me I had “too many cameras” and I needed a subscription upgrade. This was especially frustrating because Arlo advertises “Unlimited Cameras” for $17.99 on its website for my Plus subscription, yet my account flagged my setup as exceeding the limit.
While I was traveling, another camera powered down when its battery ran low. I swapped the battery and tried to re-sync it; the app said it was paired and ready. But the camera never appeared as an available device.
When I was young and idealistic, most electronics ran on vacuum tubes and a No. 2 pencil was my note writing tool of choice. Paper and pencil served me for decades and still works for field notes, but are less practical in the office. So here I sit, keyboard in hand, trying to wrap my gray matter around this thing called Obsidian. Can this old dog learn new tricks?
First, this is not a Wayland critique. Wayland has its place and is likely the future of Linux desktops. Still, some applications and workflows remain tied to X11 or don’t behave well under Wayland or XWayland.
The purpose of this video is to build a lightweight, usable Graphical User Interface (GUI) on Debian 13 (Trixie) using Xorg (X11), the SLIM‑Fork Login manager (Display Manager or DM), and JWM (Joe’s Window Manager), instead of more common Desktop Environments and DM’s.
The base setup I propose will work straight out of the box, even for beginners. It won’t be visually polished by default. Improving the appearance requires manually editing configuration files, an intermediate skill I’ll cover in future articles.
Before moving forward, I want to discuss the choices I have mentioned. This is Linux and there are different ways to do everything, and my choices do not imply the only way of doing something.
Debian 13: Debian prioritizes stability over bleeding‑edge packages. That tradeoff suits 95% users. 5% are niche cases, and may need newer software, prohibitory software, and custom hardware drivers.
Xorg: Many legacy GUI applications were designed for X11 and may not behave correctly under Wayland or XWayland. So Xorg knowledge remains both useful and needed, in spite of what the experts tell us.
SLIM‑Fork: A maintained fork of the original SLIM (Simple Login Manager), which has been unmaintained since 2013. Slim-Fork has addressed several existing issues with newer Linux system environments. It is also light weight and relatively easy to configure.
JWM: Joe’s Window Manager is a lightweight, actively maintained window manager with a small footprint and useful features (panel, menu, basic taskbar). While based on the single xlib library, other libraries can be incorporated for greater capability’s, especially with graphics.
This site is governed by the terms and conditions set forth in the below links. To use this site, you must read and agree to abide by them. By clinging the "Accept" button below, you are stating that you have read the content form the links, understand the content, and agree to abide by them while using this site.
Leave a Reply