linux-firmware meta package on Arch Linux

Arch Linux linux-firmware is now a meta package. Its derivative Manjaro renamed it to linux-firmware-meta. The default set covers a wide range of firmwares that may not be applicable to most devices and can be trimmed down.

  1. Remove the meta package, pacman -Rn linux-firmware
  2. Identify device manufacturer, lspci
  3. Remove irrelevant firmware, e.g. if Nvidia device is not installed, pacman -Rns linux-firmware-nvidia
  4. Mark the necessary firmware as explicitly installed, pacman -D --asexplicit $(pacman -Qs -q linux-firmware | sed -z 's|\n| |g')

CMC 3.37.0 switched to _cmc_summary index

Splunk Cloud Monitoring Console (CMC) app which auto-update itself separately from Splunk Cloud recently switched from “summary” to “_cmc_summary” index in 3.37.0 update released on 27 March 2025. The update broke my custom license monitoring dashboards and alert. Resolved the issue by including the new index.

Update: CMC 3.37.1 update reverts it back to “summary” index to allow for gradual transition.

Unable to get SSH host key due to short timeout

Some servers can be a bit slow in responding to host key request, so ssh-keyscan may return empty result when using the default 5 seconds timeout. A workaround is to increase the timeout, ssh-keyscan -T 10 hostname for 10 seconds.

Noticed this issue from host key verification error when mirroring a GitLab repository to an external repository. I could not fix it because I can’t modify the SSH client configuration in GitLab.com to increase ConnectTimeout.

Do not disable Android lockscreen

Disabling the Android lockscreen may cause the display to turn on by itself, either after timeout or power button. Worse, after turning on, it may stay on and does not timeout. I experienced this issue in LineageOS 21 and 22. Apparently, this issue has been around since 17 and another one reported with version 20.