Maker's Logbook by Stefan Herndlbauer

Week 013 (Oct 20–Oct 26): Lessons from Drivers, Desktops & Distractions

✍ Week’s content, if you missed it

• I’ve been working on new content behind the scenes, but nothing ready to publish just yet. Stay tuned — it’s shaping up nicely.

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🛠 This Week at the Workbench

• Continued working on a detailed article about my KNX home automation journey — it’s turning into an in-depth walkthrough of my setup and lessons learned. I’ve been refining it for a while and hope to publish it soon.
• Spent a lot of time preparing the next podcast episode, which will go live this Thursday. Cross-compiling my first Linux driver for the Raspberry Pi was a great experience and a real confidence boost.

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💡 Things I Learned or Noticed

• Tried to customize my Ubuntu setup this week by installing the i3 window manager. It always looks so smooth in tutorials, but I ran into some VM screen resolution issues that I still need to iron out.
• Revisited VIM after years of neglect. Back when I ran my home lab and did more networking, having a built-in editor was super handy. But after years away, I’ve definitely forgotten half the shortcuts — muscle memory doesn’t last forever!
• “It’s funny how every layer deeper into Linux makes me appreciate the simplicity of microcontrollers — and also their limits.”

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📸 Snapshot of the Week

🔗 Inspiration & Resources

• Invisible Security Codes from the 3D Printer — Researchers at TU Wien developed a way to embed invisible codes into 3D-printed parts for anti-counterfeiting and authentication.
• How to Get a Job in Edge AI: Essential Skills for 2025 — Shawn Hymel shares valuable insights into the growing Edge AI field. Always worth a read.
• Building a LattePanda Mu Cyberdeck — A fascinating mix of 3D printing, CAD, and Linux tinkering — definitely one to bookmark.

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🚀 What’s Next

Next week, I’m planning to dive deeper into Buildroot and the Yocto Project — time to get serious about building custom Linux systems from the ground up.