Unable to see SMB shares with Thunar

By | October 10, 2026

I am using Debian on my laptop with XFCE. Thunar is the file manager that is included. I found I was unable to browse or view SMB network shares with Thunar. After digging around for a while, I found I needed to add gvfs-backends to my laptop along with cifs-utils.

sudo apt install cifs-utils
sudo apt install gvfs-backends gvfs-fuse smbclient

Now all is good. I’ve always hated Thunar because of network browsing. Never realized it could have been fixed easily by me a long time ago. My bad.

XFCE missing user details editor

By | October 2, 2026

I noticed that XFCE does not have the User details editor. It was just not missing on my Devuan install, my Debian install did not have it either. Never fear, there is a similar tool available and it is easy to add it in. Just install mugshot.

sudo apt install mugshot

Add user to sudoers

By | September 19, 2026

This is just a note really to myself as I always have to look this command up because I do not use it often.

To add a user to the sudoers:

  1. Enter root.
  2. usermod -aG sudo <username>
  3. Logout and sign back in as user and test.

I’m actually embarrassed I am posting this here to remember.

WordPress asking for FTP credentials again

By | August 9, 2026

Today I noticed an alert that WordPress version 7.0.3 was available. I decided to update, but got the annoying prompt to enter FTP credentials. Usually, just running chown -R wwwrun /srv/www/htdocs would usually fix the issue, but not today. After digging around, I found I needed to add three lines to my wpconfig.php config file above the /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy publishing. */ line which resolved the issue.

define( ‘FS_CHMOD_DIR’, 0755);
define( ‘FS_CHMOD_FILE’, 0644);
define( ‘FS_METHOD’, ‘direct’);

The final line was the real kicker that made the function work again. FS_METHOD allows WordPress to write files directly to the filesystem without using FTP or SSH. Never needed it before, guess this is something new. Fun in the world of self-hosting.

All is good now, and I can now update my boring WordPress site again.