Take Control of Your Tech

This week, we’re going to Take Control of Windows 11, start working toward a better approach to online photos and video, take a new Niri competitor for a test spin, answer questions from the audience, and see how we all did on last week's homework.

Support Take Control of Your Tech and get an ad-free podcast feed, access to the community, and early access to upcoming episodes by subscribing!

• Take Control Github Repo w/ Full Shownotes and Windows Fixes: https://github.com/notthatwillsmith/takecontrol
• Will's most recent fixing Windows article: https://takecontrol.content.town/blog/unfucking-windows-for-fun-and-profit/
• Ars Technica's Fixing Windows 11 Article: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/what-i-do-to-clean-up-a-clean-install-of-windows-11-23h2-and-edge/
• Sponsored: Sign up for Fastmail and support the show! https://join.fastmail.com/will
• Immich, a self-hosted home photo and video storage app: https://immich.app/
• Umbriel, the new Linux compositor from the folks who make Noctalia: https://docs.noctalia.dev/umbriel/

Thanks to Fastmail for supporting the show. Go to https://join.fastmail.com/will to get a 30-day no commitment, no credit card-required trial.

Next week's homework: Take Control of Your Windows install using our tips (and share your favs!)

• (00:00) - Cold Open
• (00:41) - Intro
• (05:53) - Ad: Get a 30-Day Free Fastmail Trial: https://join.fastmail.com/will
• (08:08) - Take Control of Windows
• (31:41) - Ad: Subscribe to Take Control of Your Tech! https://takecontrol.content.town/subscribe
• (32:49) - Take Control of Will's Tech: Home Photos and Video / Immich
• (36:38) - Take Control of Will's Tech: Umbriel, Noctalia's Answer to Niri
• (39:43) - Listener Questions: Matt Wants to Take Control of His Router
• (47:23) - Listener Questions: Jerry Wants to Get Rid of Roku
• (50:12) - Listener Questions: Andrew Wants Self-Hosted Multiplayer to Return
• (53:42) - Ad: Get a Free Fastmail Trial at https://join.fastmail.com/will
• (55:59) - Last Week's Homework: Fix Something That Annoys You About Your Computer
• (58:23) - Homework: What You All Did!
• (59:18) - Next week's homework: Take Control of Windows!
• (01:00:41) - Thanks for listening!
• (01:01:42) - Post-Music Nonsense

★ Support this podcast ★

On this week's show, I answer a handful of audience questions from the Take Control launch, talk about the suggestions I've gotten so far, run down the Linux news since the end of Dual Boot Diaries, share a big list of things I've done to make my computing life better, answer listener questions, and more!

SUPPORT THE SHOW: Take Control of Your Tech is powered by you, the listener! Support the show and get an ad-free audio feed, access to the subscriber-exclusive Discord, and early access to the audio version of the episode (when possible). Go to https://takecontrol.content.town/subscribe to find out more!

Links Promised:

• Aftermath's We Must Kill Windows
• The Take Control Github Repo
• Fastmail Signup
• Epic is bringing EAC v2 (and Fortnite) to Linux
• Bazzite for Jailbroken PS5s
• Linux Kernel 7.1 Drops Intel 486 Support
• KDE Plasma 6.8 Release Notes
• Gnome 51 Release Notes
• Niri Compositor Settings for Noctalia v5
• REISUB keys page on the Arch Wiki

This week's homework is to fix something about your computer that annoys you! If you have something that's annoying you, but don't know how to fix it, post in the Discord and we'll figure it out!

SPONSOR: This week's show is brought to you by Fastmail. Fastmail is email for people like you and me. For a free, no credit-card required 30-day trial, go to https://join.fastmail.com/will and sign up today!

• (00:00) - Cold Open
• (00:44) - Intro - Questions from Ep 1, Show Git, and More
• (06:35) - News - Epic Working on Linux-Compatible Easy Anti-Cheat for Fortnite
• (17:10) - News - Play PC Games on Your Jailbroken PS5 Using Bazzite
• (18:16) - News - The Linux Kernel No Longer Supports the Intel 486 Processor
• (19:15) - News - KDE Plasma 6.8 and Gnome 51 Released
• (22:26) - News - What News Do You Want to See Here?
• (23:22) - How Will Has De-Enshittified/Un-Shittified/Whatever We're Going to Call This
• (36:17) - Questions - Curtis on VR Support in Linux
• (38:30) - James - Figuring Out What You Need to Know and Don't Need to Know and Investigating Errors
• (46:20) - Question - John Has a Good Linux Starter Project
• (48:30) - Question - Jon on File Permissions and chmod 777
• (53:14) - Question - Nate and REISUB Keys
• (58:49) - Homework - Fix Something That Annoys You On Your Computer and Tell Me About It
• (01:01:19) - Outro

★ Support this podcast ★

Welcome to the first episode of Take Control of Your Tech! On this episode, Will explains why this show exists, shares what you need to know about the eMudra and PHP security issues that happened last week (and how to secure your devices) and answers listener questions!

This week's show is sponsored by Fastmail. If you want a great email provider that can help you take control of your inbox, give you single-use Masked Emails for questionable account signups, and make adding new email aliases for your domain collection a breeze, give Fastmail a try.

• Ars Technica has had great coverage of the eMudhra cert story and the PHP vulnerability.
• There's also a Plex vulnerability which I wasn't aware of when I recorderd this.
• The command I used to extend my Fedora Server's root drive is sudo lvextend --resizefs --extents +50%FREE /dev/mapper/<volume name>

• (00:00) - Start
• (00:00) - Cold Open
• (01:13) - Intro - What Is Take Control?
• (14:09) - Ad Break
• (15:23) - The News - eMudhra Cert Vulnerability
• (20:49) - News - PHP Remote Code Exploit
• (24:57) - Linux Talk - Transitioning to Noctalia v5
• (35:34) - Ad Break
• (36:30) - Turning a Broken Laptop Into a Home Server
• (44:47) - Listener Questions!
• (01:02:11) - Wrap Up - Support the Show!

★ Support this podcast ★