Below instructions are specifically for Google Pixel 9a running Android 16.
On a Pixel 9a, the best free built-in method is Rules in Android settings, which can switch your phone to vibrate or Do Not Disturb when you enter a specific location.
Navigation:
Settings > System > Rules > Add rule > Add Wi‑Fi network or location.
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To control your computer from your phone over a local network (such as Wi-Fi), you can use Unified Remote - available at https://www.unifiedremote.com. The software must be installed on both devices: your phone (Android or iPhone) and your computer (Windows, Linux, etc.).
In this example, I’ve installed Unified Remote on an Android phone (version 16) and an Ubuntu 24 machine. Configuration is very straightforward - the devices are automatically detected on the local network. You can also access the web interface at http://localhost:9510/web/
On Ubuntu, install by downloading from official link above.
# dpkg -i urserver-3.14.0.2574.deb
Common Issue on Ubuntu 24
On my Ubuntu computer, the mouse and keyboard controls weren’t working from the phone. This issue occurs because Ubuntu now uses Wayland by default, and Unified Remote’s input emulation is not compatible with Wayland yet.
To fix this, I disabled Wayland and switched to Xorg:
$ sudo vi /etc/gdm3/custom.conf
Then in the file, ensure the following lines appear:
[daemon] # Uncomment the line below to force the login screen to use Xorg WaylandEnable=false
Save the file and restart your system. After doing this, the input controls work correctly since Ubuntu is now running under “Ubuntu on Xorg” instead of Wayland.
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A Pseudo TTY means Pseudo Terminal, a software emulated terminal that behaves like real terminal device. Usually scenarios like SSH sessions.
In simple terms,
A TTY is the terminal interface itself.
A PTY is a fake/software version of that terminal, with a master side and a slave side.
Example
When you open a terminal window or connect over SSH, your shell is usually talking through a pseudo tty rather than a physical terminal.
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If you want to stop Ubuntu’s DNS resolver service and point your system to a different name server, you can disable systemd-resolved and configure DNS manually. On many Ubuntu systems /etc/resolv.conf is managed automatically, so changes may not persist unless you update the DNS setup correctly.
Stop the resolver service
Run the following command to stop the service immediately:
# sudo systemctl stop systemd-resolved.service
To prevent it from starting again after reboot, disable it with:
# sudo systemctl disable systemd-resolved.service
Set your DNS server
After disabling the service edit /etc/resolv.conf and replace the current DNS entry with your preferred name server:
# sudo vi /etc/resolv.conf
Then update the file with your DNS server, for example:
nameserver x.x.x.x
Replace x.x.x.x with the IP address of the DNS server you want to use. If /etc/resolv.conf is still a symlink, you may need to remove that link and replace it with a static file or manage DNS through systemd-resolved instead.
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When you type a web address like www.bing.com into your browser, something interesting happens behind the scenes. The Domain Name System (DNS) springs into action. DNS is essentially the Internet’s phone book. It translates human friendly domain names into the numerical IP addresses that computers use to identify each other.
What Happens When You Enter a Domain Name
Every device connected to the Internet has a DNS resolver configured, often your Internet provider’s or a public one such as Google DNS (8.8.8.8). When you try to visit a website:
Your DNS resolver checks if it already knows the IP address for that domain (from its cache).
If it doesn’t, it asks an even higher-level DNS server, known as a root server, where to find more information.
The Role of Root Servers
There are 13 main root DNS servers operated by organizations like Verisign and ICANN. These servers don’t store every web address instead, they know where to find the top-level domain (TLD) servers, such as .com, .net, or .io.
You can find the complete list of root servers here: https://www.iana.org/domains/root/servers.
For example, running a command like:
root@pp:~# nslookup -type=NS com. l.root-servers.net Server: l.root-servers.net Address: 199.7.83.42#53 Non-authoritative answer: *** Can't find com.: No answer Authoritative answers can be found from: com nameserver = a.gtld-servers.net. com nameserver = b.gtld-servers.net. com nameserver = c.gtld-servers.net. com nameserver = d.gtld-servers.net. com nameserver = e.gtld-servers.net. com nameserver = f.gtld-servers.net. com nameserver = g.gtld-servers.net. com nameserver = h.gtld-servers.net. com nameserver = i.gtld-servers.net. com nameserver = j.gtld-servers.net. com nameserver = k.gtld-servers.net. com nameserver = l.gtld-servers.net. com nameserver = m.gtld-servers.net. a.gtld-servers.net internet address = 192.5.6.30 b.gtld-servers.net internet address = 192.33.14.30 c.gtld-servers.net internet address = 192.26.92.30 d.gtld-servers.net internet address = 192.31.80.30 e.gtld-servers.net internet address = 192.12.94.30 f.gtld-servers.net internet address = 192.35.51.30 g.gtld-servers.net internet address = 192.42.93.30 h.gtld-servers.net internet address = 192.54.112.30 i.gtld-servers.net internet address = 192.43.172.30 j.gtld-servers.net internet address = 192.48.79.30 k.gtld-servers.net internet address = 192.52.178.30 l.gtld-servers.net internet address = 192.41.162.30 m.gtld-servers.net internet address = 192.55.83.30 a.gtld-servers.net has AAAA address 2001:503:a83e::2:30 b.gtld-servers.net has AAAA address 2001:503:231d::2:30
Returns a list of authoritative name servers for the .com domain (like a.gtld-servers.net, b.gtld-servers.net, and so on).
How the Chain Continues
Once your resolver learns which server manages the .com domain, it asks one of those servers for information about the second-level domain "bing" assuming bing.com is the domain we are trying to resolve. That query returns another set of authoritative servers, such as Microsoft’s own DNS servers hosted under azure-dns.com.
Finally, those servers respond with the actual IP address of www.bing.com, and your browser uses that to load the page.
Verify by:
$ root@pp:~# nslookup -type=NS bing.com a.gtld-servers.net Server: a.gtld-servers.net Address: 192.5.6.30#53 Non-authoritative answer: *** Can't find bing.com: No answer Authoritative answers can be found from: bing.com nameserver = dns1.p09.nsone.net. bing.com nameserver = dns2.p09.nsone.net. bing.com nameserver = dns3.p09.nsone.net. bing.com nameserver = dns4.p09.nsone.net. bing.com nameserver = ns1-204.azure-dns.com. bing.com nameserver = ns2-204.azure-dns.net. bing.com nameserver = ns4-204.azure-dns.info. bing.com nameserver = ns3-204.azure-dns.org. ns1-204.azure-dns.com internet address = 13.107.236.204 ns1-204.azure-dns.com has AAAA address 2603:1061:0:700::cc
This provides the authoritative servers for second level domains. Then that provides the IP address correspondingly.
Usually this traffic is done on UDP port 53 in plain text format. Other secure ways is like DOH (DNS over https), DOT (DNS over TLS), DNSCrypt etc.
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