Welcome to days 5 and 6 of 31 days of Raspberry PI 400.
I know I didn't post yesterday and the day before, but the truth is I was connected during the day on Big Sur (but only for Remote Desktop to work - everything else was on the Raspberry PI 400) because of the following lines. It's still a struggle.
I usually post during the night, before going to bed, but last night was my turn to put the kid to sleep and I also fell asleep ! 
VPN
Yesterday and the day before was a fight with the VPN.
I still can't get it to work, but I'm not entirely sure that's Linux fault.
To be able to use the VPN, I've switched to Network Manager (in previous posts, in the screenshots you can see the applet, but only today I'm going to write about it). It's more suited for VPN L2TP configuration (or so I think).
Just install NetworkManager with apt
sudo apt-get install network-manager network-manager-l2tp network-manager-l2tp-gnome strongswan-nm
You need to edit the file /etc/network/interfaces and comment any interface configuration there. NetworkManager will not manage those interfaces configured there.
Mine had none..
Enable NetwokManager in systemd and reboot.
sudo systemctl enable NetworkManager
After the reboot and the login, you should see the applet on the Task Bar
I'm using NetworkManager, but will try using the configuration files of ipsec and (strongswan/libreswan) insted. Old school command line.
I'm guessing the VPN don't work because of this, but could be wrong:
There's a parameter that IPsec needs to send - the Remove ID or Gateway ID (in newer versions) . If I put the value that they sent me, Strongswan complains of invalid Gateway ID and doesn't go any further.
If I use Libreswan, it doesn't complain, but it complains about the algorithm used - 3des-sha1-modp1024 - that is not recognized. Newer versions stopped supporting this old one. I'm in a pickle..
From what I've read, the Gateway ID (don't confuse with the gateway of the VPN - not the same thing) doesn't need to exist or be resolvable into an IP address. And in my case, it doesn't resolve to an IP address. If I put 0.0.0.0 or the same address as the gateway, it doesn't complain, but the VPN connection is not established, being disconnected from the remote end..
I've emailed the folks that manage my work VPN. Waiting for an answer.
EDIT: They already sent an answer, will check on that tomorrow.
CPUFetch
Do you want to have your CPU displayed in a nice fashion, like Screenfetch does? Now you have an opportunity with CPUFetch
From GitHub: Simplistic yet fancy CPU architecture fetching tool
To install, just clone the repository and make it from source
git clone https://github.com/Dr-Noob/cpufetch cd cpufetch make
You'll see a new executable file. Just run it
./cpufetch
and the above image will be displayed.
If you want to install it system wide
sudo make install
Now you can put the command in the file /etc/motd (message of the day) and will be executed every time you open a terminal window or login via CLI.
Screenfetch
You can also install screenfetch using apt (
sudo apt-get install screenfetch
) and have your system info displayed. Love the raspberry !
And that's all for today.
Next post will be about CAD and still VPN
