boot_id seems to be static, probably set at boot.
So don't use it for a random uuid.
this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
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That’s what you get when you define a file system as “a system that names things”.
Yeah but please don't actually use this. Use a proper UUID library that works cross-platform and lets you choose the UUID type and can be seeded etc.
This is awesome. Thank you
Thank you so much for sharing this!
Works in Termux on Android
See also: /dev/null
It’s basically a black hole where you can throw anything.
cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid | /dev/nullno.
The information will be evenly distributed upon its surface and some believe one day it will be be radiated back out into the rest of the system.
That's a horrifying concept. Better not think about it.
That reminds me of the CPU stress test I ran many years ago.
dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/null
If you have 8 cores, just open 8 terminals, and run that code in each of them.
/dev/urandom should stress the CPU more. /dev/random can be entropy limited
for i in {1..n} # where n == number of cores
do
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/null &
done
# to stop:
jobs -p | xargs kill