cdp1337

cdp1337, 14 days ago

@RockyC eh? I may need to double check my price, I think I'm paying $45 (with the auto debit thing because I never remember to pay them otherwise), for 300/300.

cdp1337, 1 month ago

@sergio_101 It can be a bit of work, but self hosting is always educational (if nothing else).

If you're just looking at joining a smaller instance, VN (my server), is Ohio-based.

cdp1337, 1 month ago

@sergio_101 I'm down in Columbus and the server is running on a Proxmox cluster in a small colo down here too. (Makes it convenient for one approximately once per year I need to run down and physically power reset something.)

We've got folks from all around though; I'm not restricting that only Ohio folks can join.

cdp1337, 1 month ago

@sergio_101 I'm relatively familiar with that area; drive through Ashland anytime I head up to Norwalk.

cdp1337, 1 month ago

@sergio_101 Yup, web dev for a large corporation. Completely mind numbing work but they pay well.

Do a number of random side projects to keep my brain stimulated too, ranging from web frameworks to, most recently, game and mod dev.

cdp1337, 2 months ago

@BeAware I particularly like the feature added in that release; "Add an hourly check to change registrations in absence of mod for a week"

It may be controversial, but I feel this would be a useful change for users as well; who wants to join an abandoned instance?

cdp1337, 2 months ago

@louis OH, I was about to dismiss this as just another Chromium fork, but I see it's from KDE! Is this their replacement of the old Konqueror browser?

cdp1337, 8 months ago

@RockyC I completely agree, and yeah, it's a shame. They have the capability and engineering experience to make amazing products, but instead focus too much on building disposable equipment and locking down everything possible. These aren't e-readers that have their contents entirely in the cloud; they're meant to be WORKSTATIONS.

Another example I thought of; if my phone crashes and burns, no biggie, it's just a terminal for my data stored in a private self-hosted cloud. If a laptop dies unexpectedly, yes I have backups, but ideally I want to be able to move those drives to another device and keep on grinding.

As long as they hold their stance on consumer right-to-repair with their products, I'll never touch or recommend an Apple product to anyone. Simple as that.

cdp1337, 8 months ago

@chasehainey Maybe for some. For me personally, I despise Apple because:

When an SSD goes out, buy a new laptop.
When the battery goes out, buy a new laptop.
Want to add memory, you can't, buy a new laptop.
Want to add storage, you can't, buy a new laptop.
When the hardware is a couple years old but still working perfectly fine, well the OS won't update, time to buy a new laptop.

When I pay several thousand dollars for hardware, I expect to be able to repair and maintain that hardware well into the future, whether that's a car, a server, or a laptop.

Apple's core philosophy on this always returns back to "Just buy a new version". Personally my gripe has nothing to do with cost of hardware or privacy, but everything to do with serviceability and longevity of that equipment.

cdp1337, 8 months ago

@chasehainey Yup, and I could take my car to a garage to have the oil changed, just like I could send my laptop back to the factory to have someone do the work. Having the manufacturer provide that service for folks who prefer that workflow is great.

Not everyone prefers to have someone else do the work they could otherwise do themselves. By forcing users one option or the other, manufacturers are limiting how users can use the devices they bought and own.

Just the other week my dryer stopped spinning. Yes, I could have paid a tech certified by the manufacturer to come and repair it back to OEM standards, OR I could have just bought a $5 belt from Amazon and slapped it in myself. It's about having the freedom of choice in how you use and maintain your device.

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For your comment of planning ahead, that's precisely why I couldn't daily drive an Apple laptop. Part of planning is contingency plans for unexpected situations. I'm not planning on needing to perform a 5TB packet capture while hanging off a ladder, but if that situation were to occur, I could modify my laptop to fit that situation.

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It's great that your 5 year old device is still receiving updates and security patches and can install the latest software. Soon it may be a different story though. You mentioned it's still in excellent shape so it should last you another 5 years easily, but will the manufacturer continue to offer updates and latest OS compatibility for another 5 years?

Very recently I had someone ask me to install a VPN client and RDP on their old macbook. I don't remember the exact model, but it was a little older than yours. Apple no longer supported that device, even though it still was in good condition and worked just fine, and thus was ineligible for the latest OS. Since it was on an older OS, the VPN and RDP clients wouldn't run as they were coded to expect the latest OS, which again would have been fine.... if Apple didn't prevent installation of it on that machine.

What would be the Apple-approved way of handling a situation like that?

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Please note, I'm not arguing the build quality of Apple hardware, in fact I agree that they manufacturer some of the best build chassis in the industry. Ribbon cable designs and component selections sometimes a little questionable, but the chassis have always been top-notch.

Finally, my posts never contain copy pasta unless otherwise specifically stated, TYVM :P

cdp1337, 8 months ago

@GW yeah, you don't need to tell me! The housing market here is absolutely STUPID.

cdp1337, 8 months ago

@RockyC Interesting, I was not aware of them; I'll have to keep an eye out for reviews.

cdp1337, 9 months ago

@peterdrake Something seems way off there; possibly a video driver issue. While running on a rotational drive will certainly be slower than solid state, in my experience a Linux distro on a rotational is about as responsive as Winblows on a solid state.

If you're running an nvidia graphics card, make sure you're running their driver. I've encountered this behaviour with nvidia cards without their driver blob running.

cdp1337, 9 months ago

@peterdrake Failing drive then? smartctl --all /dev/hda (or similar drive path), could provide some details.

If the drive is getting old and is starting to fail, that can result in slow head scan times. Smart can provide you with some internal metrics about the drive.

Another issue I've ran into is swapping. If your OS is trying to copy memory over to swap, that will also hinder system performance.

sudo iotop, top, and the System Monitor GUI application can provide some hints about what's using resources.

cdp1337, 9 months ago

@peterdrake smartctl is provided via the package smartmontools.

It could just be that all the recent work on various packages don't play nicely with rotational drives anymore... I dunno. It's been a good number of years since I ran any OS on rotational drives, (the only use I have of them anymore are archive drives for a NAS).

cdp1337, 9 months ago

@amplmo Nextcloud. If the computer has decent CPU and memory then TrueNAS on ZFS with Nextcloud installed as a virtual machine, otherwise just Nextcloud by itself.

Don't forget to use an external hard drive for a backup copy, (or otherwise similar backup strategy).

Monitors are unnecessary; my home server is sitting on a shelf under the modem and gateway. Only need a monitor for the first install, which I did on the workbench before moving it to its final location.

cdp1337, 9 months ago

@LouisIngenthron Sounds like my experience with Windows administration.

Never personally had an issue with certbot, though I'm not a big fan of its insistence on snap either. Evidently the auto-install failed to detect your environment?

cdp1337, 9 months ago

@paul By "do your own research" of course is meant to mean "only listen to sponsored propaganda and conspiracy theories with no basis on reality".

Got it, I'll get right on that. /s

cdp1337, 9 months ago

@thelinuxEXP Nice that you reviewed different systems, but until Apple devices are actually repairable, that entire ecosystem is dead to me.

If I buy something, I expect to actually OWN it and FIX it when necessary. I wouldn't buy a car which required me to go back to the dealer to replace a tire, no difference with a computer.

cdp1337, 9 months ago

@neil I believe it was RedHat 6.2 running the 2.2 kernel that a friend at the time provided as a copied CD (dial-up was far too slow to even THINK about downloading a 700MB!!!! FILE)

cdp1337, 9 months ago

@nosherwan @thelinuxEXP Not user friendly, nothing is where I expect it to be, inconsistent UI, installing applications and games is difficult, none of my hotkeys work, I need to use weird CLI commands which make no sense; all the comparison I need..... for why I can't use Windows ;)