TCB13

TCB13 , 4 months ago to linux in Partitioning Your Linux Drives: Does It Provide Any Benefits?

People usually go about and suggest partitioning their disks because they might require to reinstall the system and that way your home directory “will be safe” from whatever mess forced them into a reinstall. In reality this will just introduce unnecessary complexity and it is as likely to fail as single partition system. I would rather consider a BRTFS sub-volume for home with regular snapshots is way more interesting and manageable than just dumb partitions.

TCB13 , 4 months ago to linux in Partitioning Your Linux Drives: Does It Provide Any Benefits?

Ahahaha nice comment. I never said I didn’t have backups, the thing is that once you get your data across multiple machines with something like Synching your life becomes way better and things are easier to deal with. Even if my “server” dies I still have three more real time copies of the data (or at least one actually real time and two others a bit behind because those machines aren’t always turned on) and the “server” backups to another local drive a long term offsite backup that gets updated from time to time.

I’m not sure what your comment has to do with partitioning, though.

People usually go about and suggest partitioning their disks because they might require to reinstall the system and that way your home directory “will be safe” from whatever mess forced them into a reinstall. In reality this will just introduce unnecessary complexity and it is as likely to fail as single partition system. To be fair I would rather consider a BRTFS sub-volume for home with regular snapshots is way more interesting and manageable than just dumb partitions.

TCB13 , 4 months ago to linux in Partitioning Your Linux Drives: Does It Provide Any Benefits?

I mean, I’m sure you can find some old laptop, ARM SBC or anything second hand with a broken screen that people may even gift you to run as your “home server”.

TCB13 , 4 months ago to linux in Partitioning Your Linux Drives: Does It Provide Any Benefits?

Why do you say you’ve to be rich in order to do that?

TCB13 , 4 months ago to linux in Partitioning Your Linux Drives: Does It Provide Any Benefits?

This is mostly a worthless discussion. A computer / device should be considerable disposable as well as all the data on it. Just sync everything real time to a local “server” with something like Syncthing and if something goes wrong with your machines resync it back. Done.

TCB13 , 4 months ago to selfhosted in TrueNAS vs Debian

some plugins (like the zfs one) have some assets missing, also the Navigator works really slow when moving files (it should be instantaneously) and leaves the empty folders in the old directory

I believe there’s something wrong with your setup then.

I was thinking about using FileBrowser in a docker container

Filebrowser is a SINGLE binary, no need to run it in a container and deal with all the mapping stuff when it would be an essential part of the NAS.

TCB13 , 4 months ago to selfhosted in TrueNAS vs Debian

What do you need the webUI for? What’s the use case? Here are a couple for you:

For simple file management and sharing, you may use FileBrowser. It’s a single binary written in Go, just download and run.

If you’re looking for a more advanced and generic server management solution, then Cockpit is a good option. It’s available from Debian’s repositories and provides a UI to manage users, storage (including RAID), firewall, system services and even virtual machines. Can also manage Samba shares.

Cockpit uses the same system tooling you would use from the command line. You can switch back and forth between Cockpit and whatever else you like. It wont pollute your system like other solutions and there are dozens of extensions for it.

TCB13 , 4 months ago to linux in Linux desktop appreciation post

And if you must have 100% MS apps, just use the browser-based apps.

True, but that doesn’t work for everyone as online MS Office has limitations.

TCB13 , 4 months ago to linux in Linux desktop appreciation post

But ms office is available on the web for free so it doesn’t bother me

True, but that doesn’t work for everyone as online MS Office has limitations.

TCB13 , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago) to piracy in What VPN would you recommend for torrenting?

Whenever you torrent from public torrent trackers it’s easy for anyone to see what torrents your IP is currently downloading / seeding. There’s even a website for that iknowwhatyoudownload.com

ISPs and govts may track your torrent downloads on the same way that website does. It essentially boils down to indexing the torrents from those public trackers by listening to the DHT network / PEX exchanges. When you’re on a decent private tracker (and there are some free) they will disable DHT/PEX for their torrents making it so nobody can’t index and they won’t show up on websites like the one above.

Setting your torrent client to require encryption to all connections it will create an extra protection layer because then the ISP / govt won’t be able to peek into your bittorrent traffic, they’ll only see an encrypted TLS connection like the ones made to any SSL capable website. You may also add a blacklist of known entities that go after pirates so your torrent client won’t ever connect to those.

If you live outside the US/Canada/AUS you most likely don’t even need those measures, let alone a VPN. That entire thing about sending letters to people saying they’re downloading torrents is mostly a US thing because in other countries ISPs can’t even legally do it.

TCB13 , 4 months ago to linux in Linux desktop appreciation post

It’s incredible how Linux is both free and a more stable experience, even as a nvidia+wayland user.

Yes, I agree with you generally speaking until… I’ve to use MS Office and the alternatives aren’t up to it when it comes to collaboration with other MS Office users. Same goes for Adobe and Autodesk.

TCB13 , 4 months ago to selfhosted in Sync files and Joplin notes on local network as well as mobile data

Add a Raspberry Pi + USB drive to your network OR use a VPS to host your data and sync all devices to it using Syncthing. This RPi or VPS would work as a central repository/server for your all your data. Enjoy.

TCB13 , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago) to piracy in What VPN would you recommend for torrenting?

Do you really need a VPN? What’s your country / context?

Are you aware that if you use a good private tracker (one that keeps their torrents private and has a good reputation) and configure your client to require encryption for all connections you may not need a VPN?

TCB13 , 5 months ago to selfhosted in Good mini PC for around 100€

Another catch is that the hardware design is bad. They usually cheap out and those machines have close to no ESD protection on all I/O ports. A simple short in a USB device will most likely kill the motherboard and/or CPU.

TCB13 , 5 months ago to selfhosted in Good mini PC for around 100€

+1 for HP minis (second hand). -1 for Proxmox, LXD/Incus ftw.