TCB13

foxy , 5 months ago to linux

Apparently my love language is installing @linux on the laptops of people I really care about.

TCB13 , 5 months ago

As with providing any kind of support, it’s important to get out of your own head and understand what the person your helping wants and needs

Yes because someone that uses MS Word 6-8 hours a day certainly doesn’t want to use Linux and have compatibility issues while sharing documents with others who do the same.

TCB13 , 5 months ago

I used to think that helping my other dumb grad mates with installing Linux made me look cool and I would be accepted. On the contrary, I looked like an idiot, now that I think of it. i became that weirdo support tech kid for the idiot professors, who could not tell the difference between Java and Javascript.

I guess the worst part is that people will eventually take advantage of you… and demand for more and more hours of your free support, hold whatever you installed against you like “after you did X… Y stopped working” etc. At the end of the day if you’re proving free support it must be easy, quick why wouldn’t they ask for more.

In their heads your efforts / help doesn’t provide any value and if by any chance one day they are in a situation where you could bill them or someone for tech support they would rather call any other random tech support guy or company instead of calling you - after all they’re looking for a “professional” now :)

ajsadauskas , 6 months ago to technology

Another day, another service joins the Google Graveyard.

Google's Business Profiles had a feature that allowed sole traders and small businesses to quickly and easily set up a simple website.

Sure, it's not WordPress, but it was a good option for less tech savvy small businesses to get a web presence up quickly and easily.

And, as part of Google's ongoing enshittification, it's going: https://support.google.com/business/answer/14368911?hl=en&ref_topic=7032534&sjid=14999411477128650858-AP

"Websites made with Google Business Profiles are basic websites powered by the information on your Business Profile. In March 2024, websites made with Google Business Profiles will be turned off and customers visiting your site will be redirected to your Business Profile instead. The redirect will work until June 10, 2024."

https://youtu.be/rY0WxgSXdEE?si=G_Jzga_jxc-zH6ST

#Google #tech #enshittification #technology @technology

TCB13 , 6 months ago

This doesn’t make much sense, Google Sites will still be available so why aren’t they simply migrating those websites to the Google Sites platform? Oh wait, that one might be dead soon, they no longer own the domain domain registrar so… maybe that’s their plan, they will kill the business websites and eventually Google Sites.

goatsarah , 7 months ago to selfhosted en-gb

Anyone else using Mac minis as VM hosts for self hosting? My Friendica server is a Linux VM on a Mac Mini in my living room. The VM is bound to a VLAN tagged network interface so it’s completely firewalled off from the rest of my network. Also got a second Linux VM on the same box for hosting local stuff on my main VLAN (HomeBridge/etc).

I feel like they’re really nice platforms for this, if not the cheapest. Cheaper than one might think though; I specced up an equivalent NUC and there wasn’t a lot of difference in price, and the M2 is really fast.

TCB13 , 7 months ago

I specced up an equivalent NUC and there wasn’t a lot of difference in price, and the M2 is really fast.

How come? Second hand HP Mini should be cheaper…

Wander , 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago) to selfhosted

The future of selfhosted services is going to be... Android?

Wait, what?

Think about it. At some point everyone has had an old phone lying around. They are designed to be constantly connected, constantly on... and even have a battery and potentially still a SIM card to survive power outages.

We just need to make it easy to create APK packaged servers that can avoid battery-optimization kills and automatically configure an outbound tunnel like ngrok, zerotrust, etc...

The goal: hosting services like #nextcloud, #syncthing, #mastodon!? should be as easy as installing an APK and leaving an old phone connected to a spare charger / outlet.

It would be tempting to have an optimized ROM, but if self-hosting is meant to become more commonplace, installing an APK should be all that's needed. #Android can do SSH, VPN and other tunnels without the need for root, so there should be no problem in using tunnels to publicly expose a phone/server in a secure manner.

In regards to the suitability of home-grade broadband, I believe that it should not be a huge problem at least in Europe where home connections are most often unmetered: "At the end of June 2021, 70.2% of EU homes were passed by either FTTP or cable DOCSIS
3.1 networks, i.e. those technologies currently capable of supporting gigabit speeds."

Source: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/broadband-coverage-europe-2021

PS. syncthing actually already has an APK and is easy to use. Although I had to sort out some battery optimization stuff, it's a good example of what should become much more commonplace.

cc: @selfhosted
#selfhosted #selfhosting

TCB13 , 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

Think about it, those phones might work right now but in 10 years their Android versions will not support anything, they wont even have root certificate updates breaking SSL, the kernel will be missing support for whatever people need and whatnot. Maybe the phones won’t even boot because some key will expire somewhere… let alone security vulnerabilities.

TCB13 , 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

The future of selfhosted services might includes phones yes, Android most likely not.

Think about it, those phones might work right now but in 10 years their Android versions will not support anything, they wont even have root certificate updates breaking SSL, the kernel will be missing support for whatever people need and whatnot. Maybe the phones won’t even boot because some key will expire somewhere… let alone security vulnerabilities.

People selfhost on 10-year old hardware right now, but they do install modern Linux distros that are well supported and up to date. I believe the most likely scenario is that at some point the “security” of most of that hardware will be broken and you’ll be able to run some version of AOSP for older hardware and/or a generic Linux.

But that might not ever happen, those phones are built like hell and we’ve another category of hardware with similar characteristics that was never repurposed for anything after a decade - routers. It’s common to see older routers that are now too slow when it comes to wifi or even CPU and although they’re way more open and primitive than modern smartphones when it comes to software we usually can’t even repurpose them as dumb switches with alternative / open software. OpenWRT and DD-WRT might work in some case but those are exceptions and usually those models were already supported by those firmwares. For instance there are enough Thomson / Technicolor TG784n ISP provided routers to create a second moon and the effort to break their security and create a usual firmware is so much that nobody did it. It’s just easier to pay 30€ for a cheap router/switch and move on.

TCB13 , 9 months ago

People who downvote, care to explain? You clearly never tried to access the Internet / install modern software on a Windows XP computer :)

TCB13 , 9 months ago

Just look at the past, software and hardware as way simpler and way less locked down and it doesn’t work out. Just try to use a Windows XP to access the Internet and/or install modern software.

TCB13 , 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

The application / server component can actually be updated since it’s just an APK. And someone else in this thread actually linked to whole linux distros that can be installed and run without root. In theory even if the underlying OS is insecure, more secure OSes can be installed on top, or risk can be severely limited by only exposing a single port.

When you install another one “on top” you’re essentially speaking about a very thin layer above the base OS. In most cases that’s simply a container that uses the base OS kernel. This is what happens today and it works for a while but it comes a point (way less than 10 years) when you won’t be able to have a modern top layer OS sitting on such older base OS because the kernel is way too old to support the requirements of the new OS.

Even if go through the trouble of virtualization in order to have the top layer running a modern kernel it will most likely fail. It would require a LOT more effort coding the support for the old hardware and a ton of other virtualization pains to just end with a very slow system. We’ve examples of this: it is next to impossible to virtualize Windows 11 in a Pentium 4 that runs Windows XP, for instance a versions of Vmware that supports Windows 11 won’t support a host system older than Windows 8. The same applies to VirtualBox.

Basically, while flashing a new ROM would be ideal,

Yes it would but for that you would have to completely break the phone’s boot security and that isn’t feasible in all cases. Most phones doesn’t allow you to unlock the bootloader thus you can’t install another ROM/OS. Even on those you can some will only accept software that was signed by the manufacturer so unless there’s a leak of the key they use or it gets bruteforced in some way you won’t be able to do it.

Take older routers as examples, those don’t even protect the firmware, nothing is signed, and yet the time and effort (weeks/months) required to make a simple open firmware to turn a SINGLE model into a dumb switches / routers that it isn’t worth it - after all you can get a < 30€ device today that is faster and more power efficient than those old units.

With phones things are considerable worse as modern day devices are way more locked down than those router ever were. There’s also way more fragmentation (hundreds of phone models all running very specific hardware and software hacks). It’s very likely that in 10 years you’ll be able to buy some ARM / RISC board, such as a raspberry pi, that is open, run a modern OS out of the box and most likely cost you 30€.

TCB13 , 9 months ago

I just talking about that: lemmy.world/comment/4731273

It doesn’t appear to be possible. The Vmware version that supports the latest Windows 10/11 won’t support a host system older than Windows 8. The same applies to VirtualBox.

The usual issue with that is that the modern OS requires drivers for the virtual devices and if you get a modern version of Vmware it won’t run on Windows XP (kb.vmware.com/s/article/90060) if you get an older version of Vmware that does run on XP it won’t have / be compatible with the drivers required for Windows 11 to work.

TCB13 , 9 months ago

This isn’t even true. A Pi sells for 50$ yes, + USB cable for power + USB power adapter + case + whatever else money grab.

A second hand HP mini with an i5 7th gen CPU that is WAY faster comes with everything including 8 GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD (or better if you get a good deal) for around 80$. Tell me about your math again…

TCB13 , 9 months ago

Regarding device longevity, Android 13 apparently supports / will support full KVM emulation. Windows can be run if you have root while android based VMs are expected to be possible without the need for root. Since this type of virtualization allows VMs to run their own kernel, keeping the “server app” updated should allow the user to be protected even if the host OS is outdated as long as these server-app-VMs are trustworthy themselves

Guess you missed this: lemmy.world/comment/4731273

Having virtualization doesn’t ensure future success. Not when the timeframe is something like more than 8 years.

TCB13 , 9 months ago

Yeah, a second hand old as shit hp, that’ll die on you so quick.

Not my experience. At all.

Edit: also all the “cash grab” parts… you probably already have those parts just lying around doing nothing.

Yes I sure have a proprietary adapter for their PCIe connector and a Pi case lying around. Just the case its about 30€ and suddenly it becomes as expensive as a second hand mini PC for 1/10 of the performance and reliability. See the problem now? Even with the power adapter, the RPI is picky and will require a decent thing that is usually more than your average smartphone.

TCB13 , 9 months ago

Damn, what a fucking waste of resources.

TCB13 , 9 months ago

A metal chassis from an HP Mini will be always better than something 3d printed…

That other guy could’ve done better.

www.ebay.com/itm/285465761346

HP ProDesk 600 G3 Mini Intel Intel i5-7500T 2.7GHz 8GB DDR4 256GB SSD

US $62.99

There are similar deals in Europe, usually from Germany.