Hey :) I’m not giving you any recommendations but want to give you my personal experience !

5 years ago I had absolutely no clue about Linux/CLI/networking/docker… You name it ! And I also wanted to repurposed and old laptop as a server.

The first distro I installed on my server was Debian ! Why? Because I remembered my brother said something along the line: “Every server infrastructure is run by Debian or a Debian derivative”. So this sounded like the perfect thing to install as a server distro :) !

5 years later I’m still running Debian on this old laptop and it’s going strong ! Never did it failed me except if I did something wrong over the CLI !

As you guessed it, you will need some degree of proficiency on the command line specially if you install your distro without a graphical user interface, which I would recommend… Yes, the CLI isn’t easy to beginning with and you will do some mistakes that will need a full reinstall of your system… But before you learn to move, you learn to stay up right on your legs and this involves a lot a failing !!

It’s not mandatory, you can install a lightweight GUI and take your time. There are a lot of application with good UI which will help you out ! However, not once did I regret to take the harder route and learned so many things along the way ! After this amount of time in the CLI, I can say I’m getting quite good In navigating my system, keeping it healthy and alive :p !

Okay, If it’s a matter of time I get it ! We only have 24h a day and most of this time is already spend at work/school, family time, friends, sleep, eat ! If you’re lucky enough to have 2 hours to spare to tinker arround, a UI is a good idea to keep a healthy balance between all your personal activities ! But keep in mind, both are thorny and have their fair share of issues and debug time.

Last words, have fun with your system :)

Production is my testing lab, but only in my homelab ! I guess I don’t care to perfectly secure my services (really dumb and easy passwords, no 2fa, not hiding plain sight passwords…) because I’m not directly exposing them to the web and accessing them externally via Wireguard ! That’s really bad practice though, but any time soon will probably clean up that mess, but right now I can’t, I have to cook some eggs…

There are 2 things though I actually do have some more complex workflow:

• Rather complex incremental automated backup script for my docker container volumes, databases, config files, compose files.

• Self-hosted mini-CA to access all my services via a nice .lab domain and get rid of that pesky warning on my devices.

I always do some tests if my backups are working on a VM on my personal desktop computer, because no backup means that all those years of tinkering for nothing… This will bring up some nasty depression…

Edit: If have a rather small homelab, everything on an old laptop, still quite happy with the result and works as expected.

Really cool stuff !! Something I need to try out for sure !

Just to bad they didn’t add a multiuser setup example :( !

If you are doing any kind of multiuser mail node, you should have a separate SMTP system in front of this one that performs any necessary validation.

That’s some crazy stuff ! Being able to completely change/repair every part is something every smartphone should be capable off…

We are in a buy/throw away generation amidst a big climate change issue/rare ore depletion… That’s depressing.

Yeah Lemmy is very Linux oriented :). Though I do agree Linux is harder to get into but that’s not because GNU/Linux is difficult, it’s because we were so much accustomed to how Windows work !

I don’t really remember because it has been ages, but I’m sure my first steps with Windows 98 where awful and not easy and intuitive at all !

Linux has a lot of issues so does Windows (and MacOS) and learning a whole new paradigm of a working system takes time and some investement, but after you get the basic gists, Linux gives you total control of everything ! (Like to see hidden directories is like Windows, just a check box to show hidden files :) don’t need a CLI for that)

You rarely need the use of the Terminal when on easier distributions like PopOS or Ubuntu (while I wouldn’t suggest the later), However if you tried more difficult distribution first (like arch and derivatives), CLI is mandatory !

Not saying YOU should switch, do whatever makes you happy, more productive and vibes with your current needs/feeling…

However, If you feel the need to switch the Linux community will always welcome you :) Keep in mind, there are good people and a**holes everywhere !

Glad you solved your issue with massgrave, which is a great tool :) ! Have fun with your system !

Edit: Sorry for the off topic XD discussion got a bit heated up haha ! I’m kinda surprised it didn’t got deleted !

I am not interested in Linux.

I was quite impressed by how it looks and the free option ! However, seeing Google tag manager and tiktok analytics domains and I’m already out !

Okay XD it’s less funny when you have to explain the joke XD sorry !!

I’m not very acquainted with any programming language so maybe I’m wrong here (or I didn’t get the joke? XD) but bash didn’t change much in the past few years, I even read some scripts more than 10 years still works because the syntax stays the same (or doesn’t change a lot …)

Compared with the switch from python 2 -> python 3 I read a lot of people pulling their hair off xD

For my docker containers I use what’s up docker which not only alerts me when there is an update but also give a link to the changes, so I can have a look what’s happening !

For my system itself… Just doing sudo pacman -Syu. Though that’s not great, cause some updates can potentially break my EndeavourOS system… I keep sometimes an eye on the forum when I see some critical changes like the kernel itself or nvidia updates though.

LibreWolf is great ! Coming from ArkenFox, I found LibreWolf’s override cfg a bit easier.

They also have a pacdiff cfg to see what changes from version to version without the need to roam arkenfoxes github repo for hours to find what changed or what to change.

I installed it yesterday to see how it goes :) If it doesn’t fit, will go back to Arkenfox.

I tried belenaEtcher once on my Mac… And it seemed to me more like a spyware than an actual software, I was a bit confused and never used it again.

Yeah, vote with your wallet !! This has way more impact than those stupid presidential ballot! Good call staying behind your belief for so long !!!

A few years back there was some kind of url trick where you could directly download every file with some string manipulation… But that doesn’t work anymore and there isn’t any new hack/workaround to bypass paywalled files.

My guess would be that there isn’t any kind of “hack” floating arround anymore, cause it involves the site’s security measure and would leave a very bad image of DeviantArt if the creators only way to market their art has some loophole to get freestuff.

Your best chance is either someone who paid/share the stuff you’re a looking for or someone who has the technical skills to do what you’re looking for without leaving a trace.

I was in the same boat… I just wanted a simple god damn self-hosted cloudStorage without any nitty gritty or all the bloat that comes with most local/self-hosted cloud solution…

Syncthing is good, but not really a cloud storage solution (I love syncthing and I use It to sync all my backups !!).

Give SFTPGo a try :) It also has a WebDAV functionality if you wan’t to use it that way ! It just plain file storage with security features. However, not sure there are any application available, I mostly used it as web application :).