TCB13

TCB13, 1 year ago

Surface Laptop 3 running Kubuntu, such an improvement over what it was “designed” for.

I’m sure it is an improvement until… you’ve to use Wine to run something Windows only or a VM and end up on the exact same spot as initially but with extra steps and less performance. 😂 😂 😂

TCB13, 1 year ago

I agree with that take until…

The “what you go for it’s entirely your choice” mantra when it comes to DE is total BS. What happens is that you’ll find out while you can use any DE in fact GNOME will provide a better experience because most applications on Linux are design / depend on its components. Using KDE/XFCE is fun until you run into some GTK/libadwaita application and small issues start to pop here and there, windows that don’t pick on your theme or you just created a frankenstein of a system composed by KDE + a bunch of GTK components;

TCB13, 1 year ago (edited 11 months ago)

Ubuntu because they’ve the ability to great things and end up just delivering a buggy and mangled version of Debian with proprietary crap, spyware, snaps wtv. After all we’re talking about the distro that had ISOs on their download page with a broken installer multiple times.

TCB13, 1 year ago (edited 10 months ago)

What happened is that people realized what I’ve been saying since ever - that the RPi and others are a money grab because of all the required accessories while a MiniPC will get you way more power, stable hardware , case, power supply and everything in between for the same price (if you go for second hand). Here is are examples of such posts: lemmy.world/comment/5357961 , lemmy.world/comment/4696545

For eg. for 100€ you can find an HP Mini with an i5 8th gen + 16GB of ram + 256GB NVME that obviously has a case, a LOT of I/O, PCIe (m2) comes with a power adapter and outperforms a RPi5 in all possible ways. Note that the RPi5 8GB of ram will cost you 80€ + case + power adapter + cable + bullshit adapter + SD card + whatever else money grab - the Pi isn’t just a good option.

Either way, Pis have their use cases however in my opinion it was an overhyped product that sits on the middle of a market:

• They tried to make the Arduino easy by adding an operating system and high level programming languages such as Python. It never made much sense, why would you want to have GPIOs directly on a “computer”? not reasonable at all. Nowadays we’re seeing a raise of the ESP32 devices that have 30-40 GPIOs and Wifi for 2$ each. Cheap, easy to develop and deploy and eating away on the Pi’s market.
• Another typical use case for a Pi is some low power server, but while it is great in theory then it lacks the CPU performance required for the container-based absurdities people want to run and the I/O sucks. USB wasn’t ever a good way to connect to storage, let alone a USB/network shared bus like we had in the past. The new PCIe is questionable (look at the NanoPi M4v2 from 2018) and requires… more adapters;
• Price-wise it doesn’t make much sense as well because a second hand x86 will be 10x faster at the same price point… and way more stable with more expansion.

Now it’s all gone x86 and Proxmox

Proxmox isn’t a new thing, in fact it is a pile of crap and questionable open-source that people still run because they haven’t discovered LXC/LXD yet. Read more here: lemmy.world/comment/6507871. FYI you can run LXD on your Pis and get both containers and virtual machines with it in the same way Proxmox people do with x86.

The irony of this comment is that people will shit on me about replacing Proxmox with LXD in the same way they used to when I said that Pis were a money grab and x86 MiniPCs were way better.

TCB13, 1 year ago

If you “RAID and backup enough” any chepo used hard drive is a good and valid. :)

Generally speaking datacenter drives with manufacturer warranty will be a good option because they’re easy to get replaced by the manufacturer without much fuzz. For any second hard drive I look at bad blocks > count of starts > time they’ve been running and if it isn’t an absurd number they should be fine.

TCB13, 1 year ago

realizing that 11 was only going to bring more ads, force-installed applications, background processes that were nigh-impossible to disable without a lot of tomfoolery, AI bullshit and general bloat,

I don’t get this kinds of comments.

I figured that I would try dual-booting Ubuntu,

So you ditched and unethical mega corp that runs ads for a wanna be unethical mega corp that also mines your data and you’re happy about it? Oh boy the illusion.

I feel so much more capable as a computer user with Linux than I ever did on Window

I just hope you don’t require “professional” software such as MS Office, Adobe Apps, Autodesk, NI Circuit Design and whatnot Linux isn’t a viable options. The alternatives wont cut it if you require serious collaboration… virtualization, emulation (wine) may work but won’t be nice. Going for Linux kinda adds the same pains of going macOS but 10x. Once you open the virtualization door your productivity suffers greatly, your CPU/RAM requirements are higher and suddenly you’ve to deal with issues in two operating systems instead of just one. And… let’s face it, nothing with GPU acceleration will ever run decently unless big companies start fixing things - GPU passthroughs and getting video back into the main system are a pain and add delays.

Linux on servers is great, on the desktop if you’ve to collaborate with others who use those apps it’s game over.

TCB13, 1 year ago

Now I’m gonna tell you what nobody talks about when moving to Linux:

3. Proprietary/non-Linux apps provide good features, support and have tons of hours of dev time and continuous updates that the FOSS alternatives can’t just match.

Read the rest here: lemmy.world/comment/6584073

TCB13, 1 year ago (edited 10 months ago)

If you’ve an OpenWRT compatible router why are you thinking about pfsense? There isn’t much to gain there, your OpenWRT will do NAT and also has a firewall.

I like this device since 3ports would allow me to create a physically separate DMZ

OpenWRT can do this as well. What are your plans with the DMZ tho?

Be careful with the use of the acronym DMZ as in the context of typical routers and ISPs it has a different meaning of what you’re implying here. DMZ usually is used in the context for a single host that is “outside” the ISP router’s firewall and all requests coming into the ISP router will be forward to that device.

With my current diagram, it seems like it is not possible for the NAS to receive updates from the internet.

You NAS will never “receive updates” it will ask for updates. Maybe add a firewall rule that allows traffic from the NAS to the internet but not the other way around (this is usually the default state of any router, it will allow local devices to go to the internet but not incoming connections to those devices).

My TrueNas has 2x2.5Gb ports. Can i connect each NIC to a different network? Would this have any benefit?

You can, but is it really worth it? If someone hacks the device they’ll access the rest of the network. Same applies to your computers and cames consoles, they can be used to jump to the other side and vice versa.

Frankly I don’t see the usefulness of your setup as you’ll end up with weak points somewhere. Just get a single OpenWRT router and throw everything into the same network. Apply firewall restrictions as needed.

TCB13, 1 year ago (edited 11 months ago)

mary DNS Server: Clients will first attempt to use the primary DNS server specified in their network settings. This ser

What’s the point tho? If your PiHole fails you need to know otherwise you could be risking days / months of web surfing in the fallback DNS server without even noticing it.

As for a reply, there’s no RFC that specifies that a specific order is applied to DNS servers. So in short, you can’t have a fallback that is reliable and most operating systems will just load balance or opportunistically pick between the two.

TCB13, 1 year ago (edited 10 months ago)

You can’t mix UWP and “functional” in the same phrase. Does not compute.

TCB13, 1 year ago

First, you should something decent, not DietPi. You’ve Armbian for a ready to go experience or official Debian.

Once you get into something Debian 12, you can run LXD/LXC as a containerization / virtualization solution and use the same Pi to run the official HA VM image and whatever else you would like.

TCB13, 1 year ago

I fucking wonder why. When owning isn’t owning them piracy is totally justified.

We pay for 4K, but we don’t get more than 720p unless we use some proprietary shit hardware and a

Not only that… you pay to get tv content and suddenly they remove it because of licensing or political correctness bullshit.

TCB13, 1 year ago (edited 11 months ago)

dirtywarez.com or teamos.xyz. macbb.org if you’re on macOS.

TCB13, 1 year ago

So the govt will know who and when watches porn. lol

TCB13, 1 year ago

Suggested reading to avoid future pain: lemmy.world/comment/6584073

TCB13, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

It seems like a dystopian system, that we litterely can not hide from our governments without turning off our smartphones

That’s basically it.

However SIM cards that aren’t tied to people usually ends up scenarios like the US have where SIM swap attacks are common and you’ve a LOT of identity fraud. Note that we’ve an increasing number of services sending information and validation codes via SMS like banking apps and whatnot and you don’t secure the SIMs anyone will be able to get a replacement SIM because “I got my phone stolen” and you’ll have zero security.

I don’t like it, but I get the point.

TCB13, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

Your average Wine enjoyer:

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/e383f5a5-8bf5-4dea-9d65-e5a7fe8902a2.png

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b720ce9a-ee05-4168-a6e5-0830ef69ce9e.png

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ace64bce-7d42-448a-929d-d93bd457512b.png

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/6246e4d4-a414-4a35-b3d1-e06dc50be1bb.png

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/fc521aa9-0fd5-41ac-ac5e-4ffd66b9dd2e.png

Wine works great, blurp…

TCB13, 1 year ago

What are they trying to fuck up down on their quest for the “perfect vision”?

TCB13, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

What’s the problem with running an older OSX? github.com/blueboxd/chromium-legacy

Despite the CPU being 64-bit, the distro MUST be 32-bit. This is because of the MacBook’s BIOS, which prevents 64-bit bootloaders from working.

That’s the thing, you can run a 64-bit distro as long as you’ve a 32 bit grub starting it :) You run Debian 12 amd64 on a 32 bit EFI:

As of 2023 and Debian 12 the amd64 installation media (available in netinst form) includes the UEFI boot loaders necessary for both i386 and amd64 boot. By selecting “64-bit install” from the initial boot menu, debian-installer will install a 64-bit (amd64) version of Debian. The system will automatically detect that the underlying UEFI firmware is 32-bit and will install the appropriate version of grub-efi to work with it.

wiki.debian.org/UEFI#Support_for_mixed-mode_syste…

Enjoy.

TCB13, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

Linux in corporation fails in multiple ways, the most prevalent is that people need to collaborate with others that use proprietary software such as MS Office that isn’t available for Linux and the alternatives such as LibreOffice aren’t just good enough. It all comes down to ROI, the cost of Windows/Office for a company is cheaper than the cost of dealing with the inconsistencies in format conversions, people who don’t know how to use the alternative X etc etc. This issue is so common that companies usually also avoid Apple due to the same reason, while on macOS you’ve a LOT more professional software it is still very painful to deal with the small inconsistencies and whatnot.

Linux desktop is great, I love it, but it gets it even worse than Apple, here some use cases that aren’t easy to deal in Linux:

• People who need the real MS Office because once you have to collaborate with others Open/Libre/OnlyOffice won’t cut it;
• Designers who use Adobe apps that won’t run properly without having a dedicated GPU, passthrough and a some hacky way to get the image back into your main system that will cause noticeable delays. Who wants to deploy GPU passthroughs for others? Makes no sense;
• People that run old software / games because not even those will run properly on Wine;
• Electrical engineers: Circuit Design Suite (Multisim and Ultiboard) are primarily designed for Windows. Alternatives such as KiCad and EasyEDA may work in some cases but they aren’t great if you’ve to collaborate with others who use Circuit Design Suite;
• Labs that require data acquisition from specialized hardware because companies making that hardware won’t make drivers and software for Linux;
• Architects: AutoCAD isn’t available (not even the limited web version works) and Libre/FreeCAD don’t cut it if you’ve to collaborate with AutoCAD users;
• Developers and sysadmins, because not everyone is using Docker and Github actions to deploy applications to some proprietary cloud solution. Finding a properly working FTP/SFTP/FTPS desktop client (similar WinSCP or Cyberduck) is an impossible task as the ones that exist fail even at basic tasks like dragging and dropping a file.

If one lives in a bubble and doesn’t to collaborate with others then native Linux apps might work and might even deliver a decent workflow. Once collaboration with Windows/Mac users is required then it’s game over – the “alternatives” aren’t just up to it.

Windows licenses are cheap and things work out of the box. Software runs fine, all vendors support whatever you’re trying to do and you’re productive from day zero. Sure, there are annoyances from time to time, but they’re way fewer and simpler to deal with than the hoops you’ve to go through to get a minimal and viable/productive Linux desktop experience. It all comes down to a question of how much time (days? months?) you want to spend fixing things on Linux that simply work out of the box under Windows for a minimal fee. Buy a Windows license and spend the time you would’ve spent dealing with Linux issues doing your actual job and you’ll, most likely, get a better ROI.

From a more market / macro perspective here are some extra reasons:

• Companies like blame someone when things go wrong, if they chose open-source there’s isn’t someone to sue then;
• Buying proprietary stuff means you’re outsourcing the risks of such product;
• Corruption pushes for proprietary: they might be buying software that is made by someone that is close to the CTO, CEO or other decision marker in the company, an old friend, family or straight under the table corruption;
• Most non-tech companies use services from consulting companies in order to get their software developed / running. Consulting companies often fall under the last point that besides that they have have large incentives from companies like Microsoft to push their proprietary services. For eg. Microsoft will easily provide all of a consulting companies employees with free Azure services, Office and other discounts if they enter in an exclusivity agreement to sell their tech stack. To make things worse consulting companies live of cheap developers (like interns) and Microsoft and their platform makes things easier for anyone to code and deploy;
• Microsoft provider a cohesive ecosystem of products that integrate really well with each other and usually don’t require much effort to get things going - open-source however, usually requires custom development and a ton of work to work out the “sharp angles” between multiple solutions that aren’t related and might not be easily compatible with each other;
• Open-source requires a level of expertise that more than half of the developers and IT professionals simply don’t have. This aspect reinforces the last point even more. Senior open-source experts are more expensive than simply buying proprietary solutions;
• If we consider the price of a senior open-source expert + software costs (usually free) the cost of open-source is considerable lower than the cost of cheap developers + proprietary solutions, however consider we are talking about companies. Companies will always prefer to hire more less expensive and less proficient people because that means they’re easier to replace and you’ll pay less taxes;
• Companies will prefer to hire services from other companies instead of employees thus making proprietary vendors more compelling. This happens because from an accounting / investors perspective employees are bad and subscriptions are cool (less taxes, no responsibilities etc);
• The companies who build proprietary solutions work really hard to get vendors to sell their software, they provide commissions, support and the promises that if anything goes wrong they’ll be there. This increases the number of proprietary-only vendors which reinforces everything above. If you’re starting to sell software or networking services there’s little incentive for you to go pure “open-source”. With less companies, less visibility, less professionals (and more expensive), less margins and less positive market image, less customers and lesser profits.

Unfortunately things are really poised and rigged against open-source solutions and anyone who tries to push for them. The “experts” who work in consulting companies are part of this as they usually don’t even know how to do things without the property solutions. Let me give you an example, once I had to work with E&Y, one of those big consulting companies, and I realized some awkward things while having conversations with both low level employees and partners / middle management, they weren’t aware that there are alternatives most of the time. A manager of a digital transformation and cloud solutions team that started his career E&Y, wasn’t aware that there was open-source alternatives to Google Workplace and Microsoft 365 for e-mail. I probed a TON around that and the guy, a software engineer with an university degree, didn’t even know that was Postfix was and the history of email.

TCB13, 1 year ago

Paint.net if you’re on Windows.

TCB13, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

A self-hosted or desktop Canva would be cool indeed.

There’s www.photopea.com that is very good and framagit.org/aktivisda/aktivisda that I’ve never used.

TCB13, 1 year ago

🎉🎉🎉

Yet another major release that fails do support basic Win32 APIs available since Windows 95 properly.

🎉🎉🎉