I was familiar with just organise my docker-compose containers without any frontend. But I discovered casaOS, which make things pretty simple. An AppStore and a SMB-Shared File manager gave me a really good workflow. Things that aren’t on the AppStore can be handled outside of Casa, too.
PS. But never make the mistake to integrate the outside handled containers, this mess things up.
Thanks, yeah I’ve heard good things about casaOS. I think that I’m trying to move in the other direction though: fewer UI’s and more CLI’s + Configuration files.
I run microk8s on a 3 node cluster, using FluxCD to deploy and manage my services. I also work with Kubernetes at work, so I’m very familiar with the concepts. But I will never use anything else.
If you want maximum control and flexibility, learn Kubernetes. For a lot of people (myself included) it’s overkill, but IMO it’s the best.
My main gripe with docker-compose, which is what I used to use, is that service changes require access to the machine. I have to run commands on the host to alter services. With Kubernetes, and more precisely a GitOps model, you can just make a commit to a git repo and it will roll out.
For your last point, portainer fixes that. I use portainer to pull compose files from my gitea instance. There is an option to auto update on git comit but I prefer to press the button to update.
I write the compose files in vscode and push them to my repo.
FWIW I manage docker compose files with ansible. Allows me to centrally manage them without the need to go logging into multiple vms. I also create a systemd service file to start/stop the containers (also managed with ansible).
That said I’m starting to switch over to k8s as well (also with microk8s which has been the easiest to work with). Definitely overkill but I want to learn it.
Yes very true, I really would much prefer GitOps as I feel… uneasy about how handwired and ephemeral my current setup is and would love it to be more declarative and idempotent. It does seem like Kubernetes is the way to do that.
I used browser extension Distill in the past, it’s pretty easy to use and it works well for detecting/tracking changes of the specific elements on the page. I think free version allows 25 local monitors.
I also just found this extension Automa, I’ve never used it, but it seems cool. Looks like a Tasker for your browser. And there are also a workflows that people share, I saw this one randomly, Scrap Google Suggest to SpreadSheet so I guess you could do a similar thing for prices.
It’s 2024, avoid Proxmox and safe yourself a LOT of headaches down the line.
You most likely don’t need Proxmox and its pseudo-open-source bullshit. My suggestion is to simply with with Debian 12 + LXD/LXC, it runs VMs and containers very well. Proxmox ships with an old kernel that is so mangled and twisted that they shouldn’t even be calling it a Linux kernel. Also their management daemons and other internal shenanigans will delay your boot and crash your systems under certain circumstances.
What I would suggest you to use use instead is LXD/Incus.
LXD/Incus provides a management and automation layer that really makes things work smoothly - essentially what Proxmox does but properly done. With Incus you can create clusters, download, manage and create OS images, run backups and restores, bootstrap things with cloud-init, move containers and VMs between servers (even live sometimes).
Another big advantage is the fact that it provides a unified experience to deal with both containers and VMs, no need to learn two different tools / APIs as the same commands and options will be used to manage both. Even profiles defining storage, network resources and other policies can be shared and applied across both containers and VMs.
I draw your attention to containers (not docker), LXC containers because for most people full virtualization isn’t even required. In a small homelab if you can have containers that behave like full operating systems (minus the kernel) including persistence, VMs might not be required. Either way LXD/Incus will allow for both and you can easily mix and match and use what you require for each use case.
For eg. I virtualize the official HomeAssistant image with LXD because we all know how hard is to get that thing running, however my NAS / Samba shares are just a LXD Debian 12 container with Samba4, Nginx and FileBrowser. Sames goes for torrent client that has its own container. Some other service I’ve exposed to the internet also runs a full VM for isolation.
Like Proxmox, LXD/Incus isn’t about replacing existing virtualization techniques such as QEMU, KVM and libvirt, it is about augmenting them so they become easier to manage at scale and overall more efficient. I can guarantee you that most people running Proxmox today it today will eventually move to Incus and never look back. It woks way better, true open-source, no bugs, no BS licenses and way less overhead.
I do regular snapshots of my containers live and sometimes restore them, no issues there. De-duplication and incremental features are (mostly) provided by the storage backend, if you use BTRFS or ZFS for your storage pool every container will be a volume that you can snapshot, rollback, export at any time. LXD also provides tools to make those operations: documentation.ubuntu.com/lxd/…/instances_backup/
create clusters, download, manage and create OS images, run backups and restores, bootstrap things with cloud-init, move containers and VMs between servers (even live sometimes).
provides a unified experience to deal with both containers and VMs, no need to learn two different tools / APIs as the same commands and options will be used to manage both. Even profiles defining storage, network resources and other policies can be shared and applied across both containers and VMs.
Your comment is wrong in a few ways and suggests using a LXC which is way slower than docker or podman and lacks the easy setup.
Proxmox is good because it makes it easy to create VMs and setup least access. It also has as new of kernel as stable Debian so no, its not terribly out of date.
If you want to suggest that someone install Debian + Docker compose that would make more sense. This isn’t a good setup for more advanced setups and it doesn’t allow for a not of flexibility.
This was a discussion about management solutions such as Proxmox and LXD and NOT about containerization technologies like Docker or LXC. Also Proxmox uses the Proxmox VE Kernel that is derived from Ubuntu.
Your comment makes no sense whatsoever. I’m not even sure you know the difference between LXD and LXC…
I’ve been on Proxmox for 6 or so months with very few issues and have found it to work well in my instance, I do appreciate seeing another alternative and learning about it too! I very specifically like Proxmox as it gives me an actual IP on my router’s subnet for my machines such as Home Assistant. So instead of the 192.168.122.1 it rolls a nice 192.168.1.X/24 IP which fits my range which makes it easier for me to direct my outside traffic to it. Does this also do this? Based on your screenshots, maybe not, IDK.
it gives me an actual IP on my router’s subnet for my machines
Yes you configure LXD/Incus’ networking to use a bridge and it will simply delegate the task to your router instead of proving IPs itself. One of my nodes actually runs the two setups at the same time, I’ve a bunch of containers on an internal range and then my Home Assistant VM getting an IP from my router.
Thanks for the link! I’ve been running Proxmox for years now without any of the issues like the previous commenter mentioned. Not that they don’t exist, just that I haven’t hit them. I really like Proxmox but love hearing about alternatives. One day I might get bored and want to set things up new with a different stack and anything that’s more free/open is better in my book.
This sounds like a dream for me, what I found was even better, was making a slick deals account and setting up an alert for exactly what I needed. That way I wasn’t mindlessly shopping and buying unnecessary things! Following this thread though cuz I’m interested!
Same. Slickdeals and forget it. The website is a bit of a privacy nightmare w/ inserted tracking/referral links for every deal though. I’ve stopped logging in entirely and just use it for emailed alerts.
DokuWiki for simplicity. Everything is a text file that can just be copied to a web server. It doesn’t even require a database. And since all the wiki pages are plaintext markdown files, they can still be easily accessed and read even when the server is down. This is great and why I use DokuWiki for my server documentation as well.
I was going to say that the big downside to that would be a lack of any kind of version control, but I guess if you need that you can always use git and just commit changes there and (optionally) push them to a repository somewhere.
Games from that time were actually running mostly in your browser. Meaning that the host, for example Miniclip served you the JavaScript and other files of the game which were then executed locally. So technically you could archive those games as long as you can load them up at least once initially.
If you logged and saved all the files the first one requested you could potentially make it work. You could manually change of the file paths in the html if you only doing a few of them. There’s only like 10 or so paths that would need to be modified. The PHP ones are likely harder to make work as php is a server side language and you don’t likely have easy access to PHP server and everything that goes with it.
Anyway thanks for the link to to mynoise.net. It looks like a well designed, carefully crafted website.
It’s an open source solution designed to scale to what the web was originally designed for and excels at. Documents. Specifically hyperlinked documents or webpages. You can’t reasonably expect an archival service to archive something that is by definition not static like an interactive web app.
ATV is the only box I recommend. I’m anti-Google, don’t trust Amazon (and now their service is going to do ads on a paid Prime membership), and Roku has major privacy issues at least in the past. Curious why you’re seeking an alternative to Apple.
I’m curious why you would trust Apple and not the others you have listed. All of them will do literally anything to just earn more money and exploit you as much as possible.
Apple, the company that has by far the worst anti-consumer practices when it comes to technology and is actively lobbying against you being able to own your products?
I mean, neither of you is wrong. On user privacy, Apple is probably the least worst of the big providers. At the same time their business model is to lock in users to their platform and hardware. “Once you’ve gone Mac you’re not going back” is the result of a deliberate design choice on Apple’s part.
Sounds to me like OP is aiming to bypass the entire corporate cloud service mess by going self-sufficient via FLOSS?
Apple is a hardware company first, not an advertising and services company like Google and Roku, and not a literal massive online retailer like Amazon.
Apple TV is the only one that doesn’t have ads on its home screen. I use an Apple TV to play all my physical media that has been ripped to mov and re-encoded with handbrake
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted to hell. The Apple TV ui used to be really nice, but when they launched Apple TV+, it turned into this garbage interface that’s terrible to navigate with an absolute garbage remote that took them years to fix (butterfly keyboard anyone?)
Before tv+, the Apple TV was a platform with apps for the services you wanted to use. It was simple and intuitive. Want to watch Netflix, open the Netflix app.
Then with tv+ they turned the whole thing into this inception bullshit. Sure you still have apps, but you also have tv plus with apps inside the app and obfuscation as to what’s watchable and what isn’t without subscribing to whatever rando service.
I used to love Apple TV. It just worked. For reasons unrelated, around four years ago we switched to Roku. Well, now, on our tcl Roku tv, which is only four years old, the Roku software runs like hot garbage.
We still have an Apple TV, (4K, dunno which one exactly, but around 6 years old). So instead of buying a whole new tv, which other than Roku’s garbage software, is a perfectly functional tv, I decided to hook up the Apple TV.
I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of using that trash touch panel remote that came with it, but was kinda excited to get back to the clean ui that I remembered.
That’s when I discovered all this inception bullshit. And Apple’s new inability to recognize that I’m logged in to my Apple/iCloud account on the Apple TV device. It kept prompting me to log in every five minutes or so, but then when affirming I want to log in, it would tell me I can’t log in, EVEN THOUGH I WAS LOGGED IN ON THE APPLE TV.
After 20 minutes of that bullshit I tossed the Apple TV back in the box it came from and installed Kodi on a raspberry pi. That’s my new smart tv box.
FWIW, I think there is a slow push towards a consolidated “TV” experience which may or may not have started as result of Apple launching Apple TV+. Sometime over the last several years, there have been a push towards consolidating the streaming content into one place, so users would theoretically get a unified search and viewing experience. I think the most recent version of tvOS even did away the iTunes Store in favor of having that integrated directly in the TV app.
However, I said may or may not have started as result of Apple TV+ service because that seems like a consistent trend across the board. Even in Plex, I do a search, I get a bunch of content that they’re trying to redirect me towards (Plex’s own FAST TV service, and maybe even purchase else where if memory serves).
None of these negates what you’ve said though. It has nothing to do with TV+ service, and dude could’ve just ignored the TV app and used the Plex app if that’s their streaming source. In fact, Plex cannot integrate into the TV app because Plex cannot provide searchable metadata about content on your server to Apple in a unified fashion — vaguely recall reading something about Apple requires app to give one search end-point that will return one search result to Movie X, and there’s no way for Plex to differentiate my version of Movie X on my server from your version of Movie X on your server. So even the whole TV app thing is kind of moot.
All of your points are great, but don’t consider that I was an Apple TV+ subscriber, so I needed the tv+ app.
Jellyfin is one of my streaming sources, and I was intending to use the Swiftfin app on tvOS, along with tv+ app and apps for the other services I subscribe to. With Kodi I’m now just hitting my local library directly, and using the Kodi add ons for the other services I subscribe to.
@prettybunnys, yeah, I was being hyperbolic and overly dramatic in my previous comment.
However, what is true in my experience (which I know is not everyone’s experience) is that:
The Roku software on my four year old tv is now unusable. It is slow, routinely locks up and freezes in playback and/or navigation, necessitating a replacement smart tv solution of some sort.
I thought that solution could be the Apple TV 4K I already have.
The Apple TV 4K has a number of software and hardware issues that make it unusable for me.
Those issues include:
That touchpad remote. My butterfly keyboard mention is referring to the fact that Apple is well known for standing ground for years on their dumber hardware decisions. The touchpad remote was the default and only remote you could get for an Apple TV for six years (2015-2021). The butterfly keyboard was the only keyboard option on MacBooks for five years (2015-2020). The Magic Mouse with a charging port on the bottom is still the default Magic Mouse you get with a Mac. The Magic Mouse was also introduced in 2015 (going on nine years now).
The login issue I mentioned is the biggest software issue. Despite being logged in to my Apple/iCloud account in tvOS, it prompts me for a tvOS login roughly every five minutes. When I attempt to log in with the prompt (remember, I am already logged in) it tells me I can’t log in. I attempted to resolve this and gave up after 20 minutes of searching and troubleshooting. I pulled the plug because it shouldn’t take nearly half an hour to try to log in to software you’re already logged into.
As @chiisana .net mentioned, The TV+ app is trying to be the hub for tv watching, which from a user perspective is confusing. tvOS is the hub, with the apps, and tvOS is still there. I think it’s safe to say that Apple would prefer all Apple TV+ users to use Apple hardware so Apple can have all the monies. With that in mind they probably designed the tv+ app to be its own hub (where within that app you can watch stuff from [insert streaming service]’s content without leaving the app) to try and poach TV+ subscribers on non Apple hardware. From the company’s perspective that makes sense. (Make people think all they need is Apple TV+, and hey, next streaming device we buy might as well be an Apple one.) That doesn’t make my user experience any better. For me at least, it makes it worse. I wanted the simplicity of tvOS as the only hub. (Editing to add that you do need to have the tv+ app installed if you’re a subscriber, which we were until recently.)
This is preference, and likely something I could have disabled had I gotten past the login issue, but I personally don’t like the bouncy, sticky, wiggly bits they added to tvOS and tv+ to accommodate the touchpad remote.
Huh? Use the remote app on your phone. It automatically pops up like a notification when there’s a text box on the screen. So easy. You can turn the box off by holding the power button for a few seconds. To close apps, you double tap the TV button and then it’s an iOS like interface that you scroll over and swipe up on the ones you want to close.
The UI is very minimal and the same across most all apps, so it’s easy to learn and use. It may be missing some power features, but most things are accessed via clicking of just holding.
Take a second and just let it sink in how fucking stupid that sentence is. Why do I need an application on my phone to use my device efficiently? Why doesn’t the remote have T9-like keys, or voice input? Hell, they invented the click-wheel, come on.
“your new garage door opener uses a pin. since the fob doesn’t have numbers, you just need to unlock your phone and type your pin in that way instead!” would be DOA with the first review. Why is apple getting a pass here?
(I’ve never used the atv, just seen it used by others, and text input wasn’t something they needed)
All remote based typing is awful, T9 included. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can type with swipe gestures on a virtual keyboard via remote faster than I can input T9 text. I’m unaware of any stock remote for a device with a full keyboard. I would argue Apple has text entry perfected at least as well as any other major manufacturer. You have virtual keyboard entry, solid voice-to-text, and it can be configured to push a notification to your iOS device when you enter a search bar which will auto-open to the remote app and pull up the keyboard. Because of this feature passwords can also be autofilled from Keychain to make logins easier.
You may personally prefer T9, but I’ve never seen anyone in the last decade input anything into a TV via T9. And you’re asking why it doesn’t have voice input, when it does. You admit to having never used an Apple TV yourself. I hate the idea of app-only interfaces features, but this isn’t a case like that. Maybe you should understand the features of a product before you call it “fucking stupid”.
I mean I’d rather have a mini qwerty keyboard included for this purposes, but companies won’t spend any money they don’t have to, so I figure T9 is a happy medium. For when you just need to type a few characters to get to what you want.
I stand behind the idea that I need an app in place of an input method “fucking stupid”, regardless though.
Guess what? An ATV natively supports keyboards and game controllers over Bluetooth. So for someone who doesn’t have an iPhone (the remote app is baked into iOS unfortunately) and reeeeeally hates tv remote typing and voice inputs, a mini keyboard is a viable option.
You really didn’t do any research before making so many hot takes.
That’s cool, really, and they should promote that feature.
But as I’ve stated elsewhere in this thread, no I didn’t, and said as much - just looking at the product images, as any typical potential customer would. But you’d know that if you read the comments, so…
Why doesn’t the remote have T9-like keys, or voice input?
It absolutely has voice input.
For passwords, copying and pasting my long, unique, complex passwords from my phone is way easier than any T9 input would ever be.
I have used numerous smart TVs native systems, Google TV boxes, and the NVIDIA Shield. I could not tolerate the UI paradigms or THE FUCKING ADVERTISEMENTS on literally every other system. It is repulsive.
Bonus points to the NVIDIA Shield for being alone it it’s ability to do Atmos from my own media files, though…
It’s almost like I said I’ve never used one, how mind-blowing. Your deduction skills are truly unmatched.
I went looking at the product page and saw no button for voice in any of their images. I guess you have to hold something for a few seconds, but as a new user, I’d never know it was there.
Also, plex and a few others offer the options to type, scan a qr code, or visit a url and sign in to validate the user. I guess if you’re stuck with typing as your only option, fine, use the app. Still not what I’d call a good user experience.
99% of apps on Apple TV have the same kind of login option. If they don’t, it’s on the app developer to implement.
The exception to this that I run into regularly is connecting to a local media server, say through Infuse (seems to handle some codecs better than Plex, and has few if any audio sync issues, though I recommend pointing Infuse at a Jellyfin instance so your library’s metadata doesn’t get cleared and need to be re-indexed on the Apple TV somewhat regularly).
Maybe you ought to take the stance of not talking about something you’re unfamiliar with. Every thing you’ve pointed at has been wrong.
Yeah but again that is on the app creator not the Apple TV.
Apple implementing a really nice keyboard using your phone to work around the app developer being lazy should be considered a bonus not a “well why didn’t they do this other thing” which is what I’m saying.
I don’t see how an app developer could really work around this, if I’m inputting a server address and password for an SMB share. For everything else, sure. I agree that the Remote app’s copy/paste functionality for these elements is literally the best possible solution.
I’m kinda drunk given its New Year’s Eve but I am 99% sure I could find and implement a QR code based authentication method in short order if I tried.
Plex does it, everyone else does it, in this day and age there’s no reason why you can’t generate a token and then a uri and then a QR code if you are able to handle the rest of it.
Again, how is it on Apple or any vendor for that matter, to be on the hook for them?
if they really wanted they could use Apple based oauth
For arbitrary text input id ask you to point at any other remote / UI that handles this limitation better.
This all makes sense to me if there is a server side component to the app. But with Infuse, there isn’t, and I can’t figure out where the QR code is taking me to “authenticate” on my own, locally hosted SMB server? Not a biggie - typically only need to do this once per server, and the Remote app works fine for me.
For arbitrary text input id ask you to point at any other remote / UI that handles this limitation better.
I think you think you’re talking to someone else? I agree with you.
To the contrary, I own two older Macs and like some of their software/services enough to pay for it as a subscription; I’m not the one making bold assumptions here, at least not without saying I’m not fully aware. You, on the other hand…
Thank you for the comment. I should’ve provided more context in the original post. Without getting too deep, I’m starting to reconsider my personal views on privacy, content ownership (vs. streaming), where / how I spend my money, etc.
I’m in the Apple ecosystem but wondering if going back to open source, purchased media (music, movies, etc.), donating to projects, etc. is “better”. Which is highly subjective and personal, of course.
The reason for the question was to see what other folks may be doing.
If privacy is the concern, you should really read the breakdown from Mozilla someone shared. Can’t miss it, large wall of text in this thread. Apple ecosystem is much better than others in the privacy department. The other players are much worse when it comes to personal data collection and selling.
Yup, I did go down the rabbit hole and read the links and stuff. Interesting reading and something to consider. I guess it’s back to a non-networked DVD/Blu-Ray player and get stuff from the local library or Craigslist :)
Also aim for non-networked TVs or they might be doing ACR and phoning home, even if you’re watching your own physical content. A former coworker on ad selling side mentioned before ACR on smart TVs, companies like Nielsen and alike would track content using digital fingerprints hidden in the overscan part of your TV. So there’s all sorts of creepy tracking tech all over.
Yeah, a sad side effect of the subscription/advertising economy. Current TV has as much of that turned off, that I can find at least. Although I haven’t gone full “remove everything from the network”, yet 🙂
From what I read disk wear out on consumer drives is a concern when using ZFS for boot drives with proxmox. I don’t know if the issues are exaggerated, but to be safe I ended up picking up some used enterprise SSDs off eBay for that reason.
fstab will do it, but the more important question is, what do you want to happen when it doesn’t mount properly? Do you want the system to fail to boot? Do you want navidrome to not run?
Lots of people have said worthwhile things. Don’t selfhost email for example. While going with an email hoster has been recommended a couple times, which is good and easy, I want to offer an alternative: SimpleLogin (or comparable providers). Essentially a “email alias generator”, it forwards received emails to one or more mail addresses (Google, Hotmail, what have you). It also allows you to connect a domain and then create new inboxes on the fly by simply sending (or telling a service to send) an email to that non-existing inbox. Which is incredibly handy if you’re faced with a situation that demands an email, where you don’t want to give out an actual email.
So say you have the domain doe.com, and you’re in a physical shop at the register, faced with the question if you want to get 10% off by registering for their members club. You can simply give the cashier the email “coupon_walmart@doe.com” (which does not yet exist), the email will be sent, received bei SL, the inbox created and the coupon code forwarded to your Gmail account. Afterwards, you can disable or delete the inbox and never have to worry about newsletters or data breaches. Nifty!
Every one of these boxes also has its own “sent from” address visible in your actual mail account. Which means that you can simply respond to incoming emails, and the recipient will see the mail address they sent a message to. This also means that you can set up filters in your mail account to move messages from certain sender addresses into specific labels, as if they were real separate email accounts.
Idk, that looks strikingly like a no-brand Freedom box, except there are no specs to judge by. Just some super iffy, nondescript sales pitch. “That’s it, yes indeed”!
Amazing! Have wanted something like this for years, currently use raindrop but not fully, very hesitant of locking myself in. This looks very promising.
I’m very curious… Why do you feel locked in by raindrop? I like that it can regularly upload exports to my Google drive and I can Always download them as html and csv.
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