Backups and backups and backups, and then and only then can you trust your data is safe. I run all consumer disks, have 2x2tb ssd’s in a raid1 for user facing storage which are always powered up and mounted. I only have 2 users in total, so relatively light load. Then I have 2x8tb hdd’s which only power on once a day at most, for as long as it takes rsync to complete it’s nightly backups, then they dismount and power off. Been running this for 18 months and not had any issues. My hdd’s will last years with their current load and usage, with only probably a few hundred mb written every night. But if your data is managed and backed up sensibly, and you use raid effectively, cheap discs aren’t a worry.

There for this. I too am heavily de-googleing, and will be looking into fmt more 👍

I’m not denying windows 11 is a huge pile of crap. It’s absolutely terrible and not designed for the user. Totally agree with all that.

But there are no hacks required to install it on old hardware. You just have to do a fresh install. If you want to upgrade from 10 to 11 then I agree you need to edit the registry which you could consider a hack, although very basic.

In fact there are less hacks required to install / upgrade to windows 11 then there are to install any Linux distro.

Also your point about risk and non supported hardware is not correct. Microsoft don’t support any hardware. They provide an os and updates, and any device with a genuine copy of windows will receive all and any updates, and it won’t just randomly stop working. Windows is just an os. As long as it is compiled for the correct CPU architecture, it is just as supported as any other hardware. The hardware is supported by individual drivers, normally provided by the hardware manufacturer, not Microsoft.

All my point is don’t push the change on people, give them a fair and informed choice.

I love Linux, and use it on all machines and devices possible, but I would never push my non tech savvy family to use it. My wife has a non windows 11 compatible with an i5 7200u CPU. I installed windows 11 on it very easily. She is happy, and the laptop works perfectly.

I would first ask your relatives if they really want Linux or if they would prefer windows 11.

If they want Linux, mint is probably the best non tech savvy option. Then use tightvnc or similar with an ssh tunnel, tailscale or something similar. Create a desktop shortcut that launches and creates the connection.

No, nothing is really saved locally, is just caches the on display item only. So only the currently viewed note is visible. Nothing else.

Essentially currently the app only really has any use when online, and very basic viewing ability when offline. I am planning to make the android app work offline, but that is a long term plan and not immediate.

Nah, docmost is way more complex and advanced. Mine doesn’t offer half what docmost does. Mine is a very simple and lightweight notes app with multi user live collaboration and some nice little customisation options.

Mine has an android, windows and Linux client. I couldn’t see those mentioned on docmost?

It doesn’t. It relies on you being online to edit or create notes. Offline you can only view the currently open note.

i think that would be called remote hosting or cloud hosting? self-hosting is where you host the services your self, without third party hardware or systems.

i hate using it to, but only because i am comfortable with the freedom linux provides. the majority of people using a windows machine would melt at the first sight of trying to use linux and have no motivation or inclination to learn or use it, and why should they? if windows is a sufficient tool for their use case, then good. the os is just a tool to interact with the machine, and as long as the user gets what they want out of it, then the tool is correct.

exactly this! notes in the config files is all the documentation i need. and scripting and automating is so important to a self running and self healing server.

Non, I use Linux purely at home. Have no way to use it in the heavily regulated world I work which is very corporate and very locked down windows where I cant even access CMD or pin things to the taskbar.

But at home I run Debian and raspberry pi os on my 2 servers, and arch Linux on my desktop, and Debian with retropie and cinnamon on my laptop.

I have no interest in distro wars, no distro is better than any other, they just all cater to different subset of people and users. I don’t even believe Linux is superior to any other os. I love Linux, and it is perfect for me, but I would never advise my wife to try it, as it offers nothing she would benefit from over her current use of windows.

And I develop and maintain a package in the aur, but it is minimal, and I have published on GitHub a couple of apps, but I would not describe myself as a developer or maintainer, as they are just tiny personal fun projects.

And finally I am a huge proponent of foss and anti big tech where I can be. I believe I currently have all the benefit of the android ecosystem without using it at all. As in everything is backed up and synced to the cloud, but I own my cloud. Everything except Lemmy and email I self host. Calender, contacts, files, photos, music, DNS, search, pdf editor, notes… That’s all I can think of for now.

It depends what your long term goals are. If it’s just to run those services as simply as possible, then just run them in docker on windows. If you want to learn Linux, then setup you other hardware and install a server distro. Ubuntu is fine, but I use Debian.

Then once you get used to Linux, one day you could migrate your Plex server to Linux and remove windows from your main server.

It depends what you mean by nice and how complex it is? I built my own site which is basically my front end access to all the services I host. I wrote it extremely basically in html and got just the very basic context of what I wanted setup. Then I put the whole thing into Claude, and asked it to tidy it up. Then I started a new Claude session and put the whole thing in again and asked it to modernise it. Then did the same again but asked it to improve it. After about 5 or 6 run thoughts, I was happy with it. But it only has 2 pages, the first main page for anybody, and the 2nd admin page password protected just for me.

I don’t think the issue is listening to music, but installing potentially dodgy software that could bring a virus into the corporate network. Hence most businesses handling sensitive information try to protect their systems and networks by preventing unauthorised installation of software.

🤮 I hate gui config! Way too much hassle. Give me cli and a config file anyday! I love being able to just ssh into my server anytime from anywhere and fix, modify or install and setup something.

The key to not being overwhelmed is manageable deployment. Only setup one service at a time, get it working, safe and reliable before switching to actually using full time, then once certain it’s solid, implement the next tool or deployment.

My servers have almost no breakages or issues. They run 24/7/365 and are solid and reliable. Only time anything breaks is either an update or new service deployment, but they are just user error by me and not the servers fault.

Although I don’t work in IT so maybe the small bits of maintenance I actually do feel less to me?

I have 26 containers running, plus a fair few bare metal services. Plus I do a bit of software dev as a hobby.

I have currently got 23 on my n97 mini pc and 3 on my raspberry pi 4, making 26 in total.

I have no issues managing these. I use docker compose for everything and have about 10 compose.yml files for the 23 containers.

For me I really want to move over to a Linux phone in the next few years. My current phone doesn’t support any custom ROMs and I’m not willing to risk a gsi build or similar to get lineage working. I think my current Motorola edge 40 neo will last me another 2 years maybe, but once it starts showing signs of death, I will be buying something either pre-installed with Linux or offers a straight forward enough path to flash Linux of some sort. I am happy with a clean experience with a solid web browser and no other apps. As another option, being able to install android apps would be good, but I don’t want that if it compromises the os.