My use cases are:

• Connect from multiple devices on the same home network (with the application)
• Connect from a phone device on the internet (with the application)
• Connect from some PC’s and devices on the internet (with the application and from web browser)

For home networked devices, I don’t care about security that much. I try to lock it down on the router level and by using VLANs for less secure devices. I connect via IP directly (or .local domain).

Jellyfin runs under its own user with read access to a media library.

For devices on the internet, I have jellyfin exposed on a specific url path of my domain - through a reverse proxy all through 443. A bit of security through obscurity here. I’m proxied through cloudflare on the DNS side with very restrictive IP rules.
I think this is enough for the security flaws jellyfin does have. I’d sleep better at night if it had client certificate support, but Its not a big deal imo. If security flaws allowing remote code execution are found, I’ll shut it down and allow access through wireguard only and lose access from some devices on the internet where I cant use VPNs. Not a bit deal either.

Two extremes here. Debian is slow to update while arch is bleeding edge.

I avoid containerized desktop apps (snap, flatpak) so I couldn’t run Debian as a daily driver. You’d want to use the latest FireFox and their repo’s release is old. You you can get it from flatpak, but I don’t want to do that. Running on recent (<1y) hardware will also be problematic. I guess you could keep on adding 3rd party repos to your install, though some post from debian forums always stuck with me: “Debian is only what is released + whats in the official repo. Install anything else and you’re not running debian anymore.”. Its a whacky OS and I love it, but daily drive it only on my server.

Arch puts everything on their repo straight away. And if its not there, you’re downloading code from AUR and building it yourself. I actually appreciate this since it complies with the philosophy that you can’t really trust your applications unless you read the source and build it yourself. Awesome, but the general public shouldn’t be doing this… I don’t mind applications being distributed in binary form. I am able to trust linux community maintained repositories. Arch is for the geeks imo.

I found Fedora to be a good middle ground, since it gets package updates straight away while still maintaining fixed OS releases. No need for snap or flatpaks since their repo has everything and is updated. Its also widely supported by software vendors (just like debian). Id go with it as a recommendation, but still note that its philosophy is free software only and this can potentially mean tinkering with additional stuff from RPM fusion, especially if you dance with nvidia and watch videos encoded with non free codecs.

It takes a bit of time to find the right distro and that is the biggest obstacle to linux imo.

I don’t game as much as I used to, but for the games I do play, I’m not seeing many (or any) problems. Video encoding with ffmpeg through nvenc works fine too.
Current issues I’m having are 3d acceleration in KVM under Wayland. Apparently it only works with nouveau? Not a deal breaker in any sense, just the latest observation.

Indian accent: “Alright mam, when you install this app, I will contact you tomorrow and we can proceed with the transfer. For security reasons, don’t tell anyone you received this call.”

but there are foss programs you have to buy and after you bought it you are free to do with it what you want.

Any examples? I’m just curious how they stay afloat after sharing the source code once someone buys it, forks it and releases the source.
Maybe ‘F’ in FOSS does not mean it is gratis (de jure), but it is in fact gratis (de facto) for the majority of FOSS?

Make Arch Great Again!

I hate the environment, that’s why I use vscode. After a long day outside, rolling coal on my 6x6 and littering out in nature, I come home and relax by turning on vscode and let it idle as I throw old tires in the fireplace. If you hate the environment like I do, use vscode.

My unpopular opinion: free ram is useless ram. Go on, OS. Put evertyhing into ram. I have 64GB of it. Fill it the fuck up. I want to be able to open things blazingly fast, that’s why its there. The trick is leaving enough so new things can fit without waiting for cleanup. And windows isn’t bad at scaling its usage. Afaik, wIndows installation on 8GB will use less than the same installation when 16GB is available.

If you had unlimited ram, you’d be mad the OS was wasting time cleaning up behind itself.

I found it extremely funny when people started asking for systemd replacements, of all things, after systemd added the ability to store a birth date.

Location, weather and time is key when eating outside. Have eaten many a meal outside without issue and I prefer it to inside when the three align.

Looks like this is just for storing the data (birth date). Distros can use it and do age restriction or ignore it. Not a big deal imo. Its not like systemd does anything more with the date.

I think kwrite on kde. Arch may come more barebones though.
It’s hard to point to one because linux isn’t an operating system per se… and many distros come with different software packages with different DE’s. That’s where a GUI text editor’s home is, so it depends on that, the distro.

Its really a shame. Every OS needs a simple text editor, possibly without formatting support of any kind. You’re not supposed to use it, it just makes it possible to edit basic configurations on the fly and things like that. Instead they support half of word pad and cram in copilot for some reason.
Although I do admit, I haven’t seen the need to move away from kwrite for a long time. Basic text editor that does what it should and does it right!

Yup. My entire PC desk (monitor, PC, 2+1 speakers) draw 7W when the PC is turned off (old speakers draw power when off for some reason). For comparison: My NUC server draws 7W white turned on, doing useful work. This infuriates me, so I got a zigbee power switch and shut the PC desk completely off when I’m not home.
If 7W for nothing pisses me off, you’re damn straight an idle or sleeping PC will too!

Some SOTA bullshit!

So… uh… laptops have a copilot key on the keyboard now…

I’ve watched Linus some 10 years ago and it always seemed like he’s more of a face and a presenter and has others do research and tell him what to do. They give him some minimum info and let him go and make content. He knows more than the average person and apparently that’s enough to make content.
I wish he took it more seriously. He has a huge platform and can reach a lot of people and he often rather uses it for his own enrichment instead shining a light.

I wish that wasn’t a video, but a website with everything explained on one page. We used to host things damnit! /end rant

For Arch, I’d go with something like EndeavorOS. The installation is easy for someone who knows what a file system or software repository is and I absolutely loved that you can install a bare bones system: just the desktop and almost no apps and you can go from there and install what you like (I wish fedora offered this).
I ended up not using Arch/Endeavor because of rolling releases and I found the AUR dangerous. I mean, its not dangerous, but anyone can put anything on there and its your job (and the communities) to make sure its good. I think a “build all the software yourself” is a great philosophy, but it only fits computer geeks (and I mean this in a good way). We cant all be Richard Stallman. I think for somethings, I can accept an “arbiter of software” who curates what gets on the repo and what doesn’t and that its shared via compiled binaries instead of code.

Fedora’s philosophy is free software only. So vanilla Fedora ships with FOSS only. Imo, they’re really good at this, but I personally couldn’t live with that. The community maintained fusion repository is essential because of Nvidia drivers and full ffmpeg. Steam is in a separate non-free repo as well.
Other than than tidbit, Fedora is easy to install, well maintained, has a large community and wide third party support (as in software devs often build “native fedora” binaries available on their repo).
I prefer it to any other Fedora based distro, but for the reason above, it may not be best suited for the average lemming.