have to have PiHoles and other DNS sinkholes for a basic protection, which is hard for regular people
mullvad’s free dns. free for all, not just their subscribers. encrypted doh or dot only. a basic ad and malware blocking dns sinkhole is a fairly simple configuration away if your os supports it (win11 and android do… those are what i’ve set it up on for others so far).
not a whole lot of takers here either, and not a single one yet due to win10’s “retirement”.
everyone wants windows. but after that, most are pretty receptive of other foss options like libreoffice.
perhaps higher amongst fediverse users, but not with the general public… default settings all around–including auto updates, no intentionally installed browser addons, maybe a wallpaper change. but that’s it… is the most common windows configuration we see, by far.
you could just point them to everybody’s favorite github-hosted script which has an option to unlock extended updates.
some of the schools around me just post on their web site or fb when they’re getting rid of old systems. they’re gone within an hour or two… they’re priced to sell fast.
for shits and giggles i took a win7 and a win81 straight to iot 24 with no problems on either. run the upgrade from a rufus’d (these were 2009-10 era desktops) usb made from a modded (upgradematrix) iso. going to 10 ltsc or iot should be the same process.
since you’re buying parts, you can specifically look for boards with 6-8 (more than that will require a ‘specialty’ board). 8 isn’t impossible to find. start a build on pcpartpicker, go straight to motherboards and filter 8 or more ‘SATA 6Gb/s Ports’, then sort low-to-high on price. you should find a msi pro am4 and an asus prime am5 that are quite reasonably priced and have multiple reputable vendors selling them.
otherwise you’re looking for an expansion card to add to a board you’ve already got or to expand one of those above for even more.
of course, you need the drive bays to hold them all, too. which can be harder to find at a reasonable and affordable price than motherboards and controller cards.
linux mint’s “installers” can boot into a live environment.
and even when you do know what you’re doing, you’re probably choosing not to host your own. at least not one that faces the public. a private mail ‘server’ that consolidates mail for you from multiple providers (and sends mail back out the same way) is different.
i have an old wood desk at the office. it just resonates and amplifies noise when i set a desktop form factor external hdd (with its attached rubber feet) on it. it now sits on a couple old-school foam rubber mouse mats.
don’t expect a 19 year old laptop to perform all the tricks something more ‘modern’ can do, such as transcoding video for a streaming media server. also note that a t5600 is not a ulv chip (draws as much as 34w under load, on its own)–so probably not a candidate to run ‘lid down’ without some outside help for cooling.
it’s not fast, it’s not power efficient, it has slow networking (10/100 and 22-year old ‘g’ wifi), and lacks usb3 for ‘tolerable’ speed on extra external storage space—but it will be ‘ok enough’ for learning on.
if you go with something like yunohost or even dietpi, you will pretty much restrict yourself to what it can run and do and how it does it. if you want more ‘control’ or to install things they don’t offer themselves, you’ll need to ‘roll your own’. a base (console only) debian would be a great place to start. popular, stable, and tons of online resources and tutorials.
i use dietpi, which is built upon a minimal debian.
afaik the major pc laptop vendors, dell, lenovo, hp, ms surface… all have at least some models now with glass or haptic trackpad.
you definitely encountered similar performance in windows. the processor isn’t speedy, by any stretch. kaby lake u-series i3 is slower than a desktop 4th gen i3.
i tried them for awhile years ago, but determined fairly quickly that one is enough for me.
one of my first configurations on a new installs (ones with a DE) is setting number-of-desktops to ‘1’ and hiding the default switcher on the panel. even with a ui designed around multiple desktops (like the gnome implementation on my endless desktop at home) i just use one.
$65 for 4tb? they’re almost certainly fake crap. just got done giving someone the bad news on some similarly-priced sd and ssd they bought off ebay.
https://www.grc.com/validrive.htm will verify real capacity in seconds.
if you haven’t added the flathub repository to your new debian kde desktop install, discover will only show you packages from debian’s repositories that were automatically configured during installation… even if you’ve added the flatpak ‘backend’ from inside discover–flathub still has to be added to your sources (see step 3 in link above).
once you have multiple sources of an application (for instance, ‘vlc’), discover will add a ‘sources’ pulldown (top right, next to the ‘install’ button) where you can choose debian system package or flatpak (or snap, if configured).
which source you use is entirely up to you. on my own debian desktop, i usually stick with debs if it has what i’m looking for, as i’ve chosen debian and have accepted their pace at which new software is added. if i wanted ‘bleeding edge’ i would have installed something else entirely on it. but you can certainly go ‘all flatpak’ if you wanted to.
i am evaluating endless os (basic install, not the kitchen sink version) right now. i have bunch of soon-to-be obsolete desktops and laptops i need to find something other than windows to load. i am very impressed so far. it’s nearly everything i’m looking for for these systems and their future home users.
it’s nearly as ‘simple’ as a chromebook but is based on debian, so it can do more than chromeos. but because of the ostree base, verified flatpak applications, and simplified desktop and ui, it’s a lot harder for a typical home user to ‘break’ than windows.
the ‘full’ endless install with lots of extra programs and offline content might pick up a few fans, too. parts of my area still don’t have faster-than-dialup internet available.
i had been set on peppermint for the lowest spec’d systems (things like c2d 4gb/hdd) and cinnamint for the others (mostly 2nd-6th gen, 4-8gb, some have sata ssd), but endless might just end up on everything unless someone specifically requests different.
i sure hope they aren’t still the same specs (ancient celeron 2gb/32gb flash) for $1100+. but kinda suspect they might be.
the form itself is easy, it’s the bot detection and spam prevention that’s hard. on my own sites, i’ve given-in and use the highest-level recaptcha, a hidden form field triggered by bots but not humans, and a server-side script for the mailing that also has some spam detection routines. they still get through, but far less often than a naked form would.
if you’re satisfied with your existing comments function, can you simply enable comments on your ‘contact’ page and hide them from public view?