I am joking of course. I am a privacy freak myself:

1. All my computers run Linux
2. I self-host all what I can and encrypt as much as I can by myself too
3. On desktop, Mic and Cam are connected to a USB hub with individual switches such that they are powered ON only when I need them
4. Laptop is a Framework 13 with HW switches for both Cam and Mic

There is something about the webcam switch on the Lenovo from work, that I like better than the Framework: The switch also physically blocks the camera. It makes me feel more safe and it’s actually much more intuitive to understand when it is disable. On Framework, the switch shows either red or black, but I never know what is enable and disable. Is it red for “Careful, it’s active !” or red for “Disable” ? (It’s Red=Disable, Black=Active).

Hackers won’t have much to blackmail me, I fap completely silently.

It’s dogs in the workplace a problem for people with allergies?

Vaping indoors, at the desk ?! I would hate to work there.

About the power of the hardware, you don’t need to worry too much. My NAS is a SBC with 6 ARM cores and 4GB or RAM. It run flawlessly all the services you’ve listed and more ! (Also, without transcoding for jellyfin).

I don’t know if your budget includes Hard disks, but it should be plenty enough to get you an ready made NAS from Synology or other brands, that will give you an easy start with self-hosting.

If you want to go the DIY route. Then I recommend to build yourself a small computer from a Intel N100 motherboard, or the older J5040. From there you can install Open Media Vault, or otherwise the Linux distribution you are the most familiar with, and install Docker. You can check Linuxserver.io for many guides for spinning up docker containers for all of the services you’ve listed.

I am always on the freshest Fedora Workstation, and all the extensions I use are always supported from the start. I don’t use that many to be honest. But, is extensions compatibility really an issue nowadays?

Sorry, but it’s also beyond my understanding. As far as I can understand, run0 doesn’t use a sandbox, but will better isolate the privileged processes from unprivileged ones when executing a command.

For those like me who didn’t get the joke: Systemd v256 Introduces run0: A Safer Alternative to sudo / linuxiac.com

To make KDE Plasma the new default Desktop environment for future Fedora Workstation releases in place of Gnome.

Winget wasn’t a thing until 2020, and they at least partially stole it from an open-source project AppGet

Ah! Good to know. Thanks!

Fair point but… in Fedora the Flathub repository is not there by default. Only Fedora Flatpak repository is present and active after a fresh install and you shall add and activate Flathub repository manually. Today on my main computer I have 18 apps installed from Flathub, and only 3 from Fedora Flatpak.

Without going that far. With Fedora you almost certainly have to deal with extra repos, like RPM-Fusion in order to have a fully working system, or install some proprietary software like Steam, Spotify, Nvidia drivers…

1. GrapheneOS: custom Android ROM with harden security and de-googled
2. New Pipe: YouTube app, let’s you play video in the background and other cool features
3. Signal: privacy and security focused messaging app
4. MPV: video player, supports all the codecs you will ever need, very lightweight
5. Libre wolf: Firefox with harden security and privacy
6. KeepassXC: password manager
7. Aurora Store: frontend for Google Play store, you can download and manage apps without a Google account
8. FDroid: app store for Free Open Source Software apps
9. (Free tube: another client for YouTube as but I am not familiar with this one)

If I were to rework the drive mounting solution, I would probably redo the whole case from scratch. Currently the drives are slotted inside 5.25" bays and theses are assembled together with 3D printed brackets. I have the impression vibration are not transferring too much to the case and outside.

Maybe I can find some rubber damper that would fit around the drives inside the 5.25" bays.

Thanks, I will look for surveillance types of disks.

Living room is my only option.

Thank you for the suggestions, but this isn’t quite what I am looking for. Moving the NAS to another room isn’t an option, bedroom and bathroom are even less suitable for a NAS :D

I don’t wish to modify the appearance of it either. For one, I’ve spent quite a lot of time designing and building the enclosure from scratch (it’s a unique and original design from my creation). Then, it sits in my TV cabinet and space is an additional concern.

I suppose 5640 RPM wouldn’t make much of a difference compared to 5400, although I’ve never came across such hard disk. I will keep an eye on external drive options, thanks.

I suppose the “low-cost consumer grade” market is now covered by SSDs and the HDD market is moving towards enterprise and enthusiasts only. There is not much market remaining for “lower performance” HDD…

I already have spin-down setup, I can definitely tell when they are spinning up, especially the 7200rpm one. I don’t think it is possible to slow-down the rotation speed of the hard disks, I believe they are just designed to operate at a given speed.