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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • Then I’d definitely set up a test system in a VM on your own PC (I.e. not the actual server machines). Even if you don’t want to use Docker, you can set up a complete version of your new server and practice deploying Jellyfin and Plex, and then test accessing it “remotely” to manage it. You can then decide whether switching away from Win11 is worth it.

    If you’re not familiar with the process of setting up a linux server then I’d actually suggest Debian instead of OpenSuSe. Looking at the Jellyfin guide for example it specifically covers the steps for installing directly onto a Debian host (while OpenSuSE set up means using the Fedora RPM guide). There are also straight forward guides for setting up a Debian server.

    Personally I’m not a fan of Ubuntu (because of Canonical and Snap etc) but there may also be a good choice just because there are so many guides out there for setting up Ubuntu server.


  • Docker is pretty easy to use, and is easy to play with either on your own system (linux or windows) or in VM guest system. The learning curve isn’t that high and Jellyfin for example has a clear set up guide for docker on their wiki.

    But radarr, sonarr etc can be installed directly within linux without docker. The Servarr wiki (that these projects use officially to share information as they’re so similar) has lots of straight forward guides for set up on Linux, Windows, Mac etc as well as Docker.

    I have a Linux guest VM set up with a Radarr, Sonarr etc set up, VPN and torrent set up. It was easy to do and means its network activity is all securely contained away from my host system. The tools let me set naming rules and file preferences. The library is a shared n folder in my host system, and that is included in my Jellyfin library. So all I have to do is subscribe to something i am interested in and it will just appear in my library once downloaded. The servarr tools are extremely convenient and worth looking at if you’re adding to that 30tb library over time.


  • OpenSuSE is a good distro with nice tools like Yast that have a decent CLI interface, and has server releases. The leap edition is stable but relatively up to date.

    But there are lots of viable alternatives, and if you’re going to use Docker then the host distro is probably not as important as you think.

    Simplest route may be to set up a demo server within a VM and see which one chimes the most with your style of use and maintenance. You could have a functioning demo server with docker and deploy both jellyfin and Plex in 20mins.



  • Unfortunately for many, even in this day and age, there is not much choice. I main linux but also keep Windows on my PC as there are still tines when something will only work in Windows. Usually work related or gaming (VR in particular for me) and in fairness its increasingly rare.

    Many other users aren’t motivated to change. For Microsoft, its a bit like boiling a frog - if you turn up the heat slowly the frog just puts up with it. That’s what Microsoft is doing to its customers - a slow constant enshittification, seeing what it can get away with. Try something and it causes outrage? Don’t worry, just undo it and just try again in a few years! Many are already used to no privacy and being sold as a commodity that they don’t even question it happening on their own personal computer.



  • There is no reason other than greed that tech companies have to have their fingers in so many pies. Regulators could split Google up - search separated from ads and separated from other services.

    It’s not the size so much as the breadth of it’s influence. We’ve gotten used to the idea that tech companies like Google and Microsoft do everything. But they’re only doing everything so they can get at every bite of our data. An email service doesn’t need to be run alongside a search engine or a news aggregator or an ad company. And certainly doesn’t need integration between all those things.


  • I’m not sure how I feel about this news story.

    On the one side, it’s good to make sure people are aware of the limitations of secure email providers. However on the other the article almost reads as of this should be a surprise to people?

    I use Proton mail and pay for my account. I don’t pay for anonyminity - I pay for privacy. They are two very different things.

    The article talks about Opsec (operational security) and they’re right - if you need anonyminity then don’t use your personal apple email as a recovery address. That is a flaw in the user approach and expectations that unencrypted data held by Proton is also “secure”. Your basic details and your IP address are going to be recorded and available to law enforcement. Use a VPN or Tor to access the service and use another untraceable email for recovery, and pay via crypto if you want true anonymity. And even then there are other methods of anonymous or untraceable secure email that may be better than Proton mail (such as self hosted).

    But for most users like myself, if you’re not looking for anonyminity then Proton is fine as is. My email address is my name and I use it to keep my emails secure and not snooped on by Google etc.

    Proton advertises itself as private, secure and encrypted. It does not claim to offer anonymity.


  • At work on Monday I opened the full Outlook app and then the shitty new Outlook Web App also force opens. And the new app really is shit - for example I’d set up a whole bunch of folders with contacts in and shared them with other users; in the Web App those folders are entirely empty. Forcing people to migrate to a worse version of their platform. Fuck microsoft.

    I have 365 Outlook installed on my home PC for the rare times I work from home, but I barely use Windows anymore and if needed I’ll just remove Outlook rather than put up with this nonsense.



  • I am using Proton Mail, paid account, after having moved from Gmail.

    I like it; it’s private and secure, and I like the web interface and the new android app. To use mail clients like Thunderbird you have to install an app called Proton Bridge - it’s basically a dedicated VPN to ensure your email communication is kept secure when communicating between their servers and your client. I’ve had no problems when I tried it on windows, but I did have issues on Linux with the app forgetting my credentials and forcing me to start from scratch; each time it starts from scratch it downloads your whole mailbox which is frustrating. I’m on KDE and I think it’s to do with the Kwallet and PGP. It seems to be working now but tbh I use the web interface mainly in linux, and the android app on my phone.

    I have no regrets using proton mail, and I would recommend it. I didn’t have problems with the old android app, but the new one is good and seems to address other peoples experiences of slowness previously.


  • I have 0 apps allowed microphone access all the time.

    There is no evidence that phones are snooping on people, but I would say even if unlikely it’s a reasonable concern given what companies do get up to.

    However it is more likely the ads were being served because of all the other data you’re allowing Google to scrape from you all the time rather than the phone mic.

    Rather than focusing on the microphone, look at the bigger picture of how your data is being pillaged by Google all the time.

    For me, I switched away from Gmail, stopped using their search engine, use Firefox and not Chrome, and don’t use their other services where possible. I have android on my phone and use Google maps and Google home. It’s still a huge problem but I use that part of the ecosystem for convenience and no other. Similarly on PC I don’t use Google for anything where I can avoid it, use Firefox containers to keep Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta data as separate as possible, plus I use Linux and VPN as needed, and lots of privacy extensions in Firefox.

    It’s possible to minimise your data exposure to the big tech companies, but difficult to severe completely. You could go even further and switch from android to Graphene OS (I have seriously considered this).

    I would go by the principle of compartmentalising your data as much as possible and limiting access to snooping eyes. The transition can be hard but once you’ve done it you get used to using disparate unnonnected services. Like I really don’t need or benefit from my email data being connected to my data storage or my search engine; it’s a false convenience that benefitted Google only.