The Projects Topic

[bumbervevo]

@Casey I'm glad to hear that your filesharing setup is working well for you! Last time I was looking into a solution for sharing files to/from my phone, all that was around was Nextcloud. I was looking into Copyparty a while back, but Nextcloud was such a headache that I didn't wanna deal with it anymore and just bought a USB that has an A and C connector.
Your post made me take a second look at Copyparty and I decided to move forward with it. I'm excited to set this up and be able to access my files from anywhere!


I'm mentally lining up a few projects in preparation for our move, but this one I'm thinking of setting up this weekend or sooner. My fiancee has a Surface Pro 7 that she bought for school a while back, but it's the 4GB version and there's no way to upgrade the RAM on these. I installed Kubuntu hoping to get some performance over Windows, but having more than a tab or two open--even in Waterfox--is uncomfortably slow.

The plan is to install Debian with XFCE and strip it down as much as possible, effectively making it a browser machine. My fiancee uses Windows primarily, so I'll set up a Windows VM that has a bit more oomph for more intensive work that will be accessible over RDP.
I had also seen Peppermint OS, which sounds exactly like what I'm looking for: https://peppermintos.com/about/

EDIT: Forgot that I have a computer set up with Batocera that I'm going to set up with my Sony PVM once we move out! I've been chasing a retro gaming setup like this for a while, and now I finally have everything I need, except the space for now. Super excited to play some classic RPGs that I haven't gotten around to.

[ward]

Forgot that I have a computer set up with Batocera that I'm going to set up with my Sony PVM

Let me know how this goes. I haven't had much luck getting a PC to work at 240p. I know there's the emudriver... are you using this? https://github.com/ZFEbHVUE/Batocera-CR ... ipt-v40.sh

I have a trinitron and a wii that covers most of my console gaming needs, but I'd much rather use a PC for the extra hotkeys and save files. As for the display? What are you using? My Trinitron has RGB/ypbpr or whatever, S-video, and the works, but I think I want to downgrade. I had a Magnavox for a while and I really miss it. The Sony is technically an upgrade, but it's way too sharp for me. I prefer the cheaper consumer sets since they blur the colors together better and give it that feel I'm looking for. Here's the Magnavox (it had RGB as well, just a less-fancy tube):


VS the Trinitron:


Anyway, keep us posted (because I'll be looking for tips, lol).

[RaZZlom]

Among projects, I have a Fediverse instance, an Anonymous Image Board, and pubnix. Half of it almost dead, but everything is working properly.

I'm currently reading a programming language book very slowly and want to make my own IMDB and AniDB analog. But I'll probably drop it without done anything.

[skullmeat]

I've got a virtualization server and a HTPC I want to get setup, but I can't decide what the best OS would be for each. For the HTPC, probably batocera, but for the media server Ive no idea. I could just spin up an Arch or Debian, even a ubuntu VM on ESXi, but I would love something easy to use with a simple way to upload files to it. Ideas?

[ward]

but for the media server Ive no idea

Tell us more about it... what are the specs and what kinda media server do you want to run? Jellyfin server, etc.

Without much info... here's what I'd do: CASA OS! You need to install debian first (no gui). Then you just run:

Code: Select all

wget -qO- https://get.casaos.io | sudo bash

Here is where I talk about CASA OS:

[skullmeat]

I decided on openmediavault for the time being. It has a web config page and seems easy enough to use. Ive been copying media over too it to use with Batocera on the HTPC since having retro games on there is part of my requirements.

For reference, here are the specs of the HTPC and server:

Server:
VMWare ESXi Virtual Machine
OpenMediaVault 8.0.7
16 GB HDD root drive
500 GB Storage
8 GB Ram
x2 VCPU 2.4 Ghz

HTPC:
AMD FX-8350
Asus M5A99X EVO R2
64 GB DDR3 1600
GTX 1080 SC

I still have librelec on the HTPC but once I get my media on the server I plan to install batocera.

[ward]

That's probably a good idea if you are going for more of a NAS-type unit. If you end up wanting easy docker containers and an easier interface for installing apps and such... and don't care about the hardcore NAS features, then that's where CasaOS is good.

As long as it works well for you, then you're good. I haven't used openmediavault much, so let me know how it goes.

[chiefterror]

So here's the thing. I finally got my Arch Linux installation and configuration process correct, only took me an eon or six. But I have never written any dotfiles or uploaded a proper GitHub repo and that is to be my next step.

I am on the gits here and the gits there frequently enough, to know how to wing repository drafting enough like I know what I'm doing. Obligatory fetch receipt in 4K:



All the tweaks that I can think of off the bat:

• LUKS-on-LVM encryption, BTRFS filesystem, GRUB bootloader (it just works) Snapper for OS snapshots

• Independently installed both the CachyOS & chaotic-aur repositories, the latter of which serves as a backup for the AUR proper, or eliminates the need to install either the 'yay' or 'paru' AUR handlers depending on your view of it all

• 'cachyos-gaming-meta' & 'cachyos-gaming-applications' packages, both of which instantly satisfy most if not all Linux gaming dependencies. Notably ships with 'proton-cachyos-slr' and I threw on the chaotic-aur 'ProtonPlus' to get the GE version installed.

• Linux-tkg kernel built locally with LLVM/CLang using BORE cpu scheduler, modprobed-db, thin LTO, the werks; the fastest kernel in the West.

• Niri window manager with noctalia-shell as my DE setup, using CachyOS' own Niri dotfiles and tweaking them til I got the result in the screenshot above. Prior to that, I installed Cinnamon as a base DE suite to bridge gaps between both that and the Niri app ecosystems.

• Full QEMU and VMM install with user settings for all the VMs I can handle

• neovim's in there somewhere

In short, I never have to distro-hop again, and that is all I ever wanted. Gentoo would have been great for that if I had less need for sleep. Likely have other repos and mirrors to add to my keyring and pacman.conf in the future.

[ward]

@chiefterror You obviously know more than me... but why GRUB over Limine? I thought Limine was the one that let you do rollbacks and such right from the boot menu? I installed it and it's been awesome so far.

I haven't messed with virtualization yet either. People recommended winboat, but it seems it doesn't do passthrough, so it's only for basic apps I guess. What are you going to be using QEMU + VMM for? More linux stuff or a Windows VM with pass-through etc.?

[chiefterror]

@ward Personal preference. Limine IS really nice, but 'grub-btrfs' exists and adds a context menu item for snapshots right at the bootloader; that ended up getting installed in pacstrap without me even noticing, but I was happy to see it. Made Limine a little redundant for me.

Also, given that I recompile a new Linux-tkg kernel every time my git repo clone gets an update, I also personally find it much easier to enter 'sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg', than it is to continually re-edit limine.conf every time (and potentially get it wrong and give myself boot problems that should be out of sight/mind).

Virtual Machine Manager is being used as a QEMU frontend for me to play around with other Linux distros, and try to set up my own fork of Arch. There's a single W10 LTSC VM for both FL Studio and sandboxing.

And despite me using a scrolling/tiling window manager with floating-on-command, I don't like doing every single thing through terminal or TUI apps. The bottom bar is Windows-inspired.

I should append this quick guide for getting your QEMU user sesh running in VMM: https://wiki.cachyos.org/virtualization ... r_session/