Hello! Some info about me is up on my website: https://wreckedcarzz.com

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 23rd, 2023

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  • Rant, but not at you.

    Well I would use Debian, but the last two systems I tried to install it on hung at some point in the install process. I tried multiple times, multiple downloads, multiple versions (across multiple months!), and these are two separate machines from two different vendors.

    Debian is fine on my server boxes, but fuck me it’s dogshit in a consumer environment. One of those laptops has - and is an absolute necessity to have working - WWAN. I tried over a dozen distros, from ‘easy and popular’ to ‘obscure and edge-case’. Ubuntu (actually Kubuntu, I like KDE) was literally the only distro to 1) boot, 2) install, and 3) have working WWAN (after fucking with the fcc-unlock shit and filling my carrier details). Nothing, literally nothing else could do this simple task.

    Linux is great, they say. It’s easy. It’s simple to install and use. It puts you in control. These are ideas that the Linux community wants to believe, that I want to believe, but it’s just not. Given the right circumstances, with the right hardware, and the right use-case, it’s good. Stray anywhere off the beaten path and unless you’re a veteran *nix sysadmin who values their time as $0, sometimes you’re just fucked. I would know, I’ve been using various distros on and off for 20 years. It’s still bad. I don’t understand how, but here we are.

    I don’t like Ubuntu for a few reasons, but in my experience, the situation sucks the least when you use it. Sometimes - see above WWAN bullshit - it’s the only thing that works.

    And that’s fucking bullshit, but it’s a fact. And even interested users, who like to tinker, have a limit to what they will put up with before throwing in the towel and using what works.


  • I’ve been subbed to the newsletter basically since it started a year+ ago. It’s nice to get a glance at what’s new/updated, but I especially use it for the “breaking changes” info as I have setup my system to basically be hands-off, if-i-get-hit-by-a-bus-it-keeps-going, except if the docker config change. I have watchtower set to run every week, a day after the newsletter, so I’ve got time to check the email and make changes if needed.

    I thought “oh, I’ll just be notified through github of new releases” and went through, setting that notification up, one by one, set to be put in a specific folder in my inbox so it’s right there, no external stuff needed… I’ve never looked at that folder, except for “holy fuck there’s a ton of mail in here” and then closing thunderbird, lol. So the newsletter is essential.


  • Might reevaluate the “instant” part, then.

    (I’ve been using docker for 7 years or so, and it’s always some bullshit like undocumented environment variables or bullshit password limitations or broken smtp implementations or the repo just assuming you are the actual dev and giving no fucking instructions at all or the container shitting itself for no motherfucking reason at random times and you try to fix it and it goes well and then you wake up and it’s restarted several times through the night…)

    (eyes bulging, hyperventilating)


  • Similar product, different experience: I tried their doorbell and found it to be way underpowered once I turned on ONVIF. Huge, expanding lag between real world and camera feed. 20fps max is very oof too, even if you are going to use their protocol and software. And it doesn’t work with physical chime boxes, so you have to use their plug-in chime or botch a converter together yourself.

    Was really excited (trying to replace a nest doorbell) and then so, so disappointed once I got it. Their other cams might be fine but oof, the experience put me off.



  • I have a ThinkServer with a similar Xeon, running proxmox -> Debian, so I was looking like “huh, interesting” until I saw the internals.

    Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck all that. Damn it Dell, quit your weird bullshit. It’s just a motherboard, cpu, cooler, and ram. Slap in intake and exhaust fans. Figure it the fuck out.

    E: and it better have a goddamn standard psu, too. Fuck yourself, Dell. I’ve seen your shit.



  • I legit tried talking a friend into doing coop laso, all mcc games, any death resets us back to halo ce. For some reason he absolutely refused. In our laso test run, we only died like 20x on the autumn…

    We’d be going a step further too as I am disabled, play one-handed, partially blind, and am using just a mouse as my input. So something like Coop Legendary All Skulls On No Saves MCC Campaign Set (with a) Slightly Crippled.











  • That was mine… In the early 00s. And again with a guest speaker… In my advanced marketing class… In the late 00s. I will never forget how that lady sat on a desk, explaining with vivid, passionate excitement and lust, how waiting for your life partner to be your first time is, moans and quivers, so good~

    The fuck, Smith, I thought we were going to fuck around and watch movies while you go “make some copies” only to never return, like every other day. The fuck is this shit. Even your own kid in this class is visibly distraught and confused. Poor guy is fucking scarred for life.



  • So I have an off-the-shelf nas from synology; while I have two additional servers (ThinkServer, VPS) that are barebones running Debian/proxmox, I haven’t moved away from the synology box because it’s so… not “easy” but it’s like bowling with the gutter guards in place. For example, if you tell the firewall “hey, block everything” it will try, fail to connect to the browser you are using, revert, and tell you. It has a nice web UI that is similar to a standard OS UI. It let’s you learn and try stuff, and when things go sideways it’s not an evening of combing through forums and pages of documentation. I can, I have, done the ‘from the ground up’ on the other two systems, but for the syno: why would I build my own box, redo effort - more effort - to get to the same outcome currently? So I will hold onto it until EoL, whenever that will be.

    Not to sound like an advertisement, but it does file sharing pretty easily ootb, and you can either set up a DDNS with a subdomain of your choosing, and a list of domains owned by synology (for newbies), or you can use that DDNS system + hook it up your own domain, like MyWebsiteWhatever[.]org. Either way, you can then access your files via a browser, software for win/mac/linux, or from their mobile apps. I also use their photo solution, and have my family pics backed up straight from their phones. Every quarter I make sure that they haven’t been logged out (system update / reboots seem to jostle things) and all is well. They have a system for calendar/tasks, as well as for contacts, but I personally have moved away to a direct “radicale” (software name) system, which I think is what synology uses at its core for cal/task/contacts, just adding their gui. Anything else (for my situation) gets a docker container, and this is how I learned about containers. They seem like a black box, but they are absolutely fantastic. Again, great for learning in a controlled environment.

    The whole system is very hand-holding, a bit too much so at times. But coming from a “I’m a geek who wants to learn ‘proper’ network sharing, and this seems to be a nice solution”, after researching a few popular options, I think I did well. If you can setup things like a static IP in your router, if you can port forward, and if you’re willing to shell out the initial cost for the system (which is overpriced, honestly, but you’re paying for the simplicity) and hard drives… you should try it. It’s not as scary as it looks. Shoot, if you want more details I can dive in and explain specific stuff, examples, screenshots. Though maybe over DMs so I don’t flood the post with unrelated stuff :p

    E: autocorrect shenanigans

    E2: more detail