WxFisch

It’s worth keeping in mind that Linux (and Unix-like) OSs are already the most common server and datacenter OSs by a country mile. At the risk of being the “um aktshually” person here I think you are trying to refer to specifically using Linux as a general desktop OS, specifically for consumers. This is a pretty huge distinction though because all those giant companies are already using Linux in their data centers. Many support desktop use of their applications on Linux, and it’d be pretty difficult to gain any real foothold by limiting use of say Adobe apps to only an Adobe distro. They could perhaps choose to only package for say RHEL to support enterprise users, but then that package will work on Fedora too, and CentOS, etc.

At its core, desktop Linux is already so fractured through various distros that a single one really doesn’t stand a chance at gaining enough foothold to be the Linux desktop OS, especially with SteamOS and Bazzite taking a good chunk of new users away from Ubuntu as an entry point to Linux, and Mint gaining ground as a good windows replacement. Debian and derivatives are likely to be a very sizable chunk of desktop users (in no small part due to Raspbian), but compared to how monolithic Windows or macOS are I don’t think any single distro can meet the needs of enough users to ever really get the market capture needed to be properly enshittified. Sure some will happen (through things like Snap no doubt), but it’s too easy to fork and create a new distro without that for it to become a Windows level problem. Plus Linux can’t be charged for directly due to its license (other aspects on top of the open source pieces can be, which is what RHEL does, but even there IBM has run into a ton of developer pushback with the stupid moves they made with CentOS a couple years back). The lack of real ability to commoditize the entire OS makes me confident desktop Linux won’t ever have the same enshittification issues as say Windows does.

It wasn’t standard previously, and if you have TV service I think it’s still inconsistent but the past ~5 years it seems to be more common that they are setup that way from the start. If you have internet only service, and a newer ONT (like less than 10 years old) it is the standard configuration and is how the self install guide tell you to hook up the “quantum gateway” router from Verizon.

You can always call and ask to have your ONT converted to Ethernet output if it isn’t already and as long as it supports it I haven’t heard reports of much trouble there. The very early ONTs though don’t support it though IIRC but those should be being replaced at this point anyways.

I mean you can, an ONT is not a router, it’s essentially a media converter. I use my own router (and have for many years) and had no issues. The FiOS tech even ran a long Ethernet run in my basement to connect the ONT and my router in my rack when they installed service.

It depends, and without knowing your ISP I’m not sure there is a way to tell you for sure. I know for example Comcast gigabit Pro has been known to directly connect to an ISP SPF module in your firewall/router, but Verizon FiOS (and most FTTP that I know of) provide an ONT that converts the fiber to Ethernet which you would then connect directly to your hardware.

I would verify if the ISP router you refer to is not really an ONT in which case you are directly connected to the ISP functionally and there isn’t really an advantage to getting an SPF and getting the fiber directly connected if you even can.

I’m curious how everyone documents their core/critical configs to allow the non-technical in our homes work with it if needed. For instance if I’m on work travel and the Pi-hole goes down for whatever reason my wife wouldn’t be able to use pretty much anything online. I can remote in and fix it but that could be hours/a day or two later. Same then for the proxmox stack that everything runs on.

Along the same lines, how are folks documenting for EOL? It may not be a happy thought but we are all going to go someday, so what is your plan and how have you ensured loved ones can access/save important data?

Agree 100%. Most of the former Plex users turned Jellyfin users I have come across did so better Plex was broken in some way for them. For me it was the general lack of care in creating/maintaining a good Apple TV app. Over the past few years it’s just gotten buggier and buggier with a lot of complaints on the Plex forums where devs would essentially stop by to say they weren’t working on any fixes.

Jellyfin doesn’t fix 100% of the issues, but at least there is active development on Swiftfin that showed a desire to fully support all devices.

So paperless works as a service that ties into your storage. I point mine at an NFS share on my Synology and just backup that share. The documents are all stored as PDFs still so worst case I still have “dumb” copies without all the tagging available if my paperless instance goes offline for some reason.

I use Backblaze B2 through my Synology NAS to offsite my important data. Most things though I just backup locally and accept the risk of needing to rebuild certain things (like most of my movie/TV media files since I can just re-rip my physical media, and the storage costs are not worth the couple of days of time in that unlikely case).

I really think this is key when thinking about your backup strategy that is specific to self hosting compared to enterprise operations. The costs come out of our pockets with no revenue to back it up. Managing backups for self hosting IMO is just as much about understanding your risk appetite and then choosing a strategy to match that. For example I keep just single copy in B2, since the failure mode I’m looking to protect against is catastrophic failure of my NAS which holds my main backups and media. I then use Proton Drive and OneDrive to backup secrets for my 2FA setups and encryption for my B2 bucket. This isn’t how I would do it at work (we have a fair more robust, but much more expensive setup). But my costs for B2 are around $15/mo which I am fine with. When I tried keeping multiple copies it had grown to over $50/mo before I cared enough to really rethink things (the cost of the hobby I told myself).

I misunderstood what you were saying, I wasn’t sure if protect required a UniFi hardware console or could be self hosted like the network application can be. It looks like it does require at least a Cloudkey gen 2 (or the plus which is what they currently sell) or one of their integrated consoles like a UDM.

It’s supported natively in the UI to configure: https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/26301104828439-Third-Party-Cameras-in-UniFi-Protect

It was added in EA in mid September and should be GA now as far as I know.

I use UniFi Protect and record to my UDM, though you should be able to install it all on your own hardware if you’d prefer. Their cameras are pretty decent but a bit pricy in a lot of cases. Though they do support 3rd party cameras now.

I’ve also heard a lot of good things about frigate, but I’ve not really looked into it since I already have UniFi gear.

You don’t need Linux for Plex or Jellyfin, both have prebuilt server installers for windows. If you want a general guide, Jeff Geerling has a video from a couple years ago about setting up Jellyfin on I think his NAS. But honestly I would just go read the docs for the project you choose and follow their install guide. You’ll need to ensure your media is organized on your drive, but you should do that anyways. Other than that you’ll need a PC that’s essentially always on (or at least is on when you want to watch videos), and a client at your TV like an Apple TV, Android stick, or FireTV. I have run both, and Plex is probably the easier, just works, solution, but it is closed source and needs a subscription for some features (though you can use it just fine without one). There are some hiccups I ran into primarily around streaming to an Apple TV, but honestly it was super stable for me. I switched to Jellyfin recently and the setup was a tad harder and the UI is IMO significantly worse than plex, but it’s open source and fully free. I may switch back to Plex here soon just because their AppleTV Live TV (from my antenna) is just much better supported than Jellyfin.

The services often associated with these media servers that are designed for searching and grabbing content are the *arr stack (radarr, sonarr, etc). You will often see them talked about in the save places but you don’t need them to run Jellyfin or plex.

Another plus one for Proton with your own domain.

Self hosting sounds good, but it’s fraught with mines that if you don’t know what you’re doing can take from “can’t send email because my domains been back listed” to “everything in my network is now sending spam to the entire world”. Sure, many folks self hosting sounds with no issues, but the price for configuring something wrong can be steep and IMO is just not worth the trouble and risks when there are good options for encrypted, privacy protecting email services for a reasonable price.

I would recommend prowlarr instead of jackett for indexer management, and pihole as at least an additional blocking service but in reality it’s really all you need for use at home. I’d also strongly encourage use of a VPN on your *arr download services. I use a separate box to run Plex and then have my *arrs all running on their own VM inside if it to provide separation and allow be to more easily segregate the network traffic (as someone that doesn’t really know docker that well it “just works” for me. Also probably worth looking at how to store your media on an external target, it’s easy to quickly accumulate 10s of TBs of media and trying to store that all on the server locally is asking for trouble. Better to set everything up on a NAS to start.