HumanPerson

Basically title. I think the whole ACT test prep industry is just completely scummy, but I do need to take it. Does anyone know where to find stuff like this? I'm sure the demand exists considering how much they jack up the prices for this kind of stuff. Thanks in advance.

I have been not recommending Ubuntu to people because of obvious reasons (the Amazon search integration and snaps, mainly). The reason I am posting this is because someone I know mentioned that they are considering Ubuntu. They have a degree in cs and generally are competent with computers, but didn't like mint when they tried it. I would like to know a few things, since I haven't looked into Ubuntu in a while:

Has anything changed about snap? I know people didn't like it at first, especially the proprietary server, but I don't think they will care about that and I mainly just want to know if it will eat all their RAM or something.

Have they made any changes in their management that may make sure there won't be another Amazon search thing?

Is it best to use the default desktop on Ubuntu? I would recommend Kubuntu to them, all else being equal, but don't know if maybe the default one is better integrated.

Edit: The person will be 100's of miles away so helping them with issues will be hard, and Ubuntu LTS should be stable. Plus, basically everything that "supports" linux but doesn't really usually supports Ubuntu. I do really see where they're coming from, but want to know if it has a major potential to backfire on them and if they might be better off with Fedora.

I recently built a computer for someone. It was just for general use, not gaming or anything, so I went with fairly simple specs. Because they wanted an insanely quiet computer, I went with an NHD15S. The problem is that cooler causes flexing in the motherboard that makes the CPU not make contact with the socket. Is there a not overly janky way that I could fix that without getting a smaller cooler? I know flexing is the issue because it works for a while with the big cooler, but eventually won't boot after being shut down, or crashes in weird ways and then won't boot, and the mobo lights always show a CPU and dram light. The box cooler has no issues, but is louder under load.

Edit: it does boot with the large cooler if the system is on it's side. I followed the mounting instructions carefully.

Edit 2: Solved. I was overtightening.

I am currently out of town, and my server went down. All my services go through nginx, and suddenly started giving error 502. My SSH won't let me in. I had my sister reboot the server, and it still doesn't work. I apologize for the lack of details, but that is all I know, and I can't access logs. I've cleared cache, and used a VPN in case fail2ban got me. I recently got a tp link router, so it could be something with that, but it was working for a while. I will have her do another reboot, and if that doesn't work I will have her power off and unplug the server in case it was hacked.

Edit: I have absolutely no clue why, but it works now. I literally did nothing. As far as I know, my sister hasn't touched it today. It just started working. Computers, man...

Edit 2: Actually she said she did something. Not sure what, but it works now.

My family needs a new router to replace the old (though not old enough that it should be dying) netgear router that is slowly dying. I want to do something with good foss firmware like opnsense or openwrt. I was thinking that the BananaPi options look good, but had some concerns. I would like to install the firmware myself, rather than trust that the manufacturer didn't modify it in any way. I don't know if the pre-made openwrt bananapi routers can be flashed with custom firmware easily. Also I need something with wifi (ideally wifi 6 or better), though would be willing to consider a separate WAP. VLANs would be nice too, but I could live without them. Have any of you done this? What has your experience been, both with install and long term? Is there anything I should look out for that I might not think of? What resources can I use to find out more about this?

Edit: This is the one I'm looking at. Sorry for linking to Amazon but I used FF's remove tracking from URL feature. https://www.amazon.com/youyeetoo-BPI-R3-Development-MediaTek-Support/dp/B0BLVF9697/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

I just wanted to post this here because I want to help you all and hurt gen.xyz as much as possible. I had a .xyz domain through njal.la which I used to host jellyfin, homeassistant, and other basic things for friends and family. My domain recently became inaccessible without any notice. After a while of troubleshooting, I found that it had been reported to xyz as abuse, and they must have done zero investigation whatsoever before serverholding my domain. I thought about opening a ticket with xyz to get my domain back, but realized that I no longer wish to buy from some shitty company that will take down any site without warning. Bought a .com domain since they are somewhat reputable, and I would advise everyone here to never buy a .xyz domain. Angry rant over.

I recently found this on Reddit while looking into why jellyfin is effected so much by latency. I found that this worked and thought I would share it because it is generally applicable, takes five minutes to setup, and helps a lot with bandwidth on higher latency connections. I admit I am not sure of the technical stuff behind this, so if anyone would like to chime in that would be much appreciated.

I have a server running Debian with 24 TB of storage. I would ideally like to back up all of it, though much of it is torrents, so only the ones with low seeders really need backed up. I know about the 321 rule but it sounds like it would be expensive. What do you do for backups? Also if anyone uses tape drives for backups I am kinda curious about that potentially for offsite backups in a safe deposit box or something.

TLDR: title.

Edit: You have mentioned borg and rsync, and while borg looks good, I want to go with rsync as it seems to be more actively maintained. I would like to also have my backups encrypted, but rsync doesn't seem to have that built in. Does anyone know what to do for encrypted backups?

Hello internet users. I have tried gpt4all and like it, but it is very slow on my laptop. I was wondering if anyone here knows of any solutions I could run on my server (debian 12, amd cpu, intel a380 gpu) through a web interface. Has anyone found any good way to do this?

Hello internet users. Someone in my family is looking to buy a car and wanted some recommendations for a private one. They are looking to buy new, and need Android Auto and CarPlay. I know all new cars suck for privacy by default, but I was hoping someone here could offer some insight as to which cars can be made better and what cars offer the best experience with minimal compromises on privacy and no subscription bs. I also have a Home Assistant instance that they can access remotely if there are any cars that can work well with that.

Edit: Android auto and CarPlay aren't as important as I thought.

Hello. I just got a google pixel with grapheneos, and would like a way to use Apple's find-my or something similar with family members who still use Apple. I would like something open source that can either proxy my location to Find My or serve as an alternative. I know these apps and services are inherently not private but I do need it so please don't be the guy to say "just don't use it," I would if it were an option. Thanks.

Greetings, internet strangers. I just got a Martin Jerry Tasmota smart switch and would like to connect it to OpenHab or something similar. I have ruled out HomeAssistant because their docker image doesn’t have plugin support and I need to run it on an existing Debian 12 server. I know a little bit about mqtt but not much. If anyone could tell me how or recommend a guide to configuring a Tasmota switch with OpenHab or similar with a mqtt broker that would be great. Thanks.

Edit: typo