Thanks, it’s quite interesting but again IMHO it relies on bad practices. If you’ve been compromised and you “restore” (not in an sandboxed environment dedicated to study the threat) then you are asking for trouble. I’ll read a bit more in depth but the timeline I see 1987, 1998, 2017 show me this is a very very niche strategy, to the point that it’s basically irrelevant. Again it’s good to know of it, conceptually, but in practice proper backups (namely of data) remains in my eyes the best way to mitigate most problems, attacks and just back luck (failing hardware, fire, etc) alike.

12 years ago I took “Malicious Software and its Underground Economy: Two Sides to Every Story” and it was quite interesting not so much for the technical aspect (which was still nice) but for the economical aspect that is often underappreciated. The core idea was that scammers or hackers might be doing it for fun, as you did, or learning, as I did… but the ones who keep on doing it sustainably make money out of it, consequently they are predictable. Namely they need repeatable methods that scale or that target a specific group. I really recommend taking a similar class but anyway, the big picture here is sure, maybe AV would miss such things and yet it wouldn’t really matter because nearly nobody does that and/or it wouldn’t propagate much.

That doesn’t make much sense to me, one backup data, not executables or system. Even if they were to be saved in the backup then they wouldn’t get executed back.

Anyway, that’s still conceptually interesting but it’s so very niche I’d be curious to hear where it’s being used, any reference to read on where those exist in the wild?

Funny but that’s the entire point of a digital “life” if you want to use analogies : your backup is you.

Nothing needs an antivirus if you backup your data properly.

PS: I’m getting downvoted for this so I’ll explain a bit more : if you backup properly, you can restore your data. Sure your system is fucked… but who cares? In fact if you care for your OS installation then right away it shows you are NOT in a reliable state. You install another OS and start from there. Maybe it’s not even due to a virus, maybe your hardware burns in fire, same situation so IMHO a working backup (and by working I mean rolling, like TODAY it’s done without your intervention) then you restore. Also please don’t tell me about ransomware because even though it is a real threat, if you do your backups properly (as in not overwritting the old ones with the new ones) then you are still safe. It can be as basic as using rdiff-backup. It’s fundamental to understand the difference between what’s digital and what is not digital.

It’s not just for Linux but :

• there is an error message somewhere

It’s fundamental because instead of saying “It doesn’t work!” and get no useful help, people must think of it as an investigation (or whatever get them going) looking for clues. Until you get the right message and can provide the right context (e.g. what computer are you using, what OS version, etc) then you get generic help which is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Sure it’s not entirely impossible if you are both lucky and patient but you are doing yourself and others a huge disservice.

Before Linux maybe they were used to black boxes but here, nobody is intentionally trying to hide away anything from you!

PS: bonus, notes are basically free. Jolt down notes about anything and everything you are learning. Don’t just “use” a computer, LEARN how to use a computer.

If most of your passwords are actually for Websites, Firefox has Profile letting you manage passwords across devices.

simula on my steam deck

Ah, interesting. I did try it years ago on my desktop with my Valve Index but didn’t consider on the SteamDeck. How does it work without 6DoF and controllers?

Immich distributed compute for https://github.com/immich-app/immich/tree/main/machine-learning with a control panel to witness the “boost” (which tbh might be impossible to notice)

Ah… forgot about them for a while, checking : last update from April “#58 - Dev Kits, Compute Packs, & 2025 Timeline” so in theory now they are on board certification. Good occasion to also check https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula/commits/master/

Out of curiosity, did you try one?

I setup WireGuard only last week so maybe I’m the one who misunderstand something : on your LAN assuming you are NOT using your router (or switch, or a networking device) to be a peer of the VPN, don’t you need to add each machine as a peer to the VPN? Also doesn’t that leave the most granularity so that the (root) user of each machine can chose to be on/off and more, e.g. split tunneling?

Indeed but by doing so I can connect from the outside World too, e.g. if I’m at the dentist waiting for an appointment, I just connect to the VPN over my 5G connection, no login required.

Because it’s low end I’d put :

• headless Debian pre-configured with WiFi and sshd to then add
• CopyParty via its single .py file
• apt install minidlna to serve media files back to add devices on LAN, e.g. VLC on desktop and mobile devices
• mount a large microSD for data
• I’d add a WireGuard VPN configuration file and make both accessible outside the LAN but only on my devices

All that is relatively quick if you have done it before (maybe 30min total) and can run 24/7 for years requiring very little power.

Also FWIW if I wouldn’t get an answer within few hours and I knew for a fact that with a fresh install it worked, I’d re-install.

It’s perfectly fine to do the process again as it insures your files are safe (either working backup or separate disks, or ideally both) and you know what software is relevant for you, that your configuration files are well known, etc.

Installing a distribution should be a painless and quick process.

Typically my debugging process goes like this :

• error message? Search for it online with the most unique keyword that aren’t machine specific
  • solutions provided?
    • solution understood? try it then loop back, writing notes in own wiki
    • solution not understood? bookmark it then try understood solutions first, if not try and loop back
• no error message?
  • find where the error message is!
    • what actually produce the error from the top of the stack? end-user software? service? kernel? hardware? where do they put logs?
      • if logs exist and verbosity is not sufficient, increase verbosity and reproduce the problem
  • if no verbose enough error message can be obtained, repeat the situation in various conditions
    • does any condition make it work?
      • search on the difference between the working and non-working condition
    • backtrack one layer up the stack, e.g. if end-user software does not change, try service, etc
      • does this one provide logs?

So… it’s basically always the same, namely try the lazy way (error log search) and if that’s not enough, try further down the stack or more unknown BUT always get information out the try.

TL;DR: I have no idea but if another new machine (e.g. phone) can connect then DHCP works. FWIW NetworkManager logs are in journalctl -u NetworkManager and you can manually add/remove Ethernet connections. I’d physically unplug then plug back the cable with WiFi disabled.

I’d suggest 0 change at first : boot on a live USB then connect with her Web accounts (e.g. Firefox Profile) then get an easy win. Sure not 100% will work but she’ll be 80% there in minutes. If she hates it, logout, reboot, remove key and that’s it.

I head about Audiobookshelf and I already use Escapepod on mobile, LMS for music (self hosted), so wondered few times about installing it too.

So can Audiobookshelf be used for clips and annotation?

I find that more and more often I listen to a podcast, it gives me an idea and I want to :

• pause
• record my idea, by speaking it aloud for e.g. 30s
• unpause to keep on listening
• review the idea later on, e.g. on my desktop, while maintaining provenance, e.g. this idea “monetization of own content creation for creators on my on-going VR project” (ideally as text at this stage, so using STT) was sparking by listening to podcast “Voices of VR episode 1226 on VR Chat and monetization” around 25min in.

Edit : just checked on their demo server and there is a bookmark option. It’s just text for me, it doesn’t clip part of the audio, but it does associate some typed text to a moment in time. It might be enough for me.

Might want to look into split tunneling.

You would be well served by staying current on the technology as it develops.

What did I miss? https://fabien.benetou.fr/Content/SelfHostingArtificialIntelligence#UsedLocally

Edited : direct link to tried things.

Yep, that’d be me. That said if I were to buy a new GPU today (well, tomorrow, waiting on Valve announcement for its next HMD) I might still get an NVIDIA because even though I’m convinced 99% of LLM/GenAI is pure hype, if 1% might be useful, might be built ethically and might run on my hardware, I’d be annoyed if it wouldn’t because ROCm is just a tech demo but is too far performance wise. That’d say the percentage is so ridiculously low I’d probably pick the card which treats the open ecosystem best.