Terraform and Ansible. LLMs make Infra as code easy, and the best part is they can output beautiful Markdown and HTML documentation (use a CDN for the CSS).

RReligion over substance.

Poor XMPP, no one will just let it die.

Not knowing about Incus (LXD). It’s a life changer. Would never run any service on bare metal again.

Using GenAI to develop my Terraform and Ansible playbooks is magical. Also, use it to document everything in beautiful HTML docs from the outputs. Amazing.

Would you believe Oracle OCI? They have an always free tier, as in you never pay. You need a valid regular credit card. At first I thought it was for a slow x86 instance, but it includes Arm hours equivalent to 4 cores, 24 GB RAM, 10TB of transfer a month, I think 200GB storage. Divide it up for an nginx reverse proxy in front of it, or HA Proxy if you are feeling ambitious.

I use Linux, so encryption is easy with LUKS, and Free File Sync to drives that rotate to a safety deposit box at the bank for catastrophic event, such as a house fire. Usually anything from the last few months are still on my mobile devices.

I’m very impressed by the work by the Elementary OS team. Linux is a beast to figure out, and while I’ve used Linux for 30 years, I remember how frustrating getting started was. I use Pop!_OS on my desktop machines today and Debian or Ubuntu for other machines and I’ve used dozens of desktops, but Elementary really does just work (and also also happens to be Debian / Ubuntu based).

It has the easiest install process, trouble free device support, and it starts you with guardrails that keep from breaking things, but can be turned off as you figure it out. Very Mac inspired experience, so not completely intuitive from Windows, but the reality of Linux is that you are going to change distros over time, or even use multiple as each do a better job at dealing with niche requirements. Certaintly not the one size that fits no one that is the current Windows 11 debacle.

https://elementary.io/

Edit: Wine math last night, it was summer of 1994 so 30 years, not 35 😅. It was on my new AMD 486DX4/100 with VLB and getting X to work was no picnic. A friend gave me the CD ROMs so at least I wasn’t using dialup to download it.

It’s great, I use it on 3 machines. Gigabyte Intel laptop with Nvidia GPU, Alien AMD desktop with Nvidia, and a Lenovo Intel desktop with AMD GPU. The separate installer for Nvidia GPUs is an awesome idea and took away my biggest headache (Nvidia driver issues). Installs were a breeze, performance is great. Laptop sleep /wake is very reliable. Intuitive UI and minimal fiddling meant I could get to work instead of troubleshooting issues. I only use Windows occasionally now for a couple games and Windows apps. I highly recommend.

For a developer, I’d try PopOS! It is built on Ubuntu, but doesn’t stray far from it. It has a lot of developer tools and packages either pre installed or easy to access. Simple install process and runs well.

https://pop.system76.com/