i started in january of this year because i upgraded my wife’s computer. that gave me an old computer to tinker with.

i recommend getting an old computer, installing an OS (look up thinks like truenas, proxmox, unraid… there are more and they are different; try them all out if you want to see what you like)

then go onto youtube and search for things like “<OS> beginner” and you will get a bunch of tips/tricks/tutorials/etc. for starting out with your favorite.

i havent had the chance to try stoat yet because most of my friends refuse to leave discord, but i heard of Stoat (used to he called Revolt, but i think there was a trademark conflict) a while back and have wanted to try it out.

https://github.com/stoatchat/

that is great! terminal use is not for everyone, so i only recommend using it if people feel comfortable with it or think it can save them time (and during troubleshooting, but im usually helping at that point).

my wife diesnt like using the terminal and has successfully gone without using it (minus me setting things up for her in the first few months), and that has given me a lot mire confidence in recommending linux to those that just want to use a computer and want it to “just work”

they get kubuntu or fedora with ~3 months of support from me. it can sometimes take 6 months if the person doesnt really use their computer often, tho.

you mentioned CAD was a bit too much for what you are looking for; however, there is a simple code-only cad program that makes simple tasks like making a shape super easy: openscad

https://openscad.org/

example:

Circle(17);

makes a 17mm radius circle.

running a jellyfin server on something like this may not be pleasant, so it depends on what you are trying to do with this machine.

for most things, yeah - it will be fine; however, if you are planning to do live transcoding, running an llm, or other compute-heavy tasks, the box will need to be upgraded.

though nowadays i usually research heavily and fix hardware problems more often, i have reinstalled linux many times due to weird issues i did not understand many times. its okay, it happens to us all <3

i think im ~#6 :)

oof, no wifi is kind of a dealbreaker for me; i have a home server and really dont want to have to be VPN’d into my home all the time :(

looks like fairphone 6 doesnt have much support on postmarket yet, but i’ll keep an eye on it - ty <3

what phone and os do you have? im currently shopping and have always been on android; im looking for recommendations on both phones and os <3

i know it is still google, but i just started searching ebay for a used pixel 9 - looks like they are around $400-500 (pixel 10 came out last month). i figure getting graphene os on one of these may be an inexpensive path forward… still looking for good options, tho.

i’ll have to check out fairphone. i remember something about them not being available in the US, but that may be old news.

not the person you replied to, but i have been using cloudflare zero trust for my streaming needs; have not gotten a complaint yet.

just make sure you have the upload bandwidth.

IIIllIllIIlllIIIl

OOO0000O00OO0O

oh! thank you! this is the answer :(

though… it kinda makes me want to buy a cheepie intel card just to get that sweet, sweet AV1

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not OP, but this has reared its ugly face once or twice with my friends.

i have been running into another issue, though it may be a firefox issue: playing some filetypes fail to play on web browser but work fine on jellyfin app (i believe my settings are correct for hardware decode on server where it can)

i still have to put some time into figuring it out tho (havent really done my research yet)

i havent been able to find one. i have specific storage amounts in mind, so i search for my storage amount then sort by cheapest.

whoa - this looks amazing!

i am definitely still in the working phase of wanting something, so i will be checking this out again within the week. thank you!

kodi is really good for local media, but none of my media is local. instead of using the smartTV-style jellyfin UI, jellyfin indexes the media from the server and throws up a text-only list of media in a folder structure. if i rip another movie, it needs to be indexed.

though it is pulling the index and functioning as expected, it makes the experience feel like browsing in dolphin for spreadsheets instead of getting ready for movie night.

the experience was bad enough where i just plugged the old streaming stick back in and hid my failur. i didnt tell the wife about my experience (she hates the streaming stick and wanted an OSS option). i said i would deliver one, so she thinks i just haven’t done it yet. :(

the creation of a non-kodi htpc/media center alternative that works like a smart TV OS and works on a raspberry pi would get me to change my streaming device.

i stream jellyfin from a home server, and jellyfin on kodi is painful to use :(

an OS that can be controlled with tv-controller buttons and has an interface similar to any of the other players in this space would make me throw away my nvidia shield tv in a heartbeat

so rally round your PC… with a pocket KVM