Ark-5

Thanks so much for all the additional info. The inclusion of donation based platforms and some products that are just degrees of removal from big corps rather than totally free of them were some my primary concerns. Thanks for all the details!

Also how can you have a section on books and library access without mentioning Libby is a shame. The apps carries so much weight as far as bridging the gap between public libraries and primarily digital customers.

While this seems like a decent starting point I’ve got a few issues with this list. As others have mentioned there is little in the way of justification for these suggestions, and while I happen to agree with plenty of them, I’d personally like to see more reasoning, if not to appease people that already have opinions then to help newer users understand their options.

On the topic of newer users I think an aggregate list like this should include a basic rundown on what adoption/migration/onboarding looks like for these services. Demystifying that process can lift a lot of the perceived weight non-“power users” might feel when faced with the leap from corporate platforms.

Overall I think this is a good resource, and at least gives people some starting points, but it’s not without its flaws.

Yeah, I’ve largely figured out how to change all these settings from configs for myself, just always on the lookout for a nice gui. I’m slowly working to make a Linux experience I can install for my relatives that makes the transition from crapware Windows relatively painless.

Ah, so being on Hyprland means I can’t really gain access to this, right?

I’m using Wayland, where do I find this settings gui?

I’m currently fairly attached to my instance, but I’m so glad this is happening!! Might make a second account just to give y’all the numbers!

Yeah, by my understanding this is by design. However, there’s nothing stopping you from running multiple instances for each user account on a computer, assuming you are running Linux and are using the Syncthing CLI. Probably can’t do that on windows though.

Yeah, I’d also generally prefer to use my front matter for my global tagging and sorting so I can keep my templating consistent. I’m not explicitly opposed to adding more, but in an ideal world I’d keep my front matter pretty trim.

I’ll do some experiments of my own with data view and such to see if I can get some good functionality.

Could you elaborate on “move to obsidian”? I’m already storing some recipes in my vault, but I would be interested in further features like shopping list generation and other filtering options.

Yes absolutely. Back in the day I used Hamachi for Minecraft servers, now I run a server with offline mode enabled through Tailscale with zero fear of anyone but my friends accessing it.

A fellow Rust enjoyer I see.

vtop is nice too since it still is very readable in small windows.

As of now I ran moonlight on Windows, so I might not be able to help a ton. I just started my own Arch (by the way) install that I plan to revisit getting moonlight running on, but I’m not even at a desktop environment yet.

I’ve found using software meant for gaming often works better for this application. My personal choice is moonlight. I run it behind Tailscale so my connections never leave my devices. Even over cellular it’s snappy enough for non gaming tasks, and if I need to check on my dailies in a game or something similar, it handles that much better than any Remote Desktop product. I messed around with rust desk and could never get it quite working and didn’t feel comfortable using the public servers at the time. So I swapped to moonlight and it serves me well.

Games on Whales is a containerized version of moonlight that I struggled to get working as well, but I thinks that’s because I’m a docker beginner.

Syncthing and KoReader. I also have a few android eink devices and this system works great for me. When I need a better interface for organizing/editing metadata of files I use calibre which also has some plugins to help free your files from proprietary epub readers.

I do this and it works great. Ad block on all my devices regardless of proprietary sandboxes. I also use Syncthing over my tailnet IP addresses so that traffic never leaves my “grounds”. I’m slowly building out a whole suite of services I host only within my tailnet, jellyfin, calibre, invidious, it been a great learning experience. I’m about to set up a proper home lab, finally moving everything off an old laptop.

Some folks have pointed out X-Com is a turn based game, and I agree with the suggestions that fit that.

On the off chance you actually want a real time game, I’m a huge fan of the Kingdom series. The co-op one is called Kingdom Two Crowns. It’s an interesting take on real time strategy as it’s a 2d side scrolling game. You are managing a growing colony in a hostile land, and you have to build up your economy enough to construct a boat and sail to a new island. You end up having to double back to earlier islands as you unlock new tech, sometimes finding your village chugging along nicely, sometimes finding quite a grim scene in need of cleaning up.

It’s a very chill game for the most part, with some higher stress moments that are paced well imo. I personally love the art style and music.

Came here to say exactly this. I might move to EMacs org mode, but I’m still reliant on devices that offer better gui experiences with Obsidian than a command line based solution using EMacs

Okay, lots of other comments I didn’t read, and this might have been mentioned.

👏Syncthing👏

You mentioned OneDrive. I also jumped around storage solutions as I explored the FOSS world, and nothing hold a candle to Syncthing (in my opinion, but I want/need to try nextCloud). I won’t drone on about it, but if you’re looking to ditch another big data company that’s probably scraping your files, check out Syncthing

To be totally honest I didn’t look through everything you posted, but I’ve toyed with the idea of intranets myself and have come up with a handful of tools I really like.

• Tailscale can be used when there is a necessity to connect remote locations over “The Internet”. It is a private VPN that provides ip addresses for connected devices that are only usable to other devices within your Tailnet
• Syncthing can be spun up very quickly to distribute and sync files across devices on the local network, within your Tailnet, and yes over “The Internet” if need be. This is not full on web server level of hosting, but it can get some things off the ground quickly.

The way I’ve used this to make an “Intranet” is outlined here. I use Obsidian for a lot of note taking, link storage, and general information gathering and navigating. Obsidian stores all it’s files as plain text in a normal folder structure, but this could also be done with htlm files and a normal browser. I can target any portion of these folders with Syncthing and keep them updated across all my devices through my Tailnet. The broader usage of this begins to get into the idea of an intranet.

Let’s say I meet someone within this community, or maybe from one of the other locations. We get to talking and decide to exchange information from our respective collections. I fire up an ad hoc WiFi network off of say my phone, or a small portable router, add them to my Tailnet, which could even be optional given Syncthing’s built in encryption, add their devices Syncthing ID to the folder I want to share with them. They download a local copy of whatever data I want, and then can return to a hub of their own, maybe a home network, or a larger community wide network. Target the new data they have acquired, and sync it to the hub. We could then remove each other from our Tailnets and Syncthing instances, or leave them so we can automatically update differences when in proximity.

That’s a rough idea of how I think this system could be used for a more “personal” internet. One that focuses more on direct and intentional communication and data storage, where each user or group of users is basically selecting which data they value enough to commit drive space to. I have also researched medium and long range “WiFi” networks using radio or other signals to trickle sync nodes over longer distances. I’ve even been inspired by Factorio’s logistic drone networks and thought to attach portable routers, single board computers, and storage drives to drones or even solar gliders that can trickle sync to nodes they pass over.

Just some ideas that don’t quite fit the different systems you mentioned, but I think are a bit easier to spin up for individual users, and could decentralize the load of what you are trying to do even more. Could maybe post this in some of the other FOSS/networking/linux/privacy communities, but I’d maybe clean up the post a bit and make it clearer what you are after.

I’m both an iOS and Android user for various reasons. There is a free KeePass front end for iOS, but I paid a one time lifetime license for one that was a little more feature rich. That and the only version of Syncthing for iOS requires a like $4 purchase to allow you to sync folders outside of its default location, which was a pretty necessary feature for me.