Thanks, mate! I’ll take all I can get.

Yes, I did get the processor off of eBay for 75 bucks and the motherboard for 150. That I figured was a score and it shipped from Taiwan so it didn’t quite take forever to get here. The drives, case, RAM, and low-end GPU I got from the flea markets.

It’s a Proxmox server that’s well under subscribed and utilized. I currently use it as a remote back-up for my brother’s business computer and the family’s various machines. It has one Arch Linux VM for that purpose. Another Arch Linux VM has two docker containers for running Mastodon and Lemmy.

I want to do more with it but right now it’s time for me to buckle down and actually take some steps toward bettering my career because I am sick of being a senior Windows desktop support technician. I really want to do Linux/BSD systems administration or DevOps stuff. I hate feeling like I have to learn under the gun but, at this point, thinking about work on Monday is making me physically ill. The only relief will be knowing that there is an end to this tunnel.

A lot of the components I actually bought at computer swap meets/flea markets. Some vendors had corporate cast-off hard drives and all kinds of good deals.

Nice! I built my server with a brand new tower case and bunch of second hand components. It has a 2016-era Xeon E5-2690 with 128GB of ECC RAM and 12 TB of storage in a RAID z1 config. I built for less than 500 bucks.

Honestly I cannot think of any right now because I am so fed up with corporate proprietary crap.

Hey that’s a pretty good setup! It’s a lot better than mine! LOL.

You’ve got Pixelfed which is similar to Instagram.

Nextcloud works well for general files. Immich is the way to go specifically for photo storing. It’s got a whole lot of added features.

If your requirements don’t need federation, then look into nextcloud.

I don’t see this functionality in Lemmy. Mastodon has settings where you can limit your posting visibility to only those who follow you. But anybody that you don’t expressly block will still be able to see your profile. More privacy features mighr be in development.

Probably your best bet is to keep your fediverse handle as anonymous as is possible. That would be the best advice I have to give. Also, don’t give clues as to your whereabouts in your posts. Nothing on the Internet is trult private and infosec is hard. Always assume that a fediverse instance could be compromised at any time. Use some common sense and basic operational security and you should be okay.

I have to admit I like the concept of rootless containers very much.

Thank you for the recommendation. I am checking it out now.

The only DDoS that I can half-way tolerate is ones that go against corporations/governments that do evil shit. And even then, those attacks had better not effect people’s health and welfare needs. Yes, assholes abound.

I would consider myself a very beginning docker user so I’ve a long way to go but I can see, given that I am a beginner, it might make sense to pivot now to Podman.

I currently use Libby without a SIM card.

Definitely! All it requires are having a Google Account.

I hate assholes that do this. Why? I mean really why?

What about Void are you liking?

Check out The Odin Project. It is a free full stack developer course. I’m going to give it a try myself.