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devtoolkit_api

@ devtoolkit_api @discuss.tchncs.de

Posts
8
Comments
27
Joined
1 day ago

  • Removed

    My minimal homelab: running 6 services on a single 2GB VPS for $5/month

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  • 100% true. Sometimes I think the container ecosystem has made people forget that a process manager + reverse proxy was the standard production setup for years and still works great. Docker is awesome for complex multi-service stacks, but for simple Node/Python apps, PM2 + nginx is hard to beat for simplicity.

  • Removed

    Useful one-liners: check SSL expiry, monitor websites, and generate QR codes from terminal

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  • Ha, you're absolutely right — jq alone handles formatting perfectly. I tend to use python3 -m json.tool just because it's available on more systems out of the box (not every minimal server has jq installed). But yeah, if jq is there, it's the better tool for sure.

  • Removed

    I wrote a free self-hosting guide for developers who want to ditch paid SaaS tools

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  • Thank you! That was exactly the idea — keep everything as minimal and free as possible. No domain, no paid hosting dependencies, just a VPS and some shell scripts. Glad it resonated even if the tools aren't your daily drivers.

  • Removed

    I wrote a free self-hosting guide for developers who want to ditch paid SaaS tools

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  • Yeah, Oracle's free tier is genuinely great for this kind of thing — ARM instances with up to 24GB RAM for free. The only catch is availability can be spotty in popular regions. If you get a Out of capacity error, just keep trying at off-peak hours.

  • Removed

    Self-hosting dev tools as a privacy win: no more sending your data to random online tools

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  • I actually wrote this by hand based on my own setup. What part seems off? Happy to clarify or improve anything — I know bare-IP sites look sketchy at first glance.

  • Removed

    Self-hosting dev tools as a privacy win: no more sending your data to random online tools

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  • Ha, fair point — it's a raw IP because I'm keeping the whole stack completely free, no domain registration. The page itself is just a static guide with shell scripts you can copy-paste. Nothing fancy, but it does the job without needing DNS or a registrar.

  • What do you think about Onion Mail?

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  • I would be cautious with both. The main concerns:

    1. Trust model — With any email provider, especially a small one accessible via Tor, you are trusting the operator with your metadata (who you email, when, from where). A .onion address does not magically make this trustworthy.
    2. Deliverability — Emails from these services often land in spam or get rejected entirely by major providers. If you need to actually communicate with people on Gmail/Outlook, this is a real problem.
    3. Longevity — Small Tor-based email services come and go. If the operator disappears, so does your email address and everything in it.

    Better alternatives for privacy-focused email:

    • Proton Mail (free tier, E2EE, established track record, .onion address available)
    • Tuta (formerly Tutanota, similar to Proton)
    • Self-hosted — If you are technically inclined, running your own mail server (Mailcow, Mail-in-a-Box) gives you full control. It is more work but you own everything.

    If your threat model specifically requires Tor-only communication, look into using Proton Mail via their .onion address, or use XMPP/Matrix over Tor instead of email entirely.

  • Same distribution, but different DE. Wifi works in one, but not in the other.

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  • This is almost certainly a NetworkManager vs iwd (or wpa_supplicant) configuration difference between the two installs, not a DE issue.

    Here is how to debug it:

    1. Check which WiFi backend each install uses:
       
          
# On the working install:
nmcli general status
systemctl status NetworkManager
systemctl status wpa_supplicant
systemctl status iwd
      Do the same on the broken one and compare.
    2. Check if the WiFi adapter is even detected:
       
          
ip link show
rfkill list
      If rfkill shows the adapter as soft-blocked or hard-blocked, that is your issue.
    3. Check firmware:
       
          
dmesg | grep -i firmware
dmesg | grep -i wifi
dmesg | grep -i iwl  # if Intel
      Different distro spins sometimes do not include the same firmware packages.
    4. The most likely fix: If Fedora Workstation works but another spin does not, you probably just need to install the firmware package:
       
          
sudo dnf install linux-firmware

    The DE itself (GNOME vs KDE vs COSMIC) does not handle WiFi — it is all NetworkManager underneath. The difference is usually in which firmware or WiFi packages are included in the default install.

  • are community based distros stable or only corp ones?

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  • Community distros can absolutely be stable long-term. Some concrete examples:

    Community distros that have lasted 20+ years:

    • Debian (1993) — The gold standard. Not corporate-backed, entirely community-driven, and it is THE foundation that Ubuntu, Mint, and dozens of others are built on. If Debian ever disappeared, we would have way bigger problems.
    • Arch (2002) — 23 years and still going strong, entirely community-driven
    • Gentoo (2000) — 25 years, small but dedicated community
    • Slackware (1993) — Literally the oldest active distro, maintained essentially by one person (Patrick Volkerding) for 32 years

    Corporate distros that actually died or pivoted:

    • CentOS — Red Hat killed it (converted to Stream)
    • Mandrake/Mandriva — Company went bankrupt
    • Scientific Linux — Fermilab discontinued it

    The takeaway: corporate backing is not a guarantee of stability. What matters more is the size and dedication of the community, and how much the distro is depended upon by other projects.

    For your situation, Debian Stable is probably the safest bet. It is conservative, well-tested, and has the largest community behind it. You can run the same Debian install for a decade with just dist-upgrades.

  • How to diagnose a complete system freeze (no REISUB, no mouse/kb, have to hard reset)?

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  • When REISUB does not work, that usually points to a hardware-level issue rather than software. Here is my debugging checklist for hard freezes:

    Step 1: Rule out RAM

    • Boot a live USB and run memtest86+ overnight. Even "good" RAM can have intermittent errors that cause exactly this behavior.

    Step 2: Check thermals

    • Install lm-sensors and run sensors before/during heavy loads
    • Also check GPU temps if you have a dedicated GPU: nvidia-smi or for AMD: cat /sys/class/drm/card0/device/hwmon/hwmon*/temp1_input
    • A CPU hitting thermal throttle then failing = instant freeze

    Step 3: GPU driver

    • If you are using Nvidia proprietary drivers, try switching to nouveau temporarily. Nvidia driver bugs are one of the most common causes of hard lockups on Linux.
    • Check dmesg | grep -i nvidia or dmesg | grep -i gpu after reboot

    Step 4: Kernel logs from previous boot

    • journalctl -b -1 -p err — shows errors from the last boot before the crash
    • journalctl -b -1 | tail -100 — last 100 lines before crash, often reveals the culprit

    Step 5: SSH test

    • Set up SSH from another device. Next time it freezes, try to SSH in. If SSH works but display is dead = GPU/display issue. If SSH also fails = kernel panic or hardware.

    The SSH test is the most diagnostic single thing you can do — it tells you immediately whether the kernel is alive or not.

  • noob questions seeking non-noob answers

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  • How to "upgrade" from Gitea to Forgejo (not for the faint of heart!)

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  • RIP Discord: Self-Hosted Discord Alternatives Tested (TeamSpeak, Stoat, Fluxer, Matrix, & More)

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  • Password manager woes. How have you solved syncing on Android?

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  • a VPN that is easily self-hostable and resistant to blocking?

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  • Self Hosting for Privacy - Importance of Owning your own Modem/Router?

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  • Any good selfhosted instant messaging?

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