Even on Windows, Proton drive is hot garbage. It never syncs my files correctly. Has a tendency to leave half encrypted uploads just lying around. Eating up desk space.

Don’t even get me started on how long it takes to upload anything. Got a 1 GB file? Good luck!

And that’s before getting into the fact that it’s proton’s third product. It was announced in 2019. 5 years and they still don’t have proton drive as a working product.

Another gripe I have is that the Linux VPN client still doesn’t support wireguard. Sure, you can download wireguard configuration files. And they work just fine. But changing servers is a pain in the ass because of it.

It’s made me seriously consider dropping my visionary plan and moving to a more competent provider.

That being said, proton mail has been fantastic. And I have a ton of domains on it. So it would be a pain to move. I guess I’m just in a stalemate.

I’m really surprised no one mentioned Terra Invicta!

Basically if the Three Body Problem series was a Grand strategy game.

In terms of grand strategy it is quite grand. So massive and complex that even 100 hours in, I haven’t completed a game.

That being said, it’s so addicting. I haven’t really played any other Sci-Fi games where you can take over multiple countries on Earth, take over other bodies in the solar system, and field space Navy to defend the planet.

Well, seeing that Insurgency: Sandstorm was on a sale, I just picked it up for him (and myself). Seems to have a lot in the map making scene, and that’s a really important factor for him.

It also helps that the prior Insurgency game has the most hours on his profile, by far. Gave me a good hint that he should enjoy this one.

Thanks so much!

EDIT: My dad just got back to me, and loves the gift. Apparently that’s where most of his online buddies went and still are. Nailed it!

Well that’s pretty compelling!

Ever since the failure of Windows mixed reality, there hasn’t been many non-Meta HMD’s worth buying. At least with inside out tracking.

Maybe this will finally pressure Valve to lower the price on the venerable Index? Probably not. But one can hope!

I’m running a Steam OS like experience on my Lenovo Legion Go. Not quite a steam deck, but very similar.

You should be able to use the heroic launcher. And you should be able to install it as a flat pack or a snap. That will make your GOG games as easy to download and install as a steam game. If I recall correctly, it even automatically adds entries for steam.

I regularly play Bomb Rush Cyberfunk on this device using the GOG edition.

It’s just my client. Boost for Reddit doesn’t appear to show it correctly. It’s the opposite though. It just shows the text. Spoiling it for me.

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yeah…

They asked for easy, or newbie friendly - and didn’t particularly mention privacy concerns.

Other than that, if they don’t have a port 80/433 ingress from their ISP there are scarce simple solutions that don’t require another server that also needs management, either by them or a corporate entity.

back when i was on a DOCSIS modem, i noticed concurrent downloads would disrupt uploads and vice versa. i think this may depend on the type of connection OP has.

I used to work at a cable company, that was either a problem that people with low SNR had. Either from external factors (tree branch on a cable line) or in-home ones (bad splitter). A modem will ramp up it’s gain in order to offset this (to a point), and in so doing, create a lot more interference between channels. OR they were hitting their ingress rate limit (which is quite agressive on residential plans because DDOS’es). It’s surprisingly easy to hit your ingress rate limit for modern http/https webservers hosting complex web apps. Lots of concurrent connections open up to try to download all the resources when you go to any website in a modern browser and while it’s not a TON of data, the short period of time causes the traffic to easily hit the PPS/BPS rate limit that ISPs employ.

But yeah, it all depends on the ISP.

I’d argue that the cloudflared daemon is even easier to use than a static wire guard or openvpn tunnel. It’s basically set and forget. The downside is that you must use cloudflare. This may, or may not be a big deal depending on OPs needs.

I moved from a place with symmetrical gigabit to “gigabit cable” with 30mbps upload, it definitely wasn’t good enough for my small family. Photos are quite large these days - not to mention videos. Though it likely has a lot more to do with the bandwidth shaping my ISP does than the 30mbps rate.

Also agree that it’s not perfect, but very likely the most newbie friendly solution at the moment. Especially from a deployment scenario vs going piecemeal.

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The best “bang for the buck” in your use-case is to use Nextcloud - Nextcloud Talk is your Jitsi replacement, and the files feature can be extended with the Nextcloud Photos plugin (https://github.com/nextcloud/photos).

As for your domain question:

1. You should use any computer you’d like that meets the Nextcloud recommendations, the key is of course isolating this machine on your home network so any “funny business” stays on the server. You can do this with VLANs or an entirely separate LAN connected to a different WAN (ISP).

2. Many places, I like porkbun.com for real custom domains for cheap, but for your use case, you might be able to use a Dynamic DNS provider for free. It just likely won’t be an easy to remember URL (or at least, as easy as a root domain only). If you have a newer ASUS or Netgear router/modem they both have Dynamic DNS built in and you can select from a few different providers that have both free and paid tiers. ALSO it might be better to use Google Domains (now squarespace domains) since, IIRC, many DynDNS configs for routers support Google Domains too. Cloudflare can also be a decent registrar, and I’d recommend using them if you use any other cloudflare services (see below).

3. Other things to consider: Your ISP may block port 80, meaning lots of issues. If this is the case, you might want to use a tunnel of some sort. Cloudflare has a great solution here. Even if they don’t block port 80, they may aggressively throttle and shape your incoming traffic - causing issues. Again, the tunnel is a good solution here. And, of course, your upload bandwidth matters a lot, you’ll need something around 100Mbps upload for a decent experience when accessing your stuff over the internet. The 30Mbps that’s typical of DOCSIS modems won’t cut it. Outside of these concerns it’s all about making sure you isolate your server from your “home stuff” to keep things secure.

Lucky! I wish I had symmetrical fiber with all the ports available.

I totally have a server capable of hosting a LOT of things but lack the upload to make use of it. I’m considering transferring to a rack mount and sending it to be colocated at a datacenter within driving distance.

You missed one:

ISP - Internet Service Provider

Eh, but then he won’t learn anything. I’ve never found that response acceptable. It just perpetuates the problem. To each their own though!

On a technical level, user count matters less than the user count and comment count of the instances you subscribe to. Too many subscriptions can overwhelm smaller instances and saturate a network from the perspective of Packets Per Second and your ISPs routing capacity - not to mention your router. Additionally, most ISPs block traffic traffic going to your house on Port 80 - so you’d likely need to put it behind a cloudflare tunnel for anything resembling reliability. Your ISP may be different and it’s always worth asking what restrictions they have on self-hosted services (non-business use-cases specifically). Otherwise going with your ISP’s business plan is likely a must. Outside of that, yes, you’ll need a beefy router or switch (or multiple) to handle the constant packets coming into your network.

Then there’s a security aspect. What happens if you’re site is breached in a way that an attacker gains remote execution? Did you make sure to isolate this network from the rest of your devices? If not, you’re in for a world of hurt.

These are all issues that are mitigated and easier to navigate on a VPS or cloud provider.

As for the non-technical issues:

There’s also the problem of moderation. What I mean by that is that, as a server owner you WILL end up needing to quarantine, report, and submit illegal images to the authorities. Even if you use a whitelist of only the most respectable instances. It might not happen soon, but it’s only a matter of time before your instance happens to be subscribed to a popular external community while it gets a nasty attack. Leaving you to deal with a stressful cleanup.

When you run this on a homelab on consumer hardware, it’s easier for certain government entities to claim that you were not performing your due diligence and may even be complicit in the content’s proliferation. Now, of course, proving such a thing is always the crux, but in my view I’d rather have my site running on things that look as official as possible. The closer it resembles what an actual business might do, the better I think I’d fare under a more targeted attack - from a legal/compliance standpoint.

I agree. I think 1440p+HDR is probably the way to go for now. HDR is FAR more impactful than a 4K resolution and 1440p should provide a stable 45ish FPS on Cyberpunk 2077 completely maxed out on an RTX 3080Ti (DLSS Performance).

And in terms of CPU, the same applies. 16 cores are for the gentoo using, source compiling folks like me. 8 cores on a well binned CPU from the last 3 generations goes plenty fast for gaming. CPU bottlenecking only really show up at 144fps+ in most games anyways.

Agree, most mainstream distros have it all handled for the most part and it normally “just works”.

Now, myself on Gentoo testing on the other hand… Sometimes I shoot myself in the foot and forget to rebuild my kernel modules and wind up needing to chroot to fix things - all because I have an NVidia card.

I’m rolling with a Halfling Rogue, it’s always the class I try to play first in D&D games and versions. I’m also surprised at the lack of Halflings in the stats!

My wife is playing a Githyanki the only race that’s less popular. Lol!

I forget, do the pathfinder games use v1 or v2? V1 was basically D&D 3.5 in most ways.

Either way, if you haven’t played it, you should put Pathfinder Kingmaker on deck for after BG3

Forever GM’s unite! (But like, once we get the schedule finalized /s)

Yeah, this is probably the best D&D game in existence now. It definitely has some pretty fun mechanics and a lot of depth that other D&D vidya games just lack.