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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • Also if i want to make a plex server on an old PC, what would people recommend?

    My plex server is headless, running Almalinux. Doesn’t take much, I have it running on a very old NUC8 (NUC8i5BEK). The box is also running Asset UPnP and AudioBookshelf server too.

    Personally, unless the server will also be the client (as in, you’ll be watching from the server box and not a streaming box, tablet, TV app, etc), I’d skip any GUI and just install it from the terminal, save your resources for what matters. Desktop environment is pointless for a server machine.

    If you were buying a cheap machine to handle it today, I’d probably recommend a Beelink (or other) mini-PC with a Ryzen 5000 series chipset (5500u/5560u models with 16GB RAM can be found very cheap, generally $215-$240 new these days). The 5000 series in particular are very power efficient for something you likely will leave on all the time, and have both 6c/12t and 8c/16t variants, though the 8 core ones will probably be more like $300-$320.

    Whatever you buy, if it comes pre-installed with Windows, delete the OS. I wouldn’t trust preinstalled on these boxes, and in any case Microsoft is getting really sketchy with this whole Windows Recall thing anyway.




  • You’re not likely to do that for $150. You might be able to pull an old Dell Precision T5500 tower with a weak Xeon on eBay for cheap and refit it with more ram, better CPU and cheap non-redundant storage for $200 - $250.

    For sake of power requirements though, seriously consider your use case and needs. You can get by pretty well with cheap mini-PCs like Intel NUCs or AMD minis like Beelink for pretty cheap and just cluster them with something like Proxmox to scale out instead of up when you need additional resources. This will be reasonably priced and keep the power bill and noise levels down.


  • But otherwise I learned the hard way many years ago to just buy Logitech after purchasing a stupid expensive gaming mouse from a brand I’ve forgotten whose left click died in less than a year.

    Seems to be a problem in general. I’ve been using Elecom trackballs for years, first one I bought still works. Ones I’ve bought in the last year all started wigging out on left click within a couple months. I took one apart recently to swap the mouse switch with a quick solder job and it’s good as new. Seems like the newer ones are using really cheap Chinese Omron switches that die quickly. IIRC the older one uses a Japanese Omron switch. The new one I soldered in is a Kailh GM2.0.







  • There will always be people who seek to challenge themselves.

    Others will want more money than is included with their UBI. What on earth would be wrong with people having a little more, as opposed to so many struggling, needing roommates, and so on? I imagine with an extra 1k-2k in their pocket monthly, a lot more people would buy or build housing, and a lot of service industries would boom with all the additional potentially disposable income.

    Or how about people being able to retire, like actually retire, without stress. We could lower the retirement age, or people could retire independently from government assistance, leading to more available jobs for younger people as more roles transition away due to automation.

    And frankly, I honestly don’t see anything wrong with some portion of the populace just living on UBI and enjoying life if that’s how they want to do things. Nothing wrong with people being happier, less stressed, and potentially mentally and/or physically healthier for it.