I just use gimp, but for the record, someone recently got modern Photoshop working in wine

I feel like if that’s something you’re doing, you’re using containers wrong. At least docker ones. I expect a container to have no state from run to run except what is written to mounted volumes. I should always be able to blow away my containers and images, and rebuild them from scratch. Afaik docker compose always implicitly runs with --rm for this reason.

Just answering the question you asked.

So they could view their cameras while they’re away?

Step 1 is to do everything inside your network with data you don’t care about. Get comfortable starting services, visiting them locally, and playing around with them. See what you like and don’t like. Feel free to completely nuke everything and start from scratch a few times. (Containers like Docker make this super easy).

Step 2 is to start relying on it for things inside your network. Have a NAS, maybe home assistant, or some other services like Immich or Navidrome. Figure out how to give services access to your data without relying on them to not harm it (use read only mounts, permissions, snapshots, etc.)

Step 3 is to figure out how to make services more accessible away from home. Whether that is via a VPN, or something like tailscale, or just carefully opening specific ports to specific secure and up-to-date services. This is the part you’re feeling anxious about, and I think you’ll feel less anxious if you do steps 1 and 2 first and not even think about 3 yet. Consider it its own challenge, and just do one challenge at a time.

Then I can’t share images and albums through Immich :/

Thanks, those are some tricks I didn’t know about.

Thanks, yeah maybe not quite what I was asking for, but it does give me some stuff I didn’t know about that I could consider.

If I had one user that would work, but I have multiple.

Yeah, seems like there needs to be a distro made for retrofitting various phones or something with those features. Maybe even using the zune hw.

Some people don’t have the luxury of being in the same place as the people they’re celebrating with. Jackbox games is a popular remote party game, but I am curious if there exists a similar, open, self hosted alternative.

Can you please save this somewhere you’ll find it in 10 years?

There’s nothing wrong with a DE, those are great for the people who want an experience that “just works”. But I switched to Linux because I was tired of someone else deciding to install hundreds of packages I’ll never use, and start up dozens or hundreds of services in the background that I never asked for.

Part of the feeling of owning my machine has been looking at the list of packages installed, and the list of processes/services running and knowing why each one is there.

If you want an OS that lets you own the machine you bought, Linux is the most viable option. Conversely, Windows is not an option. I don’t consider an OS where you are the product to be one that works for me at all, much less one that “just works”.

Linux users seem to enjoy problem solving and tinkering for fun

Like with any OS, those are a subset of users, but not all. The thing is, Linux users spent the last 30y building a set of tools that enable you to use as little effort as possible to do very powerful things with your hardware, and yes, with great power comes great ability to break everything. But in the last 15y, there are distros designed for people who want an OS that “just works”, that don’t require you to know or use the risky tools that could break things, and they’re getting better every day.

Why did you switch

I wanted to use Linux for the last 15y, but gaming was a sticking point. Around 5y ago, thanks to valve, it is no longer a sticking point. I do all my gaming on Linux.

what was your process like?

I first switched to fedora on my laptop about 12y ago. I didn’t do a lot of gaming on my laptop, so this was fine. Eventually I switched to Manjaro. Around 5y ago I put Manjaro on my desktop. Then eventually switched both to endeavor.

I’ll admit, I create problems for myself by refusing fully featured Desktop Environments. But I always learn something more about my machine in the process. As a result, I believe I can now simply do more with less effort on Linux than I could on windows. I have bash scripts on keybinds that open custom UIs for various things. I can seamlessly access multiple servers on my network running various services. I don’t ever have to worry about some update overhauling my UI and sneaking an AI in the background. Any experimentation I do with AI is on my own terms, and none of my data gets shipped off without my consent.

What made you choose Linux for your primary computing device, rather than macOS for example?

I used a Mac 20y ago. It was solid. But eventually the cost outweighed the hardware capabilities. And then they deprecated every graphics API but Metal. Now there’s relatively nothing in the way of gaming on Mac. On top of that, it’s just as bad as windows when it comes to doing what some company wants it to do rather than what I want it to do. So I don’t consider it an option that works for me.

I am really having a hard time understanding what OP is describing. Does anyone have a video example of the phenomenon?

Ahhh I see. That’s really neat, I’ll have to try that.

Does sway have the feature OP is asking for, or are you just suggesting a different tiling window manager, and they would still be left solving the same problem?

Idk if I follow. I believe the default keybinds in hyprland allow you to switch between windows using super+J/K/L/;, and between workspaces using super+number. Hyprland, like all tiled window managers, are specifically designed to be used exclusively with a keyboard.

Are you asking for something more like alt+tab on windows? Where it shows a little preview of all the windows? I think that’s kind of obviated by the concept of a tiled window manager.

Hah yeah, I’ve definitely pulled the plug on my router before because I wasn’t sure what I was seeing.

I mean, cybersecurity I would consider to be a research field. In practice, yeah, it’s a bunch of people just doing their best.

I tend to keep everything inside my network and only expose what I need visible on non standard ports, one of those being a VPN. It’s not that I couldn’t run these services public facing, it’s that the people taking the time to constantly update, configure, and auditing everything full time to head off red team are being paid. I don’t need to deal with an attack surface any larger than it needs to be, ain’t nobody got time for that.

The ability to generate a bunch of traffic that looks like it’s coming from legit, every-day residential IPs is invaluable to disinformation campaigns. If they can get persistence in your network, they can toss it into a bot net which they’ll sell access to on the dark web.

A sucker opens insecure services to the open internet every day, that’s free real estate to bot farms. Only when the probability of finding them is low enough is it not worth the energy/network costs. I think hosting on non-standard ports is probably correlated with lowering that probability below some threshold where it becomes not worth it…don’t quote me, though.

At the end of the day, the rule is not to depend on security by obscurity, but that doesn’t mean never use it.