General

Not really though haha. My father-in-law called me on Sunday and had some questions about his computer. He stated that he had windows 10 installed. Come to find out that the laptop isn’t compatible with windows 11 and he was going to buy a new laptop. Then he asked about, how about installed the other operating system Linux. I told him yes definitely do that so you don’t have to buy a new one. Then you can at least try it out and see if it is doing what you need it to do and if not buy a new one later.

So he asked if he could drive 1.5 hours to our place and have me install Linux for him. I said sure, come on over! So when he packed up his laptop he remembered that he had bought another one and forgot about it.

Back to the first laptop in a minute. So the rediscovered laptop was compatible with and had windows 11 installed. However, it wouldn’t boot up to windows 11 so i thought since they haven’t done anything that i would just reset it and see if it would work then. But then the bit protector app, that I forgot the name of, kicked in and blocked me from doing anything. He didn’t have the recovery key and didn’t remember if he even received one from the place he bought it from. He bought the laptop for $150 from a place that buys them from a company and such. So he decided to have me install Linux on that one as well.

Now back to our regularly scheduled story. So I backup the data on both drives and proceed to wipe the drives and install Linux. Now you may be wondering what flavor of Linux did I choose. I almost installed Arch Linux but i didn’t, because they wouldn’t have been able to keep up with all the updates and such through the terminal. They would have hated it. So I decided to install Fedora KDE Plasma Linux. This way they would have more updated software but not the latest and it would be more stable. They also wouldn’t have to end up installing from scratch a new version of the operating system like I have had to do many times, except with Arch and Fedora.

So I was able to get Fedora installed and let me tell you, those computers were sssoooooo much faster. The one that he had forgotten about was even faster than the one he called about. Fedora ran so fast on them, I was impressed. All they do is use them for internet, like youtube, facebook and accessing online accounts and such.

I showed him how to update them when the icon appears and do perform those updates and he should be good to go. At some point I will get it so I can remote into the laptops and help keep them updated and such here and there or when he has trouble. It will make it easier for the both of us.

So that is my new Linux story of torturing my parent’s-in-laws with Linux and making them learn something new haha! At least they are willing to try and see how it goes. If they just don’t like it, then I may offer to buy those laptops and use them for something around the house and such. We will see.

Thanks for reading and I really do enjoy this community.

So I have started a Bible Repair/Rebinding business. I repair Bibles and then rebind them with genuine leather. I can also repair other kinds of books and such as well. I am at some point after I break even, wanting to make a website for my business. I know I can use Wordpress + WooCommerce for an instant get up and running solution. I am kind of tired of the Wordpress environment because it is so locked in and most of the plugins you need to pay for, which is understandable even if I find ways or uses for them where you can just use the free portion to get done with what you want.

I was thinking of looking into Nodebb with an eCommerce open source software to integrate into Nodebb. I am curious what other’s recommendations are and ideas in regard to this. Do I stick with what is fast and easy to setup like the Wordpress way or go the Nodebb + whichever open source would work best with it way?

I know there are stuff out there like shopify and those types of platforms, but I have heard many stories that as you grow the more plugins and such that you need and the cost goes up with it and you are locked into their proprietary setup and such.

Thank you all for all the input! I appreciate it!!

I currently run Kaspersky, my product runs out at the start of November, most of the reviews either say Bit defender or Norton as the best product.

I’ve tried Kaspersky, Norton & AVG previously (yes some pretty bad ones ) so I guess this time I’m definitely looking for the best.

Do you have a preference when it comes to antivirus software?

Just stumbled across this, how interesting! .

https://www.techradar.com/pro/wi-fi-more-like-wow-fi-researchers-transmit-almost-2-million-netflix-hd-streams-simultaneously-using-a-single-beam-of-infrared-light

Hello, I was wondering what everyone uses for cloud storage? My ideal setup would be to build myself a new computer and use the current (old) one to setup proxmox and have a nextcloud storage setup and have my own cloud, but finances aren’t allowing me to do that currently. Maybe some day. So I am stuck with the likes of OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox and those types of solutions.

What do you use for your solution. Is it pricey? Is there enough storage? You know the usual questions around that topic.

Thank you!

OKTA has released a free password manager which given their status in the security community, is well worth a look

https://www.okta.com/products/okta-personal/

If you aren’t using a password manager, now is the time to do so!

Well, unfortunately, I think I am going to have to revert back to using gmail again. I am unable to afford Proton Mail suite unfortunately. I had thought about maybe using my own email server, but if I ever need to shut that down then that won’t be a good option. I don’t plan on it, but things change. So it would be nice to get a good free one that is secure.

If anyone has any good suggestions, please let me know. I’m not sure what I should do. I am going to go with Bitwarden, and can do the 10 dollars a year for the premium, which it will be nice to have an authenticator built into that program.

So I will need to figure out the email and will probably go back to nordvpn for that part of it. If i remember right, it was fairly cheap per year.

Virgin Media have quoted me £145 (from the £85 we pay now) to renew my expiring package with them, I can pretty much match the package to sky for half the price but I’m unsure how their internet compares?

Does anyone have any experience good or bad with Sky?

So this year on Oct 14th, Windows 10 will be at end of life. I think that it is stupid that MS put the new requirements in place. I kind of get it, but so many people will either be forced to buy a new one or to go with a different OS. I can’t afford to buy a new one at this point in time so I am planning on switching my machine over to Linux.

I played around with several different Linux OSs like Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu (which I’m not going with), Mate, Garuda Linux, Mint and several others. I believe I have made my decision to go with Arch. I like how due to the rolling updates that is is always up to date. I can even wait a week or two before doing any upgrades so then any bugs get worked out. If a new virus or whatever gets released, their patch gets sent out almost right away. Or at least that is what it seems like.

My other option was Fedora. I like how Fedora functioned and they would make updates on a regular basis so you had the newer packages. Not as often as Arch but when you go to install something like php or nodejs, you get the latest versions of those software. I know that Debian, Ubuntu that they wait longer to provider a more stable environment, but you usually have to manually install the latest version of software. That isn’t a bad thing, it is nice to just be able to install software and not have to go searching around to add the source to install the latest version.

The more I play with Arch the more I like it. It is fast and straight to the point and this isn’t anything special with Arch, all Linux OSs are customizable. Although, I will say that Arch does not have any bloatware whatsoever.

This isn’t a post saying that Arch is the end all be all. This is just a post about the Linux OS that I am choosing. Not to say that, that won’t ever change in the future, but for today. There are things in Arch that take longer to setup, for instance, NGINX and setting up everything that goes along with that. Manually setting up the folders for websites and configs and such, and at the same time going through and figuring that out, I understand a lot better how Webmin/Virtualmin work on the backend when setting up a new virtual website and how Linux works with them in the background.

Anyway, I would be curious to hear what versions of Linux that others have gone with and what they like and don’t like about it. Here is a link to the MS page with the date of the end of life for Windows 10.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-10-home-and-pro

Mark
I updated to version 4 but i could not understand what changed from the forum?
Could it be that i did not notice a difference because i’m using your theme?
I could not clearly understand the active pub section. What is it purpose excatly?

iOS 18.3 automatically enables Apple Intelligence for users, requires opt-out to disable.

Can’t help but feel this should have been the other way round. It’s effectively forcing into the user in my view.

https://9to5mac.com/2025/01/21/ios-18-3-automatically-enables-apple-intelligence-requires-opt-out-to-disable/

Hi All,

I have been running a Gaming Server and Site from home for many years. I have not really touched it in a while and switched on again today for some nostalgia and basically take a look.

My site uses mongo to store the information and i had one db on there. I updated my system and all seems completely broken. I can no longer see the site. Sorry for the long code text but you can see from when I use sudo apt update then upgrade that it suggests to fix. But I get this.

I am happy for someone to take dive in and take a look for the price of a coffee or two of course I guess it may be something simple but I am far from the level of most of the guys here. I am wondering if my db and data is lost Any help much appreciated. Thank you in advance.

smiley@fmjcod4:~$ sudo apt update
Hit:1 http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:2 http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates InRelease
Hit:3 https://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable InRelease
Hit:4 http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports InRelease
Hit:5 http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease
Hit:6 http://ppa.launchpad.net/maxmind/ppa/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:7 https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu focal/mongodb-org/8.0 InRelease
Hit:8 https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/d-apt d-apt InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
22 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
smiley@fmjcod4:~$ sudo apt upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt --fix-broken install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 mongodb-org-database : Depends: mongodb-org-server but it is not installed
                        Depends: mongodb-org-mongos but it is not installed
 mongodb-org-tools : Depends: mongodb-database-tools but it is not installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages (or specify a solution).
smiley@fmjcod4:~$ sudo apt --fix-broken install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libboost-program-options1.71.0 libgoogle-perftools4 libpcrecpp0v5 libphobos2-108 libphobos2-108:i386 libsnappy1v5 libtcmalloc-minimal4 libyaml-cpp0.6 mongo-tools mongodb-server-core
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following additional packages will be installed:
  mongodb-database-tools mongodb-org-mongos mongodb-org-server
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  mongodb-database-tools mongodb-org-mongos mongodb-org-server
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 22 not upgraded.
6 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/114 MB of archives.
After this operation, 386 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database ... 198688 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../mongodb-org-server_8.0.4_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking mongodb-org-server (8.0.4) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/mongodb-org-server_8.0.4_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/bin/mongod', which is also in package mongodb-server-core 1:3.6.9+really3.6.8+90~g8e540c0b6d-0ubuntu5.3
dpkg-deb: error: paste subprocess was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Preparing to unpack .../mongodb-org-mongos_8.0.4_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking mongodb-org-mongos (8.0.4) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/mongodb-org-mongos_8.0.4_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/bin/mongos', which is also in package mongodb-server-core 1:3.6.9+really3.6.8+90~g8e540c0b6d-0ubuntu5.3
dpkg-deb: error: paste subprocess was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Preparing to unpack .../mongodb-database-tools_100.10.0_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking mongodb-database-tools (100.10.0) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/mongodb-database-tools_100.10.0_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/bin/bsondump', which is also in package mongo-tools 3.6.3-0ubuntu1
dpkg-deb: error: paste subprocess was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/mongodb-org-server_8.0.4_amd64.deb
 /var/cache/apt/archives/mongodb-org-mongos_8.0.4_amd64.deb
 /var/cache/apt/archives/mongodb-database-tools_100.10.0_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I’ve recently started looking into NodeBB as an option for a new forum that I want to start and I have to say that Sudonix is the best implementation I have come across so far.

Would you mind sharing a list of all the plugins that you are using?

Currently using Proton VPN, enjoying using it, works as it should and I find it best for my android device.

So, which VPN are you currently using right now?

VPN:

Why you’re using it?:

I am curious as to what everyone uses for a text messaging app? I am currently using Google Messages app. I know a lot of people use Whats App and there is Facebook Messenger that you can send text messages through. I am wondering what a good texting app would be to use to have the security and not have the big tech companies fingers in all the messages that you send back and forth.

It’s not everyday I come across one site that seems to have everything I need, but this morning, I stumbled across this gem

https://it-tools.tech/

This site is the work of Corentin Thomasset, a fullstack web developer based in Lyon, France. I’d strongly recommend you at least stop by and check out the tools on offer. I personally use most of them on a daily basis, so perfect for me.

Hi Mark,

I’m trying to find the RSS feed of a website but having no joy.

Do you have any tips or tricks or particular routes you take when finding an RSS feed?

Thanks .

I was wondering which database you are using for nodebb. Are you using MongoDB or Redis? My guess is that you are using MongoDB. And why did you choose the one you did?

I would also like to hear what others did as well.

One of the pieces of software I use is called TNG (The Next Generation of Genealogy Site Building). Here is the URL: https://tngsitebuilding.com/

I have this installed on my dev environment which runs Arch, Nginx and Mariahdb. I have two other tests sites that are Wordpress test sites. The wordpress sites that I have running, tend to run a little on the slower side, even with caching plugins and all of that. The TNG site on the other hand run blazingly fast, it is impressive. I used to have that site live so family members can look at the information. TNG is built with PHP and the developer has done an amazing job with it and they continue to not disappoint with improvements.

In the past on my live site, I used Wordpress alongside of it to write blog posts and such. Someone created a plugin so that usernames and data synced up and such. My crazy idea is to see how hard it would be to build a plugin for Nodebb to work with TNG. It would be nice so if a username was created on either one that you would be able to use the same username on the other. It would also be nice to be able to pull in information on a family member into Nodebb and such and be able to link information.

The idea would be that you could create a category for the different families using their surnames. Those can be created manually, but then when someone creates a new topic they could search and link the person they want to talk about. That link could pull in some of the information about that person as a little summary and then when you click on that person in the post it would bring you to the TNG site where you could see everything about them.

You would want it so it only is able to pull information from people that have died and any information from living people would not be available. This is my crazy idea for today, but I think the speed of Nodebb matched up with TNG would be pretty amazing.

I was wondering, for your blog on this site, do you have it so only you can add posts to that category? When I click on New Topic when in the Blog category it looked like I could add a one. I didn’t finish it and actually post a topic, but it made me curious.

I like the layout with the three cards at the top. I am thinking that is the cards plugin that you use that allows you to do that?