astrsk

I’ve been having some issues with random IoT devices bypassing my pihole despite it being a router-level DNS for all my devices. Can you go into more detail about dst-nat and how I might be able to improve catching requests so they can routed to pihole for filtering? My router is running openwrt and pihole is on a VM in my hypervisor that’s directly connected to the router. This is the first time I’m hearing about dst-nat.

Debian is (rightfully) known for being lightweight and very stable. Particularly with older hardware, while still being quite compatible with newer hardware. Their long-running release cycles tend to not break whenever updates do roll out. Ubuntu is Debian based as well, its focus however is on user friendliness and usability, especially on the GUI front. Ubuntu server is perfectly fine, but it’s heavy handed compared to a minimal Debian installation with just a handful of packages selected purposefully by the user for the task it is intended for. There have also been more vocal complaints about whatever Canonical is trying to do with snaps/snap store.

Most beginners with Linux I would more encourage to try Debian for its stability and speed because it’s a great platform to learn Linux on as well as experiment with whatever goal they have by way of packages and projects available all over the open source side of the web.

This, op.

You clearly know enough about what you want already. A minimal install of Debian with just a handful of apt commands will get you exactly what you want in just a handful of minutes.

The one thing I’ve learned over the years is that the more experience you have with Linux, the less you rely on preconfigured distributions. Find a stable minimal install and build up your own set of base packages, DE, configs, etc.

Only you know your habits and needs and experience is how you narrow down the field.

For me personally, I have found my groove in a minimal Debian install with a first run setup script or two that is repeatable and automatable so I can start with a known quantity for any applicable need I have.

Boosting so I can revisit this comment in a couple years.

Combine that with the 20-30 seconds my system takes to do bios memory training on the DDR5 ram and we’re practically back to the “go make some coffee while the system boots up” days 🤦

I use Edge on Linux as my user agent in Firefox on Windows just so I can give some engineers a laugh.

To add to this, you can press tab twice to get a list of available autocomplete options, which take into context the most recently typed text. This includes specific commands as well as folder/files.

Obsidian and a shared Dropbox/Google Drive/OneDrive folder?

Bite the bullet, backup everything and start fresh. This time, setup LVM (w/wo encryption, your choice) and make sure to setup /var, /tmp, /home, etc. as separate volumes.

In another 10 years when you need to fully upgrade, you can preserve specific volumes and just swap out the system volumes with new installs. This also helps in case of issues which require system refreshes. Most importantly, as long as the drive isn’t busted, all you have to worry about backing up are specific configs and your home volume. The rest becomes simple.

I would recommend running a couple disaster recovery scenarios once setup.

To add to this, I also use Natron to replace After Effects. I use both of these on Linux and Windows too, serves me well as a light-mid user.