I know we have cockpit but it never really clicked for me. Functionality wise too crashy and not so nicely intergrated, design wise it has the information density of a grandparent brick phone.
It’s kind of funny, Debian was my distro of choice since I was 15, so about 10 years up until last year. I still envy its huge application ecosystem. But over time I’ve come to really appreciate simplicity and the principle of least astonishment.
I originally started Sylve with an OpenWRT/LFS mindset since I had a lot of experience there. But even then, Linux often feels a bit cobbled together. ZFS is awkward because of the GPL vs CDDL situation, userland and kernel development feel disconnected, and there are so many different ways to do the same thing. I won’t even get into systemd, you get the idea.
What really clicked for me was using a system where the kernel and userland are developed together. That cohesion makes a big difference. Technically, I was able to rely almost entirely on the base OS without pulling in extra dependencies, aside from libvirt to make migration easier and Samba for file sharing.
Going forward, Sylve leans into that even more. PF for the firewall, the rock solid iSCSI implementation in base, even things like smart(8) written by src committers just feel more consistent and thought through.
So yeah, Debian definitely wins on features and applications. But for me, FreeBSD wins on coherence and design.
The entire Sylve bundle (backend + frontend) is ~55 MB, fully self-contained, and doesn’t mess with the base system in any destructive way. You can drop it in and remove it cleanly.
Proxmox, on the other hand, replaces core parts of the system, including the kernel, and its package ecosystem diverges quite a bit from standard Debian. I’ve tried using it on a desktop before and rolling that back cleanly isn’t exactly straightforward.
At that point it’s more of a tightly coupled platform built on Debian than just “a UI on top,” especially when the underlying system is no longer behaving like Debian in the usual sense.
> I’ve tried using it on a desktop before and rolling that back cleanly isn’t exactly straightforward.
Well, sure, but Proxmox was never intended to be a desktop solution.
It was always intended as a server solution, installed on bare-metal, and therefore "rolling-back" is a re-format and re-install (or shredding the drives if the server is being decommissioned).
That’s fair, but that kind of reinforces my point.
If the expected recovery path is “wipe and reinstall,” then it’s clearly not just a thin layer on top of Debian. It’s effectively its own platform with its own assumptions, lifecycle, and upgrade path.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a very different model from something that can coexist with or cleanly detach from the base system. That distinction matters depending on how people want to use it, especially outside of a dedicated bare-metal server context.
So yeah, Proxmox is built on Debian, but in practice it behaves more like a tightly integrated appliance than a simple UI sitting on top.
Well said, you get what I'm looking for. This might be the reason for me to give freebsd a go. Though my current hardware probably wouldn't play nice with it.
How neat. I'd buy some Actimel too if a sharply dressed lady would show up at my door instead of a suicidal looking grocery delivery guy who carves the local word for "tip" in the elevator every time he doesn't get any.
Well, I'd go for a sharply dressed lady too, but ... what I get is very cheerful Tesco drivers in hiviz, who unpack my groceries and stash the chilled stuff in my fridge. It's a great (UK) service, and they quite often ask if they can do anything else for me (I'm bed-bound) like make a cup of tea. Cannot recommend them highly enough.
I hadn’t thought about it before, but you’re right: the grocery delivery folks in the UK were always quite cheerful! We used Ocado mostly, and their drivers were always happy for a chat while unloading.
Having it in F-droid, vetted by their policies is kind of my benchmark for "software that is guaranteed to be not crapware."
That being said I'm rooting for the devs, having an alternative for tailscale+headscale would be nice, because as it stands it's kind of dependant on the goodwill of a for profit company (finite).
I recently brought my first app to F-Droid. It was not friction free, but I was able to do it within a few weeks. Seems they put not much effort into this, e.g. the basic check marks are not even checked...
I can see like a 100 ways this can make computing worse for 99% people and like 1-2 scenarios where it might actually be useful.
Like if the politicians pushing for chat control/on device scanning of data come knocking again and actually go through (they can try infinitely) tech like this will really be "useful". Oops your device cannot produce a valid attestation, no internet for you.
My current employer (regional O&G multi) loads all laptops with the most horrid mix of itsec garbage known to man. We have both the compliance module of AnyConnect (without using the VPN part) AND Zscaler for VPN.
Upon boot this has a 50/50 chance of triggering a chicken and egg problem where AnyConnect wants to connect to the complience server but can't because of Zscaler is not yet authenticated through PingID, but PingID cannot be reached because of the aforementioned complience check not succeeding. Or atleast that is my theory. Toggling the network adapter in the Windows control panel 1-2-3 times tends to solve it. Not 100% sure about my theory of what's going on, but my tickets about this are getting ignored so theorising is the best I can do. Atleast we as IT staff get local admin, so It's not all bad.
At my previous workplace (mid size SSC) the work machines themselves were less bloated and could do anything other than change UEFI settings, but certain servers we were assigned to maintain were monitored down to the keystroke level. The itsec shift gave me a call at around 3am to chat about my choice for script filenames (suckmydick.PS1) like 30 seconds after I created it.
I hope one day someone will make a movie about the warez scene. The only piece of media we have as far as I'm aware is The Scene (2004–2006) which I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone with a love for moving bytes around illegally.
It's watchable, but not great. It unfortunately doesn't cover many of the most interesting details, such as what happened with TPB after the operators were arrested.
Losing this when you load ELFs is kind of a bummer. Probably a dumb question but I wonder if it'd be possible to only swap in the parts of the binary that are needed at any given time.
lol same. All my parts arrived except the 804. The supply chain for these cases appears to be imploding where I live (Hungary). The day after I ordered it either went out of stock or went up by +50% in all webshops that are reputable here.
I’m still a bit torn on whether I made the good call of getting 804 or the 304 wouldve been a enough for a significantly smaller footprint and -2 bays. Hard to tell without seeing them in person lol.
Are you satisfied with it? Any issues that came up since building?
I have been running my NAS on the 304 for 5 years. It fits natively 6 HDDs but I think it is possible to cram two more with a bit of ingenuity. It is tucked away in an Ikea cabinet that I have drilled the back of for airflow.
Even if I try to steelman your argument that locking down general purpose computers has some benefits particularly to gaming, its very short term imo.
How far away are we from hooking up a vision model to the display output of let’s say, Battlefield 6 and hooking in mouse+kb input from said vision model + an aimbot that perfectly replicates a top performing players mouse movements?
I’d say not very far away.
Much like how in online chess, no technical solution can attest that a move is really from a human brain and not a chess program running on his phone.
I know we have cockpit but it never really clicked for me. Functionality wise too crashy and not so nicely intergrated, design wise it has the information density of a grandparent brick phone.
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