Little Bits - Aug. 2025

I sporadically write one of these posts. Essentially a list of stuff I am not going to write a full post about and give just a quick update.

Homelab changes

Over the last year I have continuously added new services or apps to my homelab and the complexity kept mounting. Need file syncing, so Syncthing. Need calendars and tasks, so Radicale. Need notes, so Silverbullet Need a web frontend for my files, so Dufs. Need to edit files, so a LibreOffice container. And on, and on, and on.

One day I realized I was managing way too many containers that could all be handled by Nextcloud. Nearly 2 years ago I gave up on Nextcloud. My problem then (and still bothersome) is too many updates, to much focus on A.I., and my personal aversion to databases.

But, my replacement for Nextcloud was so scattershot it became hard to keep track fo what I was using for what purpose and how to access it. A couple months ago I started testing Nextcloud and I decided to use the snap. Honestly, I expected it to flop. Dear reader, it was not. The snap is heavily optimized, so it runs fast. I have almost no maintenance and it automatically updates.

I know, there’s lots of landmines here. Over the last couple months I’ve learned a lot about snap. It works a treat in the browser and I got OnlyOFFICE setup so I can literally do everything from the Chromebook.

I have no regrets.

Offgrid update

Its been a minute since I wrote the next post about my offgrid internet-in-a-box project and I’ve made a few small changes.

First, I added some more games. Recently I built a different offgrid project using a RPI Zero as a boredom buster and I discovered Gams. Essentially, Gams is a repo of games you can play in the browser with no connectivity. It even includes some classic flash games that run in an emulator. I added this repo to my build and now have a couple dozen basic games in the kit to go along with Luanti.

At the same time I watched this video from Retro Game Corps about PortMaster and it led me down a rabbit hole about the games that are available. That led me to Nazi Zombies Portable which is a de-make of the original Call of Duty: Zombies. I added that to my offgrid kit as well.

Miss my old phone

While working on the offgrid updates I got out my old phone, which is now part of that offgrid kit. I wanted to run some updates and make sure the chroot desktops were good.

Man, I miss this phone. Its the Samsung Galaxy S10e and I loved it. I had to upgrade since it wasn’t getting OS upgrades and the camera can’t focus. Its a small phone, an SD card slot, and Dex mode.

I fucking love Dex mode.

I have this project on my list to build a low-powered, carry everywhere, computer-on-a-stick. I want to be able to walk up to any keyboard and mouse, plug in something small, and get my full desktop. I’ve looked at SBCs, compute sticks, etc. and none of them would work as well as a phone in Dex mode.

I have made so many posts about loving Dex mode and running full Linux desktops on my phone when docked. Now with Android 16 getting essentially the same terminal app as ChromeOS, there’s really no reason to have a Chromebook if you have Samsung Dex and the Terminal app.

I’m gonna get the S10e out more often just to play with and someday maybe I can afford another Samsung phone and they’ll make one with Dex mode that has a fucking SD card slot.

Misc.

Here’s some other random stuff:

• My son upgraded his PC and gave me back the one I gave him a few years ago. I used it to build a backup to my homelab and NAS. Sits off 99% of the time except to sync.
• My oldest daughter also upgraded her PC and gave me back her old one. Its ancient. It’s a Core i5-2400 (h61 mobo), 16GB DDR3 (2x8) RAM, and a Nvidia GTX 660 GPU. I need to clean it up and I have some ideas for a few short, fun projects.
• I attended and participated in my friends @codemonkeymike presentation and Nixbook install fest at our local library. It was a blast hanging out with Mike, installed Linux on other people’s computers, and just chatting computer upcycling. Mike is an amazing dude.

Bye, pals

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