Hyacin (He/Him)

I mostly agree, and did the same with my second gen lab build - instead of shiny new NUCs like I had used round 1, I bought old off lease Dell Xeon boxes. SO MANY PROS -

• Got them up to 14c/28t each
• They can take GPUs and actually do heavy transcoding/ML work
• They can take up to like, 128GB of memory, which is GREAT when they’re all hypervisors

The downsides can’t be denied though -

• Even without the GPUs and beefed up CPUs, they are power hogs - the CPU alone uses more than an ENTIRE NUC
• They run HOT
• They run LOUD

The same holds true for off-lease SFF stuff, Lenovo and the likes …

So while reuse/repurpose is absolutely of the utmost importance, no question - when it comes to technology and how quickly it advances and miniaturizes, a thorough and logical pros/cons list is often required.

I’d add another option though - if you do need what a Pi brings to the table - do you really need a shiny new Pi 5? Is it possible a used Pi 3 or Pi 4 would do the trick, and check the reuse box?

transmission in docker container on NAS, with dedicated IP that gets forced through VPN on my router

lol, saw title, came to say ffmpeg, read body, it’s your prime example!

I can’t remember what flag or feature it is I’ve more than once found myself having to build from source to enable, but there is one!

Personal?

~

My homedir is a HUGE MESS.

Work?

~/src/<site>/<project>/<repo>

i.e. ~/src/github/mirantis/docker (not real I don’t imagine, just an example)

~/src/bitbucket/INTERNALPROJECTCODE/coolrepo

alias update='sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y && sudo apt dist-upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -y'
alias update-and-reboot='sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y && sudo apt dist-upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -y && sudo reboot'
alias update-and-poweroff='sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y && sudo apt dist-upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -y && sudo poweroff'

I’ve been very happy with my Monoprice “Blackbird 4K DisplayPort 1.4 USB 3.0 4x1 KVM Switch, 4K@60Hz, HDR, YCbCr 4:4:4, HDCP 2.2”. I run an ultrawide at 3840x1600 @ 144 Hz, or HDR at 120 Hz, G-Sync both, and it works wonderfully. It took some effort to get all the required devices using the same connections - went through quite a few “USB-C to DP” cables from Amazon that had to be returned because they couldn’t do the high refresh like they claimed … but once I got everything set up, it’s worked like a dream, 3+ years and counting now I think.