I also put a few Braille dots on few buttons and glow in the dark paint on a few important dots to make it more usable which really works, Braille especially.
Then... A few bookmarks in the firefox, jellyfin, navidrome, Spotify, vlc/MPV from mounted NAS etc.
I don't bother with any media/apps interface, I mostly see them as annoying and not needed with this KB/trackball setup.
I have a very similar setup like you. A NUC is providing NAS functionality and is running 24/7. An AppleTV is connected to the projector and has all the apps I need for consuming media (Jellyfin, Netflix, etc.). The NAS is running OG Debian with SMB, Jellyfin and even NFS for easy access.
The NUC provides additional features like synching and a few other things.
Why the AppleTV? Because I had Raspis, FireTVs, PCs, and whatnot connected to the projector and the AppleTV is hands down the most convenient one. The UI is super reduced and simple. The remote works. You can get just about every app you might need. And maintainance is basically zero.
Just external - I know it's not the best solution. My setup grew on a tight budget over the last 10 years and for me it was the easiest, most affordable, and extendable/replaceable way. I don't need super fast drives in my home and I don't need backups for most of the data stored on a media server. So it kind of is just a bunch of disks with a NUC.
The internal drive for the system is an SSD though. Came with the computer.
I do it like that.
8TB external drive on an 11th i5 gen nuc.
Almost every service is dockerized because I can't be bothered to manage the dependencies.
I've just been looking for a future solution when I retire my desktop. I wanted a lower power PC like a NUC but I currently have 9 or 10 HDDs in the PC which won't work as a bunch of external enclosures and a NAS would be not worth the money for this many drives.
Maybe I'll just get an i5 with QuickSync and an ITX or micro ATX for the next revision
Idealy you want a server that runs all the time and some kind of a player connected to projector for streaming. You can use your rpi for server, but NUC sounds better since it probably has SATA or m.2 port for storage. Raspbian or Ubuntu doesnt matter much since both are Debian based and setup should be simmilar. Look into servarr if you are interested in automated downloads. Then get Jellyfin for Netflix like experience with your local library. Most clients support Jellyfin player and Im using android TV stick. I have just ordered ChromeCast with Google TV 4K to replacce my old 1080p Xiaomi TV stick. You can also install Netflix app on any Android device.
It is also possible to plug your server directly to projector via hdmi, but then you have to install server apps together with client apps on the same machine. I guess you need a wifi keyboard and mouse for remote control. Having 2 devices is better IMO, but it should work as single device.
Rpi or NUC can also be used as a player, but got no experience in setting that up and Android box is better solution for me anyway
My future plans include setting up a NAS storage and connecting that to a Pi which would be always on. The Pi would be a torrent seeder, and a Plex/Jellyfin server as well.
This way my trusty desktop computer can rest after being on 24/7 for like 4 years now. Poor thing.
I haven't tried this yet, so I can't report on how well it works. But maybe it can serve as inspiration for you.
If the projector supports apps, maybe it can run Plex/Jellyfin? Otherwise maybe I would have another small Pi or a small laptop or something that would use the projector as its output. I'm assuming the projector doesn't support HDR so a regular browser connecting to Plex could work.
I just use my HDR-enabled smart TV to connect to Plex and Jellyfin. 🤷♂️
In my experience, 2 devices will ultimately save you effort and frustration. Anything you choose as a good NAS/seedbox will be unlikely to have a good from the couch interface or handle Netflix reliable and easily. A small Android TV box may have a much better interface, simple app setup, and support all the streaming services, but probably won't be very powerful or convenient to use as a NAS. The NAS is always on, plugged directly into the Internet access point, and tucked away out of sight and sound. The Android TV or Apple TV box is silent, small, and can be mounted directly to the Beamer/Projector.
Yes, Kodi exists and it's add-ons can bridge this gap. But I still think that a SBC NAS running Jellyfin or plex + an Nvidia shield with jellyfin, Plex, Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, amaon, etc. will be so much easier to setup, manage, find support for, and upgrade.
I have a similar setup even though my server has a direct HDMI link to my TV. I'm not a fan of viewing using the server it from the couch. Setting up IR remotes sucks always. And it's confusing for anyone but me to use. But if my Nvidia Shield dies or I'm having network trouble, VLC a pretty good backup.
FYI: What you call a "Beamer" in German you would call a "projector" in english. I would edit the post, or else people will think you want to set up star trek technology. ;)
Maybe they are illuminating their living room with the front end of a BMW.
Better yet, it's a Pimp My Ride style makeover that replaces those unused turn signals with a projection system for an instant drive-in movie experience.
As others have said, thumb drives are generally designed for lighter loads than running an OS, so yours probably just doesn't have enough of a heat-spreading design to keep it cool.
To help you investigate what's causing the thumb drive to be accessed so much, the iostat -d -x 1 will tell you what its percentage utilisation is (rightmost column). You can then use sudo iotop to see what processes are using the drive.
In the long run though, I'd definitely recommend switching over to a cheap SATA SSD, especially since your mini PC will likely let you install one internally somewhere. In my experience, your system will probably feel snappier too!
So you're trying to get 2 instances of qbt behind the same Gluetun vpn container?
I don't use Qbt but I certainly have done in the past. Am I correct in remembering that in the gui you can change the port?
If so, maybe what you could do is set up your stack with 1 instance in, go into the GUI and change the port on the service to 8000 or 8081 or whatever.
Map that port in your Gluetun config and leave the default port open for QBT, and add a second instance to the stack with a different name and addresses for the config files.
lmao. I'm starting to really wonder what the WEBGUI_PORT variable does if not exactly what you're changing in the GUI... someone else mentioned they got multiple instances to deploy from the same compose file by placing the gluetun service at the end of the file. I wonder if the order in which the containers are deployed is the thing that makes this work. i'll test more when I have the time
AFAIK the thing that complicates this is trying to run it behind gluetun
docker makes it really easy to specify a unique port on deployment, but when you're using a network bridge (as in the case of gluetun) the networking settings are controlled there instead, so you can't use the normal port declarations. It's apparently not impossible to do it with gluetun but it seems it's not as straightforward.
It's not a workaround.
In the old days, if you had 2 services that were hard coded to use the same network port, you would need virtualization or a different server and make sure the networking for those is correct.
Network ports allow multiple services to use the same network adapter as a port is like a "sub" address.
Docker being able to remap host network ports to containers ports is a huge feature.
If a container doesn't need to be accessed outside of the docker network, you don't need to expose the port.
The only way to have multiple services on the same port is to use either a load balancer (for multiple instances of the same service) or an application-aware reverse proxy (like nginx, haproxy, caddy etc for web things, I'm sure there are other application-aware reverse proxies).
I self host a lot, but I host a lot on cheap VPS's, mostly, in addition to the few services on local hardware.
However, these also don't take into account the amount of time and money to maintain these networks and equipment. Residential electricity isn't cheap; internet access isn't cheap, especially if you have to get business class Internet to get upload speeds over 10 or 15 mbps or to avoid TOS breaches of running what they consider commercial services even if it's just for you, mostly because of of cable company monopolies; cooling the hardware, especially if you live in a hotter climate, isn't cheap; and maintaining the hardware and OS, upgrades, offsite backups for disaster recovery, and all of the other costs. For me, VPS's work, but for others maintaining the OS and software is too much time to put in. And just figuring out what software to host and then how to set it up and properly secure it takes a ton of time.
This is a point many folks don't take into account. My average per Kwh cost right now is $0.41 (yes, California, yay). So it costs me almost $400 per year just to have some older hardware running 24x7
This sounds excessive, that's almost 1.1$/day, amounting to more than 2kWh/24hrs, ie ~80W/hr? You will need to invest in a TDP friendly build. I'm running a AMD APU (known for shitty idle consumption) with Raid 5 and still hover less than 40W/h.
This sounds excessive, that’s almost 1.1$/day, amounting to more than 2kWh/24hrs, ie ~80W/hr? You will need to invest in a TDP friendly build. I’m running a AMD APU (known for shitty idle consumption) with Raid 5 and still hover less than 40W/h.
This isn't speculation on my part, I measured the consumption with a Kill-a-watt. It's an 11 year old PC with 4 hard drives and multiple fans because it's in a hot environment and hard drive usage is significant because it's running security camera software in a virtual machine. Host OS is Linux MInt. It averages right around 110w. I'm fully aware that's very high relative to something purpose built.
I think the main culprit is CPU/MB, so that's the only thing needed a replacement. Many cheap alternatives (less than 200$) that can half the consumption and would pay itself in a year of usage easily. There is a Google doc floating around listing all the efficient CPUs and their TDPs. Just a suggestion, I'm pretty sure after a year it would payoff its price, there is absolutely no need for a 110w/h unless you're running LLMs on that and even then it shouldn't be that high.
Omg, I pay 30€ for 1Gb/0.7Gb (ten more for symmetrical 10Gb, I don't need it and can't even use more than 1Gb/s but my inner nerd wants it) and 0.15€/KWh.
BTW the electricity cost is somewhat or totally negated when you heat your apartment/house depending on your heating system. For me in the winter I totally write it off.
I solved this by installing solar panels. They produce more electricity than I need (enough to cover charging an EV in when I get one in the future), and I should break even (in terms of cost) within 5-6 years of installation. Had them installed last year under NEM 2.0.
I know PG&E want to introduce a fixed monthly fee at some point, which throws off my break-even calculations a bit.
Some VPS providers have good deals and you can often find systems with 16GB RAM and NVMe drives for around $70-100/year during LowEndTalk Black Friday sales, so it's definitely worth considering if your use cases can be better handled by a VPS. I have both - a home server for things like photos, music, and security camera footage, and VPSes for things that need to be reliable and up 100% of the time (websites, email, etc)
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