disroot is quite decent. I like their (privacy) vibe and the set of semi-independent services they provide.

Yeah that’s a great idea! I use that too. An encrypted USB drive makes sure you can trust the data not leaking, and spaced repetition can (should) be practiced to memoize the password. Then you’re good I’d say.

Technically KeePass can “merge” and has some sort of conflict resolution, but you’re right that forgotten and unaddressed conflicts can lay around for unlimited time without you noticing. It’s the main problem with keepass + syncthing.

It’s a bit sad that you’re downvoted so hard. You obviously have good intentions, just not having a good grasp yet if I may be frank. The solutions in this post are what you should follow IMO. In short, USB thumb/hdd drives with your important data. Encrypt the whole USB if your devices are under Linux if you wish. Use a proper password manager like KeePass to secure it additionally, with a strong master password of course.

Wrong question. It doesn’t matter who was “first”.

If the first group stops, the problem is gone.
If the second group stops, the problem is not gone but likely growing.

Fully agree on this one 🤝
The feedback loop is real and powerful

I’m not. As I said, I think people have varying degrees of education. I’m not separating between “us” and “them” in terms of education. I don’t make generalised statements of what happens on a global scale without good research into the subject either.

But simple things such as “we need to make education a social priority” is within my reach.

but people are uneducated

So you’re not? OK, as you say.

I’m not subscribing to such statements, personally. I see varying levels of education around, and I see my job as educating when I can, learning when I can.

Or instead of raising the voting question (also known as non-democracy, only-whites-can-vote etc), maybe better agree on the importance of accessible education. Such as, a well funded school system, free or cheap non-corporate universities etc.

That’s bizarre. Did you try clearing up the hidden folders .stfolder and .stversions and starting from scratch? I’m not doubting that you experience what you experience, I just never had it and I’m curious how you can even get to such a state. Using “syncthing fork” from F-Droid and Syncthing-v2.0.12 on desktop.

Hey, welcome to the concept of self-hosting! This is where I was 15+ years ago.

Realistically, I’d just recommend installing something and trying it out. You’ll iterate many time before you’ll slowly start to align somewhere I suspect, in terms of software/approaches etc.

If you want the very first steps, then why not simply connect your old PC to a monitor and install a Desktop version of Mint? It’s super-“wrong”, but it’ll get you started. Once you reach a stage of not wanting to waste memory/CPU on a graphical system, you’ll be able to do something like systemctl disable lightdm.service and voila, graphics don’t load on start anymore. Once you get even more confident, apt remove gdm3 xfce4 xfdesktop will remove any extra disk space (I’m dropping DE names that I approximately remember off the top of my head). With the packages for graphics gone, your system is indistinguishable from a server now.

Overall it’s a nice path to walk, or at least it was fun and somewhat educative and very frustrating and giving a sense of control for me personally. Do you have any specific questions?

Thanks a lot for the valuable detailed response!

// If anything or for future readers, I’ve decided to go for Ergotron LX for now. I’ve decided to prefer mechanical springs over gas (supposedly, mechanical lasts longer). And even more importantly, I want specifically a string mechanism for the “upwards”/“downwards” tilting of the monitor. One where you’d have the spring itself, and would be able to adjust the spring force with an additional screw (mechanically, internally, it presses against one of the spring’s ends if I get it correctly, so is quite straight-forward and durable). This way, the tension is the difference between the monitor’s angular force and the spring’s angular force, not just the monitor against tightened screws. I hope it’ll provide for easier adjustments. Ergotron has it as part of its promise as well, so if that won’t work very well, I’ll feel it in my rights to return it. So for now I’ve settled for this.

I really appreciate the responses still! 💙

Probably clamped makes the most sense to me. I have a 10cm gap behind my desk anyway, so no need to drill wood if it can be entirely avoided

Thanks a lot for the feedback! Do you know if the outside rotational part is it adjustable on-the-go, or does it rather require loosening/tightening of the screws? I mean the part that makes the monitor “face up” or “face down”, e.g. here on the picture: https://euroelectronics.eu/cdn/shop/products/hqdefault_fec2e11e-701b-4ddd-a4ec-ba21e0bdab07.jpg?v=1587381905&width=1800

(It seems to require loosening/tightening, but want to confirm.)

Thanks a lot for the feedback! 💙 Really valuable

Clamped to the table would be ideal, but if there are recommendations for a screwing mechanism [to the table] I’m interested to learn!

P.S. Had to think rapidly because I thought the vast majority of them are clamped. My current one is clamped