Debian, on the server, the laptop, the desktop, and the gaming machine. Debian.

I started with Slackware many years ago. Eventually switched to Kubuntu on my desktop and laptop machines, then later the server switched to Debian. The desktop and laptop switched later.

Volkerding, I think! checks Yep that’s it!

I remember being an idiot and compiling my own kernel (“oh it’s so much faster!”). Lol. I guess if that’s the dumbest thing I’ve done, I’m doing well. I remember that sound clip, too.

Hey you were recycling them, just not into a dump!

I thought he did do a proof of concept, but I could be wrong. It’s been a while (many years) since I’ve read up on it.

My first Linux install was also Slackware, albeit Slackware 3.x, in the late 90s, while avoiding grad school work. I don’t remember what kernel it used at that time. So if you’re grampa, I guess I’m your son. :)

Yeah, I watched that. I mostly already knew the story, but it was a great video anyway. And…extremely disturbing. Whoever it was will learn from the mistakes of this attempt…

It can be frustrating, but Debian’s policy against binary blobs was a smart decision. I’ve run into it for glances web interface, and it’s easy enough to decide I’m okay with installing it (and hopefully glances revises their release to address the issue), but removing them by default is smart.

I think you are thinking of this.

But, more recently, this should make anyone who is concerned about security shudder. And it was only discovered because some guy in Germany noticed ssh logins were taking a bit longer than in previous versions.

Aww I didn’t know that. I used Slackware for many years and had the DVD subscription. I got tired of worrying about dependencies and moved to Debian, but I still have a soft spot for Slackware.

I do remember one time Slashdot had an article about a new Slackware release, and he was like, “Do I get first post?” lol What a time that was.

Really? With the drive letters? I’ve seen people who were running out of letters to use.

I assume you don’t mean the path names, since that’s more Unixy.

Do both, you’re saying? Maybe keep the daily backup and then do a weekly snapshot, something like that.

This reminds me, I use the internal ha backup (to a network drive). But I’m using Linux kvm, so I could be doing snapshots instead, which in theory are easier to restore.

If you’re adjusting the same lights repeatedly, you could set them up as a group.

It’s more work, but you could also write a script that detects the current status of each light then sets the brightness if it’s on. I use something like that for our smart porch lights that are on a smart switch - if the switch is off, turn it on, wait a bit for the lights to get on the network, then set them to the right color or whatever. (The switch normally stays on, but it gets turned off occasionally and it doesn’t automatically turn on after a power outage.)

I haven’t used other automation systems - I avoided them because I didn’t want to get locked into one, until I found HA. I also have never thought to “dim a room” - actually I’ve never used entire room controls at all, they never made a lot of sense to me, but then I generally only have one or two lights in a room to control.

Dim the lights that are already on, and ignore the ones that are off?

I’m just pointing out here that you and I have different expectations; how could the software know what you intended?

But you still use it with all of these objections?

What would you expect it to do? I would think you’re telling it to set all lights to whatever level…

I use DHCP for everything, even my server, with a reserved IP address in the router for the server and my desktop and a few other things I don’t want to move around (printers, some IoT things, Home Assistant, etc.).

I think the issue is the bridge interface I have to set up for Home Assistant.

This reminds me… My server demands to be known as hostname.local on my network. The other machines just respond to just hostname. I really should figure out why that is.

Yeah, but I think you see why many people avoid them.

I have two Sengled zigbee bulbs (note they also make wifi bulbs, so be careful) that have been outside in fixtures on the porch for a few years now, and I’ve never had a hiccup. And we get pretty extreme ranges of temperatures here - single digits to nearly 100 F.

These are what I have, but there are other brands too.

I highly recommend setting up a zigbee network. Avoids these headaches, saves wifi bandwidth, etc. Just be careful about what channel you use for zigbee and wifi to avoid interference.

Yeah I’ve had some I had to redo when they were offline for a while (weeks, not hours or days - but I don’t know how long).

That has to be some kind of special exception in IE6 that they were doing for debugging, and they failed to remove it. Crazy.