FreeDNS works well if you don’t have your own domain. You’re limited to 5 records though.

If you have a domain, many registrars have an API that can be used for dynamic DNS.

All of those hard drives will produce quite a bit of heat just sitting idle.

There are a number of issues with pfSense. The updates for the community edition are slow. They are trying to push everyone to the paid version. You can’t even download an ISO to install it offline anymore. You have to make a Netgate account to download an installer that needs an internet connection to run.

NTP is network time protocol. It’s used to get the time over the network. Using a GPS receiver as the clock source makes it more accurate and allows it to work without an internet connection.

I’m running pfSense on an old Intel Atom fanless mini PC with 6 ethernet ports. I use pfBlocker for ad blocking. I also installed a GPS module in it. That’s the clock source for the NTP server. I was planning on replacing it with something newer, but that’s not happening until memory prices come down.

I would not recommend using pfSense anymore. My next router will be running OPNsense. I will probably install Adguard Home on that for ad blocking.

It’s not worth it unless you’re trying to run something like an email server or a name server. Most things work just fine with dynamic DNS. A few minutes of downtime on a personal site when the IP address changes is not a big deal.

My UPS says 116 watts right now, but it’s probably not particularly accurate. That’s running my pfSense box, NAS, switch, 2 access points, Starlink and a mini PC. That’s with minimal disk and internet activity. My CCTV cameras and DVR use another 30 W in the day and 50 W at night.

Port forwarding would be preferable, but it’s not required. If you don’t have an open port, you will only be able to connect to peers that do.

I’ve bought plenty of games that I’ve pirated. I’m just not willing to pay more than a dollar or two unless it’s DRM free.

At least it’s viewable without javascript.

There will never be an AI free Linux distro again since it’s allowed in the kernel. I would certainly prefer to use a distro that doesn’t allow vibe coded programs though. That junk is unmaintainable and will be abandoned when the creator can no longer afford the tokens.

I’ve never tried it, but you can use UNetbootin to do that.

The oldest seeded torrent just turned 23 years old a week ago.

You just need a video capture card or dongle for your computer. Preferably one with an S-video input. If these are pre recorded tapes, you will also need a Macrovision remover connected between the VCR and capture card. If you want the quality to be as good as possible, you will need a timebase corrector. Those are hard to find and expensive though. The TBC will also remove the Macrovision.

Many routers support more than one SSID per radio.

You didn’t need anything that fancy. You could build a Macrovision remover circuit. The schematics were certainly harder to find before the web, but you could build one up in an afternoon with parts from RadioShack.

I’ve got 12 years and 5 months on a Western Digital WD20EARX HDD. It’s starting to get some bad sectors.

I’ve got a similar runtime on a SAMSUNG SpinPoint F2 and it still seems to be healthy. There’s nothing important on either of them, I just want to see how long they will last.

Public torrents don’t require trackers. Bittorrent can use DHT to operate completely decentralized.

Of course they are. That slop is unmaintainable.

Mint does come with a lot of preinstalled software, but I wouldn’t consider it bloated. It’s stuff that most people will use. The MATE and Xfce versions are fairly light.

With Linux, you can get 15+ years out of a PC if you got decent hardware.