Syncthing Topology
I use Syncthing, a peer-to-peer filesharing program for my devices (most recently on my Kindle as well). There are a few network topologies possible in such a setup.
Programming
Yjs vs Traditional Databases
Yjs is a conflict-free, replicated data type, which allows for distributed, collaborative editing and offline synchronization, with automatic conflict resolution.
It can also be used as a database backend.
Recently, I was deciding between Yjs and the Prisma + tRPC + SQLite combination. As it was a small todo-style app, I settled on Yjs.
Here are the factors I considered for this decision.
Video Archiving with FFmpeg
I keep most of my photos and videos on Photoprism, a great open-source Google Photos alternative with features like facial recognition and viewing photos by location.
Setting up the Mikrotik hAP ac² with Singel Fibre
The Mikrotik family of routers are known for their extensive configurability, offering enterprise level features such as PoE, custom routes, VLANs and more. It runs a custom Linux distribution known as RouterOS which offers a WebGUI and terminal interface, as well as SSH.
I wanted to replace my old Singtel WiFi Gigabit Router AC Elite, after it started intermittently dying.
Music Management with Navidrome, DSub and Beets
Previously on Windows, I was using MediaMonkey to manage my music. It offered wireless syncing (over LAN) for the associated Android client, and worked well.
When I switched to Linux, I had to look for a replacement. I wanted a solution that was free and open-source, could be self-hosted on a server, and supported features such as bookmarks, playlists and transcoding (for clients not supporting certain formats).
Self Hosted VPN with Tailscale
Having your own VPN can be useful for bypassing geo-restrictions and censorship, as your IP address is that of the exit node. Your traffic is also encrypted and this protects you against sniffing attacks when using public WiFi.
However most VPN services are paid. So if you have a physical server/VPS running somewhere, why not use that?
Tailscale is an awesome open-source VPN service which lets you create a secure peer-to-peer network between your devices. It's built on the open-source Wireguard protocol which is faster than the IPsec and OpenVPN protocols.
Photoprism - A Google Photos Replacement
My Google Photos account ran out of storage recently (since 2021 June, Google has stopped providing free storage for photos in High Quality), and I was looking for a self-hosted, open source replacement, with similar features to Google Photos (fast gallery view, facial recognition, object detection).
Android VM in a Browser (via Apache Guacamole)
Running an Android VM in a web browser lets you run Android applications from any computer. This lets you test out apps, or even suspicious programs without compromising your actual device.
The setup:
- Android-x86, an x86 port of Android
virt-managerin Docker, which exposesvirt-managerin a browser window, and also acts as the VNC server for the Android VM- Apache Guacamole, which acts as the VNC <-> browser bridge
Docker Containers with GPU access in Fedora
This guide will let you use a NVIDIA GPU in a Docker container (e.g. for Tensorflow/Pytorch).
Prerequisites:
- Docker must be installed.
- You have a NVIDIA GPU.
Windows 11 Gaming VM with GPU Passthrough on Fedora Linux
After completing this guide, you will have a Windows 11 headless virtual machine that can be accessed via:
- Moonlight/Steam Link for high performance gaming, using Sunshine stream
- Remote Desktop (RDP) access for less demanding tasks
- RDP over a web browser (via Apache Guacamole)