ZeDoTelhado

Hi there,

I have been recently busy with a xps 15 9500 and the trackpad. For a while, this laptop suffered from erractic behavior that nothing could explain why the behavior. Recently I decided to get a trackpad via eBay.

Installed it, felt actually better than the previous, it looked OK. 10 minutes later, trackpad is recessed and it is in a mode like left click is constantly clicked. I've tried everything under the sun (electric tape on the back, loosen or tighten screws around the battery, apply electricat tape on the wedge where the 2 prongs of the trackpad rest inside the battery, etc). And absolutely nothing works.

At this point I am losing my marbles and just want to throw this bs into the bin. Which is a massive waste, since the machine is still in great condition. But a laptop without a functional trackpad is not a laptop.

Did anyone around here ever had a xps 9500 and managed to solve this issue?

EDIT: I forgot to mention a very important detail. When I am using the laptop and if I put the screen on the desk (meaning, main part of the laptop is now vertical), the trackpad works no problem (left side still feels recessed, but at least clicks normally)

Hi,

As the title suggests: what are alternatives to syncthing that are basically fire and forget, works on multiple device types, and just focuses on file syncing?

I've had over the months the weirdest problems with syncthing, and lately I noticed some of my photos got corrupted, which is an absolute no no for me. I use syncthing currently as a easy automatic backup of documents, photos and other files, between my PCs and my phones (they all send only to the server. Folders are not shared with other devices).

Recently had a question about a game running on the deck, and actually got me thinking since steamos settings were briefly discussed: what are the settings to change for a steam deck, or tools to add? I do not mean more fps or more performance per say only, but more battery life or just better tools for certain aspects of the deck.

Very recently I got this on sale (around 50% or so) and it is a very fun game so far. Was playing on my tower, and out of curiosity tried on the steam deck.

For some reason, the game looks super fuzzy and weird on the deck (chiseling hair, strange textures at times, choppiness here and there). My question: is there a setting the game needs to be turned off to work better? Or is just a title that is better played on my main PC and that's it? I do find this even more strange since it's a steam deck verified title, so I would expect 0 tweaking and work ok ootb

sigh, seems sapphire decided to let us down with the 12vhpwr connector. And worse, nothing was added for load balancing, making this a possible dumpster fire. The asrock taichi apparently also has this connector, now I want to see if they did something to actually load balance this connector. For the people wanting a 9070(xt) from sapphire: their other models are apparently using the regular connectors. And from a few comparison videos here and there, they seem to be doing quite nicely in terms of cooling and power.

Hi,

Lately I've been looking into Usenet, and maybe this time I was planning to try it out (I am aware of Usenet since circa 2000s, so I sort of know what it is).

Still there are some things I still didn't figure out:

• from what I see a Usenet provider and an indexer is required. And from what I gather, both are paid (indexer not exclusively paid but its better). Considering what Usenet is used for, is it sort if a requirement to pay in btc?
• what sort of content is usually Usenet more useful for?
• for what I see, Usenet tends to use SSL like the rest of the web. However, i would argue it gives to the ISP the visibility that you are in fact at least starting/ending connections to Usenet. Is this an issue? If so, does it make VPN a mandatory requirement? Or orbot for that matter
• one thing that bothers me greatly: I've checked the privacy policy for the most 3 known providers (news hosting, Usenet server and euweka) and, first of all, i find incredibly sus that these seemingly 3 different providers have a sort of copy pasted privacy policy. Then, I noticed there is this magic line on it

Communicate with you about products, services, promotions, events, and other news and information we think will be of interest to you.

So I assume they are selling data somehow to advertisers?

I have an HP pavillion 15-bc235nd that, quite frankly, I don´t really like that much (way too loud of a fan, cannot adjust the fan curve, keyboard and trackpad are terrible, etc).

I was planning to replace with laptop with something else, but in the meantime, I was thinking of something. Instead of getting this laptop in the landfill or give to someone else (no one needs an emergency laptop right now), I could potentially use this has a server machine to be used as an off site backup location.

Right now I am missing the off site backup part out of the 3-2-1 backup strategy. Since this laptop has more than enough horsepower to do the job, it could be a solution. But personally, I am not sure how reliable a laptop turned into a server can be. This laptop would be around 3000km away from me, so I have to be really sure it works at a distance without much problem.

For those who turned a laptop into a server: what is your mileage? Are there any specific considerations about this setup that a regular desktop/server does not have or specific issues?

I have for a while a ubuntu server where I selfhost for my household syncthing (automatic backup of most important files on devices), baïkal, magic mirror and a few other things via docker.

I was looking at what I have now (leftovers of a computer of mine, amd 2600 with 16 gb ram with a 1660 super and a western digital blue ssd of 512GB), and regarding storage wise, at the time I decided to get several sort of cheap ssd's to have enough initial space (made a logical volume out of 3 crucial mx500 1TB, in total making 3TB). At the time I though I wanted to avoid regular hdd at all costs (knew people who had issues with it), but in hindsight, I never worked with NAS drives, so my fear over these hdd with such low usage is sort of uncalled for.

So now I am trying to understand what can I change this setup so I can expand later if needed, but also having a bit more space already (for the personal stuff I have around 1.5TB of data) and add a bit more resilience in case something happens. Another goal is to try to make a 3-2-1 backup kind of solution (starting with the setup at home, with an external disk already and later a remote backup location). Also, I will probably decommission for now the ssd's since I want to avoid to have a logical volumes (something happens on one drive, and puff all the data goes away). So my questions regarding this are:

• For hdd's to be used as long term storage, what is usually the rule of thumb? Are there any recommendations on what drives are usually better for this?
• Considering this is going to store personal documents and photos, is RAID a must in your opinion? And if so, which configuration?
• And in case RAID would be required, is ubuntu server good enough for this? or using something such as unraid is a must?
• I was thinking of probably trying to sell the 1660 super while it has some market value. However, I was never able to have the server completely headless. Is there a way to make this happen with a msi tomahawk b450? Or is only possible with an APU (such as 5600g)?

Thanks in advance

PS: If you guys find any glaring issues with my setup and know a tip or two, please share them so I can also understand better this selfhosted landscape :)

I have now a pixel 8, which was working OK from the past 8 months and using grapheneos. Unfortunately, today out of nowhere got the green screen bug (searched around, this seems to be really a thing with pixel 8 and some pixel 7). This really stroke me a nerve. Previously I had a pixel 5 which at some point also got screen problems and later the speaker piece just straight up did not work properly. And now this with the pixel 8.

So my question is: what other phones could potentially be used with a custom ROM that allow bootloader relocking? Other Roms can be something like divest or calyx (I used calyx before, so I am fairly familiar with it).

It really pisses me off the only option until now are pixel phones for proper relocking (from what I know from a while back), and then they have these annoying issues. It makes my skin crawl, but if required I would change to an iPhone (and throwaway a lot of things that android is actually superior, such as proper tor browser, VPN split tunneling, work/user profiles, no bloody account to use a phone).

Thanks for the responses in advance.

Hey there, I have a (very) small Ubuntu server and I was dabbling on the idea to do system backups (entire system, meaning, if the disk of the said pc fries, I can get another one, put the info from the backup on the new disk, works immediately afterwards). I have a couple of Linux mint machines and a windows one. I searched a lot out there and found several names, from rsync to Borg backup.But ultimately I don't really know if these solutions would fit my use case.

So the question is: is there a feasible way/service that can be self hosted to do backups of local machines, similar to an image backup? Or, if you believe there are better ways to do it, can you please mention it?

Thanks in advance