brickfrog

Thanks for the share! It's not something I'd need to use but I'm all for people sharing their scripts with the community for this stuff :)

One suggestion, you may want to look at re-writing your script to move away from the VBScript (.vbs) dependency since Microsoft is moving towards disabling and eventually removing it from Windows 11 and onward. It'll likely be disabled by default in 2027 so you have plenty of time.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/windows-itpro-blog/vbscript-deprecation-timelines-and-next-steps/4148301

OP's example use case in the post was with the internet still being up. Building off of that yes, I'd log into the power switch remotely via the internet where I can then power cycle anything plugged into it - for me it was just to restart unresponsive desktops or whatever was plugged into it.

But you wouldn't need internet to power cycle the internet router itself by using scheduled tasks. e.g. the power switch can check that the internet router is responding to pings every x seconds/minutes and power cycle it if stops responding. (it has other checks/conditions it can use besides simple pings)

That said my own equipment rarely/never needs a reboot so in the case my network loses internet access it usually means the internet is actually down, nothing I can do about that aside from maintaining backup internet if I needed.

if the primary internet router goes offline but the internet isn’t out (ie a router reboot would fix the problem)

Maybe you just need to give it a simple power cycle remotely? There are devices that do that sort of thing, I have a Digital Loggers Web Power Switch Pro that I've used on-and-off over the years for this purpose.

https://www.digital-loggers.com/

At one point I had to relocate for half a year while needing to remote access a slightly unstable desktop that wouldn't always reboot cleanly and get stuck at the BIOS, it sometimes needed a couple of power cycles to come back online. The Power Switch was perfect for that, I'd log into it remotely and power cycle anything that was plugged into it.

It should work for routers too e.g. it can automatically power cycle something plugged into it based on different conditions like maybe it stops responding to pings or whatever. Or I guess if you had multiple IPs / multiple internet connections the switch itself can stay online and accessed remotely without needing to schedule anything automatic.

Pretty sure there are more pro-level (and more expensive) types of devices to do this sort of thing if you look around

Nouveau seems to work pretty well on Debian 13 for me, at least for standard web browser / streaming / video playback with 2160p HDR tonemapping. Back when I was using Debian 12 Nouveau would lag badly during 2160p playback so I was force to use the Nvidia driver binary at the time. But so far it's been alright, granted I've not tested any gaming and perhaps that's where Nouveau won't do as well.

Seems to be hardcoded, not something that can be configured.

https://discourse.gnome.org/t/how-to-reduce-system-shutdown-count-down-time/28589

But just FYI you don't have to wait the entire 60 seconds, the prompt does have a button you can click if you want to continue without waiting 60 seconds. (unless we're talking about a different shutdown/power off prompt)

Sorry... are you talking about piracy or privacy? They're different things, you start off referring to piracy but most of your post is about privacy :P

Anyways I've never considered Lemmy as a "privacy" platform so it's not really how or why I ended up here. Most Lemmy instances don't even allow Tor usage, some block VPN usage too, and most require an email to sign up and register. On top of that each Lemmy instance is going to be as private as the instance admin is willing to make it.

I have a bit of a dilemma with my DIY NAS rig.

Does your setup have any way to do noise insulation? I suspect the answer is no but figured I'd throw it out there, surprisingly noise insulation helps more than you'd think. I have a bunch of drives inside a desktop case with insulation panels built in and the drives themselves are in there with rubber anti vibration screws/mounts. Barely ever hear anything from the drives (granted my WD Reds are probably quieter than your current Seagates).

Just something to think on whether it's an option for your current NAS rig or a future configuration.

The last step fails, and I assume that’s why I’m now in trouble.

$ sudo apt modernize-sources E: Invalid operation modernize-sources

Not sure about the error but I kind of doubt modernize-sources would make/break your upgrade. I did a clean full install of Debian 13 and the sources file wasn't even modernized on that, it's still the old version. Would be very surprised if somehow sources is following a different requirement for a Debian 13 upgrade.

From the error maybe your version of apt doesn't support the "modernize-sources" option.. but that itself isn't relevant to your Debian upgrade.

It's been a thing, not specifically just Canada

https://www.wired.com/story/phone-searches-at-the-us-border-hit-a-record-high/

That said I don't personally know any canadian citizens that have traveled in/out of the U.S recently. Not too sure if it relates to OP's question, OP never mentioned canadian citizens only that they has a GF that goes to school in Canada.

Are they looking at the files on her MacBook or something?

If the apps are logged in yes, that's what they do. The agents have a lot of discretion so it's sort of up to them how much they want to search around on a phone/laptop/whatever but I assume they would look at every single social media app for starters. Essentially any app currently logged into an electronic device would be fair game for an agent to review. And since CPB can ask for your phone/whatever password (or ask you to unlock it for them) that will give them access to basically any logged in app on the device.

I don't know if OP is referring to a U.S. citizen or something else so the specific rules that apply may be different but that's the general idea.

I’d assume the issue is corruption in my SSD, but it’s happening with two different drives.

Based on the error it doesn't sound like corruption on the SSD itself, rather it's an issue with the USB storage chassis that the SSD is inside of. Or maybe an issue with the USB cable if there is one. But that doesn't explain why it was working fine pre-upgrade :/

Are your USB drives all the same make/model? I'm wondering if maybe they're using the same chipset and maybe it doesn't play nice with Debian 13 for whatever reason.

For what it's worth I have a Terramaster USB chassis with a 14 TB SATA drive inside it, it seems to work fine on a fresh install of Debian 13.

Gotcha!

Ah well it was worth a try, hopefully there's someone around that is dealing with the same issue and can give you a better idea on what to try next.