flatbield

Sadly even Linux is a fuss. This is primarily due to full os updates needed every four years plus the changing security landscape. Then there are the hardware issues and replacement every ten years. I guess a partial alternative is a rolling release but then you have the issue of constant change.

Windows 2000 was nice. MS could have pretty much stopped there.

Keep in mind that there is some history too. Linux was released under the GPL earlier then BSD became open source. It then developed faster and got more support. So it became the popular kernel.

There are not a lot of choices. People in the US typically either use Google, Microsoft, Apple, or their ISP. Beyond that you have to go to a hosting provider or host your own. One of the most important things of a mail provider is that it support MTA-STS. There are many providers in the EU that do. Not many in the US. It is also important to pay for an email product, rather then be the product.

Regarding MTA-STS. Fastmail did not the last time I checked, you should check if that has change. Google does. Microsoft was testing it but I don’t know how that turned out. There are EU providers that do including Proton does support MTA-STS last time I checked.

I actually use Namecheap cpanel email. They don’t do MTA-STS but the do allow opportunistic transport encryption. Technically I should be able to configure incoming MTA-STS but I’ve not gotten it to work. Maybe just does not, or maybe I’ve not put enough effort in to do it.

Basically agree. AI helps but it still needs an expert to get the job done. There are so many times AI just does strange stuff and you have to know enough to know when it is just wrong. I think we all constantly encounter that.

Go back far enouph we are all not native. We are all immigrants from Africa as far as I know.

I use my own domain and cpanal email in the namecheap shared hosting plan.

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If you are talking internet connections, that is the realm of big providers. Cell, Fiber, Cable, Satalite, and WiMax like services. There have been some local Wifi mesh systems but these ultimately need to link to telecoms.

If your talking apps and services that run on an internet connection, there are many solutions.

Just to emphasize it is the reputation problem and getting common mail providers the accept. You’ll need to get a well known domain like a .net or .com domain. You probably need to have a web site too on the domain. Then let that stuff age. You’ll also need to get a static IP for the VPS your using that has a good reputation and your hosting provider will have to allow you to send email which means you’ll have to talk with them to make sure everything it setup. You’ll also probably want certs both for the website, and for your SMTP server. Then there are SPF, DKIM, DMARK, and DNS configuration you’ll have to make too. Optional other configs like MTA-STS, or DANE. Just a lot of detail. Once your setup, there are testing sites you can go to test or SMTP server.

Another issue is you want email to be full time. So I think that probably means 2 incoming mail servers on two different VPS systems maybe in two different data centers. Then you need IMAP, and maybe a webmail system. I guess these last two could be one one of the VPS systems hosting one of the SMTP servers. Lot of components.

I don’t actually using my own VPS based mail system for my main email addresses. Instead we use a shared hosting plan and our own domain instead. You might want to look at is Namecheap CPanel Email that Comes with their Stellar Hosting plan. That is what we use. You can use up to 30 addresses on their base plan and maybe unlimited on the next level up. It is less then $100 per year after you add all you need, the hosting plan, a domain, and certs (maybe more in the $60 range?). The advantage of this, the hosting provider takes care of the infrastructure, and it is cheaper and lest time consuming then two VPS systems and all the work to maintain them.

About getting other providers to accept your mail, I’ve found Yahoo and the domains they serve to be one of the worst offenders.

In an absolute sense, no. In a behavioral sense anyone who cannot define what is enough will never have enough. In this sense we have a lot of high income poor in the us including billionaires.

I just install HomeAssistant. Seems like a good choice.

If your talking about true research, has AI actually changed much yet. Go to a research library and use their professional search tools and people. Then read.

Life is more complex. I do not live in a society that ia that socialiatic. I worked 26 years then said FU and probably will not work again. Money is more or less meaningless now. How is that different?

On the otherhand, my grad school was 100% paid but I also worked hard. I did not do it to make money nor did I need to work to pay for it.

Just pointing out money is less of a motivator then one might think.

It is not. Subscribe to the feeds you want the view only subscribed. There are several views.

Antivirus is not the begin all and end all. I do not specifiically have AV installed and have had 0 issuses over the past 26 years of Linux use.

On the other hand I do only install software from trusted sources. I keep my system updated. I do scan things with VirusTotal if there is a question. I have wine installed but not the exe handler. I have a firewall. I do sometimes harden my systems and use security scanners to help with that. Probably biggest attack vectors are email attachments and the web browser. I am careful about attachments. In the brower I use uBlock Origin at a minimum. I segregate sensitive things too so even compromising my general user account would not be fatal. I also have good offline and offsite backups.

As for AV like stuff. I do sometimes install ClamAV or a rootkit scanner and sometimes do a manual scan but have never found anything. Same with my IDS. My WS for example has Tripwire but not all my systems and have never found anything.

My point really, I view security about process and defense in depth then AV specifically. Keep in mind that AV introduces attack vectors too.

The 4 year upgrade cycle is too short on one hand. On the other, critical software like Firefox is too old even then so I have to use a flatpack for that which does not integrate well. I am using Debian 12. The other option is that Mozilla does have a debian repo but that is harder to setup.

Besides. What is there to really mange. There are only a few that one are likely to change. Every thing else is in /etc. Besides all of thia is in whole system backups and snapshots anyway.

For what it is worth, my Bluetooth hearing aids just work on Ubuntu. Have not tried BLE.

Various uses of “find” in particular. “xargs” sometimes too. The capabilities of “bash” in general including scripting and the whole redirection, piping, and multiprocessing capabilities in particular.