What are they good for Local LLMs are running these generative tools on local (not cloud) hardware. This is good for cost, security, privacy, and the resources spent. That said, those of us with tiny budgets still can do some interesting things. By that I mean the following generative AI: Images Video Audio (music, audiobooks) ... Read more
Updated 11-Sep-2026 ebook2audiobook is an open source project that does what it says on the tin. Setting Up ebook2audiobook on Debian 13 (Trixie) with AMD Radeon 680M Acceleration (integrated GPU) This guide outlines the complete setup for running ebook2audiobook on Debian 13 (Trixie) using an integrated AMD Radeon 680M (RDNA 2) APU for ROCm hardware ... Read more
Navidrome and Jellyfin are servers for Audio and Video, respectively. They run on Linux (and possibly other operating systems) and have clients that can access them and stream media, provide an organized interface for browsing, etc. They should be accessible to AI agents as well. Navidrome for audio Navidrome uses the Subsonic API and has ... Read more
Apparently it is time to update my command line / terminal / shell commands. Here we go: Nerd Font icons Nerd Font patches great terminal fonts, including my favorite Hack. Yazi Yazi is a *terminal file manager, and also integrates with Zoxide and Fzf. And it can run on top of Kitty. Kitty Calibre's Kovid ... Read more
I believe that the Home Assistant will be the key to freeing myself from the Google ecosystem of personal assistants. Of course I will still want the YouTube Premium](https://www.youtube.com/premium) membership 1,790 THB/year (it might be 1,990 THB/year at the end of my current subscription), so that we keep the curse of advertisements at bay and ... Read more
Updated 22-Jul-2026 Caddy is a high performance web server. It is actually 11 years old as of 2026. Strangely enough, Nginx is now 21 years old, and Apache web server is now 31 years old. Caddy is built with Golang. Just as we migrated from Apache to Nginx, now it is time to migrate to ... Read more
Updated 27-Aug-2026 Note, Claws has some ugly bits that just don't go away. I'm currently trying out Aerion email client, which looks quite promising. Claws is a 25-year-old email client that is still getting updates. It started as a fork of Sylpheed, and is now using GTK3. The look is a bit old-fashioned, but it ... Read more
Updated 23-Aug-2026 Scraping bots (AI and otherwise) have increased to the point where they have become virtual denial-of-service attacks. I'm not against AI in general, as I use it in several areas, but those in charge of these bots engage in unconscionable behavior, a kind of *destruction-of-the-commons" phenomena. Anti-bot mitigation Anubis Zip bombs go-away Note ... Read more
Audacity is an audio editor useful for a variety of things, though in no way a DAW (nor will it be). It is great for simple and fast functions, such as exporting in different formats, noise reduction, high- and low-pass filtering, and normalization, etc. Audacity tools Noise reduction (if needed) High pass filter Low pass ... Read more
Note: v.2.x.x has been released: Syncthing (deb) Syncthing forum BasicSync (android wrapper/app) Syncthing is a continuous file synchronization program. It synchronizes files between two or more computers in real time, safely protected from prying eyes. Your data is your data alone and you deserve to choose where it is stored, whether it is shared with ... Read more
Updated 02-Sep-2026 These are the apps that I currently (or more recently) run in various Linux distributions (mainly Debian), for desktop and server. Linux destop apps By desktop I mean those apps I run only on the desktop (not console-based apps that can run on a headless remote server). I'm a fan of XFCE which ... Read more
Updated 21-May-2026 Kontact is a bit complex, and so it needs its own page for configuration information. Workflow My workflow currently is to use Gmail as the main calendar provider, and connect with it via Kontact and also Etar, the Android calendar. Gmail calendar also has a few different Holiday calendars available (Thailand, Japan, United ... Read more
Updated 27-Aug-2026 Note 03-July-2026: I've now tried inbox.eu, mailbox.org, and runbox, and all three fall short in important ways. I'm now with Migadu which is a breath of fresh air. I've looked at them before, but they didn't seem to have a sweet spot regarding pricing, but it turns out I fit exactly into the ... Read more
Updated 15-Aug-2026 For XMPP clients, see XMPP Clients: Conversations, Dino. See also the Prosody IM chatroom itself. Preamble Note that after a year of using Snikket, I've installed Prosody (on which it is based) and find it to be more flexible, and more-or-less straightforward. Prosody is also super-easy to integrate with coturn for audio and ... Read more
While there is something to be said for actual self-hosting a server (at home or mobile), having a low-cost spot on the Internet is good for not having to worry about one's own personal connectivity at any given time, for services to work. By services, this could include: Web server (Caddy) Email server (Mox) File ... Read more
Updated 22-Jul-2026 Ungoogled Chromium for Debian This is meant to help with selecting and installing a chrome-based browser, with minimal tracking and other cruft. I've given up on Firefox as being too corrupt, and technically inferior. Yes, Chromium is a Google project, but the open source nature has produced two viable browser options for all ... Read more
I've avoided Flatpaks and Snaps for a long time, but now see three uses for Flatpaks (though none yet for Snaps). The main issues have to do with the size of files, security stuff, and simply being not as convenient as using apt repositories. But when some folks can't keep those things stable (or offer ... Read more
Updated 22-Jul-2026 Uses Golang and can play nicely with caddy web server. Installation and Configuration Unfortunately apt and standard sources will not provide a recent update of Hugo, so best to download the .deb file from Github (sigh). Markdown in Hugo Hugo uses Goldmark which supports some GFM and Markdown Extra syntax (including footnotes). Getting ... Read more
Updated 18-Jun-2026 Reaper is the DAW I've decided on based on a combination of functionality and affordability. Reaper is not open source, but it does have a reasonable and affordable license. I'm fine with supporting them, up until enshittification (which isn't 100% guaranteed in any case). See also Generative AI in Music The main thing ... Read more