Yikes, that sucks… but at least Linux is still usable.

If you want stability, you probably can’t beat Debian, and you should be fairly used to the backend by now. I suspect the stylus use is just going to be figuring out what package provided your current access to it.

Before you wipe the laptop, I would recommend finding a command to list all the installed packages, then at least you’ll have a reference to what was in place before. And if possible, maybe grab a backup of the /etc folder (or whatever might still be accessible) so you can reference the current configs on various packages to recreate whatever doesn’t work by default.

There are a number of lightweight desktops you can choose from. I personally like Mate, but maybe you can play around with others on the new system and purge the ones you don’t like. And while you’re swapping drives, check the memory slots, maybe you can drop another 8GB stick in there to give the whole system a boost.

You might check if a simple CPU upgrade would get you there. I previously ran some 2005 Poweredge servers that came with a Pentium D processor, and it cost me something like $8 from ebay to upgrade to a Xeon and start running KVM.

Keep an eye out for people trashing perfectly good desktop machines because Windows 10 is being retired.

If you want a server that “does it all” then you would need to get the most decked-out top of the line server available… Obviously that is unrealistic, so as others have mentioned, knowing WHAT you want to run is required to even begin to make a guess at what you will need.

Meanwhile here’s what I suggest – Grab any desktop machine you can find to get yourself started. Load up an OS, and start adding services. Maybe you want to run a personal web server, a file server, or something more extensive like Nextcloud? Get those things installed, and see how it runs. At some point you will start seeing performance issues, and this tells you when it’s time to upgrade to something with more capability. You may simply need more memory or a better CPU, in which case you can get the parts, or you may need to really step up to something with dual-CPU or internal RAID. You might also consider splitting services between multiple desktop machines, for instance having one dedicated NAS and another running Nextcloud. Your personal setup will dictate what works best for you, but the best way to learn these things is to just dive in with whatever hardware you can get ahold of (especially when it’s free), and use that as your baseline for any upgrades.

My current desktop came from a co-worker, but you can also put the word out to family and friends that you’re interested in their old machines. Most people are happy to give them away because otherwise it costs them money to dispose of electronics. If nothing else, you could post on Nextdoor or a local Facebook page that you’re looking for a Win10 machine that would otherwise be trashed.

Older machines also mean dirt-cheap upgrades. The desktop I have came with a Celeron cpu. I dropped in an i7 for $10 from ebay, and recently upgraded it to 24GB of ram with sticks I had pulled from other free systems. When you switch to Linux you’re not wasting horsepower on Microsoft spyware crap, so this machine does just fine for my needs (although I’m also not trying to play games).

Later that day, the Russian space agency Roscosmos confirmed that the lander had harmlessly impacted the Indian Ocean at 6:24 a.m. UTC west of Jakarta, Indonesia. The condition of the craft is unknown.

Someone trusts flying in these conditions? That’s insane.

Especially Win10 computers :-)

This was played before sentencing. It doesn’t say it here, but the article I read earlier today stated that because of this video, the judge issued a sentence greater than the maximum recommended by the State. If true, then it really calls into question the sentence itself and how impartial the judge was.

Crepuscular rays: shafts of light which are seen just after the sun has set and which extend over the western sky radiating from the position of the sun below the horizon. They form only when the sun has set behind an irregularly shaped cloud or mountain which lets the rays of the sun pass through a cloud in bands.

In this case, I think the light is making it look like the cloud is dark bands, when in fact the entire cloud is probably all dark but being lit up by the rays. (And yes, this affect can be seen both at sunrise and sunset.)

Assume you meant 3 1/2" floppies? Seems like you’re confusing these with the 5 1/4" size.

All it takes is one big company like Amazon changing their services to IPv6-only and most of the world would be converted over in a month or two… but now I guess we know the reason WHY Amazon doesn’t push such a policy.

Unfortunately there’s a lot of products that most people don’t even know exist. Hell I keep finding new tools and wondering why I’ve been doing things the hard way for so long.

OTOH, fuck all the advertisers who use shady tactics to make sales, and especially fuck all the people who pray on the naivety of others to steal their money. I was just showing a customer an email I got the other day stating her domain hosting was past due and required immediate payment, and she asked how I knew it was a scam. Uh, hello, because —I— am hosting your domain and website (and this is exactly why I share this kind of stuff with people, to make them think before they blindly write a check).