I've heard Umbrel and Raspiblitz x86_64 exist but they don't seem to be well explained and are of secondary importance? I have never used the appliance distros. I use ordinary Linux and install everything as a normal Linux server with Bitcoin Core, Core Lightning, RTL, etc. If the appliance distros don't prioritize ordinary PC hardware you need sysadmin skills to do it manually.
Also don't use Tor. Tunnelsats or my self-hosted port forwarding VPN guide is vastly superior to Tor for LN. I would turn off Tor. Long story.
Ugh the Chivo ATM's are still onchain only? Inexcusable.
Keep doing the same thing while wearing a suit.
I only have the energy to point at hardware that would be reliable. If you don't know how to use Linux then demand help from the appliance OS brands. They should be focusing on PC hardware instead of RPi.
Unfortunately RPi was not a good choice to begin with for anything you intend to rely upon. I was mad for years about this watching people buy overpriced kits that I knew would be disappointing. From 2018 I looked into the feasibility of designing a reliable aarch64 board with two nvme SSD slots. Costs of that custom design were too high then the pandemic supply chain shortages killed feasibility even further.
The biggest time waste in the world is unreliable hardware. Umbrel and the appliance distros should really focus their efforts on ordinary PC hardware deployment and TWO INTERNAL DISKS.
This is a good value for a home self-sovereign LN node.
* CPU much faster than RPi.
* 8GB: you should add another 8GB (DDR4 SODIMM 2400 or faster) or replace to max out at 32GB RAM.
* That's a 1TB SATA HD. You could add a nvme 2280 SSD to gain storage redundancy for your critical LN database. SSD's are at an all time low price now. I recommend TLC drives without HMB like Samsung 970 Evo Plus, Teamgroup MP34, or Crucial P2. 2TB is very affordable these days.
* You could also replace the spinning hard drive. Elimination of moving parts improves reliability. For 2.5" SATA I recommend the 2TB Crucial MX500 that's been below $120 recently.
* Most of the cost is your new drives. These drives will outlive the machine. If the machine dies you can simply move the drives into another machine. Linux won't care about the underlying hardware. It should work with zero or minimal reconfiguration.
I've been testing a similar model here. The screen and keyboard are of lower quality and music sounds bad from these speakers. These economy business laptops make excellent servers when you're able to buy them cheap enough which often is possible when fleets of corporate machines are liquidated.
There is risk in buying used. You want to immediately stress test the device including CPU, RAM, and disk after you receive it so you know if it needs to be returned. You want to flash the firmware to get security updates. That however has risk of bricking which would become a complicated discussion with the seller.
Note: Several other models are suitable as dual internal SSD home servers. I don't often post about them though because quantities for sale are not high. In this case the seller seems to have many for sale and the price is good.
Please follow and zap if you want more self-sovereign LN advice like this. I could be convinced to write a guide of what to do after you receive a used Thinkpad. I've lost money buying and testing non-refundable duds so you don't have to.
https://mobile.twitter.com/i/communities/1563029300911058944
Please also follow my Twitter community where small tips are written more frequently.
SD are far too easy to wear out and RPi (?) is not a reliable platform. There's far more powerful, 1000x more reliable and cost effective options these days for a home node. If you want reliability you want to get rid of RPi, SD cards, and external attached storage. If you want safety for an LN node you absolutely need two disks. Past advice on this was dangerous because this approach used to be too expensive. Not anymore.
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That works until some random time later when someone else gets that number and activates Signal.
Do you remember your natural hair color?
Session has a shitcoin that they claim is "essential" because it allows them to be "decentralized" by providing for "Sybil resistance". Then a bunch of their bag holders all reply with the same talking points. That was creepy. Damn it shitcoiners and their nonsense.
Signal would be perfect if it didn't require phone numbers or at least had an option to hide numbers from other users like in Telegram.
It would be extra perfect and I would donate to the maker if they didn't integrate and try to push their own shitcoin.
I think I may need to give up on Matrix. Reading their tickets there's unsolved problems with 2+ client synchronization that they seem to have given up on. While I know how to workaround multi-client encryption quirks there's no sadly no way this usable for the average normie.
He wrote the article on ZeroHedge about Nostr:
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/how-nostr-will-change-world-privacy
Ironically Nostr is far less private to the average end-user. Everyone must really use a VPN unless you enjoy giving dozens of randos your IP address.
The "algo" is sometimes good in showing you things that might be more relevant to you during an age of information overload. In the case of Nostr all such visibility decisions needs to somehow happen entirely client side. It's not a simple problem. The various Nostr clients are already handling this in very different ways.
I enjoy zerohedge but holy cow it dominates my feed when I follow it here.
I don't want to learn how badges work. Can I safely ignore them?
That is already how Nostr is supposed to work. You can associate a particular relay with your npub. I don't know to what extent clients actually try to connect to that specified relay.
True. Affects only the sender. I'm personally OK with big brother seeing me send 23 cents to random people.