Brickfrog

The copy protections on Blu rays are exceptionally annoying, to the extent where there is really only one closed source software – MakeMKV – that can work around them.

Not quite, RedFox formerly SlySoft (RIP) used to market their own Blu-ray ripper and it worked quite well. What it used to do is on-the-fly decryption so you’d run it in the background and could use any other software to read the decrypted Blu-ray (e.g. using Handbrake or whatever). It did also have an option to just rip to a file IIRC. Unfortunately they randomly disappeared so their software is pretty much done. (some background on wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RedFox)

That aside they always a competitor, DVDFab, that still exists today. Their Passkey software is the rough equivalent of what the old RedFox/SlySoft software used to do but they also sell a standalone Blu-ray ripper if that’s more your thing (see https://www.dvdfab.cn/).

But yeah, in some ways you’re stuck with MakeMKV, DVDFab, and maybe some others (?).

I’d have to dig it out but I actually bought a Blu-ray drive a while back that was on the list of drives compatible with these rippers but honestly it’s been a few years since I’ve tried using it. Most times someone else already ripped a Blu-ray I’d be interested in.

Speaking of - If anyone knows offhand, how do people do this stuff on Linux? Does the Linux version of MakeMKV work well for this and/or are there other tools (?)

Wake on LAN is a LAN feature, not WAN, so you’d need to issue that over the local LAN there at the house. You’re going to have a hard time trying to get that working over the WAN (if that’s even possible).

The other comments mentioning a scheduled boot would be a much easier/simple solution if it works for you.

But I’ll throw this in, the super basic least tech solution to this is to open a port forward to the house’s network router. Yes, I know you don’t want to do that, but it’s probably the only network device at that house that’s actually on 24/7 right? And by all means lock it down however you like. My simple method is to open the router login to a non-standard port number, with a IP whitelist, add my own home IP address to that IP whitelist, and bam you now have access to that remote home’s router for just your IP address. Log in remotely, issue a wake on LAN via the router’s own web ui, done.

It’s perfectly reasonable to make this a bit more secure if you wanted but it gets slightly more complicated - open a non-standard port for SSH access to the remote router’s SSH port that only allows SSH login with key. Generate a SSH key and share that key with yourself, then you can log in remotely to that remote house via non-standard SSH port using the SSH key (no user/passwords). From there you’d have to see if you can issue Wake on LAN on the SSH command line, or set up a SSH tunnel from that remote LAN to yours so you can proxy into the router login page and do your Wake on LAN from there. … yes I realize this got complicated :/ But you’ve got a few things to explore given your patience for tinkering with this stuff :)

Of course much of this relies on that house’s router having any of these features to enable and configure. The main takeaway here is that Wake on LAN requires something on 24/7 at that remote LAN for you to enable remote access into and issue a Wake on LAN command within that LAN. How to actually accomplish that is the tricky bit.

That’s fair, I don’t use Tailscale either but was thinking that would affect the WAN side of things rather than the LAN that the phone and Chromecast are on. Looking into it a bit more it sort of seems like OP would need to configure Subnet routing on their Tailscale configuration to enable their Tailscale to forward traffic to devices on the local LAN?

https://tailscale.com/kb/1019/subnets

That was just from some quick searching around but since I don’t use Tailscale I can’t say for sure if that’s a solution (or even if Tailscale is the culprit here).

And yes for sure if OP doesn’t specifically need/want Tailscale then maybe a different remote solution would be something to try like reverse proxy or whatever they decide on.

Yes pretty much, there isn’t really anything extra to configure for casting. I think to get it working

• Both the Google Chromecast and your phone must be connected to the same home network (in other words the same home wifi)
• The TV itself should be on and set to HDMI-1 or whatever port the Chromecast is plugged into
• The Chromecast itself should already be set up, connected to the network, etc. (I’ve never needed to do this but I suspect there’s a few basic steps to get it set up and connected to wifi, etc.)

Do you know if the Chromecast there was accepting other casts from other apps / phones? I wonder if there’s just something configured oddly at that network, or their Chromecast just wasn’t working correctly like maybe it was offline. My Pixel 7 also has a feature to cast the phone screen itself so if your phone can do that it’s something you can test next time you’re able to. (that might just be for Google Pixel phones, other phones might not do screen casting in that way).

I don’t own a Chromecast myself so can’t really think of other things to try, they usually just work if they’re on and online.

Hi. What’s the best way to access my content from a remote location? I’ve got tailscale set up

Are you already able to access your JF content remotely? Wasn’t sure what you meant by saying that you set up tailscale but still asking about accessing content remotely.

If your JF app can already stream your content remotely on your phone, say when you’re out traveling outside your own home, then you already have the ability to cast. Just be sure to have your phone connect to the same network connection that the Google Chromecast is connected to (e.g. that home’s wifi network) then tap the cast icon at the top of the JF app. The Google Chromecast will appear there and you can tap it to start casting whatever you are playing on the JF app to the TV the Chromecast is connected to.

That’s how I do it when traveling to other locations that have a Google Chromecast set up on their TV.

When I first started using GNOME the top bar was a bit off-putting but I got used to it TBH. It’s not something I think about much nowadays.

However, you actually can move it to the side or to the bottom, and/or change it in other ways, with the dash-to-panel extension so definitely check that out if the top bar is bugging you https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1160/dash-to-panel/

Just curious was this a Tuta paid account, or a free one?

Tuta is very strict with the free accounts and flag them for all sorts of reasons. They take their time to “approve” free accounts just to be able to use them. And on top of that they might nuke your account anyway if they think it is being used for spam/illegal activity/whatever or they think it’s not being used.

But I thought those are just issues with their free accounts, presumably their paid accounts don’t get flagged for those things… or so I thought.

Also to echo the other comments - best to buy and own your own domain for your email, that way it doesn’t matter where the email is being hosted in case you need to switch email providers.

Windows To Go was discontinued back in 2019 so it’s not really something that has been maintained or updated for a long time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_To_Go#Discontinuation

Apps like Rufus (Windows only) are still able to create that sort of boot USB but it’s sort of a non supported feature, wouldn’t be surprised if it just stops working one day.

On Linux Ventoy is often used for this - it does have a persistence plugin but not for Windows https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html

I haven’t tested this idea, but maybe you can run a Windows VM within Linux, enable USB in it, download Rufus in it, then you can create your non-official Windows To Go boot disk that way? Could be something to try if you never find another solution.

Minor update, I edited my original comment above. The app does seem to work with Jellyfin 10.11.1.

Maybe I’m not the best test candidate LOL… I usually use the Android Jellyfin apps for music so my original test was with a Jellyfin user with only music libraries enabled… Findroid does not like that apparently. Once I logged in with a user with TV/Movie libraries enabled it seems to load and play video.

I don’t normally use that app but I figured I could do a quick test for you - the stable version (0.15.3) does not seem to work on my end. It does connect to the Jellyfin server (10.11.1) but nothing loads after that.

It doesn’t look like findroid has had any stable releases in over a year so it may indeed be showing some incompatibility issues.

EDIT: Re-tested, it does seem to work as long as you have video libraries enabled on the Jellyfin user (e.g. Movies/TV). My earlier test was with a Jellyfin user that only has Music enabled, I did not know Findroid does not play music. (most of my Jellyfin mobile use is for music)

Always good to double check, but yes, I used canyouseeme and the port is definitely open.

That means TCP should be working as expected with the current configuration. Note those port test websites are only testing TCP, not UDP.

A few menu options below the one for port forwarding

I’m not familiar with ProtonVPN configuration so can’t guide you much there, presumably if the port forwarding option only allows for one setting then maybe it’s doing both TCP/UDP? I dunno…

there’s another for configuring the connection as OpenVPN(TCP), OpenVPN(UDP), or Wireguard.

Don’t worry about that one, that’s for configuring the VPN client you will be using to connect to the VPN server. It should not affect the port forward itself unless ProtonVPN is doing something odd.

I’ve had other issues in the past and Transmission’s internal port testing thing

Yeah I wouldn’t rely on that, the internet port test inside the torrent client isn’t always reliable. But in theory it should show up as open all the time if you have a stable open port :/

Could I be missing a step with the trackers?

Doubt it being a tracker issue, they update themselves on their own schedule usually.

I also have a client I’m trying to test uploading to, but it can’t seem to connect to the seedbox

Maybe should have asked this before - can the test torrent client see that there is a seed on the torrent? Or does it load the torrent but just isn’t seeing any seeds or peers at all? The open trackers take a bit to update themselves with a new torrent hash so sometimes it just takes a bit before the torrent client sees a seed and begins downloading from it.

Just to double-check did you already test that the open port is actually open and connectable from the internet? e.g. use any port test website & see if it can connect to your seedbox Transmission open port e.g. https://www.canyouseeme.org/ , https://portchecker.co/ or similar.

Also, not sure how the open port itself was configured but make sure it is open for both TCP and UDP traffic if you needed to specify that during your firewall setup.

Like some of the other comments, if you really need a DE then maybe give XFCE or LXQt a try. The distro itself won’t matter too much in your scenario.

I do have an old laptop that has run Debian/Ubuntu + Gnome fine, not at all fast but usable for my needs. Mines has 4 GB RAM, get the feeling that going under 4 GB may be a bit much.

Otherwise Linux is perfectly usable without a DE if you’re willing to stick to the terminal for all your usage.

There is an Linux compatible open source player being developed called fooyin (https://fooyin.org/) heavily inspired by foobar2000. When I tried it out a few months back it was still a bit rough for day-to-day use but it could eventually become a good alternative for people that miss the foobar2000 style player.

Pretty sure Strawberry does everything you are looking for.

re: #1 I kind of had the same issue but with multiple music folders, most of the default music apps only let you use one folder. Strawberry lets you add as many music folders as you like, I’ve been happy with it.

On Windows I used to use foobar2000 which was great, and in theory I could get it running under Linux, but I’d rather just use something coded for Linux compatibility from the start.

Working fine here, the app connects to the Jellyfin 10.11.1 server over the internet without issue.

I’d suggest maybe double-check and make sure you still have a port forward from the internet to your Jellyfin server? Usually for me when the app gets stuck trying to connect it’s because it can’t see and connect to the Jellyfin server for some reason. Also in the 10.11.0 release notes they did mention that they removed the ability for the Jellyfin server to auto port forward so it’s possible that affected you? See https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/releases

Other random idea: Maybe somehow the data for your app got messed up? You can reset it and make it start fresh by bringing up its App Info (long-press the Jellyfin Android app), go to Storage & Cache, once there clear the storage and cache. When you re-attempt to launch the Jellyfin app it’ll start fresh and need you to re-enter your Jellyfin server details.

I still use Virtualbox, configuration is way easier with the GUI

To be fair you can pair KVM/qemu with any GUI manager and have a similar interface to VirtualBox/Hyper-V/VMWare/etc. virt-manager (https://virt-manager.org/) is a popular one for example, I just started using it and it seems to work well for what I need.

Normally I’ve been using VirtualBox but for whatever reason it asks me to recompile the kernel on Debian 13 just to launch. Meanwhile qemu just works.

Don’t know if this helps you but did you already try changing Disk IO Type to Simple pread/pwrite (in advanced settings)? It was meant to address some issues with disk read/write + RAM usage. Not something that affected me all that much but could be worth a look.

Was mentioned in the 5.0.1 release notes and in the github pages

https://www.qbittorrent.org/news

https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/pull/21300

Beyond that I’d echo the other comment, try to just change settings you actually need to change. Oftentimes people make a whole ton of settings changes in their torrent client and then can’t figure out how to get it back to normal.

Not quite what you’re asking but if you buy your music on Bandcamp (or just have a Bandcamp account) you can “Follow” artists there. That tells Bandcamp to send you email alerts every time that artist releases an track/album on Bandcamp.

It’s one of the main ways I find out that new music gets released and it sort of works since I was probably going to buy it at Bandcamp anyway.

https://interviewfor.red/

https://interview.orpheus.network/ (might not be doing interviews right now per the other comment)