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Author SHA1 Message Date
acfb963e17 Updated the styles of the home page and reorganized it a bit
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2025-01-08 01:37:04 -05:00
a2b7fa067e Removed Honey reference on the support page
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2025-01-08 00:18:08 -05:00
4290c95879 Updated some of the featured videos on the home page
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2025-01-08 00:14:28 -05:00
af6c34599b Changed some styles 2025-01-08 00:00:05 -05:00
4671c017b5 Fixed horizontal scrolling when it isn't necessary 2025-01-07 23:54:10 -05:00
b9f915f283 Added link to the wiki to the page navigation
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2025-01-07 23:50:25 -05:00
c41f5d4d7a Fixed typo in Vultr referral link
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2024-02-07 22:51:25 -05:00
5fb3bd4295 Added Vultr referral link
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2024-02-07 22:48:29 -05:00
947c073014 Removed forum section; removed outdated minecraft website notice; fixed layout in footer
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2023-12-17 20:35:24 -05:00
6d0b306280 Added draft of the new web hosted series
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2023-12-17 20:28:41 -05:00
Gregory Ballantine
bf7025ca2a Started a draft for a TicWatch E3 article
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2023-09-22 13:59:42 -06:00
8814f1b0a8 Fixed page titles
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2023-07-08 22:12:32 -04:00
a7edf81e5b Minor change to blog post page
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2023-07-08 00:50:30 -04:00
15a1842ebe Edited some drafts
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2023-07-08 00:49:28 -04:00
e73fa8d7a5 Removed draft posts' publish dates because they've never been published...
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2023-07-08 00:21:29 -04:00
1eefd1f840 Fixed dates on a couple posts
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2023-07-08 00:15:58 -04:00
a04e8fde95 Properly marked the sinatra post as a draft; changed the docker dev container to show drafts
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2023-07-08 00:14:47 -04:00
17a2cc31ea Added draft for Sinatra blog post
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2023-07-07 01:26:29 -04:00
807fa5aa69 Added new blog post about Linux distros
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2023-07-07 00:56:16 -04:00
dbe390c2d2 Updated woodpecker config to push to the current web servers
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2023-07-06 23:52:51 -04:00
46e4901be3 Added webrick gem to make the development docker container work
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2023-07-06 14:52:51 -04:00
25 changed files with 261 additions and 56 deletions

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@ -11,8 +11,8 @@ pipeline:
image: appleboy/drone-scp
settings:
host:
- www3.int.metaunix.net
- www4.int.metaunix.net
- www1.int.metaunix.net
- www2.int.metaunix.net
user: xadmin
port: 22
password:

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@ -5,4 +5,5 @@ docker run -d --rm \
--publish 4000:4000 \
--name="jekyll" \
jekyll/jekyll:4 \
jekyll serve
jekyll serve \
--drafts

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@ -19,6 +19,10 @@ group :jekyll_plugins do
gem "jekyll-coffeescript"
end
group :development do
gem "webrick"
end
# Windows and JRuby does not include zoneinfo files, so bundle the tzinfo-data gem
# and associated library.
platforms :mingw, :x64_mingw, :mswin, :jruby do
@ -28,4 +32,3 @@ end
# Performance-booster for watching directories on Windows
gem "wdm", "~> 0.1.1", :platforms => [:mingw, :x64_mingw, :mswin]

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@ -72,6 +72,7 @@ GEM
terminal-table (2.0.0)
unicode-display_width (~> 1.1, >= 1.1.1)
unicode-display_width (1.7.0)
webrick (1.8.1)
PLATFORMS
ruby
@ -84,6 +85,7 @@ DEPENDENCIES
tzinfo (~> 1.2)
tzinfo-data
wdm (~> 0.1.1)
webrick
BUNDLED WITH
2.2.24

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@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ links:
twitch_channel: 'https://twitch.tv/brotherballan'
discord_invite: 'https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=channel_banner&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbjZzc29mblpxVGE0MVZnRXctM2M1Zy1LQ1p1UXxBQ3Jtc0ttbl9yWHdGVWF1QXJFRmh4WGp0MDFKVzNUMnZDOHFxNUQwZmdCbkhkbXFwQjFSRTVGemIwdXpTbC1pV2FwMmMxaUhKMnVMN2NLY0J0ZWFsenVBYmZtY1VUWjBYdXpKVDVFWThaZU1Fb3J3RHVQSDBNYw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscord.gg%2FuVNAJ4nrB9'
forum: 'https://forum.bitgoblin.tech'
wiki_link: 'https://wiki.bitgoblin.tech'
minecraft_website: 'https://mc.bitgoblin.tech'
patreon_link: 'https://www.patreon.com/BitGoblin'

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@ -1,21 +1,32 @@
---
layout: post
title: "Farewell, Atom."
description: "Atom was an awesome text editor back in its day, and now GitHub is putting it to rest."
date: 2021-07-17 09:32:11 -0400
tags: text-editors programming foss
title: "Farewell, Atom. Hello Pulsar!"
description: "The awesome community behind the Atom text editor has stepped up and given us a replacement: Pulsar"
tags: pulsar text-editors programming foss
---
Recently, back on June 8th of 2022, GitHub announced that it set an end-of-life of December 15th, 2022 for Atom. What was once a super popular text editor in the mid-2010s that has since fallen behind the times a bit,
About a year ago on June 8th of 2022, GitHub announced that it set an end-of-life of December 15th, 2022 for the Atom text editor. What was once a super popular text editor in the mid-2010s that has since fallen behind the times a bit, is now a relic of the past to later be forgotten. This wasn't too surprising of a move, considering Microsoft purchased GitHub and they already had their own text editor in Visual Studio Code that was stealing Atom's thunder. Honestly it took Microsoft a LOT longer to make this move than I expected, but either way it kinda sucked seeing such a monumental piece of software (remember Electron? That came from Atom!) be put to bed.
### History
## The Community is Awesome. ##
But the open-source community has a habit of not letting go, and for better or worse, a lot of times will put great effort into preserving old experiences. This is one of those such instances, and now we have [Pulsar](https;//pulsar.dev)! This is a fork on Atom that seems to have some steam behind it, not only re-branding it and keeping up the extensions installer, but also actively working on bug fixes and making it better!
It's pretty much a drop-in replacement for Atom, even down to the extensions and settings that you once used. Things can get a little hairy at times but we'll get to that in a bit.
### Technological Advances
## It's going to take some time... ##
Atom brought along with it some pretty awesome technological advances, the primary one being Electron. Initially referred to as "Atom Shell", Electron quickly took off as a way to utilize the open source web browser Chromium as a base for desktop apps, and build on top of it using web technologies (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) and Node.js.
Now like I alluded to a moment ago, it's a little rough around the edges right now. Just to name a few things:
### Signing Off...
* Automatic updates aren't a thing yet, so you need to check back for new releases - about once per month for the stable releases.
* Installing it on Linux is kinda lame since you just get a raw DEB or RPM file to install manually instead of using a repo or something like Flatpak.
* The Atom codebase had been left to rot for a bit, so there is a lot of API changes and supporting software upgrades to churn through.
Overall, I'm going to miss Atom. Sure, Sublime Text was more performant and VS Code has a much larger community these days, but it still has a place in my heart since I used it for several years when I started getting more serious in my IT career and I thought it was kinda awesome how the community around Atom exploded so quickly. It seemed like Atom's community shot well past that of the other well-established text editors of the time, practically overnight. Plus I always thought the "a hackable text editor for the 21st century" was such a cool slogan. Suffice to say it has a special place in my heart, so I'll simply end this post with "Farewell, Atom."
## The Community is Awesome. ##
You see, the beauty of open-source software isn't necessarily that it's going to be developed better by having more eyeballs on it, nor that you can see exactly what a piece of software is doing. Those can definitely be good things, don't get me wrong, but where open-source really shines is when a company or some organization have had enough of developing a piece of software - I want to be clear I see no wrongdoing in this, sometimes good things just don't make sense - and instead of it just being left to rot, someone in the community can step up and take over. That really is an amazing thing.
## Signing off ##
There's not really much at this point, other than if you haven't yet I'd highly recommend you give Pulsar a try. Like I said it's still wonky in some spots - one thing in particular that I'm noticing as I write this is there's a permanent deprecation warning for an extension since an API changed it needs patched - but for the most part it kinda just works. I would honestly love to see this thing come to fruition with a full-blown community that's actively developing extensions and contributing code to kinda recreate what we once had, and give us a proper text editor that's competitive with VS Code like Atom was.
And yes I know [Zed](https://zed.dev) is a thing from the original Atom devs, but it seems to be moving really slow and is currently only available on Mac, so I can't really use it or recommend it at this time.

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@ -2,7 +2,6 @@
layout: post
title: "All Adventures Begin with Microsoft Edge"
description: "This is part one of my Web Switching series, where I'm taking a look at other web browsers to see if I'm going to permanently switch from Mozilla Firefox."
date: 2022-06-09 11:54:26 -0400
tags: web-switched web-browsers microsoft microsoft-edge
---

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@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
---
layout: post
title: "My Thoughts on the Mobvoi TicWatch E3"
description: "If you're looking for a decent Android-compatible smart watch for a good price, the TicWatch E3 might be the one for you!"
tags: smart-watches wearables android-wear mobvoi
---
I've never been a huge fan of smartwatches ever since their inception in the early 2010's or so. Whether it's the inexplicably poor battery life from a device that's super low-powered and should last forever, or the lack of *good* support from mobile apps, I always seem to be annoyed when looking at watches. Plus it's yet another device to charge daily-ish just to carry around all day. But I do try to keep my head in the game at least for a good value-oriented watch that helps me manage my notifications more easily so I don't have to open my phone every time it chimes.
## Accessories
One other important aspect of a device you use pretty much daily is the ecosystem. And not just what the first-party manufacturer provides but also what the community and other companies sell to go along with it.
## Price
Now it comes down to the all-important price. Regardless of what features a watch may offer, ultimately the price is what dictates if it's a good purchase or not.
And that's where the TicWatch shines: it costs only $150 if you buy from Mobvoi directly, and they even offer an extra 2% discont if you're willing to create an account with them.
## Conclusion
Obviously, based on the price alone and how the watch is holding
... it's not going to truly compete with the Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy in a competion for the **best** smart watch. *But* those watches cost at least twice as much new, and it is a competitive option when you're looking at other watches in the same price range.

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@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
---
layout: post
title: "Sinatra (Ruby) is Beautiful."
description: "Sinatra is a beautifully simple web framework. It's old, but it works!"
tags: linux
---
By trade I'm a System Administrator/Network Engineer, so most of my days are filled with deploying applications, dealing with oddball software vendors and their lackluster documentation, licensing (yuck!), and planning/building out infrastructure to support operations. But I also like to do some coding on the side, and in particular I like to see what I can build to maybe be useful one day, and in particular I like spinning up web sites/apps.
And thus [Sinatra](https://sinatrarb.com/). It's a very simple and lightweight framework for building web applications using a DSL.
## The Exciting First Dance! ##
## Some Quirks... ##
While Sinatra is really easy to get going, there are some downsides to using it. First off, for anything more than just a simple web page (for which you'd probably just want to do plain old HTML or a static site generator like Jekyll), you'll want to add on some things. Things like controllers which help with code organization and flow; an ORM or at least some sort of database layer to handle storing/retrieving data; a templating engine to format and render web pages to users; a mailer tool to (obviously) send emails; and much more. This really can slow down development if you don't already have an idea of what tools are available in the Ruby ecosystem and your preferences for them.
And on a similar note, because Sinatra is very barebones and unopinionated, you need to bring your own file/folder structure for your code, and there are several different wants to handle it. There's the classic single file app where everything is in one file, or you can break various bits and bobs out into different files but you need to find a way to either manually or automatically load those files. Oh, and you need to figure out how to define your code with Ruby modules or classes so they can be read/loaded/routed properly.
Also, a lot of people won't like the fact that it's built on Ruby, which is comparatively a slow language, and in my opinion the syntax is a bit "too fluid" with the lack of brackets and whitespace requirements.
## Padrino maybe? ##
There's also this thing called Padrino, which aims to kinda standardize Sinatra a bit to get you through all of the usual code organization and boilerplate challenges, and also supercharge it with a CLI to generate models, controllers, or even a whole app!
Frankly, this seems like a really cool tool, but it's not one that I've used extensively so I can't say for sure if it's rock-solid or not. It seems like a great way to go though, since it does tackle a lot of the issues that slow down Sinatra development, and frankly if I had run into this sooner (and not forgotten about it) then I'd probably use it more often.
## That's All Folks! ##
To summarize: I generally use Linux Mint on my PCs though Manjaro might take over the daily driver role soon, and I primarily use Debian in my homelab alongside a smattering of FreeBSD and RHEL-clones that might be getting phased out soon. Simple enough, right?

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@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
---
layout: post
title: "Web Hosted #1: How To Setup a Web Server in 2024"
description: "Even in 2024, knowing how to host a website is still important... and you can learn a lot by doing it without a hosting company!"
tags: web websites nginx apache
---
Back in the day, even as far back as the late 90's, you needed a website to be seen as a participant in the web. And
But still, unless you wanted to g
## The Hardware
Honestly, anything will do. From options as expensive and powerful as multi-server AMD Epyc- or Intel Xeon-backed clusters, all the way down to Single-Board Computers like the Raspberry Pi or Orange Pi, you can use anything that is supported by your Linux distribution of choice.
## The Operating System
Today we're going to go with Debian Bookworm. Ubuntu, OpenSUSE Leap, and AlmaLinux are just as good, but I'm more familiar with Debian and I love the community-backed distro. And Bookworm (aka Debian 12) is the current stable version of Debian as of the writing of this article.
## The Web Server
Nginx! Or Apache, both are cool. But I'm more familiar with Nginx and it's faster anyway.

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@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<title>{{ page.title }}</title>
<title>{{ page.title }} | Bit Goblin</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/skeleton/2.0.4/skeleton.min.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/stylesheets/lumbridge.css">
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.6.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
@ -21,6 +21,7 @@
<ul>
<li><a href="{% link index.markdown %}">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="{% link blog.markdown %}">Blog Posts</a></li>
<li><a href="https://wiki.bitgoblin.tech/">Wiki</a></li>
<li><a href="{% link support.markdown %}">Support</a></li>
<li><a href="{% link contact.markdown %}">Contact</a></li>
</ul>
@ -37,14 +38,18 @@
<footer id="footer">
<div class="row">
<div class="columns three">
<p>Support me over on <a href="{{ site.links.patreon_link }}">Patreon</a>!</p>
<div id="useful-links" class="columns four">
<ul>
<li>Join the Bit Goblin <a href="{{ site.links.discord_invite }}">Discord</a></li>
<li>Play on the <a href="{{ site.links.minecraft_website }}">Minecraft server</a></li>
<li>Support me over on <a href="{{ site.links.patreon_link }}">Patreon</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="columns six">
<div class="columns four">
<p class="u-text-center">{{ site.description }}</p>
<p class="u-text-center">&copy; Bit Goblin | all rights reserved.</p>
</div>
<div class="columns three">
<div class="columns four">
<p>Feel free to <a href="{% link contact.markdown %}">contact me</a> for any business inquiries.</p>
</div>
</div>

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@ -4,8 +4,6 @@ layout: default
{{ content }}
<hr>
<!-- Bit Goblin YouTube channel section -->
<section id="bitgoblin-section" class="youtube-section">
@ -22,9 +20,9 @@ layout: default
<p>How About a Cheap, Used AMD Graphics Card? (R9 270X)</p>
</a></div>
<div class="video-card columns four"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMaFYUNwE5U">
<img class="u-max-full-width" src="/assets/images/bitgoblin-thumbnails/bg-36-thumbnail.png" alt="Let's Take a Look at Debian 10 Buster">
<p>Let's Take a Look at Debian 10 "Buster"</p>
<div class="video-card columns four"><a href="https://youtu.be/QKoujsPhZvk">
<img class="u-max-full-width" src="/assets/images/bitgoblin-thumbnails/bg-52-thumbnail.png" alt="Add 10 Gigabit Networking to Your PC for Cheap!">
<p>Add 10 Gigabit Networking to Your PC for Cheap!</p>
</a></div>
</div>
@ -37,49 +35,62 @@ layout: default
<h3>Like watching Old School RuneScape videos? Go watch <a href="{{ site.links.ascendings_channel }}">Ascendings</a>.</h3>
<p>Not only do I create tech videos for Bit Goblin, but I also occasionally create content based around my old love <a href="https://oldschool.runescape.com">Old School Runescape</a>... we all have our vices, right?!</p>
<div class="row">
<div class="video-card columns four"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtOpQv6ZBq0&list=PLIg6BQwweIwGdQNrbDMwGPxifgJ7iIXnE">
<img class="u-max-full-width" src="/assets/images/ascendings-thumbnails/asc-37-thumbnail.png" alt="F2P Hardcore Ironman Playlist">
<p>F2P Hardcore Ironman Playlist</p>
</a></div>
<div class="video-card columns four"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhcCiqDegr0">
<img class="u-max-full-width" src="/assets/images/ascendings-thumbnails/asc-30-thumbnail.jpg" alt="Is Daeyalt Essence Worth Using?">
<p>Is Daeyalt Essence Worth Using?</p>
</a></div>
<div class="video-card columns four"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3pFR_e3OuM">
<img class="u-max-full-width" src="/assets/images/ascendings-thumbnails/asc-19-thumbnail.jpg" alt="Karambwan Cooking alt">
<p>Karambwan Cooking alt</p>
</a></div>
<div class="video-card columns four"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIg6BQwweIwF3bypxw35FCDpzdjCfdx3y">
<img class="u-max-full-width" src="/assets/images/ascendings-thumbnails/asc-52-thumbnail.png" alt="Ultimate Ironman Playlist">
<p>Ultimate Ironman Playlist</p>
</a></div>
</div>
</section>
<hr>
<!-- Minecraft server callout section -->
<section id="minecraft-section">
<!-- Discord and Minecraft server callout section -->
<section id="callout-section" class="youtube-section">
<h3>Play Minecraft? Go check out the <a href="{{ site.links.minecraft_website }}">community Minecraft server</a>!</h3>
<h3>I'm also building a community</h3>
<img class="u-max-full-width" src="https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/minecraft_gamepedia/images/f/ff/Java_Edition_logo_12.png" alt="Minecraft Java Edition logo">
<p>Last but certainly not least, one of my goals is to build a community for great people to just chill, have fun, and help each other out when the need arises. Ranging from the aforementioned YouTube videos on computer hardware, networking and Linux, to a community Minecraft server, a Discord server for everyone to relax and chat with each other, a future community forum and other services. Everyone is welcome to join the community, all I ask is that you simply just be excellent to each other. Easy enough, right?</p>
<p>This world is open to everyone who would like to play on it. There are no mods installed, and currently only world is available. I am open to adding mods in the future and even adding more worlds, just let me know!</p>
<div class="row">
<div class="video-card columns four"><a href="{{ site.links.discord_invite }}">
<div class="img-wrap">
<img class="u-max-full-width" src="https://logodownload.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/discord-logo-1-1-2048x2048.png" alt="Discord community invite link">
</div>
<p>Discord community</p>
</a></div>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> The website is currently a work in progress, but it will be up soon!</p>
<div class="video-card columns four"><a href="{{ site.links.wiki_link }}">
<div class="img-wrap">
<img class="u-max-full-width" src="https://www.freelogovectors.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Dokuwiki-logo-596x600.png" alt="Bit Goblin DokuWiki">
</div>
<p>Wiki/knowledge base</p>
</a></div>
<div class="video-card columns four"><a href="{{ site.links.minecraft_website }}">
<div class="img-wrap">
<img class="u-max-full-width" src="https://i.imgur.com/XJQoBDx.png" alt="Bit Goblin Minecraft servers">
</div>
<p>Community Minecraft servers</p>
</a></div>
</div>
</section>
<hr>
<!-- Bit Goblin forum callout section -->
<section id="forum-section">
<p>I do work with sponsors to help fund my projects. If you're curious about who I'm currently working with, check out the <a href="{% link sponsors.markdown %}">sponsors page</a>.</p>
<h3>You can also participate in the <a href="{{ site.links.forum }}">community forum</a>!</h3>
<p>Some of us love the old-style internet forums to converse and help others out. Anything you would like to discuss may happen here under the proper forum sections.</p>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> Currently the Bit Goblin forum is under construction, but check back soon if you'd like to participate!</p>
</section>

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@ -7,4 +7,6 @@ layout: default
{{ content }}
<hr>
<p>If you want to read more posts like this, be sure to subscribe to the <a href="/feed.xml">RSS feed</a>! Else, if you like watching videos then head on over to <a href="{{ site.links.bitgoblin_channel }}">my YouTube channel</a> or follow me over on <a href="{{ site.links.twitch_channel }}">Twitch</a> where I occasionally stream games. Feel free to join the <a href="{{ site.links.discord_invite }}">Bit Goblin community on Discord</a> as it is slowly growing. Finally, if you'd like to support me in my endeavors, head on over to <a href="{{ site.links.patreon_link }}">Patreon</a> and pitch me a few bucks if you can.</p>

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@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
---
layout: post
title: "What Linux Distro Do I Use?"
description: "I love distro-hopping, but there are a few distros that I tend to gravitate towards."
date: 2023-07-07 00:01:28 -0400
tags: linux
---
"What Linux distribution should I use?" is a topic that is very frequently covered, and as much as I want to fall into that creative trap, I'm not going to. Instead I'm going to discuss a few of the distros that I use the most in my daily life to give you a real-world perspective on what works and what doesn't, and maybe help inform you to make a decision of what distro to run. Or maybe not, sometimes it's just fun reading about people using Linux!
## Desktop ##
Let's start with a tricky one: what distro do I use on my desktops? If you know me, then you know I like to distro-hop fairly frequently just to kinda get a feel for what's going on in the Linux ecosystem. However, I do tend to fallback on Linux Mint the most. It scratches the itch of having a slow-moving base system but also provides more up-to-date packages for frequently used apps like Firefox, and their implementation of the Cinnamon desktop really is quite nice. Also, a major plus is it also gets a lot of third-party software and community support simply by being based on Ubuntu, and the importance of this cannot be overstated. Want to run a weird app? It's got an Ubuntu download. Have a weird issue? The community's likely got a fix for you. Heck you can even use AMD's proprietary drivers on Mint, which are notorious being a pain in the ass to install, so long as you upgrade to the Ubuntu HWE kernel.
Full stop, if you're looking for a distro to try out and you haven't yet, or if you're just a new user switching to Linux for the first time, I'd highly recommend Linux Mint. It really is a solid distro with a stable base (based on Ubuntu LTS), important apps like Firefox get updates instead of being an ESR release, it provides fantastic GUI tools like Driver Manager and Update Manager for those who don't want to use a terminal, and you don't have to worry about snaps or flatpaks if you don't want to.
That said, currently I'm running Manjaro on my gaming PC/workstation and both of my laptops. The reasoning for this was, frankly, I was getting bored of Linux Mint, and I was seeing too many small-but-weird things cropping up, so I decided to mix things up. It had been awhile since I used Manjaro, so I gave it a try... and boy after installing it on my Galago Pro was I happy! My major gripe of the past - that I was having trouble mounting Samba shares for some inexplicable reason - was gone, and once I touched up my setup shell script for some new software additions (notably [Pulsar](https://pulsar.dev)) I was able to pretty much get going within like an hour. I don't know if this will be my mainstay, but I am pretty happy with it so far, and I can swap between desktop environments (yes I'm one of those weirdos that has like 100 DEs installed on my systems) freely without weird quirks popping up, like GNOME not going to sleep properly or display scaling acting inconsistently in KDE.
## Server ##
In a way, my server usage is simpler... but also more complex? As a baseline, everything in my homelab runs on Debian stable, and this is for a few reasons:
1. I like the ~2 years update cadence that Debian stable releases give me, and having the extra third year to wait while supporting software like Puppet catches up is amazing.
2. In my experience the Debian community has been quick with pushing security patches, which is important to me on a server.
3. Things just generally don't change in between major releases, or when it does it doesn't seem to be as game-breaking as other distros can be.
4. Most importantly, I started learning Linux server administration on Ubuntu Server (13.10 beta, but that's a story for another time), and over the years I've just felt most comfortable on Debian systems.
The tl;dr is just that I love Debian and Debian loves me. But I do also have a couple other OSes running in my homelab, those being AlmaLinux/Rocky Linux, and FreeBSD. I always liked playing with CentOS and having a system that could run for several years without needing a major upgrade, and when CloudLinux got their replacement (AlmaLinux) out a few months later I hopped on that bandwagon and tried it out. Surprisingly everything just worked as expected, and I've had several servers running it since then. I've recently started doodling around with Rocky Linux now that RHEL 9 is out, but of course the RHEL-clones are again going through turmoil with Red Hat closing their source code, I feel like it's best to move off of a product that the upstream wants to kill off. It sucks, it was a great community that formed around it, but it is what it is. Fuck IBM.
FreeBSD only runs my internal mail relays and I think something else? I really like FreeBSD for what it offers - it satisfies the curmudgeon-side of me that hates a lot of SystemD's parts - but a lot of the tooling that I use on a daily basis either for work or video editing either requires or just runs on Linux. So there isn't a whole lot of want on my end to fully switch over to FreeBSD, especially since I'd lose access to Docker.
## NAS ##
This is related to my homelab but I felt deserved its own section since it's its own rabbit hole of "what works best for X?" I'm actually running both of the popular DIY NAS operating systems in my lab - [unRAID](https://unraid.net) and [TrueNAS](https://www.truenas.com). My TrueNAS system is actually an old FreeNAS system I built back in the day using five 3TB WD Red drives, is currently housing 6TB Seagate Ironwolf drives, and is undergoing a transition to 8TB drives to squeeze a little more space out of it. I use this primarily as my "personal" NAS, where I store my TV shows, movies, music, and personal documents, and I also have a RAIDz mirror of two 1TB SSDs hosting my virtual machine disks. This thing has served me very well for about seven years now, and has undergone numerous hardware upgrades, drive failures and subsequent replacements, and OS/ZFS updates. It really is a solid product.
The unRAID system I built to be my "Bit Goblin" NAS, which I use strictly for my Bit Goblin video file share and any files pertaining to the channel. This was built with unRAID for a couple reasons: I really wanted the ability to build up the array with new drives over time as I could afford them (I just bought a house and my budget was tight), and, like a lot of my projects, I just wanted to play around with something new. I didn't initially (and still don't) need the extra performance a proper ZFS array would grant me over unRAID's setup that only really nets you one drive's worth of performance at a time, so I prioritized the expansion abilities provided by unRAID. It sucks that it costs money, but hey, good software doesn't grow on trees, and so far I've been pretty happy with it.
I will mention that I also have a future plan to convert my "Bit Goblin" NAS into an archive/backup server and create a separate NAS with TrueNAS and a better caching setup when the time comes that I need extra performance. Which may come when I move to editing 4K video, or if I am able to hire a couple of video editors at some point, but again this is a potential plan for the future and nothing is set in stone yet. Who knows if I'll even get to that point!
## That's All Folks! ##
To summarize: I generally use Linux Mint on my PCs though Manjaro might take over the daily driver role soon, and I primarily use Debian in my homelab alongside a smattering of FreeBSD and RHEL-clones that might be getting phased out soon. Simple enough, right?

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If you're looking to contact me for business inqueries, feel free to email me at [gballantine@bitgoblin.tech](mailto:gballantine@bitgoblin.tech).

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Welcome! My name is Greg Ballantine and Bit Goblin is my passion project for creating YouTube videos on tech. I love tinkering with all things related to computers, and I enjoy documenting the things that I do so that others can use my struggles to ease their own. Whether it's buildings PCs, playing with networking gear, or exploring the beauty of Linux, there are lots of things to play with and try to help others with.
Welcome! My name is Greg Ballantine and Bit Goblin is my passion project for creating YouTube videos on tech. I love tinkering with all things related to computers, and I enjoy documenting the things that I do so that others can use my struggles to ease their own. Whether it's buildings PCs, playing with networking gear, or exploring the beauty of Linux, there are lots of things to play with and try to help others with, as evidenced below...
Not only do I create tech videos for Bit Goblin, but I'm also trying to build a community around it for great people to just chill, have fun, and help each other out when need arises. Ranging from the aforementioned YouTube videos on computer hardware, networking and Linux, to a community Minecraft server, a Discord server for everyone to relax and chat with each other, a future community forum and other services. Everyone is welcome to join the community, all I ask is that you simply just be excellent to each other. Easy enough, right?
I do work with sponsors to help fund my projects. If you're curious about who I've worked with before, check out the [Sponsors page]({% link sponsors.markdown %}).

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These are the sponsors I work with...

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Unfortunately money doesn't grow on trees, and a lot of the stuff that I purchase to make videos on can be quite expensive. My content is available free-of-charge on YouTube, but if you don't mind helping support me financially any help would be much appreciated.
The primary way to support my work is through donations on [my Patreon page](https://patreon.com/BitGoblin). I don't have any reward tiers over there yet, but I do plan on adding some rewards at some point in the future.
You can also support me by [joining Honey using my referral link](https://www.joinhoney.com/ref/9ohqcf9)! Honey helps you save money on popular websites by searching for coupons to get you discounts while you're shopping. And the best part is that it's free!
If you're looking for a cloud VPS, consider giving [Vultr](https://www.vultr.com/?ref=9589122-8H) a shot! I've been using it for several years at this point, and it has treated me very well and been extremely reliable over the years.