I'm way over-analyzing at this point, so I'd love any suggestions or advice on approaching this new setup.

Today I run OpenMediaVault 7 on an i5 NUC with a cheap USB enclosure with 4x8TB in RAID5 (Hardware RAID, which I greatly regret).

Upgrading to a Minisforum N5 NAS Pro with 5x22TB and 3x4TB NVMEs.

My primary use is media which is the vast bulk of storage. I also point some Time Machine backups at it and use it to archive "what if I need this someday" stuff from old external drives we've used over the years. But all the critical stuff is also sent to Backblaze, so this is not primary backup per se, more for the local convenience.

I have decided against Proxmox, so this will be OMV (or maybe Unraid) bare metal. I've also ruled out TrueNAS. Proxmox and TrueNAS both just add too many new "pro" layers I don't really want to deal with.

I'm considering:

Setup 1:

• 3 of the drives in mergerfs for media storage (all the stuff that annoying at most if lost), maybe SnapRAID.
• 2 drives in RAID 1 for all the more important stuff like documents, user shares (which nobody in the house uses today except me), and the backups
• 1 SSD as bcache for each of the above?

Setup 2:

• RAID5 the whole thing again.
• No idea what to do with the SSDs in this case, bcache again? Can you mirror + bcache SSDs?

Setup 3:

• Take the ZFS plunge - My only real concern is the overhead (plus having zero experience with it). This machine will handle it fine (96GB RAM) BUT I was hoping to be able to leverage most of that RAM to do some Local LLM stuff. Nothing crazy, but I worry about ZFS reducing my ability to do that.
• ZFS has built in tools to incorporate the SSDs as cache right?

Setup 4:

• Switch to Unraid. I like OMV, but I can dig the "simplification" of Unraid.
• 5 Drives in array (1 parity) plus nvmes for cache.

The caching stuff I clearly don't understand but I'm very interested in. I'm thinking about it mostly in "download and consume immediately" situations. Today I have a huge bottleneck in unpacking and moving. I've got 1gb fiber and can saturate it, getting a complete iso in just a few minutes, but then it's another 30min plus waiting for that to actually be usable.

Again, I've completely paralyzed myself with all the options, so slap me out of it with whatever you've got.

I was originally used to "shutdown" when typing the shortcut in the search box and always accidentally typed that instead of "power off" after switching from GNOME to KDE. (gnome I believe called it shutdown). I eventually trained myself to type "power off" instead.

Now, with the latest version of Plasma, they had the audacity to rename the shortcut to "shutdown", so now I always mistype "power off"! This would be fine if it showed up the option once you started typing (like it did before with "shutdown" I think), but the "Shutdown" shortcut now only shows up once you type the full "power off", what the heck! Typing just "Shut" already shows the option, and before, typing something like "pow" was enough to show the "power off" shortcut

Why did they change it from power off to shutdown, and did the change in how KDE handles searching make the "synonyms" of certain shortcuts require the full thing? (I remember a video talking about how Plasma 6.5 changed search so that results start to show when you type one character only, which was pretty neat. I guess that had a few side effects?)

Is it possible to rename the shortcut to "power off" again, or at least make it show up when I type "pow"? I'm sure it's possible in KDE.

Other than this (very) minor complaint as well as a few others I will not rant about today, KDE Plasma has been awesome and I really like being able to customize the themes way more than GNOME ever let me (I am currently running Catppuccin Macchiato + purple accent colour and have the "taskbar" on the top since I like having the clock up there, and it also means the tab bar in my browser is closer to the apps which is nice. No more going up and down! Also, the "Elisa" music player is really good, and themed as well which is very nice. Calendar apps were a problem in KDE, neither merkuro nor Korganizer could sync with my Radicale instance for whatever reason, and the GNOME calendar doesn't match in aesthetics and I also can't configure what calendars are shown as the settings takes inspiration from the iPhone's Camera app where it's all in the system settings of a GNOME that no longer is installed on my system. I ended up using Thunderbird for calendar stuff. Also, LibreOffice needed to be run in XWayland to avoid lag, which is weird)

• Release Date: February 6th
• Description: Defend your home using inventive boobytraps as the Trapper, or team up as three sneaky Bandits and try to escape with the loot! Bandit Trap is a wild 3v1 online multiplayer game bursting with pranks, physics-driven mayhem and laugh-out-loud moments—perfect for parties, friends and family game night.
• Link: TBA
• Price: TBA
• Platform: Nintendo Switch 2

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5683814

Britain's MI5 security service issued a new warning to lawmakers on Tuesday about attempts by Chinese agents to collect information and influence activity, its latest accusation that Beijing is trying to spy on the nation's parliament.

Lawmakers were told Chinese spies were targeting them by posing as headhunters or companies to make contact, with two individuals reaching out on LinkedIn to "conduct outreach at scale on behalf" of the Chinese government.

...

The speakers of the lower and upper houses of parliament said MI5 had said the Chinese Ministry of State Security was "actively reaching out to individuals in our community".

Britain's Security Minister Dan Jarvis told parliament the alert revealed "a covert and calculated attempt" by Beijing to interfere in UK politics and said the government would launch a counterespionage plan to address the threat.

...

The new warning comes after British prosecutors abandoned a case in September against two British men charged with spying on members of parliament for China, saying the British government had not provided clear evidence to show that Beijing was a threat to its national security.

The collapse of the case led to accusations from opposition politicians that Prime Minister Keir Starmer was prioritising better relations with Beijing over national security. The government denies that.

It also comes just weeks before the government must decide whether to approve a massive new Chinese embassy in London that critics say will pose a security risk.

...

Lawmakers should be careful because "China has a low threshold for what information is considered to be of value", Jarvis said, adding that China was also interfering with academic work in Britain’s universities.

He said ministers would hold a closed event with university leaders to highlight the risks of foreign interference.

In January 2022, MI5 sent out an alert notice about lawyer Christine Lee, alleging she was "involved in political interference activities" in the United Kingdom on behalf of China's ruling Communist Party.

Lee later sued MI5 in a bid to clear her name, but lost the case.

At least five West Bank villages have been targeted as settlers lit Palestinian homes, cars, and a mosque ablaze, while the army delayed emergency vehicles.

we can list movie titles with one word swapped out for "beanis"

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/39190924

Despite heavy criticism from civil society and large parts of the EU Parliament, the EU Commission has now published its proposal for the “Digital Omnibus”. Contrary to the Commission's official press release, these changes are not “maintaining the highest level of personal data protection”, but massively lower protections for Europeans. While having basically no real benefit for average European small and medium businesses, the proposed changes are a gift to US big tech as they open up many new loopholes for their law departments to exploit. Schrems: “This is the biggest attack on European’s digital rights in years. When the Commission states that it ‘maintains the highest standards’, it clearly is incorrect. It proposes to undermine these standards.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/53363554

Economics Affairs Minister Vincent Karremans said he was suspending an earlier order to take control of Nexperia under a rarely invoked Cold War-era law.

Economics Affairs Minister Vincent Karremans said he was suspending an earlier order to take control of Nexperia under a rarely invoked Cold War-era law.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5683395

Archived version

No silence is more haunting than the one following an explosion. It does not only concern what war takes away from human life, but also what it takes away from nature: forests turned to ash, fields reduced to dust, waterways contaminated by military vehicles and weapons. In Ukraine, this silence has a date, 24 February 2022, but also an echo that extends beyond the present.

Wars do not end when the guns fall silent: they continue to cause damage for decades, frequently far from the eyes and geopolitical priorities of the moment. It is with this awareness that an unprecedented event is taking place: Ukraine intends to ask Russia for $43 billion in climate compensation.

That Kyiv intended to file this claim was already known, but today, Tuesday 18 November, the figure was made public for the first time. This is not a generic compensation for environmental damage, but a precise calculation of the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the attack, to which the “social cost of carbon” is applied, a yardstick used in climate studies to assess the economic impacts of global warming.

...

The historical significance of this request is not only technical, but also legal and political. For the first time, an attacked country is arguing that an aggressor state must be held accountable for emissions caused by an illegal act of war; and the international mechanism to which Kyiv will turn – established by the Council of Europe following a UN General Assembly resolution – will accept claims for environmental compensation based on climate damage for the first time. The claim that Ukraine will file in 2026 will thus set an important precedent for other countries.

...

The request is based on the report Climate Damage Caused by Russia's War in Ukraine – 36 months (opens pdf), a pioneering study that calculates the emissions generated by the conflict: 294 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent. This figure alone exceeds the annual emissions of 175 countries worldwide.

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5682920

Archived version

China has played a key role in providing Belarus with resources and technology necessary to fulfill its military obligations to russia in the 2023-2025 years, a Belarusian organization BelPol, formed by former law enforcement and security force employees, said in a report (open link to Google Drive).

“We found that the Lukashenka regime systematically uses Chinese companies to circumvent international sanctions, and the Chinese leadership, aware of these schemes, takes no action to stop them.

Based on the collected data, one can draw a clear conclusion: China has made a significant contribution to the development of the Belarusian military-industrial complex and the supply of weapons for the russian army, which makes China a direct accomplice in the aggression against Ukraine,” the report said.

The study includes 55 sources of information, of which 46 are documentary evidence that are part of the closed part of the report.

The French government warns that in Europe, aviation agencies report between 200 and 500 in-air incidents per month. In 2024, the Air Transport Association (IATA) recorded one incident in every 395 flights.

As a result, France has published a decree in the Official Journal, which came into effect earlier this month (8 November) and has set up a specific database to allow French air carriers to report “harmful behaviour”.

ir passengers breaching the three main rules will now be subject to hefty fines which can reach €10,000 - or €20,000 in case of repeat offences.

This includes using an electronic or electrical device when its use has been prohibited during part or all of the flight, as well as obstructing the performance of the flight crew or the safety mission and refusing to comply with a safety instruction given by crew members.

In the most serious of cases, officials have confirmed that passengers could face boarding bans for a period of up to four years.

Minister of Transport Philippe Tabarot said that the safety of passengers and crew is the country’s “absolute priority”, describing disruptive behaviour on board aircraft as “unacceptable”.

“It jeopardises flight safety and compromises the working conditions of flight crews,” he added.

Earlier this year, Ryanair sued a passenger for €15,000 after the budget airline was forced to divert a flight from Dublin to Lanzarote to Portugal.

The plane had to remain in Porto overnight on 9 April 2024, and the airline had to provide 160 passengers with overnight hotel accommodation.

MPs and peers have been told they face “a covert and calculated” attempt to recruit parliamentarians through two LinkedIn profiles linked to the Chinese intelligence service.

After MI5 issued an espionage alert on Tuesday, saying that two people were operating on LinkedIn to obtain “non-public and insider insights”, the security minister, Dan Jarvis, told MPs the effort was focused on those “with access to sensitive information about parliament and the UK government”.

With the Chinese embassy in London dismissing the accusations as “pure fabrication”, the diplomatic dispute appeared to be a new flashpoint in the increasingly tense relationship between China and the UK over alleged espionage.

Air defense topped the agenda at talks between Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and France's Emmanuel Macron. And a Russian drone attack on Ukraine's Odesa region has caused fires at port and energy facilities. DW has more.

We could LARP and eat tavern food.

To me, leftist infighting is just infighting. That's just a small taste of my lefted up brain

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5682920

Archived version

China has played a key role in providing Belarus with resources and technology necessary to fulfill its military obligations to russia in the 2023-2025 years, a Belarusian organization BelPol, formed by former law enforcement and security force employees, said in a report (open link to Google Drive).

“We found that the Lukashenka regime systematically uses Chinese companies to circumvent international sanctions, and the Chinese leadership, aware of these schemes, takes no action to stop them.

Based on the collected data, one can draw a clear conclusion: China has made a significant contribution to the development of the Belarusian military-industrial complex and the supply of weapons for the russian army, which makes China a direct accomplice in the aggression against Ukraine,” the report said.

The study includes 55 sources of information, of which 46 are documentary evidence that are part of the closed part of the report.

The European Commission on Wednesday unveiled plans for an emergency system to speed up the cross-border movement of troops and military equipment in response to growing security threats from Russia.

The announcement came hours after the Saudi crown prince announced he would increase his investments in the U.S. to nearly $1 trillion.

Donald Trump said Tuesday the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have entered into a security agreement that will ease weapons transfers and elevate the relationship between the two countries.

Under the agreement, Saudi Arabia would be designated a “major non-NATO ally,” a formal relationship that deepens defense cooperation but does not include a security guarantee. The Kingdom would join 19 other countries in that category, a list that includes Israel, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar.

The announcement followed the crown prince’s announcement that he would increase his nation’s investments in the U.S. from about $600 billion to nearly $1 trillion — and after Trump dismissed a question about the 2018 killing of a Washington Post columnist in which Mohammed was implicated by the CIA.