Greetings. I want to discuss Direct Attached Storage (DAS). What it is and why you might need it.
In my current situation I am living off a laptop, with a couple of DAS devices. Both devices cost about the same. However one is solid state and much faster. The other is mechanical and much larger.
Probably, the vast majority of people using computers may only need DAS, and not any sort of network solution.
Flash Drives have gotten very large lately. They sort of took over DAS from cdrom/dvrom once they hit 8 GB and bigger. And I know people who use flash drives, and SD cards, as many laptops have a SD slot built in.
There are external hard drives. TB of inexpensive storage. One just needs to chose between mechanical and solid state. Solid state is faster, but mechanical is still cheaper per GB.
Then there are a wide variety of options for using internal drives externally. USB to SATA, and multi bay drives, some even supporting hardware RAID. Though these options loose something in the form of portability.
I posted a video going over my inital experiences with the FreedomBox server software based on Debian. I want to relate my thoughts after using FreedomBox in a Vert Manager VM for awhile
I first recommend reviewing the Video, as it provides the basis for my thoughts. I did test additional applications beyond waht is presented in the video.
FreedomBox My Thoughts
Note these applications are current as of MAY 2025. This is not a complete list, but an example of what is available
Applications should be considered the server part of a server client setup, in that your computer is the client to a server.
All application are part of the Debian repositories. This is why Freedombox is referred to as pure Debian. Because of this one needs to be aware that most are not going to be the latest versions. This is generally not a problem, except where the application can use additional plugins form outside the Debian ecosystem.
Nextcloud and WordPress are examples where one needs to perform due diligence and make sure any modules, extensions, and plugins are compatible.
One should also be aware that if an application is updated via the web, the version will no longer match what is in the Debian repositories.
FreedomBox My Thoughts
In general applications are easy to install. However one must read the instructions carefully. Most of the installations are somewhat limited.
Some of this will seem obvious to experienced users. However the experinced user is not the target audience.
For example when installing SAMBA, one should really create the directories to share first. Otherwise one will need to backtrack after installing. While one can install SAMBA with a single click, achieving ones desired configuration involves a lot of jumping around between different pages, and having an understanding of how SAMBA manages shares.
Some applications are easier than others to install. My advice would be to do a manual install and setup on a test server before trying it with FreedomBox. In soime cases having an understanding of how an application works will help one understand and troubleshoot the setup on FrredomBox
That being said, if one understands the applications, Freedombox can be an effective way to get a server up and running quickly with minimal fuss.
This may be the first in a series of posts and articles on the various container and virtualization methodologies available in the Linux ecosystem. The plan is to start with the ones that are easiest to understand, then move to the more complex. Of course this is from my perspective of the complexity.
As with anything Linux, there are multiple ways to accomplish things. The same is true for containers and virtualization. My intent is to present various concepts in as simple and non technical way as possible.
About two weeks ago I published a short video on adding emoji’s to a BASH prompt (below YouTube link). This is a followup article to add a bit more detail to the process.
UTF8 (Unicode Transformation Format – 8-bit)
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) created a multi-byte character set in 1989. The ISO 10646 standard contained an annex called UTF-1, providing 32 bit encoding for fonts. The original standard has seen several changes since it was first introduced. UTF-8 can use four byte of data and is capable of encoding over one million values, including symbols, characters from different languages, pictograms (dingbats), and emojis.
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