FreeDNS works well if you don’t have your own domain. You’re limited to 5 records though.

If you have a domain, many registrars have an API that can be used for dynamic DNS.

All of those hard drives will produce quite a bit of heat just sitting idle.

There are a number of issues with pfSense. The updates for the community edition are slow. They are trying to push everyone to the paid version. You can’t even download an ISO to install it offline anymore. You have to make a Netgate account to download an installer that needs an internet connection to run.

NTP is network time protocol. It’s used to get the time over the network. Using a GPS receiver as the clock source makes it more accurate and allows it to work without an internet connection.

I’m running pfSense on an old Intel Atom fanless mini PC with 6 ethernet ports. I use pfBlocker for ad blocking. I also installed a GPS module in it. That’s the clock source for the NTP server. I was planning on replacing it with something newer, but that’s not happening until memory prices come down.

I would not recommend using pfSense anymore. My next router will be running OPNsense. I will probably install Adguard Home on that for ad blocking.

It’s not worth it unless you’re trying to run something like an email server or a name server. Most things work just fine with dynamic DNS. A few minutes of downtime on a personal site when the IP address changes is not a big deal.

My UPS says 116 watts right now, but it’s probably not particularly accurate. That’s running my pfSense box, NAS, switch, 2 access points, Starlink and a mini PC. That’s with minimal disk and internet activity. My CCTV cameras and DVR use another 30 W in the day and 50 W at night.

You want a business laptop. Most of them are designed to be repairable and have parts readily available. They are also a lot more durable than the junk you find in the stores. The only downside is they are not good for gaming, but you can always pick one with Thunderbolt/USB 4 and use an eGPU. Just make sure the port has all 4 PCIe lanes connected.

It would even make a decent living room gaming PC. The 3050Ti won’t run the modern AAA junk, but it will handle most indie games and a lot of older games.

That’s perfectly fine. The only issue is that it may limit performance on some laptops.

It can work as long as the phone has an option to limit the battery charge to 80% or less. Keeping the battery fully charged for an extended amount of time will damage it and may even cause it to puff up.

No, they are supposed to start delivering then later this year.

If you want to go the DIY option for a 3D printer, there is Voron. It’s open source hardware and it runs the Klipper firmware which is open source.

The Slate EV doesn’t have any telemetry.

Starlink has supported IPv6 for years. You have to put their router in bypass mode and connect your own to open ports in the firewall though. They delegate a /56 prefix and it’s stable. Mine hasn’t changed in over 3 years. Since my cell carrier also provides IPv6, I can access my SFTP server remotely without dealing with any NAT.

Fortnite intentionally blocks Linux users. It will not run without their windows only rootkit.

To reduce the heat, look for a newer, more energy efficient computer. The i5-6500 is a 10 year old, 65 watt CPU. That’s probably not the best to run in a small closet without ventilation.

D-sub connectors still work fine if you don’t screw them in. They were also used in industrial applications where you really didn’t want them getting disconnected though.

All of the Raspberry Pi models have hardware decoding. Even a Pi 1B will play a 30 mbps 1080p bluray rip. I used to run OpenELEC on a 1B. The interface on XBMC was really laggy, but h.264 videos played smoothly.

You need a Pi 4 or newer for h.265 hardware decoding. The Pi 3 has enough power to software decode some h.265 videos.

The video player you use needs to be compiled specifically for a Raspberry Pi for the hardware decoding to work though.

Some ISPs just have a broken IPv6 implementation. If they do it correctly, they should delegate a /56 prefix that doesn’t change unless the DUID on your router changes or your PoP changes.

I have a small piece of acrylic sheet taped over the power and reset buttons on my server for that reason. At least I don’t have to worry about mice.