I’ve tried to figure some of this stuff out but I really don’t know what I’m doing. Most documentation is written with a vocabulary I don’t understand. Tutorials assume a high-level understanding of coding, software, CLI and a bunch of other stuff.
So far I’ve got an old gaming PC with a R7 2700x + 2060 Super and I think maybe it’s overkill. I’ve got TrueNAS running on it but that’s about as far as I got…
Thinking maybe we can have an open Jitsi meeting and just anyone who needs help can get it (myself included 🙂)?
Would anyone be interested in something like that?
E: some people have imagined up some things that I said so let me be clear about what I did not say:
At no time did I insist, beg, or demand that anyone help me.
I did NOT ask anyone to help with a specific issue, nor should I be required to.
I asked if anyone would be willing to help myself and possibly others to get some services running, and I asked to do it in a videoconference setting where we can have a discussion and where you can see what I’m doing as I’m doing it, out of respect for both of our time.
If you are not interested, you do not need to come in here and announce it, and you sure as shit do not need to speak for anyone else on whether they will want to. Just keep scrolling.
E2: special thanks to those who actually reached out and offered to help!
You’re probably not going to find someone knowledgeable that’s willing to do open ended support like that, because we all know it turns into a huge time sink. But if you post specifics we can try to help.
The truth is self hosting also involves a lot of self learning. People will help you solve problems, but nobody has time to give free classes.
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When you run into something vocabulary wise you don’t understand, Google is your friend just keep googling and reading to get the gist, Google any error messages too, I’m 43, I’ve been googling my whole life as a big fraud in IT, jk
But seriously Google Google Google has all the answers and as you use it more you hone your search skills to the point where you just scroll past the crap and wham find things right away. The more you search and work with the stuff the better you’ll get way more comfortable. Maybe try and find a local friend who’s good with computers or search that can help you a bit
I’ve helped many friends fix and troubleshoot stuff from time to time, but I’m not anyone’s full time IT, I work on retainer.
I don’t know everything but every day I learn, even stuff I’ll never have to use again.
I do IT consulting Reiners.io , if you want paid help no problem, but it does turn into a huge free time sink, with no reward.
Source: retired 15 year Linux systems engineer and sysadmin, turned consultant at https://reiners.io $60/hr minimum I charge clients much more, including my old boss, who’s at $110/h but I bring my laptop to Hawaii for that guy, so he pays for access to me in 80 hr blocks.
It is freaking expensive and few people will want to do it for free.
Hey can you suggest a good vinyl cutter/sticker printer/plotter/whatever for making small batches of high quality stickers for under $300? $500?
Not gonna happen, you need a vinyl printer my suggestion is buy a broken one and find the service manual and fix it. My printer is worth about $5000-$8000, I bought it for parts, $1000 and changed the parts out to make mine work 100% check out marketplace and dial that distance up, I rented a uhaul, mines huge.
I really doubt there are smaller vinyl capable printers for $500, but if you find one lemme know and I’ll buy one, I hate doing singles on my giant machine, so I usually give the purchaser a 24/42/60 inch line of them, unless I’m running multiple jobs.
Also hp latex requires a flexi subscription, and my printer doesn’t contour cut, so you need a cutter as well, mine was about $4000, it’s a uscutter titan 3 68 inch.
If you want to do wraps I use vinyl master dsr, it’s excellent also has masking of images and other cool features.
Plus you’ll need adobe or some other editing software.
Honestly, the only reason I purchased the printer is because I sponsor two race cars where I was spending thousands of dollars on decals to a company here in town, I ended up purchasing a printer so that I could print decals for the guy that I sponsor and some of his friends. So far it’s worked out well, but finding people for custom decals is a chore most of the time.
I’m just kind of saying if you’re having a problem with the $500 cost, you’re going to have way bigger problems with the cost of all the software subscriptions to run the printer. Maybe some of the other solvent printers and stuff don’t require flexi and that might be best. I’m not sure. I haven’t used eco solvent or solvent printers since I did my research. Latex printers are amazing. They don’t smell it all and they’re dry immediately.
My prints can be powerwashed and usually do not require any protection at all from sun and rain, race decals I do overwrap for scratches, overwrap laminate vinyl is extremely expensive for good quality rolls and the race drivers are the only ones I do it for, and some don’t even want that for cost savings, a wreck can ruin a whole side of a car.
Rolls of material are expensive and so are inks. But it’s fun and you meet all kinds of interesting people.
Edit oops accidentally cut some text before submitting pasted in edit
Edit 2 forgot to say my printer is an older HP latex 260, also known as the HP Designer 26500. I get aftermarket inks, and print heads , you can buy lots of them on eBay, bought about 12 cartridges of most of the colors I need all genuine but expired, works perfectly for me and I’m not worried about warranty as I service it myself.
Cricut?
And then if you can’t find help on Google or are confused with a specific problem, THEN ask your specific question here or somewhere similar.
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If you’re confused about a specific term, ask about that specific term, and you’ll get many people eager to help. Sorry nobody wants to get on an open ended video call with a stranger to teach you how to run a server, but that’s just how these forums work. Everyone’s setup is different so there’s not much I could do to help in your video call.
Learning this stuff is hard, don’t let anyone tell you any different. We all went through the same struggles, perhaps for some people that was so long ago that they forgot how hard it was.
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If you can’t make any sense of it, keep trying. If keep trying isn’t what you want to do, don’t do it. Really, you don’t have to force yourself into this if it’s unintelligible and frustrating. I’ve hit the wall plenty of times, and I keep hitting the wall, sometimes I wish I could just stop while I’m not stressed and going bald.
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Don’t give up! There are a wealth of basic tutorials on Youtube. You just need to find one that works for you, and work up from there.
The problem with someone setting everything up for you is, what do you do when something goes wrong? If you don’t have an understanding of the basics, you’re back to square one of just asking someone to fix it for you. And at that point you’re not really self hosting, you’re just a residential co-lo (datacenter) for your managed service provider (whoever is helping you) that’s doing all the work!
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