This seems super cool, you can curate your own search index :O

Being able to preview your search results offline is quite neat too!

One question though, how will you solve the issue of “echo chambers”, because from my understanding, it looks like it will only present results that you search for / have searched for, meaning for some people, you could be stuck with results that only support your view of the world.

1. That’s simply wrong, the most reliable (consumer) machine is probably the Prusa Core One, and the best print quality would depend on what you are printing (resin printing is nicer than most FDM but has its own set of challenges, Prusa XL can have six toolheads, single toolhead printers, etc.)

And of course, enterprises grade machines are probably much more reliable than any consumer grade hardware

2. This is focusing on the budget segment, which the H2 series is far outside of anyways (as is the Prusa machines). The Centauri Carbon by Elegoo is better than the A1 Mini in most metrics (larger volume, enclosed, CoreXY, more open ecosystem, etc.) for around the same price point, and the Sovol machines are quite good there as well.

The Elegoo Centauri Carbon is really good for the price: enclosed, CoreXY, etc. Arguably better than Bambu’s offerings even by feature set alone.

Qidi’s Q series is also quite good if you want to print more engineering type filaments, but might be considered “midrange tier” given that it’s ~$500 ish.

Sovol makes some good machines too, a lot of people have already suggested them.

One thing of note, since Pixelfed is part of the Fediverse, posts made on Pixelfed instances can be seen by users of Mastodon and other platforms that use the same protocol! It’s really neat!

their results seem mostly identical to ddg/bing too though it’s occasionally better than them for some reason

I believe Ecosia uses either Google or Bing search indexes depending on the region, but they are working on an independent index with Qwant that will hopefully be a good alternative! If you live in France, it’s already bring trialled!

But yeah, Ecosia is like any search engine and there is bit of greenwashing with LLMs and all. However, they are a non-profit with transparent earnings reports, and that makes them better than Google, Bing, DDG, etc. for me.

they geoblock certain countries including mine since 2023 or so

Dang, that sucks.

That’s fair enough (unfortunately, this is the case for most search engines aside from SearXNG instances I think)! Thankfully they do let you disable it, which is nice. I mostly like that they are quite transparent about how they operate! The planting trees thing is a nice bonus, but they certainly aren’t saints to the environment, no search engine is

searxng also doesn’t really seem to work these days…

Of note, this depends on the instance. I occasionally hop between public instances whenever one is no longer reliable. Google and friends are blocking requests from SearXNG instances because it is in their business interests to kill competition

As for alternatives, I would avoid DDG since they seem to be going a similar route as Google with a front page filled with ads and the emphasis towards their chatbot is not to my taste. Plus, DDG is hosted in the U.S., so privacy-wise it’s not as good. Startpage was purchased by an American advertising company some time ago, which isn’t great. Brave Search is also one, but they are doing some shady things on their browser with crypto and whatnot, so I don’t particularly trust them. Plus, they are an American for-profit.

Qwant and Ecosia are solid options, the former is a French for-profit and the latter a German non-profit, and they are working towards an independent European search index that is being trialled in France! Both are quite good, Qwant is shinier and magical blue, while Ecosia is simpler and earthy green.

Ecosia also uses a portion of their revenue for planting trees, which is really neat, and they are super transparent about where their earnings go!

I personally use a mix of SearXNG and Ecosia, and I sometimes use Qwant too for certain queries.

And once you do have a 3D printer, you can mess around with Voron kits and build your own printer! 3D printing a 3D printer!

Yes, you are correct in avoiding Bambu. They have been pretty awful to their community, the open source community, and the media.

Prusa will be one of the most solid and reliable options you can get, reportedly amazing customer service and their machines are very repairable. However, if you have a tight budget, it won’t be as good “value” (at least purely based on performance), where Prusa is surpassed by printers like the Elegoo Centauri Carbon, Qidi Q2 (both CoreXY), and Sovol SV06 Ace (bedslinger). If you want multiple toolheads, Snapmaker’s U1 is neat and a lot cheaper than the equivalent Prusa XL.

Prusa has lots of great machines, but the “big dog” is definitely the Core One, which will later have the INDX tool changer upgrade path which is nest! If you’re okay with bedslingers, you have their MK4S as well as the Mini (which has a smaller build volume than most, check what kind of models you want to print first!)

TLDR: Elegoo, Qidi, Sovol, and Prusa all have great printers (many of which are far better value than Bambu machines to be honest, plus they will be more open too with better compatibility with third-party software), though Prusa is the most reliable and trustworthy. I believe Elegoo, Qidi, and Prusa all have their own versions of a multi material system, and Snapmaker (and later Prusa with the INDX) offer tool changers if that’s your jam.

pricing progression right now is sort of like this in my opinion:

• used market (e.g. older Prusa models)
• Sovol SV06 Ace (note: bedslinger!)
• Elegoo Centauri (no enclosure, CoreXY)
• Elegoo Centauri Carbon (enclosure, CoreXY)
• Qidi Q1 Pro or Q2 (CoreXY)
• Prusa MK4S (note: bedslinger!)
• Prusa Core One (CoreXY)

Understood! I have edited my comment to reflect that

Wait, I thought we recently agreed that LLM assisted projects require a [AIP] tag? Did you not see the pinned post, or are you not human?

edit: Wait, I have been told this is incorrect, it’s not a rule just yet and is still being discussed

As for me, I just use Syncthing between my devices so I have the same music files in my laptop and my phone. It works well as I don’t often change out the music I listen to, and plus it’s local files so no network required (good on an aeroplane, for example). I personally use an MPD client on my (Linux) laptop, while on Android I use Auxio (Lotus and Chocola are excellent too)

If that doesn’t work for you, there is Jellyfin as well: Finamp for specifically music playback, Findroid for general Jellyfin use. Am not hosting Jellyfin currently so I don’t have anything to add besides that, but do check out the docs if you need help setting up / maintaining it!

We were all kids at one point in time

Lots of modern phones no longer come with an IR blaster, which is a bit stupid I think but corporations got to save cost somewhere (+ a billion other places in the device, manufacturing, production, etc.)

I found the LearnLinuxTV tutorial on installing Nextcloud to be really good, and it’s been running great! It’s excellent if you want drive and has all the different other bits like notes, calendar, forms, office, etc.

However, you might also want to look at some other services too for specific tasks. I use Radicale for calendar, mostly because it was my first self-hosted service and I never bothered moving to the NC offering, but it’s very simple to setup and works well for me. Etherpad is good if you want shareable MD notes (but isn’t as great if you want private notes, for that local programs like Joplin, Marktext, and Markor are your best bet). For image hosting, Immich is always nice and has excellent mobile clients too (even on Linux mobile, you have the third-party Mimick!)

Quarrtarrmastarr? Or is that too much?

I personally just use local music playback, with SyncThing for syncing between devices. That mean I can listen to them offline!

On Android, I use Auxio, but Lotus and Chocola (previously CuteMusic) are awesome too.

On Linux, I use an mpd-based option called rmpc. Tauon and Gapless are also great! As for mobile Linux, Gapless is a good option that works pretty well. You might also like Plattenalbum, a GTK-based MPD client.

I mean… I wish my printer worked as well as all my Bambu friends, but this helps a little… this helps…

Just of note, many other brands are now very competitive with Bambu, even beating it in value in some cases! For example, Qidi has some very good value enclosed printers like the Q1 Pro and the newer Q2, Elegoo’s Centauri Carbon is exceptionally good for the price, the Snapmaker U1 undercuts Bambu’s H2 series by a lot while being compatible with OrcaSlicer OOTB, and of course you have Prusa being cool as always, letting users upgrade from the MK4S+ to the Core One with a kit, which can later be upgraded again to a tool changer with the upcoming INDX.

Nice, good to hear! Radicale is really nice and simple to setup too. If you want a good desktop calendar app, I know that both GNOME Calendar and Thunderbird work well with Radicale (I currently use the latter).

1. Always read the documentation!!!

Now for specific recommendations, I can can share my own experience. I started out with hosting something very basic that I had a need for. Nothing fancy, something that’s relatively easy to set up. I hosted Radicale, a CalDAV server that can sync calendars. It was a little fussy about permissions but I was able to sort it out by reading the documentation. I heard Baikal is another good option for that too. Previously, I only used local calendars, as never bothered with Google or Outlook calendar, and if was refreshing to have my events be locally synced! Super neat!

If you have a small, simple need like that, it can be your baby steps into self-hosting. A small calendar, a to-do list, DNS (i.e. PiHole), web server, something like that which you have a need for. Just make sire you read the documentation!

Afterwards, you can “level up” to more complex projects. For file hosting, I use Nextcloud, but OpenCloud is a good option if you need something lighter weight. LearnLinuxTV has an excellent guide on installing Nextcloud! You also have Immich for photo backup, and the documentation for it is excellent. You really should read the docs, for any kind of software! And if you do any programming, having a local Forgejo instance is always good for an additional backup to a cloud git repo service like Codeberg or GitHub. If you have a large collection of media of any kind, Jellyfin (for videos), Audiobookshelf (for…audiobooks), and Navidrome (for music) are all recommended.

As for the OS, I would recommend Debian. It’s rock solid, there’s a bazillion guides for it and Ubuntu (a Debian derivative), and it works well for my use case. Much of the documentation for all kinds of self-hosted applications assumes that you use Debian or some derivative of it. However, if you want a better way to manage networking, RAID configurations, etc., going with an OS tailored for use in NAS systems would be better. I heard that TrueNAS is a really good option for that! Just make sure you read the documentation before you fiddle around with settings.

On the hardware side, I would always go with something you already have over buying new hardware, and if you really don’t have anything, getting some used is always good. Reduce e-waste and save your money! I used (and still use!) an old laptop for self-hosting, since it was what I had available and my storage needs were not massive. That poor 512GB SSD is really putting in the work.

Have I mentioned that you should always read the documentation?