Fedora Silverblue downloads new OS versions in the background and boots the newest version after a reboot. I use this for older family member who’s been traumatised by Windows updates. I have also turned off notificantions that show up after a new boot with a fresh version.

The same goes for Flatpaks. Just updates without make a fuzz.

Its nice to give old people some peace of mind regarding their computing needs!

Fedora has been my default choice for non-techies in my family the last couple of years and it has been glorious!

All they need is a browser with uBlock, maybe an email reader and LibreOffice. With Silverblue, eveything updates automatically, and upgrades between major versions is a one-click operation. Easy rollback gives me peace of mind.

All they need to know is where the Super key is located on the keyboard. When pressed, it shows the dock with all apps they use and all open windows. Double-tap the Super key and you see all apps, but that is usually not necessary.

I also use the built in remote desktop feature (RDP) in conjunction with a Wireguard connection to my home network. So nice and a joy to never have to fight teamviewer again 😝

Check out Anytype! It is a local-first cross-platform app with Notion-like features, and it has a Kanban view. It is SUPER customisable, I have set it up with a PARA workflow that fits my needs.

I never notice any update times, as the default in Fedora is to auto-update (I think?). Everything is just always up to date.

Edit: coming from ten years of Arch, this has significantly reduced my time fixing things related to an update 😆

It does share dependencies, but in a different way than a regular package manager. You share runtimes and base apps: https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/dependencies.html

Podman is great, but a lot of confusion arise from the rapid development the last ~year and the fact that different distros have relatively old versions in their repos.

I recommend using the latest Fedora Server and defining your containers as quadlets. Also, on Fedora, yoi can install Cockpit (and cockpit-podman) and get a decent webgui to manage your host and container.

I should just write a blog post about this instead of typing this up on my phone in bed 😆

If it’s a personal server for yourself and maybe some friends and family, I would rather use GoToSocial, as it is much more lightweight and is less complex to set up and maintain.

Nice, support for Android apps is just casually mention almost as a side note 😎

Symfonium looks cool, especially the support for DNLA, but it is not open source and not available on F-droid.

In that case, I can recommend minicomputer’s like HP EliteDesk G2 800 Mini. You can get them with a variety of intel CPUs, they can take up to 32GB RAM, they have slot for M.2 disks and a regular 2.5" SSD – and they hardly use any power when idle, between 5 to 10 watts, depending on the CPU and CPU governor settings. They are sold used for ~€50 and if you buy newer generations you’ll get even more umpfh for a bit more cash.

In other words, very competetive with the Pi’s, only more available, cheaper and about the same power consumption!

Fedora updates flatpaks automatically, system updates too, but you need to reboot. Which Fedora version do you use?