I like Chrome Remote Desktop for ease of use and for the ability to get to all of my machines no matter where I am. Great when using Chromebooks, too.

If I don’t need all the fancy modern features (snapshot, replication, …) that modern file systems advertise, then XFS is my filesystem of choice. It’s a very performant and reliable filesystem. If you already have a RAID controller that addresses your needs for replication, then this would be a great option.

But if you need those fun modern features, then you have to choose between BTRFS, ZFS or BcacheFS. I really wished that the author of that website had reached out to the BcacheFS developer(s) and asked for assistance. That’s what we need to do if we want it to mature enough for general usage. And the failure sounds surprising considering the generally good reputation that it appears to have among early adopters.

I am really rooting for it here. But I also agree that I wouldn’t (quite) use it in production just yet. My personal choice would likely be ZFS. But it’s really hard to decide. All of the possible options have their pros and cons. ZFS can have performance issues in some situations, and it doesn’t deal great with changing RAID configurations (e.g. adding/removing devices).

I have previously had to wait three or four days for the OTA to show up on T-Mobile, when it was already available for download from the site.

Since the image has been released, you can just sideload it. It’s not very difficult.

Otherwise, you’ll have to wait. It’s not unusual for it to take a couple of days between images showing up and the OTA getting pushed.

If I know that I have a very specific use case in mind, and it doesn’t require a lot of CPU power, then I get a Raspberry Pi. I have learned the hard way though, that I should try to by original Raspberry and not one of the many alternatives that latch onto the same brand name. So, personally, I wouldn’t go for something like an Orange. Raspberry Pi might not be the cheapest nor the fastest, but it has the most reliable infrastructure and software support.

And I find that all of my devices inevitably live longer and need to be supported for longer than what I originally anticipate. And that’s a big pain, with hardware that has unpredictable and spotty software support.

If I need more power, then I absolutely prefer a full PC. As is, x86-64 still has the best support. I am getty too old to want to tinker for months on end to make my hardware work, when I could have spent a little more money to get something that works right away.

For containers/clustering, the nice thing is that you can split them across hardware devices pretty easily. A single powerful PC can run tons of containers that otherwise would need to be distributed across multiple smaller devices.

Having more than just one physical device can have advantages when upgrading gradually. But other than that, I would avoid gratuitously buying more devices than necessary. That just increase the burden to administer all these devices. More moving parts means more things that will break.

The nice thing with Raspberry Pi is that they have been around for a very long time, you know what you get, and software support is quite reliable. Even years later, you can still get new distributions for older devices. That’s all really useful, when you want to build a device that needs to run for a couple of years.

At this point, I will buy either a CM4 or a Zero2W depending on my specific needs – and assuming I can hunt it down. Availability is still rather spotty, but has been improving considerably in the last couple of weeks.

RISC-V single-board computers can’t quite compete on the same level. It simply isn’t clear whether a board that you buy today will still receive support six months from now. And performance or price isn’t really a compelling factor either. There are plenty of ARM-based non-Raspberry single-board computers that outperform any of the RISC-V offerings. And they probably have a better track record as far as long-term support is concerned, but not as good as Rapberry Pi solutions.

The reason to buy a RISC-V board would be for you to gain experience with this technology. But honestly, the ISA matters very little. It’ll look just like any other Linux system, with maybe a few gaps in what is supported.

Now, long-term, I am quite optimistic about RISC-V and expect that it’ll push ARM out of the market for these type of devices. But for the time being, there is very little reason to switch just yet.