I would highly discourage getting a fire stick, they’ve locked it down so much its just annoying. Yes, you can get there but found it much easier on android tv boxes, specifically the Xiaomi Mii TV ones. Which one you get probably depends on whether you need 4K and/or dolby
I like the Mii TV 4k sticks. They run android tv and have the usual apps, or you can install your own launcher, apps (look into stremio!) and everything through downloader or adb. Then you can disable the bloatware through adb, theres a few lists online if you search. With a launcher manager app, mine loads straight to productivity launcher (I also like flauncher).
Do not try a firestick, theyre heavily locked down now.
I then just deleted the network on my smart tv so it can’t send anything. Along with my pihole, hopefully theres no telemetry getting out, although not checked it. Its impossible to find good TVs that aren’t smart anymore unfortunately, the data selling either subsidises the costs pricing out dumb TV’s, or more likely they make so much from the data selling that they only sell those.
I just started using some docker containers I found on Docker Hub designed for DB backups (e.g. prodrigestivill/postgres-backup-local) to automatically dump from the databases into a set folder, which is included in the restic backup. I know you could come up with scripts but this way, I could easily copy the compose code to other containers with different databases (and different passwords etc).
Honestly, I am so glad my parents didn’t move to the USA and moved to the UK instead. Me and my sister had several health issues including asthma, food allergies, broken bones playing sports, and as a result several hospital and doctor visits. Considering my parents were self employed shop keepers, I don’t know if we’d be alive, let alone what sort of life we would have had. Then also having to pay for college would’ve been tricky. Having so few work holidays also completely sucks!
We are now both professionals with great jobs, paying lots of taxes and volunteer a lot to try to give back. Would that be possible in the USA - I honestly have no idea! Would we move to the USA - absolutely no way! We’d both actually earn lots more money in the USA in the same role but factoring in health and happiness, it’s not worth it.
When you hear “greatest country on earth” and “the American dream”, I think anybody in Western countries really roll their eyes. It’s not a utopia here in the UK but nobody claims it to be, and stories like this just prove we are better off here.
However, we know the people themselves are great and don’t deserve this position. We feel sorry for you and wish part of your population would travel and see things for themselves to push for changes back home.
In the UK, we are terrified that we will end up in the same position as our out of touch political elite and ultra wealthy would love to copy this.
My experience has taught me not to ‘apt autoremove’ unless im really sure what they are!
Take it one software at a time. See it’s running fine then move on to another. You’ll often realise something down the line will be helpful so will go back to make changes.
Keep a running list of software and the ports used.
With docker, do not automatically do :latest on important software (nginx proxy manager, SSO software, password database, anything you use regularly, etc). I did that and was burned a few times.
Also that at some point you’ll either mess up or realise it would just be easier and start again with a fresh OS install. Keep copying data (docker compose files and persistent storage) on working software before starting a new one, or before installing anything directly onto the OS, or before major updates.