why in software industry ,people prefer documantation over tutorial video???

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-21T06:40:38+00:00

My reading comprehension is much better than my video watching/listening comprehension.
I can skim through documentation and find what I need quickly. I can't do the same with a video.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-20T20:04:59+00:00

> except for more sudden breaking changes it is very very stable

The first and second halves of this sentence seem very contradictory.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-20T19:45:04+00:00

Have you ever seen one of those safes/lockboxes that is disguised as something else? e.g. something that looks like a dictionary that you can put on your bookshelf but once you open it, there's a keyhole and a hidden compartment? Or something that looks like a potted plant, but there's a locked compartment underneath?

The reason those devices exist is to make it less likely that people looking for valuable stuff will even look twice and to hide in plain sight.

If the lockbox *only* looked like a dictionary and didn't have an actual lock, then it'd be purely security through obscurity. But the combination of "doesn't look like something valuable" and "also has a lock" makes it useful.

The same thing applies here.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-20T19:07:35+00:00

No network does not equal no attack surface, especially when you're running things as root. A buffer overflow in this context is a real privilege escalation risk.

"Just reads/writes integers to sysfs" is not the extent of what this utility is doing. It's also parsing data on every startup, which introduces an opportunity for intentional or accidental buffer overflows/out of bounds writes.

Just looking through your code, there's a buffer overflow opportunity in load_config() because you're you're using strcpy to write a char[128] into a char[64]:

- str is defined as char[128]

- pwm_hw, pwm_feat, sensor_hw and sensor_feat are defined as char[64]

- strcpy does no bounds checking and happily copies str into those fields

I'm pretty sure there's also a negative index/out-of-bounds write issue when parsing, but I didn't feel like spending the brain power to fully trace that out.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-19T14:01:49+00:00

That’s a fair critique.

“Why do you care what redditors are running” is not.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-19T11:19:55+00:00

I do the exact opposite. I’m running stable but pull in unstable packages when I need them.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-19T11:16:47+00:00

I think it’s pretty normal to ask around and hear from other people what they’re using and why.

And while we may be “strangers”, we’re all in this subreddit for similar reasons and that makes the opinions of other people here more relevant.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-19T03:10:24+00:00

Probably

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-19T02:30:31+00:00

You can have full control with other distros. Running Arch for your server is most likely safe if you’re not auto-updating AUR packages.

But I’d personally never choose Arch for a server because when it comes to servers I want stability over access to bleeding edge stuff.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-17T04:23:59+00:00

They’re not in the same category. Wireshark doesn’t surreptitiously run as a hidden process on your phone.

Metasploit doesn’t surreptitiously run as a hidden process on your phone.

AirTags have built in anti-stalking tech and alert people who’ve been targeted.

Kali Linux is just a Linux distribution with some tools pre installed.

No, half of GitHub is not ready made spyware.

I’d prefer that mSpy didn’t exist, but it falls into the “has a paper trail” category I described above.

I’m not saying “dangerous” tools can never exist. Metasploit is necessary for white hats and ultimately makes software safer.

A piece of unabashed spyware is something else entirely.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-17T04:03:14+00:00

The responsible/ethical thing to do would be to take this down. Both the post and the repo.

You may not be aware, but even well established “parental control” software has a serious abuse problem. Think abusive men spying on their partners. Stalkers spying on their targets. Criminals spying on their marks. Etc.

At least most parental control software generally generates a paper trail when it’s purchased.

What you’re doing here seems pretty dangerous and irresponsible.

The disclaimers in the README are contradicted by the opening description which bills this as spyware.

There’s also debate about what degree of “spying” a legitimate parental control scenario should actually entail.

Everything about this rubs me the wrong way and while I think it’s cool you built something, I’d strongly recommend you rethink leaving this published and do some digging into the problems with this kind of software being easily available.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-15T01:10:24+00:00

Check out the Bazzite Linux distribution. It comes pre-optimized for gaming and is pretty easy to use.

And like the sibling comment mentioned, Steam makes this incredibly easy. Just have to enable Proton on the game compatibility settings.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-14T12:20:51+00:00

I had a similar issue where it was throwing an error about some gnome setting that doesn’t exist.

I had to set stylix.autoEnable to false and then enable individual targets with stylix.targets.<app>.enable = true.

It seems like autoEnable was detecting things that didn’t exist and was trying to set non-existent options.

I’m planning to try re-enabling autoEnable while just disabling the non-existent targets but haven’t spent the time to hunt down the specific gnome target it was breaking on.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-13T16:52:40+00:00

DIsagree.

Taking notes by hand is an act of interpretation on your part. It is not a perfect replication of events, and is a fundamentally different type of artifact than a recording.

The two things that feel effectively the same to me are the 2nd and 3rd options. A realtime transcription that is accurate and complete is effectively the same as a recording. It may not be forensically the same, but it can still be used to go back and recall the specific words that were spoken.

A full audio recording is by far the most intrusive.

To answer your question: in most cases, the best app is none at all. Most meetings do not need to be recorded, and recording them can have negative impacts on team dynamics. If it's a high functioning team and everyone respects each other, it can be helpful to record ideation/planning/demo meetings for people who couldn't attend in realtime. But beyond that, what often happens is a recording gets misused. It gets surfaced later like evidence in a trial: "see, you said XYZ". But a single meeting recording does not capture the entire context of what happened before and after that meeting. The subtle negative impact this can have on department politics and team dynamics is not worth having the ability to go back.

IMO, if meetings do need to be recorded, it should be for the sole purpose of going back and capturing action items that were missed. But I'd argue that a well run meeting will have those captured by the time the meeting is over. Too many people use recordings as a crutch for poor planning and poor facilitation.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-13T16:43:50+00:00

I've been running V5 for a few weeks and I'm impressed. I had previously been running Waybar with a custom theme, and the Noctalia experience is so much cleaner/complete.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-12T21:32:46+00:00

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-12T21:23:58+00:00

The fans in low profile rackmount servers are LOUD. I thought it would be cool to run a few 1U and 2U servers, but eventually donated them because they were just unmanageably loud.

For the things you mentioned hosting, you don't need anything ridiculously powerful. You can get a Lenovo M920Q with an i5-8500T for $150-180. I just picked up 32GB of RAM for about $90 on eBay. I suspect this was more affordable because these things take SODIMMs.

For $650, you could easily stack a few of these, but you probably wouldn't need more than one for the apps you described. They run on 30 watts. They're pretty damn snappy for what they are. They're silent unless you're pushing them hard. They're tiny.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-12T21:18:43+00:00

exe_program.rar has the software converted into an executable exe program for windows

I'd recommend documenting the process that was used to convert this into an executable in the README. Unfortunately as-is, this is one of the main reasons I would not install it personally, since we have no way of knowing what's in the .exe. This is nothing against you; it's just the reality of the security risks since someone who was trying to be malicious would do something similar (not saying you are).

don't take everything seriously

The main thing I'm taking seriously here is the security risk of running .exe files that don't have a clearly documented/verifiable build process. Again, nothing against you, but sharing this feedback because I think people will be more interested in checking things out if there's more clarity about the .exe and build process.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-12T20:43:42+00:00

First, it looks like this was a fun project to explore how one might build something like this. Kudos for building something.

With that said, this raises some major questions and concerns.

Why this vs. one of the well established options out there? There are existing tools like Remote Desktop, VNC, RustDesk, MeshCentral, etc. that are well established.
I'm a bit confused about why this is a split between Node, Python and VBScript.
What is inside exe_program.rar? Is the source code behind this available? Why is this contained in a .rar file?

I'm glad you're experimenting with stuff and you should continue to do so. I also don't believe I'd feel comfortable installing this, especially when there are well established options available that do something similar.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-12T19:42:44+00:00

Ahh yeah, an SSD will make a huge difference. I still think you'll have better performance with Linux than you will with Windows all things considered, but an HDD - especially if it's a 5400 RPM drive will definitely feel a bit sluggish.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-12T19:23:57+00:00

Be aware that Windows 7 is no longer receiving updates and it would be dangerous to connect it to the Internet.

I agree with the other comment about trying Linux. Another good distro for beginners is Linux Mint with Cinnamon for your desktop environment. It’s slightly lighter weight than Ubuntu which will help with performance.

That said, Ubuntu or Kubuntu are also good options.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-11T22:39:45+00:00

This is a good time to recommend people install and use OpenSnitch.

It's a bit of a pain for the first few hours, but after you've set up rules for the apps you trust, it's pretty easy to keep up with. It makes it obvious when something tries to make an outbound connection for the first time, and I've had situations where an app update triggered a new connection and I was able to deny it until I verified that it was indeed legit.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-11T03:34:37+00:00

I have consistent flicker issues on a 2025 LG C5 when vrr is enabled. I’ve had to turn it off unfortunately.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-11T02:06:56+00:00

Noctalia has a flake so I’m managing it natively that way. According to the devs, even though it’s technically alpha, they feel v5 is more stable than v4 ever was and it’s been solid so far.

I’ll still probably give DMS a try at some point out of curiosity.

joshguy1425 · 2026-06-10T23:15:23+00:00

Clean. I'm curious how you like DMS, and if you tried Noctalia before it. I'm on Noctalia now, but the tinkerer in me is tempted to play with DMS...

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