Naomi Brockwell https://www.nbtv.media/episodes does a good job of blending accessible presentation of privacy issues with technically viable solutions. Recently she’s been more on an advocacy tack, but there are some gems in the back catalogue that explain not just why you should care but the sorts of products/software you can use to address your concerns. She provides suggestions, but you should take those as just an idea and develop your own answers!

So, in between watching those videos find out all you can about how Debian (for servers) and OpenWRT (for routers) work from their websites, and use $preferred_search_engine to learn about why Proxmox, Unbound, Postfix, Dovecot, XMMS, WireGuard, Nextcloud can help improve your privacy.

Get that used Optiplex, install a Linux on it and begin experimenting! Don’t worry about the perfect hardware config yet. You can source other parts if you feel you really need them later. Although more RAM is always good, but you knew that already.

Along the way you will want to learn enough to decide whether you prefer VMs or Containers, or a blend; which filesystem(s) you prefer; which distributions you are going to deploy; which backup system you are going to implement; whether Apache or Nginx; and whether you like systemd or want to simply blast off and nuke it from orbit. You may also want to take a look at Ansible now. And Git. Git has saved my server config bacon more times than I care to remember.

Not sure quite where to recommend you look for bang up to date introduction to Linux networking stuff these days. The Linux Networking Howto was hopelessly out of date ten years ago. The distribution howtos are pretty good on at least the basics. Wikipedia might be useful on more advanced topics. And then searching for specific problems or needs normally turns up some learned responses on stackexchange or equivalent.

And as one 90s kid to another, if you haven’t read Permanent Record by Edward Snowden yet, consider getting a copy. He grew up at the same time and does a great job of explaining why this journey matters.

Time to blades a new trail.

Experimenting with VMs is the way forward.

Basic networking knowledge is vital. And being able to configure your own firewall(s) safely is an important skill. Check out something like Foomuuri, or Firewald. Shorewall is brilliant for documentation and description of issues (with diagrams!) but it does not use the newer Linux kernel nftables and is no longer actively developed.

Go for it with Nextcloud.

I would also recommend at least having a shot at setting up an email server, although I would recommend pushing through to a fully working system. It is possible, and is very satisfying to have in place. The process of setting one up touches so many different parts of internet function and culture that it is worth it even if you don’t end up with a production system. The Workaround.org ISPMail stuff is a good starting point, and includes some helpful background information at every stage, enough so you can begin to understand what’s going on in the background and why certain choices are being made - even if you disagree with the decisions.

Python is great for server admin, although most server config and startup shutdown snippets are written in BASH. You will no doubt have already begun picking that up as you interact with your VMs.

I came here to upvote the post that mentions haproxy, but I can’t see it, so I’m resorting to writing one!

Haproxy is super fast, highly configurable, and if you don’t have the config nailed down just right won’t start so you know you’ve messed something up right away :-)

It will handle encryption too, so you don’t need to bother changing the config on your internal server, just tweak your firewall rules to let whatever box you have haproxy running on (you have a DMZ, right?) see the server, and you are good to go.

Google and stackexchange are your friends for config snippets. And I find the actual documentation is good too.

Configure it with certificates from let’s encrypt and you are off to the races.

Working here (UK).

deleted by creator

People not so much leaving the country as switching their advertising tracker?

And will be cancelled in 18 months with 2 weeks notice.

I’ve used this list generating package for years now with great results: https://github.com/opencoff/unbound-adblock/tree/master

It is designed to generate blocking lists that can be used with unbound, the DNS resolver. There are even instructions for how to configure unbound so if you are new to it all you can follow along.

I use the resulting lists in my two local DNS name servers, running unbound.

The way it works is that if a query for a blocked address comes in to one of thenlocal DNS servers it returns a domain not found result. If the address is not on the block list then it forwards the query on to an internet DNS resolver securely using DoT.

You can gain further control over your DNS results by choosing those upstream resolvers carefully. Quad9 and Cloudflare etc all offer DoT resolving, along with some further filtering (eg. for malware), or completely unfiltered DNS if that’s what you want.

Services like cleanbrowsing.org offer more fine grained filtering, useful if you want a family-friendly set of DNS results, based off categorify.org. You can pay for really fine tuned results, or there is a free layer which provides still very useful basic categories.

Combining the two forms of filtering, local advert and tracking blocking, along with open internet content categorisation, seems to be very effective.

I get complaints about too many adverts when my kids are on WiFi away from home. I take it as a compliment.

Windows 98

If you weren’t at a university it was generally a challenge to get hold of disks. Downloading at home took forever on a 28.8 or even 56k modem (ie. 56 kilobits per second).

Slackware and Redhat disk sets were the thing, in my experience. But generally that only gave you the compiled code, not the source (although there was an another set of disks with the source packages).

If you wanted to recompile stuff you had to download the right set of packages, and be prepared to handle version conflicts on your own (with mailing list and usenet support).

Recompiling the kernel with specific patches for graphics cards, sound cards, modems and other devices (I remember scanners in particular), or specific combinations of hardware was relatively common. “Use the source, Luke!” was a common admonition. Often times specific FAQ pages or howtos would be made available for software packages, including games.

XFree86 was very powerful on hardware it supported, but was very finnicky. See the other posts about the level of detail that had to be supplied to get combinations of graphics cards and monitors working without the appearance of magic smoke.

Running Linux was mostly a enthusiast/hobbyist/geek thing, for those who wanted to see what was possible, and those who wanted to tinker with something approaching Unix, and those who wanted to stretch the limits of what their hardware could do.

Many of those enthusiasts and hobbyists and geeks discovered that Linux could do far more than anyone previously had been prepared to admit or realise. They, and others like them, took it with them into progressively more significant, and valuable projects, and it began to take over the world.

SSH along with the extra stuff it comes with like scp is the way forward.

The two following suggestions make use of secure shell.

Termux and then pkg install mc (MC is Midnight Commander)

Alternatively, if you are feeling brave and GUI, Total Commander here.

Consider using tar to create an archive of your home directory, and then unpacking that on the new machine. This will help to capture all the links as well as regular files, and their permissions.

Take a minute to think what else you have changed on the old machine, and then take another minute to think how tricky it would be to replicate on a new machine. Downloading the apps again is gloriously easy. Replacing configs, or keys and certificates, is not!

I normally archive /etc as well, and then I can copy out the specific files I need.

Did you install databases? You’ll want to follow specific instructions for those.

Have you set up web sites? You’ll want to archive /var/www as well.

I have never knowingly used Arch. Am I allowed to like this song?

Also, Taylor Swift, is that you?

Not tried the app version. Been using Fairemail for a while now, since k9 was unmaintained.

Fairemail is well maintained. Quick. Supports multiple accounts very well. Loads of features (could be a downside for those who like things simple). Designed with security and privacy as top priorities right from the start. Open source development. For a long time its been the best email client on Android IMHO.