I understand that. I didn’t call FUTO FOSS…

I wasn’t meaning to conflate the two, as I see your point. I didn’t claim it was FOSS, just that the source was available.

I know for me, I don’t mind using software that is licensed so that it doesn’t directly fall under FOSS. I just like the availability to view the source vs closed source software being a total black box.

I have no plans to monetize their work, nor fork it, only use it.

I know I don’t want to open up any more ports than I have to, but you’re right, that does sound like another alternative to setting up VPN.

Since I access more than just my pihole when connected to my home network. And because I want access to my home services, and don’t want to open up access to the public, opening one port and connecting to VPN is the way to do it. I have one port opened up for my VPN, and in order to connect you have to have my IP or my domain pointed at the IP, and you have to have a Wireguard profile setup, and know what port is open. So that does help a tad bit with my security concerns.

Edit: how would I go about that if I felt so inclined? Any tips?

Gitlab

Which they state is a fork of LatinIME

You can still use PiHole as your DNS when not home if you setup a VPN. For me that was the route I went.

I bought a 2024 vehicle with OnStar, I wonder if the process is comparable… Could you share your source please?

Saying you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you don’t have anything to say.

Avoid any machine with an Nvidia graphics card for Linux. It’s more hassle than it’s worth. Source: my experience.

However, I have good luck with most laptops that have Intel integrated graphics. Specifically Lenovo machines. I am not exactly sure what budget you have, but you can get a second hand Lenovo machine that would work quite well.

If you don’t care about it being fully open source/libre, then from my experience you likely won’t have much issue with Wifi either.

As far as what you are wanting to use it for, you could get away with something fairly low powered. Depending on your preferences, I would suggest a number of distros for that purpose:

Fedora, it’s been a good distro in my experience. They offer different spins of it with different desktop environments. I personally love KDE, but you could go with Gnome too.

As far as hardware goes, if you are unsure about a machine being usable with linux, I would check here: https://linux-hardware.org/

Hope this helps!

Yeah, have never been a fan of Brave. Not shocked.

I would fully like to erase my online presence. I dont want people seeking me out.

You didn’t do anything wrong, I just found it funny. Absolutely no hate thrown your way!

I can understand that preference. I think hearing my mom call them raspberries irked me enough that it ruined it for me.

I struggle to understand why there are a select few people who refer to their Raspberry Pi’s as raspberries. They are Pi’s, or Raspberry Pi’s not raspberries. 🤣