If you are on stock software on EOL device you are not getting os updates either.

Also a bunch of recent vulns were in SoC specific stuff - outside os.

No security fixes once the device reaches end of life. For pixel 4a end of security updates was 10 months ago. That mostly is a problem with malicious apps - there were some privilege escalation bugs in those 10 months - but sometimes you get a banger that can get exploited by simply loading a page or opening an image.

Something more like this https://a.co/d/0bgPCSvQ - it should use half the power, it’s way smaller, 2x SATA if you want 2 drives. I haven’t checked if this specific one is 12V, but there are dozens in the same form factor and with similar specs.

There are a lot of atom or mobile i3/i5 powered mini PCs that actually are powered with a 12v brick, in fact most of the industrial ones are. Small form factor, passive cooling, can play media for you and usually comes with 4x 1/2.5gbit Ethernet, so it can double as a router/switch. Usually 10-15w power draw.

Go to AliExpress and simply search for minipc and make sure it has a SATA connector for your hard drive.

4k 120Hz HDR is what current gen consoles can output right now and what is becoming common even on mid-range TVs (quality of HDR aside). I’d expect you’d want most of that experience or future-proof solution that would allow that when you get a new TV.

• No SBC that I know of can handle 4k 120Hz HDR output, so getting the most of moonlight is not possible.
• Low latency decode requires some work to get running
• AV1 encode/decode has even more latency, do you will be running higher bitrate h264, which in turn means wired network connection is recommended.
• Streaming services limit 4k and/or HDR access on a lot of content to locked devices. E.g. Netflix only guarantees 720p sdr when watching in a browser - how much more you get depends on the deal with the copyright holder.

Tl;dr; a long, active fiber HDMI cable + USB over IP might be cheaper, better and easier. That’s what I ended up buying despite the cable length being 60m (200ft).

Same.

It was kind of fun, because I joined the company as a part of acquihire and they came to my entire team to install MDM on our laptops. It turned out we were mostly running Linux, while their MDM was Windows and MacOS only. They left…

They came back 2 weeks later to tell us it would be best if we installed Windows. We told them “no, thank you” to which they responded with surprised pikachu, because they were used to their suggestions being treated as commands. So they left again.

A month later they came back to tell us we really should install Windows to which we responded that we’d have to rebuild out entire tooling and we’re on tight deadlines as-is. It’s important to note that their Windows setup didn’t allow VMs…

Some time later we got an email to let us know MDM vendor will soon have Linux beta. Does it support Arch and Nixos? They’ll get back to us on that. And we started researching how hard would it be to run BSD on a laptop ;-)

Ah, the confidence boost you get when you know your job is absolutely secure and the only reason you don’t quit is because of a retention bonus :D

Because the only 2FA allowed was onelogin push. Don’t ask me why.

They also used an “enterprise” VPN that was acquired by some larger company, was pretty much abandoned at that point and only worked with a proprietary client that took days to set up on Linux - this was fun for me and all my colleagues who ended at that sad company as a result of an acquihire and were 80% devs running linux.

Over 98% did. My job was security adjacent so I’ve had some insight into those metrics

Less than 2% of workforce got issued a company phone for that reason.

Any device required MDM installed to get access to VPN that got you to company network, to get 2fa app, SSO or email.

“I am very busy and have my work day planned to work efficiently, so I won’t be handling your request immediately. This means things can slip through cracks if there is no ticked describing the task created - create one if what you are asking for is of any importance.”

Followed by not doing anything that doesn’t have a ticket and didn’t come directly from people you report to.

Also I have notifications disabled and only check slack between tasks or if I take a breather from a task - on average 4-5 times a day. I also check email as the first and last thing in a workday only

I’ve had a company require employees to install MDM on personal phones (remote control/management) to be allowed to use them for 2fa app or email access… there was a surprised Pikachu when I refused. Eventually they issued me a company phone, because it was impossible to do most tasks without 2fa. That device was on 9 to 5 only.

Same. I’ve switched to Arch from Ubuntu as my main os almost 10 years ago and in all that time I’ve had a problem that goes beyond inconvenience level maybe twice. In fact Ubuntu broke more often.

Workstations/laptops at my current job in order of popularity: nixos, arch, macos. Windows is around 2%.

Netflix limits you to 720p even on windows, unless you are using Edge: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 (expand HTML5 browsers and scroll down).

This limitation doesn’t apply to all content - it’s the worst case scenario if copyright holder really put their foot down.

Idk what the AIX job market is right now, but several years ago banks in central Europe poached employees back and forth just to reach minimum staff required.

Friend has a cobol + IBM AIX combo going for him and his on call + at most 1 day/week of work position pays more than my full time very senior dev role.

TP-Link omada series - clones of ubiquity at half the price, can run openwrt if that’s your thing. I’ve got 6 of those including outdoor ones covering the yard